N.C. Church – Democrats Need Not Apply

Dr. Michael L. Ford

17 May 2005

Warning: You are about to read something that is not politically correct and may irritate you. But it is the truth.

            When Pastor Chan Chandler at the Waynesville Baptist Church in North Carolina took a stand against the Democratic Party, and in effect declared he did not see how a person could call themselves a Christian and support DNC causes, he did not cross a line of separation between church and state. Quite the contrary he affirmed a history of Christianity that takes a stand in what the world chooses to call “political issues” that goes all the way back to the early church.

            It does not matter one whit what you think about his conduct, whether he was right or wrong. The opinion will not change the fact his actions were in keeping with Christian history and Baptist distinctives in particular from earliest times. People who tell you otherwise simply do not know their history, or else they are lying. The truth is Christians have to make decisions about what they support and whether endorsing things that do not support biblical ideals is pleasing in God’s sight. Not only that, since they are called to be salt and light in the world, their decisions about such things cannot be held privately but must be spoken publicly.

             Taking positions has always had a price. Chandler is no longer pastor of that church. Some who remain claimed they won the fight, but the church is now very gray headed because most of the younger couples left when the pastor did. That means that if something does not happen within that church it will in a few years cease to exist as the membership that is left dies out. Historically, the taking of stands has always had a price. Not a few preachers who gave Chandler his example in boldness wound up in prisons or burning on a stake.

            Of course what happened in North Carolina will be used by some extremist liberal elements, following their spiritual father of the 20^th century L.B.J., as further munitions in the goal to silence churches. But then someone is always going to be trying to keep Christians from taking a position unless it is one they favor. But the history of the USA in particular is one of church activism from even colonial times. May it ever be so!