Controversial social media posts have plagued just about every sector of society. Now one church in Palo Alto, CA is grappling with their own moral dilemma regarding their associate pastor's tweets calling out the city's liberals for squabbling over things such as parking tickets instead of what he thinks are actual problems.
Associate pastor Rev. Gregory Stevens tweets calling the city “an elitist s*** den of hate” and “disgusting" came to light earlier this month when his church, First Baptist Church, went before the Palo Alto City Council for approval to lease its space to outside tenants as a community center.
Understandably, a few Council members questioned why they should allow the church to have a community space when one of the leaders of the church was sending out what they described as "vile" tweets about said community.
Rev. Stevens tweeted comments such as "'kind capitalism is a myth and our city is proof." He criticized Earth Day efforts in the city after posting a picture of an advertisement for "Earth Day EV Ride & Drive," saying, "I hate 'social justice' in Palo Alto What a f**king joke." He also tweeted hateful comments towards the police, saying, "things I strongly dislike ;) 1. palo alto police 2. the police in general 3. the violence of the police state." These,plus many more lewd and angry tweets, were made available during the meeting in a public document.
The church's main pastor, Rev. Rick Mixon, had only learned of the tweets the day prior to the meeting. But, now in a scathing rebuke of the city, Rev. Stevens resigned from the Church so that there would not be negativity around the community center, which the City Council ended up approving.
Stevens issued a statement saying, "In my experience of trying to work with this community for almost 3 years, I believe Palo Alto is a ghetto of wealth, power, and elitist liberalism by proxy, meaning that many community members claim to want to fight for social justice issues, but that desire doesn't translate into action. If the same energies used to organize neighbors around minor parking issues, a young girls choirs, and 'nasty tweets' were honed to fight actual injustices, Palo Alto would be a very different city. Palo Alto needs more action, less lip service."
"I tweeted to vent my frustration, and I acknowledge that I did so in an unprofessional and often hurtful way. My Twitter community has always been a small group of progressive ministers and Leftist political activists to whom my rants were geared," Stevens added.
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