Today in E.W. Jackson news, Republican candidate for lieutenant governor of Virginia E.W. Jackson wants you to know that the
Judeo part in all the Republican talk about Judeo-Christian values
is a load of bullshit.
At a morning sermon Sunday in Northern Virginia, Republican lieutenant governor candidate E.W. Jackson, a Chesapeake pastor, said people who don’t follow Jesus Christ “are engaged in some sort of false religion.” […]
“Any time you say, ‘There is no other means of salvation but through Jesus Christ, and if you don’t know him and you don’t follow him and you don’t go through him, you are engaged in some sort of false religion,’ that’s controversial. But it’s the truth,” Jackson said, according to a recording of the sermon by a Democratic tracker.
While I have no particular problem with Mr. Jackson believing that everybody is going to hell but him—possibly including
the pope, who is insufficiently anti-gay for Pastor Jackson's tastes—this does point out the difficulties faced by a hardline preacher trying to get elected to high office. Telling various percentages of the nation that they are doomed to a pit of hellfire unless they convert to your own religion does not necessarily give them confidence as to your thoughts on how the state around them should best be governed.