NAME: Rev. Eli Jeremiah Chandler
BIRTHDATE: February 24, 1933 (age 59)
BIRTHPLACE: Black Oak, Arkansas
EDUCATION: Ouachita Baptist University, BA, Theology
PROFESSION: Ministry
WIFE: LaNelle Letcher Chandler (married June 11, 1953)
Reverend Eli Jeremiah Chandler was born as the fourth son of the late Ethan Chandler, a Delta cotton sharecropper, and Ruth Hutchison Chandler, a homemaker.
Eli was baptized at an early age and began practicing and enjoying the spirit running through him. He would lead the parish by age 5 in an opening sermon, and announced at his first sermon that Jesus chose him to save the souls of the world, a mission Eli would commit to his entire life.
Eli was a star pitcher on the Craighead County High School football team. He graduated in 1950 an average student and enlisted in the United States Marine Crops, where he was quickly deployed to Korea and earned a Medal of Honor for bravery in battle.
Upon his return to Arkansas after the Korean conflict ended. Eli enrolled at Ouachita Baptist University, and studied Theology, honing his skills on the Bible. Upon graduating with a BA in 1957, Eli left to briefly study at a Baptist church in Mississippi. Upon a schism in the church over teachings, he returned to his hometown and became senior pastor of his native Messiah Baptist Church.
He married Ms. LaNelle Letcher in 1953 his middle school sweetheart and they settled on the Chandler farm on the outskirts of Black Oak. They have six children and four grandchildren. In 1992, Assistant Reverend Isaac Chandler took over as minister of Messiah Baptist Church as Eli devoted his life to a new calling.
Eli organized "faith marches" throughout Arkansas, promoting a culture of life, of traditional values, and of the promotion of faith in the public sphere. As Ten Commandments statues were being ripped from courthouse squares throughout the South, Robertson organized the efforts to make sure "The word of God would never be desecrated in the name of tolerance".
He was drafted by supporters to run for the U.S. Senate. He will campaign for faith and decency, the restoration of America's moral compass, for the need to end corruption in government, of the abolishment of all laws that uphold the inhuman sin of abortion, and to keep taxes low to families who tithe to the divine spirit.