“I’ve been called a bigot. This is divisive, but you have to just tell the truth,” Jordan said. “The main campus has gotten fed up with blacks joining their church, so they decided, ‘Let’s put you a church over there.’”

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Another black pastor, Adam Mixon, condemned the mayor’s remarks, noting who was responsible for the city’s “spirit of racism” in an open letter, writing that the mayor’s comments “demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of the black community and a mischaracterization of the black church.” Mixon added:

[W]e would suggest that our Mayor realize that our communities did not get this way accidentally. Economic segregation, over-criminalization of black people, white-flight, real-estate red-lining, failing schools—we could certainly go on—these are the methodologies employed whereby black communities and black families have been systematically crippled and destroyed ...

Mayor Woodfin (Pastor Hodges)—we suggest that you review our history. 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.

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Mixon also told AL.com that in his experience with the Church of the Highlands’ founding Pastor Chris Hodges, he found the white megachurch leader to be condescending to the people in the communities in which they place their churches.

“It’s a very competitive franchise mentality,” Mixon said. “They’ve been hurtful and dismissive to the people who are already there.”

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Meanwhile, Gentrifying Jesus is still trying to see if he can start a church in Wakanda.