‘You’ll pay for it!’ Leaked videos show fringe pastors’ warnings on interracial marriage
The Arizona Star has obtained videos showing multiple pastors at a Pentecostalism offshoot known as “The Message” that explicitly warns congregants against dating and marrying people of other races or ethnicities.
According to the Arizona Star, The Message was founded in the 1950s by a self-style “prophet” named William Branham, who drew attention not only for his purported faith healings but also preached heavily against racial mixing.
Despite the fact that the churches he founded now welcome people of all races, preachers within it still tell congregants that it is against God’s will to date or marry people of different races.
One pastor of the church, Donny Reagan, told congregants back in 2013 that it was “pitiful” to see Black professional athletes dating white women.
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“Why is it so many Black basketball stars, Black football stars, Black baseball stars want a white wife?” he asked rhetorically. “Why? Lord have mercy. It’s another defiance of God’s law. It is a worldly way. And then it creeps over into The Message.”
Louisiana Message minister Tim Pruitt, meanwhile, told congregants earlier this year that they would face severe consequences for dating outside of their races.
““You’ll pay for it in your children, in your family, and society and situations,” he said. “You’ll pay for it with marriage problems and everything else that’ll be the result of it… I don’t think you’ll go to Hell for it, certainly not. But you will run into troubles.”
Interestingly, these pastors don’t believe that interracial marriage is technically a sin — rather, they think that the cultural differences between people of different races is so strong that it will be harmful for the stability of the relationship, according to the Arizona Star.
But one former congregant tells the Arizona Star that the lessons he learned were nonetheless deeply racist, even if the church itself doesn’t see them that way.
“You live in a community where they’re like, ‘Alright, yes, you are our brother. You are equal to us. But you may not under any circumstances, date our daughters,’” former The Message devotee Martin Maene explained. “Things like that build up to make you feel like — even if they’re not outright saying it — you feel inferior.”