According to the AP, it seems that the East Waynesville Baptist Church has dismissed nine members because they didn’t support President Bush in the 2005 election. This is, for lack of better words, stupid and wrong.
The head of the North Carolina Democratic Party sharply criticized the pastor Friday, saying Chandler jeopardized his church’s tax-free status by openly supporting a candidate for president.
“If these reports are true, this minister is not only acting extremely inappropriately by injecting partisan politics into a house of worship, but he is also potentially breaking the law,” Chairman Jerry Meek said.
I could care less about the church’s tax-exempt status, but setting up support for a particular candidate as a condition for being a part of the body of Christ is unbiblical and condemnable. Membership in the covenant of grace (and consequently, the church) is by grace alone. Church discipline should indeed be practiced, but this is absurd.
True.
Now let’s hope the dems start criticizing their OWN candidates for using churches for political reasons, because they’ve never done it before.
Amen to that, Hatless. There’s definitely a HUGE disparity in the way Republicans handle church “endorsements” v. the Democrats handlings.