Politics in the Church

About this fiasco in the Waynesville, North Carolina Baptist church in which nine members were voted out for being too "liberal" (e.g., sinful): while I'm not a big proponent of organized religion (I tend to cast a jaundiced eye at group spiritual calisthenics), I definitely don't think any discussion of politics on any level has any place in church. Period.

I've got news for all the hardcore conservative uber-Christians out there: Jesus was the biggest liberal that ever was. Maybe you all should do a little serious thinking about his teachings for a change.

Not everyone may realize this, but churches in this country are subsidized by all taxpayers by virtue of having tax-exempt status. By instigating a political witch hunt in his church, not only did that pastor "martyr" the nine people he excommunicated from his church (causing a widespread public outcry), but he endangered his church's tax-exempt status. Duh. Now, surprise!, he has resigned in disgrace.

Here is a good Keith Olbermann interview video with one of the church members (scroll down the page to get to it).

Here's a good group of articles on About.com that deal with this controversial topic.