Anchorage Pastors Say 'No Coercion' as Must Read Alaska Alleges

Leave it to the conservatives to force a Christian group into releasing a statement refuting Must Read Alaska's assertions of "coercion." The blog recently opined that Anchorage mayoral candidate Forrest Dunbar and Assemblymember Christopher Constant admitted to strong-arming pastors into supporting a "vagrant plan."

One recent blog post — which I won't link to from here, was shared by Reclaim Midtown, which is aligned with the Facebook group Save Anchorage. Today, Must Read Alaska published another blog post titled "Public Corruption: Did Dunbar and Constant Break Alaska Law Against Coercion?"

In a public statement, Rev. Matthew Schultz of CFA made clear that the hype was much ado over nothing, issuing a statement on social media which you can read below.

"As local church leaders and pastors, we have been concerned about our community's response to homelessness for many years. Since at least 2015, clergy leaders have been in repeated communications with members of our assembly about how to best move Anchorage forward in helping address the issues of supported and affordable housing, and access to substance abuse treatment and mental health services.

As proposals were brought forward over this past summer, we were proactive in contacting assembly members in support of specific projects that would respond to and mitigate homelessness in our community.

A small portion of these communications has been used lately to suggest that, in some undefined way, members of the assembly acted inappropriately in their contacts with some of us church leaders.

So let us be clear: At no time were any of us coerced or pressured by members of the Assembly to support any specific proposals.

Quite to the contrary: we have been, and will continue to be, diligent in advocating for the needs of the most vulnerable in our community. As citizens, and also as pastors and church leaders, we will organize and speak out in favor of proposals to increase the availability of treatment and supported housing.

This is our mission, that we might love our neighbors as ourselves and serve the least among us.

The preceding was released jointly by the Alaska Christian Conference Board of Directors, and Christians for Equality Steering Committee, on February 2, 2021."