Baptist Pastor Disapproves of Priest Blessing Waco's New Hooters
by Allie Martin
January 26, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A pastor in Waco, Texas, says students from the world's largest Baptist university should not be working at a restaurant known for its waitresses' revealing uniforms.Last year, about 60 local pastors signed a petition asking city officials to stop a Hooters from locating there, but that effort proved vain.
Earlier this week Hooters opened a restaurant in Waco, home to Baylor University. Greg Brumit, pastor of Kendrick Lane Baptist Church, led a petition drive and a number of protests in an effort to stop the business from locating in his city. Other area pastors and protesters got involved in the campaign to stop the construction on the eatery famous for its female servers' low-cut tank tops and short-shorts.
Brumit says he was not surprised by a report in Baylor's newspaper, The Lariat, which quoted a manager as saying that several of the university's students work at Hooters. "Each individual student's different there at Baylor. They're not all Christians," he notes. "Those students can choose to work where they want."
The pastor adds a note of suspicion. "I'm sure that Hooters was hoping for some Baylor girls to work there," he says.
What did come as a surprise to Brumit, however, is the move on the part of a Catholic priest to bless the restaurant's grand opening. The evening before the new Hooters opened, Monsignor Isidore Rozycki, head Catholic priest for the Greater Waco area, offered a special prayer of blessing for the restaurant at a VIP reception at the restaurant.
Kendrick Lane Baptist's pastor says the incident was bizarre. "I would think with all the problems [the Catholics] have had that they wouldn't promote something like that. I was a little disappointed," he observes.
"The Catholic priest that they had seemed to think that the rest of these ministers, about 60 who signed the letter of petition against Hooters opening, were a little narrow-minded," Brumit continues. "But the Bible does say, 'Narrow is the way' to life, and wide is the road to destruction."
Brumit's church is just down the street from the Waco Hooters. In a recent Associated Press interview, he said he does not plan to hold any more protests now that the restaurant has opened and instead will leave "the rest to the Lord."
Allie Martin, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
