Christian Pastor Apologizes After 'Long-Haired Hippie' Invited to Speak

A pastor at a Baptist church in Hammond, Indiana, has apologized after letting a local creationist group address church members while one member sported a haircut that was deemed too long to be proper.

John Wilkerson is a pastor at the First Baptist Church of Hammond and the president of private Baptist institution Hyles-Anderson College. He posted a video on Instagram where he apologized for embarrassing his church members.

"Recently, we had a creation seminar hosted here at First Baptist Church of Hammond," the pastor said in the clip, as first reported by The Christian Post.

"With all my heart, what I wanted to do is to educate, equip and empower God's people to face and to give ammunition for the fallacies of evolution and humanism that permeates our society," Wilkerson said, adding that he "probably did not make the best decisions in many arenas."

Wilkerson said he failed "to screen properly what was going to be said or shown" by the creationist group. He also apologized to the students of the Indiana college, saying he didn't want to be a divisive figure. Newsweek contacted the First Baptist Church of Hammond for comment by email on Saturday.

The main criticism against Wilkerson was around the members of this group, rather than the things they said alone. Another pastor, Allen Domelle of Maranatha Baptist Church in Oklahoma, criticized the event. He said that the members of the creationist groups were not Baptists, but one was a member of the Reformed church and another a Methodist.

On his website, Domelle then attacked one of the members of the group, David Litty, whom he called "a long-haired hippie" who shouldn't be teaching in the pulpit.

"I don't know anything about this man, but I do know that to have long hair is a shame," Domelle wrote. He cited a Biblical passage from the Corinthians where Paul said men should not have long hair. The passage stated that women have long hair for covering and, for men, it's a shame to have long hair.

"It does not matter what he was going to teach, the fact that he blatantly disobeys God's Word should have alerted anyone to his spiritual discernment and that he is to be disqualified to teach people," Domelle added. The Christian Post said that Litty has since cut his hair to avoid causing further offense.

The story of Wilkerson's apology was shared on Reddit, where many users wrote about Jesus Christ traditionally being portrayed with long hair, and others criticized the Baptist church for being too strict in its requirements.

"I left the Baptist Church 30 years ago. Glad to see it's still there alienating people," one user wrote.

"I remember in high school going to visit my dad. He and my step-mom immediately started tearing into me and my brother for having long hair and an earring. It went on and on," another posted.