A local church fired a pastor because he wasn’t teaching what they thought he should be teaching them. The pastor apparently thought that they were wrong and God wanted him to save them from the wrong path, so he continued to show up and try to give the sermons. So the church went and got a restraining order against him.
Now that is pretty funny to me by itself. Then add to it that, the news is reporting, that they got restraining orders against members of the congregation too. Love thy neighbor what? Apparently it is worthwhile for them to go out of their way to save people that don’t care anything about their church, but the people that are just this close to believing what they believe, but just have a few points wrong? F them according to their actions. They act like they are out to save everyone, but if some people start to say something they don’t like? Get the courts to keep them out of your sight.
So now the church has two services. One in the church with the people that didn’t get the legal leash, and the ones that are oust’ed have to have service across the street.
I understood that anyone was welcome in the house of God. Since churches claim tax-exempt status as religious not-for-profit organizations, I thought they -had- to let members of the public in -regardless- of what said members believe. The only exceptions would be vandalism or physical violence or something along those lines… is this a private church?
I don’t know how to answer that. What makes a church private or public?
They had more coverage on the news this morning. The people that sided with the minister have taken the church to court saying that the church is a company and that they members didn’t follow the companies charter or some such.
Last I checked though companies had to pay taxes, so I don’t see how that works.
Any group of people can apply for a charter to become a non-profit organization (like WKU-Linux!) – it requires that a charter be filed, there be a committee responsible for the record-keeping (officers), and similar administrative tasks.
There are two options – either the charter says ‘anyone can become a member’, or the charter says ‘these specific members are recognized’. The first case is (usually) what a public church is, and the second case is an organization like the Freemasons or the Rotary Club. There may be dues and so on associated with membership.
If this church was set up as an organization similar to the latter (closed group, or some restrictive membership criteria), then they (the officers of the church) can boot people out for not fulfiling membership criteria. And said criteria could be really esoteric (you need to attend church 48 weeks of the year, or you must light candles every time you show up, or whatever). In fact esoteric criteria is a good way to boot out people that the officers want booted out over time 😉 This church may have similar rules in their charter, and I’m sure they will invoke those rules if taken to court.
Yet another reason why the WKU-Linux bylaws are written the way they are.
And more news from the desk of God…
I think this should have been a ‘Myth Busters’ episode instead of a research study!
The amazing thing is that despite that a xian is quoted in there as saying that it does help, “we just don’t know how to measure it.”
This kinda crap is unbelievable. Even when people come up with perfectly designed tests to show if there is a God effect, xians just change the rules to invalidate the perfectly correct data.
How about if people start praying for hungry people to have food. Then when none shows up I want this same guy to go out there and tell the hungry people how God made food appear, just not in any form that they can recognize. Then I hope the hungry people eat him.
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Of course then someone would argue that the prayers had came true. 🙂