An Exclusive Q & A
Blog-Journalism from
The Daily Bailout
A Follow-up of Sunday's Blog-Journalism
Daily Bailout's John Bailes talks with Lewis R. Inman (a deacon at East Waynesville Baptist Church, North Carolina) about recent fuss over his minister's attempts to push Kerry voters out of the church. The interview was conducted on May 9, 2005. Also, see the Chattanooga Pulse news feature on the Waynesville group.
Q: How long have you lived in Waynesville?
A: About 35 years.
Q: How long have you been at the church?
A: About the same amount of time for me and my wife.
Q: How many attend East Waynesville Baptist?
A: About 100 people on Sundays.
Q: I hear you are a deacon at the church, but you had been voted out. Is that right?
A: Things just boiled up and got worse and worse after Oct. '04.
Q: What happened in Oct. '04?
A: Our preacher [Rev. Chan Chandler], who was doing wonderful until then, decided to preach on politics. And so he started a six-series sermon on why we should vote for George Bush and not John Kerry. He told us that if we voted for John Kerry, we should leave the church. Or we could repent. We heard six sermons like this. So we (deacons) got together and told him that we were going to turn him into the IRS if he kept this up. He was breaking our bylaws as well. But he kept it up anyway. And now it's boiled over.
Q: How so?
A: Well, we haven't had communion for months, not even Easter. And then last Sunday [May 1] the preacher [Rev. Chan Chandler] gave two more political sermons. Then he announced that there was going to be a deacons' meeting Monday night, and that everyone was invited. Deacons' meetings usually don't involve the whole church, so I knew something was up. Well, Monday night came and they had a lynching with 40 people who he [Chandler] had brought into the church over the last year--mainly teenagers and some adults. They needed a three-quarters majority to vote us out, and they told us they were going to do it. There were eleven of us. And nine of us just stood up and left right then, before they had a chance to vote.
Q: What happened then?
A: Those young people stood up and hollered and clapped and jumped up and down. The preacher and his wife have those young people wrapped around their fingers. She's the youth minister. After we left, the other two deacons stayed on and heard what the preacher's supporters had to say. We heard that they voted us out of the church. That's what Rev. Claude Conard [a lay minister] said. And they told us how he [Chandler] was going to require that every member from now on sign a card that said they had to agree with his moral and political views.
Q: What kind of cards?
A: Membership cards.
Q: Why?
A: He told them that this was going to be a political church. And if you supported John Kerry in the election last year, you were supporting abortions and gay marriage. This is what we'd been hearing for months anyway. So it looked like if you're not a Republican, you're not going to heaven. But I know I've been washed in the blood of the lamb.
Q: Are you a Democrat?
A: Yes sir. I have been all my life. A union man too. Then Dayco Products shut down in 1998 and I had to start my own lawn maintenance business. Dayco went overseas. But this thing at church, this was worse, because it is like my family. Most of my friends I've made over 35 years are here.
Q: Did the plant closing affect your decision in the 2004 election?
A: Sure. I'm 60 years old and I didn't need to lose my job to a foreign nation. I'm also a Vietnam veteran, and I know what John Kerry went through.
Q: What happened yesterday, Sunday, May 8?
A: The eleven of us, along with some others, went to the church yesterday. And wouldn't you know it, the preacher didn't say a thing about politics. Cameras and journalists were all over. We gathered in the parking lot. There were plenty of police. And we all walked in together. The preacher spoke on being born again, which is what he should have been talking about all the time.