FILE – Delegates hang up their ballots on the Southern Baptist Conference in New Orleans on June 13, 2023. On Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2023, Southern Baptist leaders ousted an Oklahoma church whose pastor defended his blackface efficiency at one church tournament and his impersonation of a Local American lady at any other.
Scott Clause/The Day by day Advertiser by the use of AP
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Scott Clause/The Day by day Advertiser by the use of AP
FILE – Delegates hang up their ballots on the Southern Baptist Conference in New Orleans on June 13, 2023. On Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2023, Southern Baptist leaders ousted an Oklahoma church whose pastor defended his blackface efficiency at one church tournament and his impersonation of a Local American lady at any other.
Scott Clause/The Day by day Advertiser by the use of AP
The Southern Baptist Conference has ousted an Oklahoma church whose pastor defended his blackface efficiency at one church tournament and his impersonation of a Local American lady at any other.
The Government Committee of the country’s greatest Protestant denomination voted Tuesday that Matoaka Baptist Church of Ochelata “be deemed no longer in pleasant cooperation with the conference” — the reliable terminology for an expulsion.
The church’s pastor, Sherman Jaquess, wearing blackface for a 2017 church Valentine’s Day tournament, by which he claimed to be impersonating the overdue soul singer Ray Charles. Jaquess wore darkish facial make-up, a big Afro wig and darkish glasses and smiled widely as he sang a duet. Some within the crowd may also be heard guffawing throughout the video of the efficiency.
The video was once delivered to gentle previous this 12 months by means of a Tulsa neighborhood activist, Marq Lewis.
Some other Fb photograph, revealed by means of the Examiner-Endeavor of Bartlesville, additionally surfaced, appearing Jaquess dressed as a Local American lady at a “Cowboys and Indians” night time at a church camp. The photograph presentations a person dressed as a cowboy, retaining an it seems that pretend gun to Jaquess in jest whilst a boy dressed as a cowboy is poised with raised fists subsequent to him.
In a Fb submit previous this 12 months, Lewis wrote: “He did not simply mimic Ray Charles, he distorted the options and tradition of African American citizens and likewise Indigenous American citizens together with his offensive Pocahontas cool animated film. He’s selling the hatred that sees African American citizens and Indigenous American citizens as no longer handiest other however not up to. “
Jaquess didn’t rapid reply to a request for remark despatched by the use of electronic mail.
Lewis praised the Government Committee’s motion.
“For him (Jaquess) not to express regret, and double down on it, to me I felt it is a pastor that had to be uncovered,” Lewis mentioned in an interview. “I am thankful that the Southern Baptist group mentioned, ‘We do not need to have the rest to do with this.'”
Blackface performances date again to minstrel presentations of the 1800s, by which performers darkened their faces to create bigoted caricatures of Black other people.
Jaquess defended his movements once they got here to gentle, pronouncing he was once enjoying tribute to Ray Charles and that he does not “have a racist bone in my frame,” in step with the Examiner-Endeavor.
Jaquess, who has campaigned towards public drag presentations, mentioned in a sermon posted on Fb that his “dressing up like Pocahontas” was once no longer a drag efficiency as it wasn’t sexual. Drag performers are normally described as entertainers who get dressed and act as a special gender.
Within the sermon, Jaquess mentioned he has “Cherokee blood in me however I put some brown make-up on. … I used to be seeking to appear to be a Local American lady.” He said within the sermon that a number of other people had been leaving the church amid the debate.
Since Southern Baptist church buildings are impartial, the conference cannot inform a church what to do or whom to have as a pastor, however it may oust a church from its club.
The conservative denomination has lately expelled church buildings for quite a lot of causes — maximum prominently Saddleback Church, the California megachurch ousted previous this 12 months for having girls pastors. The SBC’s charter says a church can handiest be deemed in pleasant cooperation if, amongst different issues, it “does no longer act to verify, approve, or endorse discriminatory habits at the foundation of ethnicity.”
Any church has a proper to attraction its dismissal to the total annual assembly of the SBC. At this 12 months’s annual assembly, delegates overwhelmingly ratified the committee’s ouster of Saddleback and two different church buildings.
In 2018 and 2022, the Government Committee ousted a Georgia church and a New Jersey congregation amid issues over alleged discriminatory habits.
Different causes for ouster come with a failure to deal with sexual abuse and for appearing to “endorse gay habits.”
One by one, the committee confronted its 0.33 management setback in a question of months when its expected appointment of an intervening time president fell via.
Retired Kentucky pastor Dan Summerlin, who were really useful by means of the committee’s officials, withdrew his candidacy, pronouncing Tuesday that he would not have time for the process whilst taking good care of his spouse throughout most cancers remedy.
The committee was once assembly for the primary time since its intervening time president, Tennessee pastor Willie McLaurin, resigned in August after it got here to gentle that he had falsified his tutorial credentials on his resume. McLaurin were the main candidate to transform the everlasting president after the committee didn’t approve the nomination of its former chairman, Jared Wellman, as president in Might.
The committee mentioned in a remark Tuesday that in keeping with an inside investigation, it concluded that “McLaurin engaged in each educational {and professional} fraud.” But it surely mentioned no proof was once discovered “of wrongdoing or direct monetary hurt to the Government Committee.” It didn’t elaborate.
“Whilst the Government Committee recognizes the collateral, reputational hurt and oblique monetary affect as a result of McLaurin’s misrepresentations, the Government Committee does no longer plan to continue with taking any criminal motion towards McLaurin right now,” it mentioned.
Jonathan Howe, who as vice chairman were serving for the time being position, will proceed that position, in step with the committee.
The process of the manager government comes to main the day by day trade of the committee, which acts on behalf of the conference when its annual assembly isn’t in consultation. The former everlasting president, Ronnie Floyd, resigned amid turmoil over the Government Committee’s dealing with of a third-party investigation into how the committee addressed sexual abuse stories.
Amid tight budget, the committee lately minimize 5 full-time workforce positions and two contractor positions.
