By now you may have heard about the pastor of the western North Carolina Baptist church who kicked out church members who did not vote for George W. Bush:
A pastor of a small Baptist church led an effort to kick out church members because they didn't support President Bush, members said.The nine members were voted out at a Monday meeting of the East Waynesville Baptist Church in this mountain town about 120 miles west of Charlotte.
WLOS-TV in Asheville reported that 40 other members resigned in protest…
Pastor Chan Chandler had told the congregation before last year's presidential election that anyone who planned to vote for Democratic Sen. John Kerry should either leave the church or repent, said Lorene Sutton, who said she and her husband were voted out of the church this week.
"He's the kind of pastor who says do it my way or get out," she said. "He's real negative all the time."
If I heard it correctly, Bob Novak called Jimmy Carter a traitor.
He'd be treated the same way by the "Christians" at this church!
Posted by: Mark-NC at May 7, 2005 08:34 PMMark-NC: I don't think so. A small town preacher bullying his congregation is one thing. Trying to bully a former President of the United States who, by all accounts, is a devout Baptist, in front of a bunch of television cameras is sonething else entirely.
Posted by: dwight Meredith at May 7, 2005 09:45 PMWhich would establish that the issue was authority, little d democratic voting members of a congregation, inherently unarmed, or former head of state, with Secret Service agents authorized to use leathal or lesser force to protect the person of a former President, vs the preacher and a claim to custody over congregation-determined membership and to tresspass to property.
Not piety or the substitution of politics for religion -- that the expelled were impious, or that the expulsion was the transformation of a religious institution into a political institution.
I don't care if the expelled were impious, but the tax status of a PAC is not the tax status of a church / temple / mosque.
After 65 years in the Southern Baptist Convention, Jimmy Carter renounced his membership in 2000. East Waynesville is Southern Baptist. So, though, as you say, I doubt that Chandler would bully Carter, I imagine that Carter, having renounced the SBC, would be unlikely to show up there.
Posted by: Idyllopus at May 8, 2005 10:25 AM