Joel Hunter pays a price for his political activism

There’s a price to pay for becoming the voice of moderate conservatism and coalition politics. Even more so for refusing to march in lockstep with the Republican Party.

Ask pastor Joel Hunter of Northland Church, Florida’s largest evangelical congregation. Hunter, 65, says his megachurch in Longwood may have lost as many as 1,500 members, or 10 percent of its membership, as a result of his ecumenical and political activism.

But the upbeat midwesterner is sanguine, likening membership departures to separating the wheat from the chaff. “There is no such thing as safe leadership,” he said.