The necessary percentage of membership in a Southern Baptist Church in Florida chose not to vote for a wildly ‘woke’ and progressive pastor. Requiring an 85% affirmative vote to call a new minister, Marcus Hayes, was rejected by roughly 19% of the First Baptist Church of Naples. The currently-employed staff at FBC Naples then accused their own church of “racism” without any substantiating evidence and have chosen to run their own congregation through the wringer of the national press.
The ‘woke’ Beta-Male clergy and staff underlings at FBC Naples – all white men – wanted a black pastor for their church. Being inundated with the ‘Great Awokening’ Social Gospel movement, this is how churches today signal virtue and demonstrate their open-mindedness and liberality. Rather than judging pastoral candidates by the content of their character, they prefer to judge them by the color of their skin.
The candidate they presented to the church congregation, however, was not overwhelmingly cared for by the congregation. We are unaware of the precise reason that 19% of the progressive and non-fundamentalist seeker-friendly and mainstream SBC church chose not to affirm Hayes as their pastor, but sources indicate that the congregation had seen his social media which was full of Democratic, leftist, progressive, and ‘woke’ Social Justice sentiments. Understandably, a conservative church would not want a liberal to be their pastor, no matter how much their staff member underlings belly-ached about hiring a black man to right systemic injustices.
Without any attempt whatsoever to demonstrate that the 19% opposition was due to his melanin count, the disappointed and liberalized church staff threw a hissy in social media.
Posting their complaints on a blog and casting Matthew 18 to the wind, they impugned one-fifth of their church with racism for not voting for a man who happened to be black.
“Last week, through social media, texting, phone calls and emails, racial prejudice was introduced into our voting process…Please know that specifically your Pastoral Staff is deeply, deeply grieved. We are grieved for Marcus and Mandy that they had to endure such vileness. We are deeply grieved that the wonderful name of our Lord and the reputation of First Baptist Church Naples was affected by this campaign against Marcus Hayes.”
There is zero evidence – none, zilch, nada, nothing – that indicates Hayes didn’t receive the necessary 85% vote because of racism. It is a baseless accusation of tantrum-throwing staff members who were upset the people in the pew didn’t take their recommendation.
The staff then decided to attack their own church through a public statement to be picked up by the national press.
This notion – that everything is about race – is called “Critical Race Theory.” In this scenario, not voting for Hayes to become their pastor is a “micro-aggression” and is an indication of inert and hidden racism, whether it is provable or not.
Critical Race Theory was approved as a valuable and “helpful analytical tool” in Resolution 9 at the 2019 SBC Convention. This is exactly what the SBC gets in return.
Dwight McKissic, a racist, white-hating Democrat activist who annually causes racial strife at SBC annual meetings, suggested that the SBC disfellowship from the congregation for daring not to employ the black man.
RC at Reformation Charlotte went into great detail regarding Hayes’ political leftism, woke theology, Cultural Marxism, and progressive politics, which you can read about here.
Unless there is actual evidence that 19% of the 4 thousand member congregation didn’t vote for Hayes because of the color of his skin, and unless the church staff is willing to release it, they have sinned greatly against their church and should be dismissed from their positions.
Perhaps the 19% who voted against him did not like the way he preached. Perhaps they did not care for his wife or children. Perhaps they did not care for his outspoken politics. Perhaps they did not like the way their ministry staff was telling them who to vote for. Perhaps they didn’t like the way their legitimate concerns were labeled as racist. But unless racism can be proven, this is Critical Race Theory at work, and it will destroy this church and all of the SBC.
