January 6, 2026
COGIC Preacher Uses Sunday Sermon To Drag Pastor Jamal Bryant On His Wife’s Dress
Pastor Bryant has defended his wife and her dress.
Church leaders are adding their two cents in the growing controversy surrounding an evening dress worn by Pastor Jamal Bryant’s wife Karri Turner.
Bishop Patrick Wooden did not mince words in his latest sermon. “So, I guess our objection to a man of the cloth presenting his wife in public looking like a $2 whore,” proclaimed the pastor. “My statement is not about her. My statement is about him. I said he presented his wife, and he said he bought the dress.
“Those are his words, not mine. And there is nothing classy about that. There’s nothing modest about that.”
Wooden continued, “Because there is such a thing as decency…In public, at an event where everyone will see, I don’t know, of a greater way for a man to demean his wife. And if he doesn’t think that that is demeaning her, there is something wrong with him.”
Wooden is a North Carolina-based “gospel preacher,” who had led the Upper Room Church of God in Christ as senior pastor for over three decades, according to the church website.
Karri wore a lace dress to the UNCF Atlanta Mayor’s Masked Ball Dec. 20. Critics deemed the outfit unbecoming of a pastor’s wife, emphasizing the importance of remaining modest, especially as an example for the church.
Pastor Bryant, the leader of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta, addressed the issue at his New Year’s Eve service. He confirmed he actually bought the dress, calling out the “insecure, jealous, petty, small-minded people” that held a “false barometer of holiness” surrounding his wife’s attire.
He added, “I need to set the record straight: I bought the dress! And I like it. I don’t care whether you like it or not; she ain’t married to [you]. She married to me.”
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