Religious group closes Lauderdale center for conservative activism

By James D. Davis, The South Florida Sun-Sentinel, April 28 2007

Fort Lauderdale · The Center for Reclaiming America has closed, halting its conservative activism and throwing the future of its signature annual conference in doubt.

An undisclosed number of employees were laid off on Thursday at the center's headquarters in Fort Lauderdale and its congressional chaplaincy office in Washington, D.C., in what its parent organization, Coral Ridge Ministries, called a "streamlining."

The closures put a stop to day-to-day actions such as e-mail and petition drives against abortion, pornography and same-sex marriage.

"We're getting back to our core competency, the production of media," said Brian Fisher, executive vice president at Coral Ridge Ministries, founded by the Rev. D. James Kennedy. "Our heart and soul is the teaching of Dr. Kennedy, and getting it to more people than those who come to church."

Fisher wouldn't divulge how many workers were laid off but said Coral Ridge Ministries still has more than 120 employees. The organization produces TV and radio programs and publishes books by Kennedy, pastor at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church. It reported a budget of more than $37 million in 2005, according to spokesman John Aman.

Observers differed on the implications of the center's demise. Historian Randall Balmer of Barnard College, New York, said the religious right may be retrenching.

"There is some evidence of a shifting of priorities by society," said Balmer, author of Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America.

He noted that most conservative Christian leaders -- like Kennedy, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and James Dobson -- are in their 70s. "I've found issues like sexual identity are not that important to younger evangelicals."

Gay leaders, who have occasionally picketed the Reclaiming America conference, cheered the closure news.

"It's a terrific thing," said Michael Albetta, president of the Florida Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Democratic Caucus. "I think people are just tired of the rhetoric and nonsense against human rights."

Plans are still vague for the Reclaiming America for Christ conference, which began in 1994 and trained people to work for conservative change.

"We're still evaluating," Fisher said. "I think we'll have something, but the name or purpose or format hasn't been determined."

New projects will include e-mailed video clips and digitizing Kennedy's 30,000 video hours. The organization aims to reach 30 million by 2012.

Fisher said the actions were unrelated to the long convalescence of Kennedy, who had a cardiac arrest in December. Fisher also denied money problems forced the layoffs, saying revenues have changed little for at least eight years.

But he said Coral Ridge Ministries is changing its conservative activism, not deserting it.

The group is working on a documentary against hate-crimes legislation, along with the Family Research Council. Conservatives worry that "preaching on social or moral issues may be construed as hate speech," Fisher said.

Christian conservatives have often clashed with politicians who stress economic policies over moral legislation. As a result, Republicans lost heavily in the 2006 congressional elections.

"Something's unsettled in the whole [Christian conservative] movement," said Mark Silk, of the Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life in Hartford, Conn. "Its leaders show an inclination to hide their light under a bushel after shining brightly for the Bush administration."

However, conservative journalist Gary DeMar said other trends will quickly take up the slack left by the Fort Lauderdale organization.

"The conservative movement has permeated churches, families and Christian schools," said DeMar, editor of Biblical Worldview magazine in Atlanta. "The movement is more diverse than the groups."

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