Jordan Takes Pulpit to Lash GOP : Politics: The former Texas congresswoman accuses Republicans of trying to trivialize God.

Former Democratic congresswoman Barbara Jordan, interweaving political and religious persuasion, cautioned hundreds at a Los Angeles Baptist church on Sunday that “there are those who feel they can con God by just calling his name . . . and that’s what those false prophets try to do.”

Jordan, a Bill Clinton supporter whose sonorous voice is a match for any church choir, ran down a list of Republican convention speakers from Pat Buchanan to “little Danny Quayle,” accusing them of trying to “trivialize God” by invoking religion and family when they were really “talking about separating people out.”

Before a standing-room-only congregation that included Mayor Tom Bradley and Rep. Maxine Waters at Trinity Baptist Church, the former Texas congresswoman set up this standard for voters: “Are the policies being proposed doing the will of God? Ask yourself that question.”

Using the Sermon on the Mount as a paradigm, she challenged policy-makers and voters alike. “If at this point in your life you do not want for your fellow human being the same thing you want for yourself,” she said, “you are misdirected and your policy is full of holes.”

As she began her 22-minute speech, Jordan earned a standing ovation when she thanked the choir for a hymn about the power of God. “He has moved so many mountains out of my way,” she said, “and you know what? He will move Bush and Quayle.”

Jordan, who addressed the Democratic convention in New York in July, noted that “President Bush said he was disturbed” at the omission of the word “God” from the Democrats’ platform. But in August, as the GOP convened in Houston, she “was angered by the attempts on the part of the Republican Party to trivialize God,” she said.

“Yes, there is separation between church and state, but you understand that Jesus said teach them to observe all things. All means all .”

Now a public policy professor at the University of Texas, Jordan detailed elements of Clinton’s domestic agenda, and noted, “As African-Americans, as black people, we’ve had to knock down so many barriers, trying to open doors to opportunity. Wouldn’t it be nice if we had a President of the United States who even said that’s what he wants to do?”

But in recommending a Clinton vote, Jordan--who made a national reputation as an elegant and potent speaker on the House Judiciary Committee during the Watergate hearings--also warned that she and others, like Waters, would be monitoring a Clinton White House “to make him do what he says.”

Most of all, she said, “I submit to you, if you don’t go out and cast a vote, then you have no right to complain about anything. . . .”

Black potential voters “have the numbers. It just makes me heartsick on the day after the election. You look at the statistics . . . and our turnout rate is abysmally low . . . on Nov. 3, that cannot happen.”