FORT MYERS, Fla. — Early Sunday morning, Mount Hermon Ministries Church service in Fort Myers was interrupted by racist comments.
A heckler tuned into the church's live stream on Facebook and YouTube to post anti-Black Lives Matter comments.
“I was told before I got up to preach that we had a heckler on our live stream making derogatory marks in the comments like 'F black lives' and 'black lives ain't this or that',” says Senior Pastor Dr. William Glover.
Prior to the service's start, in a Facebook post, Pastor Glover announced he would be preaching part two in his sermon series called 'The Bible and Why Black Lives Matter'.
The hateful comments began before the Glover began to preach. Once Glover entered the pulpit, he asked his congregation to ignore the heckler.
“Don’t you engage them! Don’t you debate them! Don’t you respond! Believe me, I’ve got enough (scripture) coming this morning that will silence anybody who reads scripture and is a believer of the Lord, yet holds on to racist and non-biblical views,” said Glover.
Shortly after service began, several members of the congregation reported that the pastor’s video streaming link was hacked.
"What would come up (is) footage from the Republican National Convention. We would (re-direct) to speeches from those four nights. That’s what would come up when people would search for Mount Hermon or the sermon title," says Glover.
Pastor Glover believes his church was targeted because he was preaching about the importance of black people in biblical times.
After briefly investigating, the Pastor says they know who was behind the racist attack. At this time, Glover does not want to further engage with the heckler.
"We’re not going to make this person famous. We’re not going to put his name out there. We’re not going to attack him. In the environment that we live in, we’d make him a martyr and those who hold his views will rush to his defense and he will become a hero. We will allow him to die anonymously," says Glover.
Pastor Glover says the church has reached out to YouTube and Facebook about the incident.
