Infidels in the pews

To pick up from my last post, my biggest problem with organized religion is the level of intolerance exhibited by most of the major ones. You think I mean intolerance of gays, music, drinking, and dancing? (I know, that sounds like a fun party, right? Maybe some jello shots, too?) No, silly -- I mean intolerance of any dissenting view. As in any view that is not in agreement with the church "leaders." From the Wall Street Journal:

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.

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.

A devout Christian and grandmother of three, Mrs. Caskey moves with a halting gait, due to two artificial knees and a double hip replacement. Friends and family describe her as a generous woman who helped pay the electricity bill for Allen Baptist, in Allen, Mich., when funds were low, gave the church $1,200 after she sold her van, and even cut the church's lawn on occasion. She has requested an engraved image of the church on her tombstone.

So, what on earth, you ask, did this lawn-mowing, Sunday-school-teaching grandmother do to warrant such treatment? I mean, clearly she has been devoted to this church for her entire life, supporting it both spiritually and monetarily.

The conflict had been brewing for months. Shortly after the church hired Mr. Burrick in 2005 to help revive the congregation, which had dwindled to 12 members, Mrs. Caskey asked him to appoint a board of deacons to help govern the church, a tradition outlined in the church's charter. Mr. Burrick said the congregation was too small to warrant deacons. Mrs. Caskey pressed the issue at the church's quarterly business meetings and began complaining that Mr. Burrick was not following the church's bylaws. "She's one of the nicest, kindest people I know," says friend and neighbor Robert Johnston, 69, a retired cabinet maker. "But she won't be pushed around."

I see, so the church has established bylaws, and she was insisting that the preacher follow them. Where have I heard this before? An established and recognized constitution, which the leaders simply ignore?

Mrs. Caskey has been arrested twice on "trespassing" charges for attending the church where she has been a member for 50 years. The good news, after her second arrest:

Mrs. Caskey was escorted out by a state trooper and taken to jail, where she posted the $62 bail and was released. After that, the county prosecutor dismissed the charge and told county law enforcement not to arrest her again unless she was creating a disturbance.