[Vision2020] Banned From Church

[Tom Hansen]

Cops arrest and handcuff little old lady banned from church because she
didn't like the pastor.

>From the Wall Street Journal at:

http://tinyurl.com/2kjjh6

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Banned From Church
By Alexandra Alter

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Listen to 911 call
http://tinyurl.com/34wx2a

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On a quiet Sunday morning in June, as worshippers settled into the pews at
Allen Baptist Church in southwestern Michigan, Pastor Jason Burrick grabbed
his cellphone and dialed 911. When a dispatcher answered, the preacher said
a former congregant was in the sanctuary. "And we need to, um, have her out
A.S.A.P."

Half an hour later, 71-year-old Karolyn Caskey, a church member for nearly
50 years who had taught Sunday school and regularly donated 10% of her
pension, was led out by a state trooper and a county sheriff's officer. One
held her purse and Bible. The other put her in handcuffs. (Listen to the 911
call)

The charge was trespassing, but Mrs. Caskey's real offense, in her pastor's
view, was spiritual. Several months earlier, when she had questioned his
authority, he'd charged her with spreading "a spirit of cancer and discord"
and expelled her from the congregation. "I've been shunned," she says.

Her story reflects a growing movement among some conservative Protestant
pastors to bring back church discipline, an ancient practice in which
suspected sinners are privately confronted and then publicly castigated and
excommunicated if they refuse to repent. While many Christians find such
practices outdated, pastors in large and small churches across the country
are expelling members for offenses ranging from adultery and theft to
gossiping, skipping service and criticizing church leaders.

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"If I wanted to overhear every tedious scrap of brain static rattling around
in your head, I'd read your blog."

- Bill Maher