Full story here:

The Rev. John Stevens says Fellowship Baptist Church in Saltillo voted not to approve blacks as members during a scheduled Sunday night business meeting Aug. 6. Because of the decision, Stevens stepped down from the Baptist Missionary Alliance congregation that has an average Sunday morning attendance of 30 people... Mike Dillard, who acted as spokesperson for the church, said the congregation "categorically denies" accusations that the church took such a vote and feels the charge is an attempt by a party to do them harm... After being told of the vote, Cliff Hardy, an officer with the Tupelo Police Department, left the church... "You see, my best friend is a black man," he said. "I wouldn't be comfortable going to a place where I couldn't ask my best friend to go to church with me... Since Stevens' resignation, one church member who was not at the Aug. 6 meeting has called the former pastor and told him he was in favor of what he did. Stevens estimates 80 percent of the church is against having blacks as members of the congregation."

Can anyone explain to me how is it possible to be a good Christian (not just claim to be one) and also be a racist? Is there a passage in the Bible that could somehow be interpreted that way? Or is this pastor lying about the vote?

The Beatle George Harrison sang about it:

In the mid-1960s, when the movement began on Manhattan's Lower East Side, a Hare Krishna service would have been filled with robe-wearing, twentysomething Caucasian converts, who likely lived at the temple or on an ashram.

Today, the typical worshiper is an Indian American who lives in mainstream America and shows up weekly for services, in khakis and with a kid wearing an NBA tank top along with his tilak (the sacred stripe that Hare Krishnas display between their eyebrows, symbolizing the footprint of God).

In the four decades since Indian guru Srila Prabhupada arrived in New York City to begin spreading the Krishna lifestyle, the movement has changed in many ways.

After starting the movement in the West, Prabhupada took it back to India, where today there are hundreds of thousands of Hare Krishna devotees.

I remember seeing them in the streets of New York City. And I remember how so many Americans feared this new cult would spread and suck in their children, turning them into zombies. As with most of our fears, no such thing happened.