Prospective Senate candidate tied to provocative website

As John Kingston considers a run for the US Senate, he’ll need to be prepared to explain his role in a website that carries provocative political views that could cause him problems in a Republican primary — and even in a general election.

Kingston, who lives in Winchester and has used his wealth to support GOP candidates across the country, is a director of Colorado-based Patheos, a website which claims to promote, among other things, “stimulating discussion” among faith communities, academics, and the broader public.

Its mission, it says, is to bring together a wide range of writers to address complicated issues “facing families in the modern world.” And it includes some edgy essays that might be jarring to conservative, Trump-supporting Republicans.

One such piece — “Yes, What Israel Is Doing to Palestinians is Actually Genocide’’ — is a provocative essay by a frequent contributor, the Rev. Benjamin L. Corey.

Another, “Sanctuary and Civil Disobedience,” reviews how forms of sanctuary — as in “sanctuary cities” — are deeply rooted in Biblical history.

“Why Islam overtaking Christianity is good for Christians,” is a reasoned but tough slap at “empty proselytizing and evangelization” and what its author says is “Christian spiritual arrogance and chauvinism.’’

Kingston, a Republican aligned with the Mitt Romney wing of the GOP, has emerged as the favorite of the state party establishment favorite to take on US Senator Elizabeth Warren next year. He has so far not commented publicly.

Cathy Fair, the director of Kingston’s foundation, Sword & Spoon, said the website is “really a free speech forum ... for literally thousands of different viewpoints across people of all faiths, or no faith at all.”

“There is no editorial control of the writers, which can make for a messy proposition, a wide range of dissonant voices, given there is no intention to provide a single viewpoint of any sort,’’ she said.