"The Help" didn't help: Church in Jackson, Miss., refuses to marry black couple

One of my Soldiers, who's black, recently married a lilly white girl who comes from some serious old Southern money.

Rahkeem is one of the biggest and blackest dudes I've ever met. But they were married in a church in Franklin, Tennessee, an extremely affluent Nashville suburb. To be fair, I can only imagine what was going through the minds of all the old folks in attendance.

Times, they're still a changin'.

 

I'd wager that was exactly the case. But the pastor needs the stones to stand up to them.

 

In all the churches in which I've been a member, there is a deliberate effort to ensure that the pastoral staff can't be certain who the big donors are. This is intended to avoid just such a possibility.

 

If you had a choice of color
Which one would you choose my brothers
If there was no day or night
Which would you prefer to be right
-Curtis Mayfield

 

I can understand where this church is coming from.

After all, the Bible expressly says that Black folk shant be married in White folks church or something, right?

The Southern Baptist Convention should pull this church's charter or whatever it is the Baptists do to punish churches going rogue.

 

I don't think that's the way the SBC works. Each church is an entity unto itself. The SBC could disassociate with this church, I guess, but I suspect that's about it.

 

Precisely. They can be kicked out of the convention (now led by an African American pastor) and its state and local counterparts. But the only way a pastor can be fired is by a vote of the congregation.

 

Also, the convention has no say in what happens to the name, building or property. It's basically the Best Western of religion.

 

Will the small group pay for the ensuing ACLU lawsuit?

 

Do the parishioners at least get a free continental breakfast?

 

I don't see any grounds on which the ACLU could sue. And I don't think the ACLU would sue, because they're pretty supportive of the exercise of religion.

All you can do is point out what asshats these people are, and continue to point that out for anyone who's a member. This should be a deal-breaker for continued membership at the church for anyone with a conscience.

 

Re: "The Help" didn't help: Church in Jackson, Miss., refuses to marry black cou

Was this a Baptist church or a Methodist church?

FWIW, I went to a funeral of a young black girl who worked for us after she was killed in a car crash. The funeral was in Jackson at a very multi-racial Methodist church. As I recall, the pastor was white, but the music director was black (or maybe it was vice versa; it's been a few years).

The Southern Baptist church I occasionally attend has probably a half-dozen black families and a couple of bi-racial couples, including one where the husband is white. Point being, we're not all racist knuckle-draggers down here.