Predominately White Church Refuses to Marry Black Couple the Day Before Their Wedding

For Charles and Te’Andrea Wilson, it was the church that had cold feet.

The Mississippi couple, scheduled to marry at the First Baptist Church of Crystal Springs, was informed the day before their wedding that they’d need to relocate their nuptials due to complaints from church members.

Imagine the devastation felt by bride-to-be Te’Andrea Wilson, who’d attended the church for over a year. For Te’Andrea, the church was an important part of her family, as her father also attended church services and her uncle worked a custodian there.

Gawker reports the predominantly white church doesn’t expressly prohibit church members based on color, but you could have fooled us. Pastor Stan Weatherford felt it necessary inform the engaged couple of the congregation’s unfavorable reaction to their wedding, saying, “I didn’t want to have a controversy within the church, and I didn’t want a controversy to affect the wedding of Charles and Te’Andrea. I wanted to make sure their wedding day was a special day.”

While Weatherford went on to perform the marriage ceremony at another church, he admitted it’s not what Christ would have done.

Apparently this is a case of a few bad apples spoiling the whole bunch. Only five or six church members have come forward admitting personal involvement in the campaign to have the Wilson wedding relocated. Church member Casey Kitchens told the Clarion Ledger, “This is a small, small group of people who made a terrible decision. I’m just ashamed right now that my church would do that. I can’t fathom why. How unfair. How unjust. It’s just wrong.”

Groom Charles Wilson told the newspaper that despite the fact that he understood Pastor Weatherford’s difficult position, he believed the pastor should have stood up to opposing church members, adding, “I blame the First Baptist Church of Crystal Springs, I blame those members who knew and call themselves Christians and didn’t stand up.”

I couldn’t agree more, Mr. Wilson.

What on earth was The First Baptist Church of Crystal Springs thinking?