A Christchurch pastor has apologised to his congregation after a video of him making homophobic and racial slurs went viral last week.

Murray Watkinson, the founder of the Celebration Centre church in Wainoni, was criticised by several former church members after he called bisexuals “gutless” and described George Floyd a “villain”, among other comments in his June 9 service.

Concerned former church members contacted Newstalk ZB Christchurch over his comments, saying he wasn’t spreading the word.

Today in his Sunday service he said “I want to take full responsibility for my words, and I wrote down three things, because a portion of that message, that I preached, last week, was inappropriate, it was insensitive, and it was actually inconsistent with my own views and convictions.”

Reading from notes, Watkinson said “all I can do as a Christian leader is take full responsibility for my actions and for my words, confess my wrongs, and failures, my weakness, and apologise to everyone who heard those words, and have been affected by them, hurt by them, wounded by them, troubled, upset, angered, I do apologise, I sincerely apologise, and I ask for your forgiveness.”

He told his congregation “even my spiritual pastors contacted me and said Murray, we’re standing with you, one hundred percent, but we can’t agree with what you said in those clips.”

Later in the service, the pastor commented on what he described as “political progressive values” – allowing the legalisation of homosexuality.

“A lot of people are involved in the homosexual lifestyle these days so let’s legalise it. Homosexuality used to be illegal in most nations of the world and is still illegal in many many nations of the world, but progressive politics says, there’s a lot of people involved in this, so it’s time we legalise it.”

Later in the service, Murray Watkinson said the church had received “death threats and threats to burn down the church.”