Megachurch pastor begs for forgiveness after wife tells NFL protesters to wait for Jesus to fix racism

The pastor of a South Carolina megachurch issued a video apology on Thursday for his wife's racist anti-NFL rant on Facebook in which she insisted that the protests "will not fix racism! Duh!!! Only Jesus!"

Fox Carolina reported that Rev. Ron Carpenter, Jr. of Greenville, SC's Redemption Church posted the video on Facebook after his wife Hope Carpenter sparked an online conflagration with a post criticizing pro athletes for protesting police brutality by taking a knee during the national anthem.

On her personal Facebook page, Hope Carpenter wrote, "This will not fix racism! Duh!!! Only Jesus! If you wanna kneel... then u [sic] better be praying to the one and only who can heal our land."

Black athletes, she said, should "stop thinking about it from your history or race" and admit that "our country is not yo [sic] blame!"

The brutal backlash, said Ron Carpenter, has left Hope too "emotional" to address viewers, so he made the video to offer up both of their apologies.

He and his wife both grew up in military families, Carpenter said, and "view the flag as sacred." And that in spite of her angry outburst, Hope has "one of the best hearts" of anyone he's ever known.

"It's been tough, the things that have been said about us... but maybe we deserved it," Carpenter said. "Maybe this is a learning moment for us. So I'm not going to tell you to be quiet. I'm going to tell you to teach me."

"We ask you to forgive us if we've hurt you in any way," he continued. "I ask you to teach me what I don't know... I don't want to be ignorant."

Watch the video, embedded below: