Small-town Missouri pastor is placed on leave after encouraging women to become "trophy wives" by looking like former First Lady Melania Trump

Melania Trump, from GQ

 

A Missouri pastor has encouraged women in his congregation to keep their husbands' attention by looking like trophy wives, citing that glowing example (and former nudie model) Melania Trump as something to aspire to.Stewart-Allen Clark, pastor of First General Baptist Church in Malden, MO, now is on a leave of absence after his remarks gained international attention. From a report at Forbes: 

Former First Lady Melania Trump is trending on social media, but not for anything she actually did. Rather, Mrs. Trump was cast in the spotlight when Pastor Stewart-Allen Clark of Missouri's Malden First General Baptist Church said during his Sunday sermon that women should look to maintain their figures and lose weight in order to keep their husband's attention.

A 22-minute video of his February sermon was shared on Facebook, and has been viewed thousands of times.

He showed a photo of the former First Lady as an example of what women should aspire to and said, "Now look, I’m not saying every woman can be the epic, epic trophy wife of all time like Melania Trump."

The pastor added, "Most women can't be trophy wives, but you know, maybe you're a participation trophy."

Clark's remarks did not go unnoticed by leaders of his denomination;

Pastor Clark now is on leave after the comments he made. General Baptist Ministries, the denomination to which his Malden First General Baptist Church belongs, said in a statement posted to its Facebook page, "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."

Of course it didn't take long for Clark's comments to be called out on social media as sexist and misogynistic. There were more than 12,000 tweets by Sunday afternoon with most in response to Clark's sermon.

A few users found humor, and poked fun directly at Pastor Clark. "This Guy said women should strive to look like Melania Trump while he looks like SNLs Pat. Classic," posted @DeathMetalIV. (See photo at end of post.)

"Women should strive to look like trophy wife Melania Trump, says the pastor who strives to look like the child of Bill Barr and Tom Arnold," suggested another @labyrinthweaver.

"I'm gonna need Stewart Allen Clark, the pastor who told women to slim down, pretty up and look more like Melania Trump to slim down, tone out, and look more like Henry Cavill," noted GMWhitehair.

@dez_blanchfield took it further, noting, "clearly he hasn't looked in the mirror recently and realized he is in fact morbidly obese himself.. if his body is the temple of his god, he surely then is by his own cult text a blasphemous brainless twerp"

"It's always the men who look 11months pregnant telling women to lose weight," noted @ReneeAlida.

The small-town preacher also made news at the UK Independent: 

A Missouri pastor is facing a backlash after suggesting in a recent sermon that women should lose weight and strive to look like former first lady Melania Trump for their husbands.

Pastor Stewart-Allen Clark, of the Malden First General Baptist Church, voluntarily went on leave and enrolled in counseling last week after a sermon of his from February caused outrage when it was uploaded to Facebook.

During the sermon, Pastor Clark suggested that women should try to maintain their figures and lose weight to keep their husband’s attention, using a picture of the former first lady as an example of what they should strive for.

“Now look, I’m not saying every woman can be the epic, epic trophy wife of all time like Melania Trump. I’m not saying that at all,” Mr Clark said as a picture of Ms Trump was shown behind him.

“Most women can’t be trophy wives, but you know, maybe you’re a participation trophy,” he continued. “I don’t know, but all I can say is not everybody looks like that. Amen! Not everybody looks like that. But you don’t need to look like a butch either,” Mr Clark added.

The pastor then told the congregation that men need to be accompanied by a beautiful wife, claiming: “Ladies, it’s the way God made us.

“It’s the way we are. Men are going to look. He made us to look. You want them to be looking at you. Don’t let yourself go.”

 

Pastor Stewart-Allen Clark