A Sea Of Red

Washington Post wrote:Sons of a Loudoun County preacher followed in his footsteps

By Michelle Boorstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 4, 2010

Intense, colorful preachers populate the Whitlow family tree. They include a 6-foot-tall great-grandmother who roamed the country starting Pentecostal churches, and a hard-drinking grandfather who begged God to grant him sobriety if he gave God his heart.

More recently, there is Joseph "Arlie" Whitlow Jr., 68, a gravelly voiced former life insurance salesman who believes he was called 30 years ago from South Carolina to Loudoun County. He went door-to-door, gradually transforming a tent and a few dozen people into the Community Church, a 50-acre campus in Ashburn with high-tech toys for children and a sanctuary that fills with 1,200 souls each Sunday.

For Charlie Whitlow, a 36-year-old father of three who in January took over his father's spot as lead pastor at the Community Church, that initially meant LSATs and plans for law school, but also a nagging feeling that he was "justifying" not working in the church, he said.

"I'd say, 'I love God; I love the church. I just don't want to depend on it,' " he said. "But there was a deep sense in me that I was running from what God wanted me to do."

Even for someone steeped in the evangelical community -- there were pastors throughout the family and he was a graduate of the evangelical Liberty University -- he said he still felt wary about how such a career would play out in a secular society in which faith and spirituality are increasingly seen as things not found in organized religion.