Rob says:
Thanks to [a friend and] the AP for this smoking gun:
Minister ex-communicates members for not backing Bush
How about that purported “liberal media bias” now? Can anyone remember the local atheist club splitting down the middle because some of its members wanted Clinton impeached? No? I think there’s a pattern here.
But now we may have to watch people get into disputes over whether that was even right for him to do or for us to criticize and so on. I won’t be surprised if it sets a trend among excitable ‘ministers’ and we see a radical separation of church and church, the second having joined the party. Come on, where is the love? And what did I say about why we need a private ballot?
Visits: 78
whoa, there’s an echo in here… you got me by 3 minutes! 🙂
OK, update: it -was- last year he was trying to make his church ‘politically active’… And apparently he just resigned. -Rob
That pastor may have violated Internal Revenue codes for tax exempt status. He has since resigned, but I doubt if he’ll have difficulty finding another small congregation he can infect. Ministers have plenty of opportunities to lobby for their political views outside of the pulpit & church sponsored functions, & they can easilty indicate their preferences from the pulpit without open endorsements (or threats) – & certainly do so. But this kind of bullying is epidemic; perhaps ten or fifteen percent of American Christians presuming to speak for all.
There’s one thing I’ve been wondering about: Did this start last year before the “election”, was someone misquoted, or does the minister think we’ll have chances to “vote” for Bush some more? Maybe it just means vote the way Bush’s party wants us to, not sure. But it’s weird. -Rob
I wish I could say I was surprised but I’m not. If there’s any good news in this, it’s that this may be God’s way of saving or bringing back to Him the people who have been ex-communicated by this pastor.