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.