FILE – Delegates maintain up their ballots on the Southern Baptist Convention 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 occasion and his impersonation of a Native American lady at one other.

Scott Clause/The Daily Advertiser through AP

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Scott Clause/The Daily Advertiser through AP

FILE – Delegates maintain up their ballots on the Southern Baptist Convention 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 occasion and his impersonation of a Native American lady at one other.

Scott Clause/The Daily Advertiser through AP

The Southern Baptist Convention has ousted an Oklahoma church whose pastor defended his blackface efficiency at one church occasion and his impersonation of a Native American lady at one other.

The Executive Committee of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination voted Tuesday that Matoaka Baptist Church of Ochelata “be deemed not in friendly cooperation with the convention” — the official terminology for an expulsion.

The church’s pastor, Sherman Jaquess, wearing blackface for a 2017 church Valentine’s Day occasion, through which he claimed to be impersonating the late soul singer Ray Charles. Jaquess wore darkish facial make-up, a big Afro wig and darkish glasses and smiled broadly as he sang a duet. Some within the crowd will be heard laughing through the video of the efficiency.

The video was dropped at gentle earlier this 12 months by a Tulsa neighborhood activist, Marq Lewis.

Another Facebook picture, revealed by the Examiner-Enterprise of Bartlesville, additionally surfaced, displaying Jaquess dressed as a Native American lady at a “Cowboys and Indians” evening at a church camp. The picture exhibits a person dressed as a cowboy, holding an apparently faux gun to Jaquess in jest whereas a boy dressed as a cowboy is poised with raised fists subsequent to him.

In a Facebook submit earlier this 12 months, Lewis wrote: “He didn’t just mimic Ray Charles, he distorted the features and culture of African Americans and also Indigenous Americans with his offensive Pocahontas caricature. He is promoting the hatred that sees African Americans and Indigenous Americans as not only different but less than. “

Jaquess didn’t rapid reply to a request for remark despatched through electronic mail.

Lewis praised the Executive Committee’s motion.

“For him (Jaquess) to not apologize, and double down on it, to me I felt this is a pastor that needed to be exposed,” Lewis stated in an interview. “I’m grateful that the Southern Baptist organization said, ‘We don’t want to have anything to do with this.'”

Blackface performances date again to minstrel exhibits of the 1800s, through which performers darkened their faces to create bigoted caricatures of Black folks.

Jaquess defended his actions once they got here to gentle, saying he was enjoying tribute to Ray Charles and that he does not “have a racist bone in my body,” based on the Examiner-Enterprise.

Jaquess, who has campaigned towards public drag exhibits, stated in a sermon posted on Facebook that his “dressing up like Pocahontas” was not a drag efficiency as a result of it wasn’t sexual. Drag performers are typically described as entertainers who costume and act as a distinct gender.

In the sermon, Jaquess stated he has “Cherokee blood in me but I put some brown makeup on. … I was trying to look like a Native American woman.” He acknowledged within the sermon that a number of folks have been leaving the church amid the controversy.

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 might oust a church from its membership.

The conservative denomination has in recent times expelled churches for various reasons — most prominently Saddleback Church, the California megachurch ousted earlier this 12 months for having ladies pastors. The SBC’s structure says a church can solely be deemed in pleasant cooperation if, amongst different issues, it “does not act to affirm, approve, or endorse discriminatory behavior on the basis 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 Executive Committee ousted a Georgia church and a New Jersey congregation amid considerations over alleged discriminatory conduct.

Other causes for ouster embrace a failure to deal with sexual abuse and for appearing to “endorse homosexual behavior.”

Separately, the committee confronted its third management setback in a matter of months when its anticipated appointment of an interim president fell by.

Retired Kentucky pastor Dan Summerlin, who had been really useful by the committee’s officers, withdrew his candidacy, saying Tuesday that he would not have time for the job whereas caring for his spouse throughout most cancers remedy.

The committee was assembly for the primary time since its interim president, Tennessee pastor Willie McLaurin, resigned in August after it got here to gentle that he had falsified his academic credentials on his resume. McLaurin had been the main candidate to turn into the everlasting president after the committee did not approve the nomination of its former chairman, Jared Wellman, as president in May.

The committee stated in an announcement Tuesday that primarily based on an inside investigation, it concluded that “McLaurin engaged in both academic and professional fraud.” But it stated no proof was discovered “of wrongdoing or direct financial harm to the Executive Committee.” It didn’t elaborate.

“While the Executive Committee acknowledges the collateral, reputational harm and indirect financial impact resulting from McLaurin’s misrepresentations, the Executive Committee does not plan to proceed with taking any legal action against McLaurin at this time,” it stated.

Jonathan Howe, who as vice chairman had been serving within the interim position, will proceed that position, based on the committee.

The job of the chief government includes main the day-to-day enterprise of the committee, which acts on behalf of the conference when its annual assembly shouldn’t be in session. The earlier everlasting president, Ronnie Floyd, resigned amid turmoil over the Executive Committee’s dealing with of a third-party investigation into how the committee addressed sexual abuse experiences.

Amid tight funds, the committee lately minimize 5 full-time employees positions and two contractor positions.