THE GOSPEL OF DIVERSITY

OAKHURST PRESBYTERIAN IS THAT RAREST OF INSTITUTIONS: HALF BLACK, HALF WHITE AND ENTIRELY HARMONIOUS

AT THE OAKHURST PRESBYTERIAN Church, there's a black Jesus in front, a white Jesus in back and folks of both colors in between. The black Jesus depicted on a stained-glass window in front used to be white, but the pastor of Oakhurst, the Rev. Gibson Stroupe, and his wife Caroline Leach tinted the once pink portrait brown. Both Leach and Stroupe are white, and she admits "we did get some flak" for the racial alteration. There were those who thought Oakhurst was caving in to the dogmatizers of diversity, the whistle blowers of melanin management. Some chose to leave the church...

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