WASHINGTON -- Josh Mandel put together a faith outreach group including pastors whom, he said this week, will work with Ohio's religious community on his behalf as he challenges U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown in the 2018 election.

Mandel's "Faith Outreach Team" is all white. All conservative. And all Christian.

To those who share only some of those characteristics, that seems awfully exclusionary. Couldn't Mandel, a Jewish Republican who now serves as Ohio treasurer, find any black clergy in the entire state of Ohio?

Or Jews or Muslims?

"I'm very disturbed about it because, from what I've heard him say, he has been meeting over the last year with 100 religious leaders," said Rev. Randall Parker III, pastor of Canaan Manifested Word Church in Toledo. "Yet out of 100 religious leaders, he settled on eight white Christians?"

If Mandel was serious about having input from Ohio's religious community, said the Rev. Stanley Miller of Rust United Methodist Church in Oberlin, he would have looked for a Muslim "and people of different religions. If you put a faith group together, you include faiths of all people in Ohio."

Otherwise, "that would be like me putting together a program at my church and excluding Hispanic people. That would not be right."

Mandel was mired in a minor controversy recently with members of his own faith after he called the Anti-Defamation League "a partisan witchhunt group" for including an incendiary blogger in a list of people who spread hate.

The blogger, Mike Cernovich, is a self-described "American nationalist" who claimed Hillary Clinton's inner circle was involved in a pedophile ring in a Washington pizzeria's basement. Mandel's tweet on the ADL also defended Jack Posobiec, another alt-right hero with his own trail of controversy.

That quarrel with the ADL aside, Mandel's own faith does not assuage religious leaders who question the makeup of his faith advisory board. Rabbi Sigma Faye "Sissy" Coran, senior rabbi at Rockdale Temple, a leading reform Jewish institution in suburban Cincinnati, takes issue with the group's make-up.

"I value the moral voice that a faith group could have in the public arena, and I would hope that it could be the voice that represents all faiths in America," she told cleveland.com.

Rev. Lesley Jones, pastor of the Truth & Destiny Covenant Ministries Fellowship, a United Church of Christ congregation in Cincinnati, said she found it "interesting that he would call it a 'faith coalition.' It's not a faith coalition. It's a Christian coalition. And it's a Christian conservative coalition."

(For the record, Jones is running in a nonpartisan race for a seat on Cincinnati City Council and has been endorsed by the Hamilton County Democratic Party.)

Mandel wants a rematch in November 2018 against Brown, to whom he lost in 2012. Mandel subsequently won a second term as Ohio treasurer. To run in the 2018 general election, he'll first have to beat another Republican, businessman Mike Gibbons.

What does Mandel hope to achieve?

Mandel apparently chose white faith leaders for his campaign on the basis of their political and social beliefs. A Mandel news release announcing his faith group's creation used the word "conservative" five times. Several of the group's members have been involved in campaigns against abortion rights.

But the faith group's top priority, according to Mandel's announcement of its formation, is to repeal the "Johnson Amendment." That's a provision in a 1954 bill that prohibits nonprofits including churches from engaging in partisan political activity.

The Christian right says this steps on its free speech rights. President Donald Trump, whom Mandel backed, agrees.

So who's in the group?

The faith group is chaired by Ric Bower, an Anglican priest in Westerville. Along with some businessmen and an attorney, the group's deputies include Diane Stover, who's active in the Right to Life movement; Rev. Gary Click of Fremont Baptist Temple in Fremont; Rev. John Thybault of Garden Park Christian Church in Monclova, and Rev. Tim Throckmorton of Crossroads Church in Circleville.

Blessed & proud to have this great team of faith leaders leading the charge for us. pic.twitter.com/UyjRMKvlaU — Josh Mandel (@JoshMandelOhio) August 29, 2017

Candidates frequently form groups of religious advisers and supporters. U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, another Ohio Republican, boasted of such supporters in his 2016 election. They included nearly 30 African-American pastors.

Why choose these faith leaders?

Cleveland.com asked Mandel's campaign to discuss why it only chose white Christians. Campaign spokeswoman Erica Nurnberg replied with an email statement:

"It's rich for the media to be questioning a Jewish candidate for having the support of prominent Christian leaders from around the state. Ohioans are tired of race politics that partisan Democrats and Sherrod Brown continue to try and use as a campaign tactic - and the main stream media is complicit.

"Our coalition is focused on those who share faith-based values and we welcome all to be a part of it. Our volunteer coalition leaders have been working hard, setting up meetings with hundreds of clergy and activists all over the state and we are excited about the network that our coalition's leaders have developed and we look forward to talking more about it in the future. "

The Mandel campaign did not address specific questions when cleveland.com asked. When Mandel announced the faith group's formation earlier this week, the Columbus Dispatch and Associated Press reported that Mandel had first met with more than 100 pastors around the state over the course of the year.

"If he interviewed 100 people," Parker, the Toledo minister, asked in an interview with cleveland.com, "what happened to the other 98 who were not selected?"