Posted on 05/08/2005 6:21:10 PM PDT by darthmandible
WAYNESVILLE, N.C. - Calling it a "great misunderstanding," the pastor of a small church who led the charge to remove nine members for their political beliefs tried to welcome them back Sunday, but some insisted he must leave for the wounds to heal. ADVERTISEMENT
The Rev. Chan Chandler didn't directly address the controversy during the service at East Waynesville Baptist Church, but issued a statement afterward through his attorney saying the church does not care about its members' political affiliations.
"No one has ever been voted from the membership of this church due to an individual's support or lack of support for a political party or candidate," he said...
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
"More whiney Liberal Claptrap. The Reverend should have stood by his original stance. Dems cant be good christians."
If you notice the minister did not deny that the members were removed because of the "lack of support" for GWB. Personally I think the minister should be removed from his post. It's obvious the minister isn't much of a christian. Better yet...give him a post at the Church of the Royal BushBots.
Looks like "the Rev" is through. Perhaps he can find a christian identity church to pastor.
Ye gods, go kiss a snake!
If he were neutral during WW2 you wouldn't call him a HitlerBot, right? How about if he were neutral during integration--just another NegroBot?
Supporting the politician who supports your church's views makes you a ____Bot, I guess.
As opposed to if he supported Kerry. Then he'd be just expressing his opinion, right? ;)
That's just silly. Politics is about point of view, and many Christians have the same goals but disagree on how to attain them. And very often, it seems, Christians can't be good Christians.
Politics is about point of view
I may not have done the same thing as this pastor, but I dont know what the lawyers were doing there. What remedy are they looking for from the courts? What were they going to do set a precedent of FORCING a church pastor to admit these democrats into the door? How are they going to do that without violating the 1st Amendment 'make no law' clause? Will the courts interfere and force this pastor to step down or be arrested and put in jail? Pull the churches tax exempt status? If this pastor really had any backbone he would have been prepared to tolerate having the tax exempt status pulled.
The same courts that ordered Terri Schiavo to be starved to death are now going to administer the churches? What kind of oligarchy have we created here?
This pastor will be rightly dealt with by his congregation, who are likely embarrassed by his stunt.
"Supporting the politician who supports your church's views makes you a ____Bot, I guess."
You don't voice your bias political support from the church's pulpit. I believe that's against the law. And as for ousting someone from the church simply because they don't support a particular candidate is very unchristian.
Perhaps this particular church should have its' tax exempt status removed.
That may be the plan of democrats, chase all believers out of their party, and then claim that christianity is a tool of the republicans.
Now you will obviously realise the hyperbole in that statement. But in fact this is how political parties work these days. We have very little "principle" in our parties anymore. Look at what the Democrats and Republicans support, and you often won't be able to tell which one is which.
Bush is pushing a means-tested SS program, the democrats oppose it. The republicans passed a huge medicare prescription drug benefit, the democrats complain that it costs too much. The democrats argue that gay marriage should be a "states-rights" issue.
The fact is that the parties long ago stopped basing policy on their stated principles, and started picking and chosing policy to engineer a majority electorate. Something that was way to complex before the advent of computers.
But now we can figure out the top 10 issues of the day, and pick a position for each which yields the largest support. And that's how we pick what the republican party and democrat party stands for. In the process we end up with a highly polarized electorate, and party divisions on issues for which party should make absolutely no difference.
There is no rational reason why "faith" broadly defined should find itself in one party or another. But one party grabbed that "issue" and the other party took the other side to maximize their returns.
James Madison was convinced that our republic would succeed because there would be a myriad of "factions", unable to join into a coherent majority. So instead on each issue, a different coalition of factions would band together, and there would be lively debate trying to drag a few more factions onto your side to carry the day.
Nowadays the republican leadership simply decrees what will be done in the house, and unless they really overstep all the republicans come along for the ride. And every democrat likewise walks their party line. Do we really believe that so many issues debated in the house are so partisan that there should be no crossover? But in fact our gerrymandering has allowed parties to pack their side with ideologues.
And what we lose out on are not wishy-washy moderates, but original thinkers who actually act on principle. The benefit of principled politicians is that you know how they will vote on the issue that becomes important tomorrow. You don't get that with the modern political parties.
Like hell they can't. Christianity transcends our political debates. God is not a Republican, nor is his agenda the Republican platform.
Hi, 2005-05-08...
Sniff, sniff...
smelling ozone...
it could rightly be viewed
it could be viewed as adjunct, but not 'rightly'. Because this pastor has the absolute guaranteed right to be exclusive based on whatever criterion he wishes to express. The church is not a government entity and my whole point is to ask the question...
What are the lawyers doing there? What remedy could the courts apply other than removal of a tax exemption?
As to whether or not his congregants will be 'embarassed' thats not something im prepared to speculate about.
Valid points. Other threads here have argued that churches are tax-exempt regardless of political activities, and do not require filing under 501C.
This should prove to be a most interesting case.
no, unfortunately it wont be an interesting case... because this pastor lost his backbone.
But it would have been interesting to see what sophist logical pretzels the ACLU would twist up in order to prosecute this case.
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