Pastor steps down as outrage builds over sermon

MALDEN, Mo. -- The lead preacher of First General Baptist Church of Malden is taking a leave of absence after learning in a very public way that hell hath no fury like women scorned for being fat, stinky and living life sans makeup.

The Rev. Stewart-Allen Clark has at least temporarily left his pastorship and is "seeking professional counseling" after a Sunday sermon went viral in which he wonders aloud why wives "let themselves go," jokes that scientists have found wedding cake diminishes the female sex drive and admonishes women not to get their haircut or look "butch."

"You need to know this," Clark says during his Feb. 21 Sunday sermon in Malden, a community of about 4,200 in Dunklin County.

"Men have a need for their women to look like women. And sweatpants don't cut it all of the time. Wearing flip-flops and pajamas to Walmart -- that ain't gonna work. Ain't nothing attractive about that. Men want their wives to look good at home and in public."

During the 22-minute sermon posted on YouTube, Clark laughingly regales how he counseled a couple in which the wife looked like a "sumo wrestler," praises his own wife for working to be a "bean pole," thanks God for makeup, brags of a friend who set a "divorce weight" for his wife, and advised husbands "whenever she's not in the mood" to dig out their Bibles. The topics are routine for Clark, according to some internet reports.

"One little boy said to the other boy: Why do girls wear makeup and perfume?'" waxed Clark. "Because they're ugly, and they stink. You don't want to be that. So wear makeup. It does miracles, miracles."

He also has a warning for wives. "When you push him away, pretend you're asleep, wear your body armor to bed, or your grandma's nighty passed down to the second or third generation, that puts the fire out and his needs aren't met. ... And if you're like that, your man still has that need. He can't deny God made him that way. Your man still has that need, and he has to decide something. Am I going to stay in a starvation diet? Am I going to look elsewhere for that need to be met? Or am I going to live miserable for the rest of my dying days?"

The sermon was picked up by many people on Facebook, who zinged Clark for degrading women, as well as his own weight, and urged the public to "report" their concerns on First General's Facebook page. The church's Facebook page has since been unpublished.

But the backlash was furious as national and alternative media including Newsweek, the New York Post and the Daily Mail published stories on the brouhaha. Messages left on Pastor Clark's cellphone for comment were not returned.

Clark was publicly censored by General Baptist Ministries, the national headquarters of General Baptist congregations. The Poplar Bluff-based headquarters wrote on its Facebook page that Clark had resigned as moderator of a planned July 2022 Generation Association of General Baptist meeting.

The ministry said Clark's comments were "not consistent with the positions and values of General Baptists," and its executive committee recommended the "Council of Associations and the MoArk Presbytery research the statements and take appropriate action."

"General Baptists believe that every woman was created in the image of God, and they should be valued for that reason. Furthermore, we believe that all individuals regardless of any other factors are so loved by God that Christ died for them," the statement read.

David Blalock, chairman of the deacons board at First General in Malden, said in a phone conversation Thursday, "We released a statement, and that's all the comment I'm going to make. We're still trying to figure everything out." The church's website announced Tuesday that Clark was taking a "leave of absence and is seeking professional counseling."

While church leaders remained reticent, tongues were wagging in Malden, a rural outpost where the local Rhodes convenience store sign boasts "fried pies are back'' and Ernie's Country Kitchen stops serving at 2 p.m.

"It was stupid and uncalled for," said Sydney Davis, a hair stylist at Flair Hair Salon on North Douglass Street, the main strip that runs through town. "The man needs to be denounced from his pastoral duties for sure."

Davis, 22, said many of her customers have talked about Clark's comments and none support his views. Of his advice that women remain unchanged from when they first married, Davis scoffed, "You're married not to the person's body, you're married to the person's soul."

Up the street at Cash Depot, a short-term lending office, employee Aleshia Morley concurred.

"It's just absolutely ridiculous," Morley said. "It's 2021. Women are constantly being told to 'love the skin you're in' and to love who you are. And whoever's going to love you for you will love your body as well as other attributes. And for him to throw us back in the dark ages, just boom, you better get back in the kitchen being pretty, being seen and not heard (is wrong)."

"That's a preacher dude," she said. "He does marriage counseling. He has sat in sessions with women and their husbands and told them, 'Well you just need to be prettier and try harder.' Like, no, that's not what it's about."

Clark's insults grate on Morley who said she herself gained weight while married.

"I weighed 260 pounds when I was with my husband most of my marriage,'' she said. "He never strayed. He was a standup guy. And he didn't care."

Over at the Fraternal Order Of Bears Lodge No. 238 on Main Street, a bar situated on Main Street in downtown, the consensus was also that Clark's perspective was out of line.

"Sounds like he had a control issue to me," said Georgia Dilbeck, 77, a retired hairdresser who said she had been married three times and none of her three husbands ever denigrated the way she looked. She said both her daughter and son-in-law had been baptized at First General and the last time she attended there was a "standing-room only" crowd. She said she read one local man's Facebook comments on the controversy: "He was taking up for his wife and she did not have to have makeup on, false eyelashes or anything." She also pointed out that Clark himself "is a big guy."

Robert Ross, 66, the bartender and manager on duty, said of the home-grown fury: "All I heard is that he made some remarks that's not going well with the women."

As for himself, Ross said, "Me and my wife have been married for 29 years. We both have gained weight, we both have lost weight together. It's what you want to do and who you want to be with. And I love her just as much as I did when I married her."

Also weighing in on the subject was John Hampton, 68, a widower whose wife, Peggy, was a Malden city employee.

"When I woke up in the morning, my wife was just as beautiful when she first got up as she was when she put her makeup on," said Hampton, a retired steelworker. "The bottom line is when you get married, it says for better or worse."

Of Clark, he said, "I think he's an idiot." "I'm attracted to the heart."