Follow-Up to the Mississippi Church Racial Controversy
08/26/2006 10:05 Filed in: Culture Watch
Since I published a blog entry yesterday around 1:30 AM about a Baptist Church in Mississippi voting to exclude blacks from membership, a couple of interesting developments have occurred.
First, The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal pulled the story from their website late yesterday. This Lamp reader (and my former student!) Josh Clark took it upon himself to contact the newspaper to inquire why the story was no longer online. Here is the response he received:
Second, now the story is back up in an expanded version at the original link (see "Pastor Claims Church Voted to Reject Black Membership, Resigns"). Regarding the content, the only piece of new information is an official denial from the church that the vote ever took place. This turn of events is not overly surprising as denial is usually the first response to accusation. And with the pastor gone, it becomes a "your word against ours" conflict. Pardon my bent for mischief, but the church's denial could easily be tested if a large group of the community's non-white population were to show up as visitors to tomorrow's service. Such a move might be a good way to peacefully protest the church's racial attitudes anyway.
Assuming that this story is true (I've yet to see anything to really suggest that it is not, and this is confirmed by the Daily Journal's attempt to handle it delicately), I hope that the central figure in this--the 12-year-old boy, Joe--is not forgotten.
I remember my own joy at becoming a follower of Christ. Everyone shook my hand; there were smiles and pats on my back. Even though I was a child, I felt like I had made a very grownup decision. My public profession of faith was followed by a class in church beliefs and then my baptism. I look back at that experience with fond memories. It was a very positive and life-changing experience.
But then I think of Joe. Years from now, will he look back at the time when he "accepted Jesus into his heart" (a quote from the original DJ article) with fondness or bitterness? I can't imagine that Joe would have any means to separate his decision to follow Christ from the chain of events that followed soon afterward.
As tragic as the situation is, if years from now Joe is tempted to turn his back on his decision to follow Christ, I hope he will remember the other two individuals (and their families) who sacrificed their church membership with him. It can certainly be no small thing that a police officer--a leader and authority figure in the community--and more significantly, the pastor of the church himself chose to be excluded with Joe and his family rather than remain with a group whose actions demonstrated they were not worthy of the name, Christian.
As for Fellowship Baptist Church, God is not through with them yet...one way or another. A day will come when they have to answer for their actions
Final note (for now): History on the internet can be a tricky thing and too easily facts can be revised. Therefore I am attaching below two separate PDF files. The first contains the original story placed online by The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal and the second document contains the revised article posted today. Here are the two files: djournal.20080819 and djournal.20080826.
First, The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal pulled the story from their website late yesterday. This Lamp reader (and my former student!) Josh Clark took it upon himself to contact the newspaper to inquire why the story was no longer online. Here is the response he received:
It's interesting that the paper would claim that the story only "appeared for a few minutes on our site." I first discovered the story around 2 PM Thursday on the Christianity Today Weblog. It was certainly still online when I posted the story 13 hours later here on my blog. I was unaware the story had been pulled until This Lamp reader Rae Whitlock noted in the comments of yesterday's post that the link was broken. I'm not exactly sure how long the story was on the Daily Journal's website, but I know that it was there for at least 24 hours. However, considering the original article is dated August 19, I want to assume that it may have been online for the better part of an entire week.The article linked to was not supposed to be for publication. It appeared for a few minutes on our site, but it never appeared in print. The writer and her editor decided not to publish the story for lack of comments from the church, but they failed to inform us on the online side it had been killed. The reporter has asked Christianity Today's web site to pull the segment about her story, but was told it could not do it until this weekend.
A more thorough version of the story will be published in Saturday's Daily Journal.
Second, now the story is back up in an expanded version at the original link (see "Pastor Claims Church Voted to Reject Black Membership, Resigns"). Regarding the content, the only piece of new information is an official denial from the church that the vote ever took place. This turn of events is not overly surprising as denial is usually the first response to accusation. And with the pastor gone, it becomes a "your word against ours" conflict. Pardon my bent for mischief, but the church's denial could easily be tested if a large group of the community's non-white population were to show up as visitors to tomorrow's service. Such a move might be a good way to peacefully protest the church's racial attitudes anyway.
Assuming that this story is true (I've yet to see anything to really suggest that it is not, and this is confirmed by the Daily Journal's attempt to handle it delicately), I hope that the central figure in this--the 12-year-old boy, Joe--is not forgotten.
I remember my own joy at becoming a follower of Christ. Everyone shook my hand; there were smiles and pats on my back. Even though I was a child, I felt like I had made a very grownup decision. My public profession of faith was followed by a class in church beliefs and then my baptism. I look back at that experience with fond memories. It was a very positive and life-changing experience.
But then I think of Joe. Years from now, will he look back at the time when he "accepted Jesus into his heart" (a quote from the original DJ article) with fondness or bitterness? I can't imagine that Joe would have any means to separate his decision to follow Christ from the chain of events that followed soon afterward.
“But whoever causes the downfall of one of these little ones who believe in Me—it would be better for him if a heavy millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea."
(Mark 9:42 HCSB)
As tragic as the situation is, if years from now Joe is tempted to turn his back on his decision to follow Christ, I hope he will remember the other two individuals (and their families) who sacrificed their church membership with him. It can certainly be no small thing that a police officer--a leader and authority figure in the community--and more significantly, the pastor of the church himself chose to be excluded with Joe and his family rather than remain with a group whose actions demonstrated they were not worthy of the name, Christian.
As for Fellowship Baptist Church, God is not through with them yet...one way or another. A day will come when they have to answer for their actions
“Behold, I am going to deal at that time
With all your oppressors,
I will save the lame
And gather the outcast,
And I will turn their shame into praise and renown
In all the earth.”
(Zephaniah 3:19 NASB)
Final note (for now): History on the internet can be a tricky thing and too easily facts can be revised. Therefore I am attaching below two separate PDF files. The first contains the original story placed online by The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal and the second document contains the revised article posted today. Here are the two files: djournal.20080819 and djournal.20080826.