Black pastors warn racism is reaching boiling point in Southern Baptist Convention that could lead to civil war

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Is a schism in the works?
On Thursday, The New Yorker published an in-depth analysis of how the Southern Baptist Convention — initially founded in support of slavery — faces increasing internal conflict as they fight over issues of confronting racism.

"For the past few years, prominent members of the S.B.C., including Albert Mohler, the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, the denomination's oldest academic institution, have demonized C.R.T., calling it, among other things, Marxist and anti-Biblical," reported Eliza Griswold. "Critics have frightened S.B.C. members with the prospect that the theory could soon be used in public schools to indoctrinate children against conservative values. During the organization's yearly conference in 2019, the resolutions committee attempted to address the tensions over C.R.T., putting forth a statement that acknowledged incompatibilities between Biblical teachings and the academic theory, yet upheld the reality of structural racism."

"Within a week, hard-line conservatives within the S.B.C. seized upon the resolution and cast it as a threat from the left," said the report. "Throughout 2020, state chapters passed resolutions rejecting critical race theory. Then, last November, on the heels of the nationwide Black Lives Matter protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd, the presidents of S.B.C.'s six seminaries issued an incendiary statement calling C.R.T. 'incompatible with the Baptist Faith & Message.' This outraged many pastors of color; none had suggested applying the teachings of C.R.T to the church, but they felt that its blanket rejection was being used by white leaders to dismiss the realities of racism."

One SBC pastor from Arlington, Texas, Dwight McKissic, was shocked at the anger and hate he got from urging the conference address racial issues better, receiving a letter from Southern Baptist author John Rutledge filled with racist hate and claiming that "the Negro" remains "savages." And John Onwuchekwa, a Nigerian-American pastor from Atlanta who abandoned the conference, said, "Y'all are arguing over a theory that is just trying to accurately describe the reality I live in. It's like someone is bleeding out on the floor and these guys are fighting over how many pints of blood a person can lose."

These sorts of issues are nothing new for the SBC to tackle — many of its members took a stand when President Donald Trump praised the Proud Boys at a presidential debate last year, denouncing white supremacy as a "scheme of the devil." But conflict is only increasing.

According to the report, the SBC will select its new leader at a conference in Nashville next week — and their selection will decide the future of the organization.

"One candidate is [Albert] Mohler, the seminary president who was the face of the charge against C.R.T.," wrote Griswold. "He told me recently that C.R.T. goes against 'both Christianity and modern political, classical liberty.' Another contender is Mike Stone, a pastor from South Georgia who is even more conservative than Mohler; when we spoke, he called C.R.T. a 'weapon of division.' The third is Ed Litton, a soft-spoken pastor who has been involved in racial-reconciliation efforts in Mobile, Alabama, and who believes that the fight over C.R.T. has become a way to avoid talking about the need for structural change in the Southern Baptist Convention. 'We have to exercise the muscle of Biblical truth, and also extend compassion to those who have suffered injustice,' Litton told me."
https://www.rawstory.com/southern-baptist-civil-war/

You can read more here. https://www.newyorker.com/news/on-relig ... convention

Who is going to nail the charges for change on the door of the SBC headquarters?
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: Black pastors warn racism is reaching boiling point in Southern Baptist Convention that could lead to civil war

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FrontSight wrote: Thu Jun 10, 2021 2:43 pm Anything that weakens the Church; I'm all for!!
I agree!

The Southern Baptist Seminary is about five miles from my house. Mohler is being dragged by his ears, kicking and screaming, into the twenty-first century, out of the nineteenth. His tenure at the SBS has been marked with several new challenges for that institution, including that its once-well-regarded School of Social Work lost accreditation within two years of his being the head of the place. I am not the least bit surprised that he would resist CRT since it puts the lie to just about everything he holds dear.

His point that CRT is "anti-biblical" is actually not far off the mark, since his holy book endorses slavery (indeed, all the versions of his holy book, not just the KJV of which he is so fond, endorse owning of humans as property--anyone who claims that holy book is to be taken as a whole as inerrant and taken as a moral and ethical guide is inhumane at best).
Eventually I'll figure out this signature thing and decide what I want to put here.

Re: Black pastors warn racism is reaching boiling point in Southern Baptist Convention that could lead to civil war

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The Southern Baptist Convention tamped down a push from the right at its largest meeting in decades on Tuesday, electing a new president who has worked to bridge racial divides in the church and defeating an effort to make an issue of critical race theory.

Ed Litton, a pastor from Alabama, won 52% of the vote in a runoff against Mike Stone, a Georgia pastor backed by a new group called the Conservative Baptist Network that has sought to move the already-conservative denomination further right.

Litton, who is white, was nominated by Fred Luter, the only Black pastor to serve as president of the United States’ largest Protest denomination. Luter praised Litton’s commitment to racial reconciliation and said he has dealt compassionately with the issue of sexual abuse within SBC churches, another hot-button subject at the gathering of more than 15,000 church representatives.

Stone had campaigned aggressively, including speaking at churches across the country and even appearing on Fox & Friends on Tuesday before the vote. And the Conservative Baptist Network had encouraged supporters to come to the meeting as voting delegates.

But in the end, the message that seemed to resonate with voters was that Stone — who supported a motion to repudiate critical race theory, an academic construct for framing systemic racism that has been a target of religious and political conservatives — was a divisive choice.

“We’re a family, and at times it seems like an incredibly dysfunctional family.” Litton said after the results were announced. “But we love each other.”

Delegates rejected a proposal that would have explicitly denounced critical race theory. Instead they approved a consensus measure that does not mention it by name but rejects any view that sees racism as rooted in “anything other than sin.”

The measure also affirmed a 1995 resolution apologizing for the history of racism in a denomination that was founded in 1845 in support of slavery and for “condoning and/or perpetuating individual and systemic racism in our lifetime.”

One white delegate urged the convention to denounce critical race theory by name, saying it held him “guilty because of the melanin content of my skin.” But another argued that the convention shouldn’t be swayed by a political movement that has already seen some state legislatures ban teaching of the theory.
https://apnews.com/article/southern-bap ... 1aa279003c
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Black pastors warn racism is reaching boiling point in Southern Baptist Convention that could lead to civil war

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There are folks who profit from persuading others to light their hair afire and run about aimlessly regarding this or that topic. I'm pretty sure "Civil War" will not be a result. I think burn salves and head scarves might be a more predictable outcome.

So I ran out and bought "Critical Race Theory", a collection of papers on that topic. I figured I'd find out what all the fuss is about. I'll post about in a week or so.

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

Re: Black pastors warn racism is reaching boiling point in Southern Baptist Convention that could lead to civil war

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CDFingers wrote: Wed Jun 16, 2021 3:20 pm There are folks who profit from persuading others to light their hair afire and run about aimlessly regarding this or that topic. I'm pretty sure "Civil War" will not be a result. I think burn salves and head scarves might be a more predictable outcome.

So I ran out and bought "Critical Race Theory", a collection of papers on that topic. I figured I'd find out what all the fuss is about. I'll post about in a week or so.

CDFingers

Looking forward to it, I've skimmed some articles but nothing in depth. I'm interested in seeing how state school boards write curriculum guidelines to meet those new state laws.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Black pastors warn racism is reaching boiling point in Southern Baptist Convention that could lead to civil war

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Just waiting to see if we see a schism in the Southern Baptist World. We could see the Southern Baptist and the Conservative Baptist. The Southern Baptist was created over a schism about slavery.

CDf waiting to see your post.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

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