December 11, 2001|By Childs Walker | Childs Walker,SUN STAFF
Pastor Norris Belcher strides to battle Satan not in a bejeweled robe but in a conservatively cut gray business suit. He goes unarmed but for a simple black Bible. He takes his campaign against the devil seriously, and he needs few trimmings to wage it.
Satan is real, Belcher believes. Take the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.
"I look at this thing on a grander scale," he said. "It's not Osama bin Laden against America; it's the devil against God, and the devil takes many forms, including this radical brand of Islamic theology coming out of Afghanistan."
Belcher realizes it's not politically correct to call Islam "one of many weapons and tools the devil uses to capture the hearts of men." But he believes people need to hear his message - that they must accept Jesus as savior or burn in hell.
This brand of fundamentalism has worked at Westminster's Church of the Open Door, where Belcher leads an independent Baptist congregation that has grown from 200 to more than 3,000 members since its founding in 1967. Perched above Route 140 at the southern gateway to Westminster, the expanding church counts the 435-pupil Carroll Christian Schools, a 30-member drug rehabilitation center, a food pantry and several foreign missions among its programs.
Because of its explosive growth, uncompromising message and membership that includes several prominent politicians, Open Door has become the most visible church in Carroll County and a symbol of the power social conservatives wield in the area.
Before granting an interview, Belcher said "I don't need the publicity. Everybody in Carroll County already knows who we are. And they all have an opinion on us, whether they like us or don't like us."
Carroll residents aware of Open Door's message - it favors capital punishment and proselytizing while condemning abortion, sex outside of marriage, pornography, homosexuality and disrespect of authority - sometimes call it the Church of the Open Door and Closed Mind.
Belcher has heard the phrase and doesn't shrink from it. "When it comes to the Bible, we are a church with a closed mind."
Members say Open Door is a comforting, exciting place for true believers to gather. But some critics say the presence of so many community leaders in the congregation - County Commissioner Robin Bartlett Frazier, state Sen. Larry E. Haines and Del. Nancy R. Stocksdale, Republicans all - shows that fundamentalism and the church in particular hold too much sway over Carroll.
The church was a social force as far back as the late 1980s, when its former pastor battled to close smut shops at shopping centers.
But in recent years, whispered criticism has suggested that the church goes beyond fighting for social causes by meddling in local government. Some say the church worked against several candidates in last year's Carroll school board election, that it conceived of a proposal to ban Sunday recreation leagues in the county and that it has shaped the policy interests of the county's delegation to Annapolis.
"My impression is that the Church of the Open Door and other churches in Carroll County have taken an active role in politics over the last 10 or 15 years, and I think to the extent that any church steps out of religion and into the realm of politics, it's abusing its special status in our society," said former Commissioner Jeff Griffith, a Democrat who lost a Senate election to Haines in 1990. "I think it colors debate, I think it muddies the waters for a lot of people, and I think it's inappropriate."
But no one seems able to produce evidence the church gets involved in county politics. And Belcher denies political maneuvering and any direct interest in politics.
Pastors, he said, have encouraged members to attend anti-abortion rallies and to write letters against Gov. Parris N. Glendening's gay rights bill, actions many Roman Catholic priests have endorsed as well. They also encourage church members to vote, saying godly representatives bring honor to a nation. But the institution never gets involved in government or political fund-raising, church officials say.
Candidates in last year's school board race offered no proof that the church lobbied for a slate of conservatives. Assistant pastor Sterling Walsh Jr. said during debate over Frazier's proposed ban on Sunday morning youth recreation: "This is something the commissioners should stay out of. ... They can't make everyone go to church."
Many Carroll politicians agree that the church has rarely taken a direct role in government matters.
"In all my years with city government, I never saw them have any particular influence, and I never felt unseen pressure from them or any other religious group when making a decision," said Kenneth A. Yowan, who recently retired after more than six years as mayor of Westminster.
Politicians who belong to the church don't steer away from their religious beliefs when debating policy.
