Religious Right Leader Randall Terry Censured By New York Church.

Randall Terry, one of the most extreme figures in the Religious Right, has been censured by the Binghamton, N.Y., church he attended for 15 years and stands accused of abandoning his wife and children and engaging in "sinful" relationships with other women.

The letter of censure from Terry's former pastor, Daniel Little of Landmark Church, was issued last November but came to light only recently when it was posted on the World Wide Web. It has also been circulating among e-mail discussion groups sponsored by feminist organizations.

In a separate letter explaining the censure, Little wrote, "Many of [Terry's] longtime friends ... are shocked and bewildered that a man who has traveled the country pleading with Christian people to think and act biblically is now thinking and acting so anti-biblically."

The censure letter accuses Terry of leaving his wife Cindy and their two children "in preparation to divorce, annul or otherwise dissolve their Christian marriage and for his unwillingness to repent of sin ...." It also accuses him of a "pattern of repeated and sinful relationships and conversations with both single and married women."

Terry is currently living in Vermont where he is opposing efforts to legalize same-sex unions. Contacted by The Washington Post, he denied Little's charges, calling them "absolute nonsense, insanity." Terry acknowledged that he is separated from his wife and said his marriage is in "crisis" but denied he had done anything improper.

Asked about the allegations of inappropriate relationships with other women, Terry cited a letter signed by four pastors that says, "Mr. Terry has asserted he has only had sex with his wife."

Little responded by comparing Terry to President Bill Clinton. "That's like saying, `I did not have sex with that woman,'" Little observed. "Both Terry and I know what the accusation is referring to."

Terry has since left Little's church and has joined another denomination, the Charismatic Episcopal Church. Recently some pastors in that denomination issued their own letter, declaring Terry's censure from Landmark Church null and void.

Terry's problems are ironic, considering his past writings. In his 1995 book The Judgment of God, Terry observes, "We have become a sex crazed society. Women are viewed as sex toys to be used and discarded by vile, pathetic males (I shall not call them men); families are destroyed as a father vents his mid life crisis by abandoning his wife for a 'younger, prettier model,' homosexuals and lesbians are no longer content to secretly live in sin, but now want to glorify their perversions."