Baptist Church Votes Not to Accept Black Members
By way of Rebecca Blood’s blog, more bad news on the civil rights front.
The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal reports that Fellowship Baptist Church in Saltillo voted on August 6 not to accept black members. In doing so, they rescinded a previous invitation to join the congregation that had been extended to the family of a biracial child who had “accepted Jesus” at the church during a revival.
Pastor John Stevens resigned after the vote.
The church was “afraid Joe might come with his people and have blacks in the church,” Stevens said. “I could not go along with that. There would always be a wall between us, so I resigned that night.”
At least they seem to be embarrassed about it, as the congregation began denying that the vote ever happened after an August 17 meeting in response to press inquiries.
BTW, when most of us think of Baptists, we’re thinking of the Southern Baptist Convention, which is the biggest group. This church is part of the smaller Baptist Missionary Alliance. The article doesn’t mention any response from the denomination.
Mirrored from Cyn Armistead.