If booted Baptist minister/professor/trannie, John Namacek‘s looking for a new congregation to join, perhaps he can join up with North Carolina’s St. John’s Baptist Church. They may join Park Road Baptist in leaving Baptist State Convention of North Carolina over the group’s discriminatory practices: they voted three months ago to expel any churches that welcome the homos. This lovely new policy promises to eject and churches, “which knowingly act to affirm, approve, endorse, promote, support or bless homosexual behavior”. How Christian of them…
Parishioners took aim at these policies in Sunday’s tentative vote, 365 Gay reports:
The statement put to the congregation accused the Baptist State Convention of choosing “to narrow its membership to exclude churches and institutions that do not adhere to its exclusive and discriminatory view of who is welcome in its fellowship.”
While the convention’s stance on gays provides a perfect opportunity for St. John’s to leave the 4,080-strong collective, apparently this isn’t the first time they’ve clashed with the movement. North Carolina CBS affiliate WFMY reports:
…The church and convention have been at odds for some time. [St. John’s Reverend Richard] Kremer said the state convention has considered St. John’s “a pariah” in recent years, and has “blackballed” members who sought state Baptist leadership positions.
He said the church has sent up to $50,000 a year to the state organization in the past but began routing the money directly to Baptist charities, such as the Baptist Retirement Homes, “when we saw the direction the convention was going.”
Kremer and company won’t issue a final decision until they’re assured they’ll maintain their tax exempt status.
How about we take this to the next level?
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It seems to us they should just get it out of the way. It doesn’t seem like the convention’s going to change their policy anytime soon, nor does it seem as if they’re going to welcome St. John’s back with open arms. Our advice to Kremer: break off and make a real statement. Taxes be damned, you’ll be a martyr. A broke ass martyr, but a martyr just the same…
