Dems booted from N.C. church over politics

By Paul Nowell / Associated Press

WAYNESVILLE, N.C. - 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.

"It's all over politics," said Selma Morris, the church's treasurer. "We've never had a pastor like that before."

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."

Morris said some church members left after Chandler made his ultimatum in October.
Chandler didn't return a message left by The Associated Press at his home Friday, and several calls to the church went unanswered. He told WLOS that the actions were not politically motivated.

North Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Jerry Meek 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," Meek said.

This topic is a first for Shattered Soapbox. Few know this, but I actually go to church every Sunday.

Yeah, this guy in North Carlina is obviously out of his mind. I'm fortunate enough to actually have a liberal pastor at my church, and there haven't even been mass decreases in church membership. He's really quite popular with the church, mind you, he's never actually said, "I'm a liberal" or "I voted for Kerry" or "Bush is wrong", but everyone knows he's a lefty (I think).

He doesn't talk politics in church, as he shoudln't, but I've sensed some liberal messages in his sermons (which should be expected from any Christian sermon because Jesus was the biggest liberal of all time). The most political I've heard him speak was in a youth meeting where we were discussing war (in the Bible, not Iraq). He said, "No one wins a war."

Weird, huh? Its true, there IS a Religious Left, its just not being very loud as a whole. As for the Religious Right, its getting kinda scary.