Georgia Church Won’t Even Let A Black Person Through Its Doors

One sanctuary in Georgia was in big trouble after being stuck in the sunken place. The Southern Baptist Convention expelled a house of worship in the city of Albany on Monday for closing its doors to African-American parishioners. This is #TryingToGoToChurchWhileBlack.

The Raleigh White Baptist Church had a “clear” pattern of “intentional discriminatory acts” targeting Black worshippers from New Seasons Church. Both churches previously shared building. In one March incident, a Black visitor with New Seasons was forced to use a nearby convenience store bathroom during Raleigh’s homecoming, the Tennessean reported.

The Black visitor, as well as other African-American congregation members of New Seasons, were also turned away from coming into the church during Raleigh’s homecoming event. The reason was clearly because they were Black.

“It was because of the color of their skin that they were turned away at the door,” Hans Wunch, director of missions for the Mallary Baptist Association in Georgia who unsuccessfully tried to mediate the relationship between Raliegh and New Seasons, told the Tennessean. “That was kind of the final straw.”

The Raleigh White Baptist Church had merged with New Seasons in June 2015, according to the Christian Index, the newspaper of the Georgia Baptist Mission Board.

With its racist acts, the Raleigh church felt the kick of the Mallary Baptist Association, which expelled them in April.

“The reason for this action involved the church’s un-Christian attitudes and acts toward another associational church. These attitudes and acts were racially-motivated,” the association said in an April 4 statement. “Thus they do not reflect the values and mission of the Mallary Baptist Association.”

It’s clear this church must have been singing songs of oppression.

With the Southern Baptist Convention expulsion, representatives from Raleigh White Baptist church “can no longer participate in the convention until it repents and takes steps to restore fellowship.” As for New Seasons, the church announced last month that it had merged with Radium Springs Baptist Church to create one multicultural congregation, according to a Facebook post.

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