Kentucky Church Reverses Ban On Interracial Marriages

Recently there was this gist about a church that banned interracial marriages. ....well i think the church has reversed it's decision. According to Thisday.............

The pastor of a Kentucky Baptist Church in America has said he has nullified a vote by parishioners that banned interracial couples from the church. “As far as I'm concerned and the church is concerned, this case will be closed,” Gulnare Free Will Baptist Church’s pastor, Stacy Stepp, was quoted by the Lexington Herald-Leader as saying, in apparent reaction to the controversy stirred by the discriminatory decision of the church.

“We will...get back on the right track and continue to win souls for the Lord,” he added.

Stepp, who said he opposed the vote, declared it null and void after approaching the Sandy Valley Conference of Free Will Baptists, which consists of 13 county churches.

The conference met last Saturday and released a statement saying it had reviewed the situation and concluded that the vote was of no effect because it “was not carried out in accordance with” Robert's Rules of Order, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader, and would therefore require a change in the church bylaws.
The Gulnare Freewill Baptist Church voted nine to six on November 27 to ban interracial couples from church services or functions, with the exception of funerals.

A lady, who came to the church with her black partner,

more after the jump

sparked the action of banning interracial marriage.

Stella Harville, 24, and her fiancé, Ticha Chikuni, 28, met at Georgetown College in Kentucky, where both were students, and they plan to marry in July 2012.

According to ABC news radio, Harville is in graduate school in Indiana and Chikuni is working at Georgetown College, but when the couple visits Harville's parents in Pike County, Kentucky, they usually go to church with her parents, Cathy and Dean Harville.

But after a service in June where Harville and Chikuni participated by singing and playing the piano for a hymn, the family was shocked when then-pastor, Melvin Thompson, approached them after the service and told Chikuni he could not sing anymore.

The next week, Cathy and Dean Harville met with Thompson and were told that members of the congregation had said they would walk out if Chikuni sang again.

Before Pastor Stepp’s action, National body of the congregation had also declared the interracial ban null and void.

A statement by the National Association of Free Will Baptists said reconsideration would occur even as it declined to interfere in the local church’s affairs.

According to huntingtonnews.net, the Association’s press release clearly supported interracial couples stating: “Many interracial couples are members of Free Will Baptist churches. They are loved, accepted and respected by their congregations. It is unfair and inaccurate to characterise the denomination as racist.”
The statement added that abolition is evidence of the fact that Free Will Baptists currently spend millions of dollars every year to take the good news of Jesus Christ to every race.

The earlier decision by the church had provoked internet forum commentators who unanimously denounced the church’s original stance.

“There will not be separate rooms in Heaven; we are to love one another no matter what colour of our skin,” wrote Deloris Hurley.
Tammy Watt, Russel County High School student, wrote, “glad it was overturned…we are all equal in God’s eyes and we’re all made in his image.”

Kathy Maynard, a Kaplan University student, added, “God doesn’t judge us by our colour, he loves us all.”

Winchester, Ky, writer, Jeff Hampson, stated “now, ban the minister.”
But the retired minister stated he did not bring the matter to a vote before the congregation. The decision originally stated that interracial couples could not participate in services, alluding to the female member’s occasional solos at the church.

 

Source........Thisday