Birmingham Mayor Claims ‘Spirit of Racism’ Over Black Pastor’s Sign Calling for White Church Exodus

Some Black Pastors Offended by Mayor, White Pastor’s Talk of New Inner-City Church Plant

After Alabama megachurch pastor Chris Hodges revealed to his congregation that Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin had appealed to him to help impact violence-plagued neighborhoods with a new church, local Black pastors expressed anger and hurt at the apparent slight.

One pastor, the Rev. Michael R. Jordan of New Era Baptist Church in Birmingham’s West End, went so far as to post his thoughts publicly on the church’s marquee.

“Black Folks Need to Stay Out of White Churches” the sign states on one side, while the other side claims “White Folks Refused to Be Our Neighbors.”

Although Mayo Sowell, a Black leader on staff with the church’s Dream Team, would lead the new plant, Jordan suggested that made no difference.

“It’s a slavemaster church. I call it plantation religion, slavemaster religion. The white rich folks start a church and put a black pastor in charge of it,” the reverend told AL.com.

Jordan, who has been in Birmingham for nearly 30 years, also said, “Putting that church in West End, you’re bringing white spirituality in a black environment. Our music is different. Our experiences are different. We’re more active in worship.”

Mayor Woodfin appeared to denounce Jordan’s church sign on Tuesday, suggesting it reflected racism.

“There is a spirit of racism and division that is over this city. It must be brought down. We have to change the conversation to what we need it to evolve into. ‘Darkness can not drive out darkness. Only light can do that. Hate can not drive out hate; only love can do that,'” the mayor tweeted. His tweet included a photo of the side of the New Era Baptist Church sign that stated “Black Folks Need to Stay Out of White Churches.”

Jordan told AL.com and other local news stations that his sign was getting at the self-segregation and alleged historical hypocrisy of White Christians.

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“If you’re concerned about crime and drugs, why did you leave the city and start your own school systems? It’s very hypocritical. Chris Hodges won’t move next door to us. He won’t let his family go to school with us. If you want to help with crime, you have wealthy entrepreneurs, give these black boys a job, not just cleaning up. Start some job programs and fund it through the black church,” he said.

Another local pastor, the Rev. Adam Mixon of Zion Spring Baptist Church in North Avondale, penned an open letter addressed to Mayor Woodfin.

“While understanding the zeal of the new administration to appear strong against crime and violence in the most vulnerable communities that we serve, we would suggest that our Mayor realize that our communities did not get this way accidentally,” Mixon wrote in the open letter published on his website.

The Zion Spring Baptist Church pastor went on to cite economic segregation, over-criminalization of Black people, White-flight, real estate redlining, and failing schools as some of the “methodologies employed” to “systematically” oppress Black communities and Black families.

Pastor Mixon wrote, specifically addressing Mayor Woodfin and Pastor Hodges, that the historical White church was partly culpable for these conditions:

“Your present mindset seems to overlook how white communities, and yes the white church, have been complicit in creating the circumstances that the black community and the black church have been forced to deal with. Again, whether through bad legislation and public policy, apathy, ignorance, or bad theology – the same folks so moved to ‘save and clean-up’ our communities are culpable for these conditions! The same folks so moved to ‘save and clean-up’ our communities are often found voting in ways that belie their good intentions. The superficial charity applied to our communities, though well-intended, is a salve that anesthetizes but does nothing to dislodge and eradicate the cancerous root that will eventually destroy us all. This poisonous charity does more to assuage the unnamed undefined guilt of the one who extends it, than it benefits its recipients. It is the proverbial bandage over a gaping bullet wound! Beyond this, the combined clumsiness and arrogance of these efforts make it even harder for the long established black churches in these areas to make progress.

Church of the Highlands, whose main campus is located in Birmingham’s Irondale community, is the state’s largest church. It reportedly attracts at least 40,000 worshippers to its 16 campuses every week. Hodges founded the nondenominational church in 2001. The church’s core leadership team, comprised of 59 people (not counting pastor Hodges), appears to include just four non-White members, among them a Hispanic pastor for the Spanish-speaking congregation, according to the megachurch’s website.

Hodges announced to his church in late April that Mayor Woodfin had recruited them to assist in his recent “comprehensive public safety program” dubbed “Operation Step-Up.” In addition to calling for increased policing, the mayor plans to have 125 condemned buildings that put a “blight” on communities demolished. “Operation Step-Up” calls on various sectors of Birmingham to assist in implementing the mayor’s plan to revitalize his city, specifically in four “high crime” locations.

In his conversation with Mayor Woodfin, Pastor Hodges reportedly “promised to start a new branch of the church in one of the highest-crime areas of the city.”

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Although Church of the Highlands already has a local congregation and a Dream Center outreach center in Birmingham’s inner-city, Hodges told the church on April 29: “We are going to launch a campus right in the heart of the highest crime of our entire city. We are going to do a live service with live speaking and different music and it’s going to be different in a lot of ways to meet the needs of that community.”

Hodges added: “We’re going to reach the drug dealers and we’ll get the crime to stop. Come on everybody, we’re going to be the local church. I can’t wait to report back to the mayor, and he says great job, hey let’s go over here now. That’s what the church should do.”

The megachurch pastor referenced the four high-crime areas Mayor Woodfin has made a priority of his “Operation Step-Up” initiative.

“He said, ‘Chris, there are four of them that are keeping me up at night. There are four of them that people should not live the way they are living, and the fear they’re living in, the crime they are living in, the poverty they are living in,” Hodges told the church, according to a recording of the service. “We have to do something about these four communities. All of our communities need stuff, but my priority are these four.’ And I said, ‘Mayor, I want to know which ones they are. If there’s anything we can do to help, I’m committing it to you right now.'”

At a later press conference, Mayor Woodfin suggested he was inviting all churches with resources to take the initiative to step up and help communities in need.

A local news station found at least one resident who welcomed Church of the Highlands’ involvement in the mayor’s efforts, while responses from locals on a video of Hodges sharing the news appeared mostly positive as well.