NC Baptist Church Lands in Political Controversy, Media Spotlight
by Fred Jackson and Jenni Parker
May 10, 2005
(AgapePress) - A Southern Baptist seminary official has accused the media of misleading the public in a story involving a North Carolina church that allegedly ousted nine members who did not vote for President George W. Bush.The story erupted in various media outlets last weekend, with several reports stating that the nine congregants of East Waynesville Baptist Church were expelled for supporting presidential candidate Senator John Kerry. The group has hired legal counsel to fight the expulsion, and the Internal Revenue Service has been asked to pull the church's tax exempt status.
According to Associated Press reports, some congregants claim the church's pastor, Chan Chandler, endorsed President Bush from the pulpit last year and declared that anyone planning to vote for John Kerry needed to "repent or resign." However, Chandler has denied expelling anyone for their political views and says his church is open to all who embrace the authority of scripture and application of the Bible. Last Sunday, he released a statement denying that politics was involved.
"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," Chandler stated. He went on to note, "All matters of this church are internal in nature and are resolved accordingly."
Attorney David Wijewickrama is representing the nine church members who were allegedly put out of the church. In a recent Associated Press interview, he said his clients were "shocked and deeply saddened" by their expulsion and "felt a great deal of pain and a great deal of unhappiness and embarrassment" over it. The nine claim they were voted out during a May 2 church meeting.
The story has attracted the attention of the national press, with particular emphasis on its political overtones. One USA Today headline read: "Democrats voted out of church because of their politics, members say." But although some media reports have suggested that some are calling for Chandler to step down over the matter, Wijewickrama maintains that his clients harbor no sense of vengeance and are not pushing for the pastor to be let go.
"What these folks want is reunification," the lawyer says. "That's our primary focus right now ... to try and find a way where we can get the two parties to understand each other's position and each other's thoughts." A business meeting is scheduled to take place today at Waynesville Baptist Church to address the controversy.
Other Sides to the Story?
Waylan Owens is a vice president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in North Carolina. He taught Chandler during his time as a student there and says many facts in this case have gone unreported. According to Owens, Chandler not only called upon church members to repent for voting for pro-abortionist John Kerry, but likewise censured those who supported two Republican political candidates.
The seminary head says he is saddened that a young minister should be subject to such an inquisition for standing for biblical morality and the teachings of his church. And he is disturbed, as he noted in a Baptist Press "First Person" article yesterday, "that the media has refused to do the work necessary to find out the truth."
Why is it, Owens muses, that the mainstream media outlets have "ignored all of the members of the church who actually did the voting," while so far, the public has "only heard from those voted out or from their supporters?" One would have to read closely, he asserts, to realize that among those voted out of fellowship was a self-confessed Republican, and that perhaps a majority of the members who voted the former members out are registered Democrats. Nor, he observes, have any reporters inquired into whether "disunity and ongoing, uncharitable disruption in the church by this group of nine played any part" in their ousting.
Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission president Dr. Richard Land told Baptist Press he does not know whether the media accounts of this conflict have been correct, but he says he would be opposed to disciplining someone for the way they chose to vote.
Land told BP that while he does not know all the particulars of the situation and certainly acknowledges "the right of each local autonomous congregation to decide the requirements for membership in their church," he would add to that the right of churches to determine that belonging to a congregation does not always mean that each person's membership is "exercised in a correct fashion."
Land says he believes preachers and pastors have a responsibility and obligation to preach what the Bible says about moral, social, and public policy issues and to encourage people to vote their values, beliefs and convictions. However, the Southern Baptist leader insists that decisions about candidates fall under individual responsibility among the priesthood of all believers. "A person's casting of a ballot should never be a cause for church discipline," he says.
