A hate preacher in Oklahoma became something of an internet celebrity for his invidious sermons denouncing homosexuality. He also has a day job, and his coworkers are terrified of him.

Dillon Awes leads the Anchor Baptist Church in Oklahoma City, a tiny congregation that calls a strip mall home and has an outsized reputation for hate. It’s part of the Independent Fundamental Baptist Church movement, an extreme form of Christianity that advocates death for LGBTQ+ people.

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He once claimed that he would stop drinking Dr. Pepper if he found out that the doctor was a woman.

Awes has said gay people “should be lined up against the wall and shot in the back of the head!” among other “solutions for the homosexual.”

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“These fa***ts should get a bullet in their brain,” he said just last year in a video that was shared online.

But while Awes isn’t spewing hate and posting his sermons online, he’s got a day job — as an application support technician for the Oklahoma City government.

“He is very bright and prompt,” one employee shared with The Oklahoman. “He is polite to everyone. And then when you see the videos, it’s like the earth shifts. It’s not this very nice person you know at work.” 

Awes was hired in 2024 as a grounds maintenance worker and was promoted to his IT post not long after. An online search of Awes background was never conducted, even as his new job is designated “cybersecurity sensitive” by the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice.

While human resources didn’t bother to Google Awes’ name, a fellow employee did when they learned Awes would be tasked with installing upgrades on employee computers.

“It’s terrifying,” said one of two LGBTQ+ co-workers about Awes’ hate sermons. “I didn’t expect that to come out of his mouth. While watching those videos, I felt physically ill.”

Remarkably, the city’s spokesperson, Kristy Yager, said human resources policy prohibits hiring managers from using search engines to vet a job applicant. She claimed the city just doesn’t have the time.

Awes was ordained at 23 by another notorious hate preacher, Jonathan Shelley, who leads the infamous Stedfast Baptist Church in Texas. Shelley co-founded Stedfast in Fort Worth in 2014, building his congregation around open hatred of Jewish people and LGBTQ+ people. In one sermon from 2022, Shelley asked, “Did [the Nazis] actually kill six million [Jewish people]?”

Stedfast and Awes’ Anchor Baptist are each featured on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups. Both churches are associated with the New Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Movement.

“In the broadest sense, he should be able to say what he believes, no matter the lack, in my opinion, of good moral grounding, for what he’s saying,” said the Rev. David Wheeler, senior minister of New Covenant Christian Church, an affirming congregation that welcomes LGBTQ+ members. 

But Awes’ co-workers fear his statements as a pastor could inspire others to act out on his hateful ideology.

“People are scared, and it’s not just gay people,” one employee said. “No one should have to go to work and think, ‘Where am I going to hide?’ if someone like that shows up with a gun.”

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