Disgraced reality TV star Anna Duggar's father Mike Keller, a Baptist minister in North Texas, has come under fire for a bizarre, racist sermon in which he rewrote the history of how slaves gained their freedom, with white slaveowners as the good guys, reported The Daily Beast.
Keller, who preaches at the Fairpark Baptist Church in Fort Worth, made the claim while arguing, baselessly, that the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was a "trap" set by the federal government, as part of an argument for why prayer is a better solution for political problems than violent protest.
"'A hundred-fifty years ago, or 200 years ago when the Blacks were slaves: Did they ever go to Washington, D.C., and have a rally 200 years ago to protest against slavery?' he rhetorically boomed to the church audience. 'No. What did they do?' Keller explained in his unfactual version of history that 'good people on the plantations,' presumably enslavers, built churches for enslaved Black people and 'loved them and taught them how to read so they can read the Bible,'" reported Brooke Leigh Howard. "'Here’s what the Blacks did about 150 years ago,' Keller continued. 'They humbled themselves. They prayed. They sought God's face and they turned from their wicked ways and God made slavery illegal through several white presidents. It worked, didn’t it? They didn’t protest.'"
Keller's claim is wrong on a number of levels. Black slaves were prohibited by law throughout Southern states from learning to read, either the Bible or anything else — mostly out of fear they would learn about the slave-led Haitian war of independence — and slaves generally had to build their own dwellings, much less churches, and had no freedom of worship. He also is apparently unaware that there were numerous Black activists who protested, as well as an entire resistance movement that smuggled slaves to freedom known as the Underground Railroad — and it took the most violent war in U.S. history to end slavery, not simply prayer and "several white presidents."
"Keller also used his sermon to rail against California’s abortion freedoms, praise Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for being 'God fearing,' and chastise southern Florida’s 'satanic strongholds,'" said the report. "He also falsely claimed the U.S. voids passports from the Dominican Republic (which he referred to as the 'Dominion Republic') because the Caribbean nation has a ban on abortions, and totally fumbled the reason why Puritans and Pilgrims left England for America, claiming they were 'burn[ed] at the stake' for memorizing scripture. He also said that he felt the rapture was coming 'soon.'"
Anna Duggar is the wife of Josh Duggar, and the two of them for years starred in the reality show "19 Kids and Counting" about their evangelical family and their compound. The Duggars became a household name for all the wrong reasons, after Josh's inappropriate contact with children was exposed. He was convicted of child pornography charges, and last year sentenced to 12 years in prison.
