Florida Church Excommunicates Schiavo Judge

The latest issue of The Christian Century reports that a Florida judge was asked to leave his Southern Baptist church over the Schiavo case.

Judge George Greer, a Florida county judge in the spotlight three times for ordering Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube removed, was advised by his Southern Baptist pastor to leave the congregation—despite the judge’s reputation as a conservative Republican and conservative Christian.

Greer, 63, a Pinellas County circuit judge based in Clearwater, also rejected an attempt by the U.S. House to subpoena the brain-damaged woman as a means to force reinsertion of her tube....

Calvary is regarded as one of the Florida (Southern) Baptist Convention’s most prominent conservative churches. According to the St. Petersburg Times, Greer became inactive in the congregation because of its free distribution to members of the Florida Baptist Witness, one of the denomination’s most conservative publications....

Mary Repper, a longtime friend of Greer, told AP that while Greer took comfort in being upheld by higher courts, he was upset by the church’s stance. “The people in that church should be ashamed of themselves, to demonize George and to ask him to leave for doing his job, for upholding the law,” she said. “To me, that was the most offensive thing that has happened so far.”

via my brother Ken, another ex-Southern Baptist, but he at least remains a Christian