What a white pastor in Modesto said about ‘stupid white people’ in Charlottesville

Modesto pastor Glen Berteau lit up Facebook with a videotaped speech decrying the white supremacist violence in Charlottesville.

Berteau, the white leader of a racially diverse church called The House Modesto, said “stupid white people” were behind the clash that led to three deaths Saturday.

He was speaking unscripted at an 11 a.m. Sunday service that later was posted on the Facebook page for the Coffee Road church. By Wednesday afternoon, the video had about 2.9 million views.

Berteau told the Modesto Bee on Wednesday that he was upset about white supremacists “using the Bible as their basis to be able to hate somebody of color.” He acknowledged that the “stupid white people” label might be jarring, but he is sticking with it.

“What it means is not being logical,” he said. “It means being ignorant.”

Berteau grew up in Louisiana, where he saw blacks and whites going to separate schools and a cross burning by the Ku Klux Klan. He is now senior pastor at a church with black, white, Latino, Filipino, Assyrian and other members. They gather for three weekly services in a 2,700-seat sanctuary.

The video had more than 4,000 favorable comments on the church page as of Wednesday. A sampling:

▪  “Amen! Thank you for speaking the truth and speaking it out loud. It takes a strong person to do what you did.”

▪  “Wow, you could feel the anointing just from watching through the phone!”

▪  “All this time I was wondering what Bible those folk were reading from. I thought it was just me! New to CA, gotta visit this church!”

Saturday’s violence happened at a rally by white supremacists against the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from a city park.

James Alex Fields Jr., 20, is accused of driving the car that killed counter-demonstrator Heather Heyer, 32, and injured 19 other people. Two state police officers died in a helicopter crash en route to the protests.

This story was originally published August 16, 2017 at 6:28 PM with the headline "What a white pastor in Modesto said about ‘stupid white people’ in Charlottesville."