Southern Baptist Church, and Democrats Options

[Jaq]

A Southern Baptist church in East Waynesville, North Carolina has expelled all of its Democrats

Well, actually 9 of them have been expelled and another additional 40 left as protest.

From another message board:

She (posters mother) said WLOS tv just broke in to report that the East Waynesville Baptist church has officially excommunicated all its democratic members.

She said that before the election, the preacher told the congregation from the pulpit that if they didn't vote for * they had to come to the altar to confess their sins and repent. they could'nt be members. (My Mom doesn't attend that church--she's United Methodist, but I know of lots who do attend).

From Mom's email: "One of the local women who got excommunicated said on TV that it was like a cult. Another man who got excommunicated said that the rest of the congregation stood up and applauded as the Democrats were told to leave."

This seems to signal to me another step towards not just the gradual blurring of the boundary between church and state, but a full blown theocracy.

Ten Commandments in public places, debating homosexual marriage in the context of religion (when it's a secular government policy and wouldn't have any impact on churches as they wouldn't be required to perform homosexual marriage ceremonies), prayer in schools... the list goes on..


What think you? The States heading towards a theocracy, or am I just blowing things out of proportion? Would a theocracy be such a bad thing? Why? Why not? Please submit your essays by 5:00 p.m. 500 words or less.

[Mata]

1 Corinthians 6:9 Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

There goes Bush and most of the world then! A list like that does put things in perspective though: how can such values be applied to modern life when even the leaders of our countries are incapable of resisting things that are placed on an equal level with being 'sexually immoral'.

I think this is where I get stuck with fundamental Christianity. Here's a bit from the final reply I got from the creationist website people that I emailed a while ago:

[me]Eternal life seems like a lovely promise, but frankly I'm going to be as kind to people as I possibly can in this life without any promised bribe or threat at the end of it!

[them]Of course this is a bit short-sighted and ignores many important teachings of Scripture.

It may well be that the Christian God is the real one, and that every other faith on the whole planet is wrong, but even if that is the case, then I have trouble believing that a God that can see inside people to understand their motivations would ever believe that I have acted out of malice or due to coveting the promise of heaven.

Of course this comes from not understanding that we are already condemned by our sinful nature which cannot go before a Holy God.  Our actions have no direct bearing on our salvation; it’s the action of the Lord Jesus Christ that yields salvation.  We only have to accept it.

I get frightened by people who say things like 'Our actions have no direct bearing on our salvation', that to me speaks of a disregard for personal responsibility and accountability.

Sorry, this has wandered rather off-topic.