At every turn, there’s someone trying to humble a woman. That desire intensifies when she’s Christian and Black. Pastor Jamal Bryant’s wife, Karri Turner, M.Div, has been criticized for a nude-colored dress she wore to the 2025 UNCF Atlanta Mayor’s Masked Ball at Signia by Hilton Atlanta in December.
Critics say the dress was inappropriate for a pastor’s wife. The dress in question was a figure-hugging strapless gown with lace detailing. The top-half was flesh-toned, which caused some people to mistake it for a sheer or see-through dress. In other words, people are angry about perceived nudity on the part of a pastor’s wife.
Luckily, Pastor Bryant stood in solidarity with his missis and didn’t leave her to the wolves. In fact, he addressed the vitriol in the pulpit during a New Year’s Eve service.
“I needed to get this straight. I needed to deal with it head-on,” Bryant began in a video recording of the moment. “Because the other day, the internet went crazy about a dress my wife had on.”
He continued, “Now they didn’t say anything about the $4 million dollars that was raised for the United Negro College Fund. They never mentioned that she prayed until heaven came down. They never said anything about how this was the largest fundraiser for HBCUs in the country. But insecure, jealous, petty, small-minded people got in their feelings and set up a false barometer of holiness based off of a dress.”
“Now you got to help some people, because some people are going to embrace the full knowledge of ignorance without any assistance for understanding,” he added. “The dress was not see-through; the dress was flesh-color.”
Bryant made sure to tee his message up by letting the people know he approved the dress.
“I needed to set the record straight: I bought the dress! And I like it!” he said. “I don’t care whether you like it or not, she ain’t married to y’all. She married to me.”
Women being criticized for what they wear isn’t new. Pastors’ wives being held to impossible standards isn’t new either. But both are antiquated and harmful. In this case, focusing on a dress versus the altruistic work Turner is doing feels like an attempt to discredit that very noble work. Why is a pastor’s wife’s attire more important than raising $4 million for the United Negro Fund? How does a pastor’s wife dressing “modestly” improve the lives of Black people or church folk? On a micro level, how does it make the disgruntled people’s lives any better? I would bet my money that it doesn’t.
Considering barely any skin was showing in Turner’s dress, the ruckus seems to be about two things: policing women and the pedestals we put Black Christian women on.
Policing women is a byproduct of patriarchy, a system that despises women who dare to embrace individualism, self-expression, and self-autonomy. Despite how progressive we think society is, we still have a strange obsession with trying to chain women to limiting ideas of modesty, and on a deeper level, morality. You can’t be Christian and sexually attractive. You can’t wear a flesh-toned dress and be someone with strong morals.
The minister wearing that dress rubbed people who hold those patriarchal values the wrong way, both men and women alike. And unfortunately, it also shifted the conversation away from the positive moral values being exemplified—doing work that serves others. Considering the latter is the crux of Christianity, I wonder why commentators are more hung up on how she looks than what she does. Performative outrage, perhaps?
Whatever the reason, it’s time to take Christian leaders off pedestals. It’s concerning that our expectations of people in power haven’t shifted, despite repeated falls from grace. Leaders will always fall short because they’re human, and that’s why grace and nuance should help mold our expectations. What’s most important is focusing on their fruit. That will always trump respectability politics, which often focus on external actions instead of intrinsic values.