Numerous Cass County elected officials associated with Hartzler's church

Pulaski County Daily News ^ | 10/23/2010 | Darrell Todd Maurina

[darrellmaurina]

(Oct. 23, 2010) — In an age of conservative Christian activism, some churches have become heavily involved in the “culture wars” and strongly promote political activism by their members. However, the church attended by Republican congressional candidate Vicky Hartzler appears to take encouragement of political activism to an unusually high level. Few rural churches with a membership of 400 can claim that even one of their members is a former state representative, spokeswoman for a successful campaign to amend the state constitution to prohibit gay marriage, and current congressional candidate. When Hartzler’s pastor preached last month of the importance of Christians being involved in politics, warned of a “butt-kicking” if people didn't use their opportunity to vote, and urged members to follow Scripture in praying for both their church and secular leaders, he mentioned only Vicky Hartzler by name. A check of local community records shows that he could just as easily have mentioned several other names. Harrisonville Community Church — which until shortly before the August primary election was known as Harrisonville Mennonite Church — has many more members and people associated with it who are involved in political activism. Those people appear to include one of the three county commissioners, the county assessor, and the county’s public administrator.