Pawlenty's Non-Partisan Pastor

The Huffington Post reports:

When GOP presidential hopeful Tim Pawlenty goes to church, he knows he'll hear a 27-minute sermon -- never longer, never shorter. But whether he'll hear a biblical endorsement of the Republican platform is far less certain.

Pawlenty gets his spiritual guidance from Leith Anderson, senior pastor at Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie, Minn., and president of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE). And while Anderson runs a tight ship as a megachurch pastor, he toes no partisan line -- for better or for worse, depending on one's point of view.

"I've never preached a political sermon that says you ought to vote for this party or that candidate, or that we should be taking specific stands on certain legislation," said Anderson, who's been at Wooddale since 1977.

"I'm a pastor who teaches the Bible ... and if it relates to some contemporary issue, it's because it's there -- not because I'm driven by some news topic."

Anderson, 66, had already served twice as interim NAE president but became president in 2007, a year after his predecessor, Ted Haggard, resigned in the wake of a gay sex and drug scandal. Around the same time, evangelicals were openly asking whether they'd become too closely aligned with Republican politics and lost their moral authority.

"When a church embraces a political party and becomes politicized, they lose their prophetic voice," said Jo Anne Lyon, general superintendent of the Wesleyan Church, which belongs to the NAE. "There's an enormous trust that people have with (Anderson), and that allows him to lead."