GOP Senate hopeful under fire over ties to church rocked by child sex abuse scandal

Michigan Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers is facing scrutiny over his campaign's ties to a church where three leaders have been convicted of child sex crimes.

Rogers is vying for the Senate seat being vacated by Democrat Gary Peters. The Democratic race is a three-way contest between Rep. Haley Stevens, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, and former Detroit health director Abdul El-Sayed.

According to the Midland Daily News, "Nearly three weeks after a faith coalition leader with ties to Mark Barclay’s Living Word Church resigned from Mike Rogers’ U.S. Senate campaign, a second coalition leader with ties to the organization appears to still be on the campaign. The Rogers campaign has received criticism for not speaking publicly about the volunteer coalition leaders’ ties to the Midland County church, where three leaders over the past two years were convicted of sex crimes involving children."

The first such leader, Tim Cross, resigned from the campaign in a lengthy statement that went out of its way not to mention the scandal at Living Word.

"The resignation came after an open letter from two former Living Word Church members published in the Midland Daily News called for the Rogers campaign to cut ties with Cross and coalition member Brian Ford, pastor of Living Word Church of Ludington," said the report. "The letter mentioned former Living Word youth leader James Randolph, who was sentenced in March to 25-40 years in prison for sexually abusing a child and had a prior assault conviction from 1984 before coming to the church."

The letter writers, Dana and Dan Stahl, slammed Rogers specifically, saying, “Mike Rogers is still silent and Michigan needs to hear from him directly. He has refused to acknowledge these concerns for over a month, and Brian Ford, who supported James Randolph during his trial, kept him on his own board of directors and is still on Rogers’ campaign leadership team.”

The Rogers campaign has pushed back on the criticism, saying that Rogers "spent his career busting human traffickers and protecting victims" as a former FBI agent.

Rogers has faced a number of other controversies, including allegations that he secretly lives in Florida while running his campaign to represent Michigan.