Critical Race Theory and the Southern Baptist Church

    Many Baptist ministers are considering leaving the Southern Baptist Convention. One of the friction points is the rejection of Critical Race Theory by the Southern Baptist Church. The Church believes CRT is incompatible with the Bible. Several Black ministers obviously disagree.

    Several Black pastors within the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) are weighing leaving the convention due to a lack of racial sensitivity from the predominately white convention.

    According to the Associated Press, one of the primary sticking points came from a statement issued by six white seminary presidents in November of last year. The statement declared that critical race theory— the study and critique of systemic racism—was incompatible with the scripture-based tenets of the SBC. 

    Obviously, this rubbed a lot of Black pastors within the convention the wrong way.

    “The optics of six Anglo brothers meeting to discuss racism and other related issues without having ethnic representation in the room in 2020 — at worst it looks like paternalism, at best insensitivity,” Virginia pastor Marshal Ausberry, president of the organization that represents the SBC’s Black pastors, told Baptist Press. 

    Ausberry wrote a letter to the presidents explaining that critical race theory is necessary to “help us to see and discover otherwise undetected, systemic racism in institutions and in ourselves.”

    The presidents eventually apologized for issuing a proclamation about race without actually talking to the people it affects, but have remained steadfast in their belief that identifying racism somehow isn’t in line with the Bible.

    Dwight McKissic, a Texas-based pastor who has been with the SBC for over 45 years, attended a meeting with the presidents on Jan. 6 and said that while it was polite, “the outcome was not respectful to who Black people are in our history.”

    https://www.theroot.com/black-pastors-consider-leaving-southern-baptist-convent-1846128871
     

    Black ministers who joined the Southern Baptist Convention are not radical lefties. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

     

     

     

    Comments


    An alternate view of CRT

    Critical race theory offers a way of seeing the world that helps people recognize the effects of historical racism in modern American life. The intellectual movement behind the idea was started by legal scholars as a way to examine how laws and systems uphold and perpetuate inequality for traditionally marginalized groups. In Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic’s book Critical Race Theory: An Introduction, they define the critical race theory movement as “a collection of activists and scholars interested in studying and transforming the relationship among race, racism, and power.”

    Kimberlé Crenshaw, one of the founding scholars of CRT and the executive director and co-founder of the African American Policy Forum, says that critical race theory “is a practice—a way of seeing how the fiction of race has been transformed into concrete racial inequities.”

    https://time.com/5891138/critical-race-theory-explained/

    Bernice King on efforts to suppress CRT

    Therre is no teaching on the horrors and myriad of monstrous manifestations of white supremacy and racism that will be palatable to white supremacists and racists.

    https://time.com/5891138/critical-race-theory-explained/

    Isabel Wilkeron's "Caste" makes a similar argument about a system structured to keep people in the proper places.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/31/books/review-caste-isabel-wilkerson-origins-of-our-discontents.html

    A current example of where CRT is helpful

    Here’s a specific current example: consider the fact that a disproportionate amount of people from Black and Latinx communities are being impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the CDC, Black and Latinx people are twice as likely die from the virus as white people. A person considering that stat in a vacuum might assume that genetic or biological factors are to blame—a false conclusion that insinuates that there is something inherently wrong with Black and Latinx bodies. However, a person applying a critical race theory framework to this issue would also ask how historical racism—which manifests today in everything from access to clean air to treatment by medical professionals—might be influencing this statistic, and would thus arrive at a much more complete and nuanced explanation.


    https://time.com/5891138/critical-race-theory-explained/

    Liberalism will remain intact

     



    And what is the pattern, for those of us who arent psychic?

    Did you read none/some/most/all of the articles?


    I read 4 of the articles, they are pretty short.

    Not impressed

    Theme centered around the great threat CRT posed to the country

    As noted, Bernice King disagreed with the argument CRT was of no value

    Trump also criticized CRT 

    Trump then decided to release his laughable 1776 commission report on MLK Day

    Biden removed the 1776 report from the WH website on his first day in office.

    Obviously, Mr. Lindsay is free to state his opinion


    Here is why some Black SBC members think CRT is appropriate 

     

    Why are SBC seminary presidents rejecting Critical Race Theory if they teach about Jesus and the prophets who denounced injustice?

    Critical Race Theory is based on the view that one cannot accurately interpret and understand issues of social justice and public policy without analyzing how white supremacy and racism affect law, commerce, education, crime and punishment, public health and community well-being.

    Intersectionality is a theoretical framework first advanced by Kimberle Crenshaw, a law professor at the UCLA and Columbia University Schools of law, that examines how multiple kinds of identity (race, gender, sex, class, ability, nationality/immigration status, sexual orientation) combine (intersect) to affect public policies and social justice. Crenshaw explains intersectionality in a TED Talk.

    The SBC seminary presidents did not explain in their statement how any aspect of Critical Race Theory or Intersectionality is “incompatible” with the Baptist Faith and Message. We have yet to be told how the seminary presidents consider CRT and Intersectionality in conflict with SBC confessional beliefs. All it took was for six white Southern Baptist men to issue a naked statement to that effect, without supporting proof or arguments.

    In doing so, the SBC seminary presidents unwittingly demonstrated why CRT and Intersectionality are important. Their statement showed the world, and especially Southern Baptists, that white men determine what ways are acceptable to analyze religious faith, public policy, and social justice. It also showed that the views of white Southern Baptist men about religious faith, public policy and social justice cannot be questioned, let alone critiqued or challenged, by people of color, women, people who are LGBTQ, immigrants and people with varying levels of ability. In one fell swoop, the SBC presidents presented themselves as textbook examples of white supremacy and the analytical usefulness of CRT and Intersectionality.

    The statement seems to have been crafted and issued to placate some SBC pastors who object to CRT and Intersectionality because those analytical lenses force people to confront the realities of racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia, classism, ablism and xenophobia. Southern Baptists have not been “the light of the world” regarding those realities.

    https://baptistnews.com/article/why-are-sbc-seminary-presidents-rejecting-critical-race-theory-if-they-teach-about-jesus-and-the-prophets-who-denounced-injustice/#.YBBQ0YFOJOk

     


    Seems like 10lbs of shit in a 5lb bag. Humans aren't that clever - if they have to juggle 10 variables to understand or decided on any issue they're screwed.


    That is your opinion

    Many pastors have no problem retrieving Biblical quotes from memory

    They are also able to put passages in context with life events and the news of the day.

    The Black SBC pastors feel that CRT meets the needs of their congregations

    It is also clear that they are pissed off because they were not consulted before the SBC commission spoke out against CRT

     


    And to support that statement you quote 

    That joint statement illustrates why I stopped affiliating with the SBC two generations ago.

    I don't particularly care - i don't necessarily see CRT as counter to Christianity, just overly complex and unuseful..

    PS - of course it's my opinion, doh!!!


    suggestion to you on that, PP: Christian sects that stress analyzing every word of the bible to the max uber alles as the center of their world are little different than Jewish sects that do the same with the Talmud and CRT is starting to strikingly look like just another very similar "text" or guidebook where one makes it the center of one's world and tries to fit everything else in the world into that text. It's long been accepted that we call these "text people" scholars, but it's still a way different kind of scholar from other usages. That's the reason for tension here, they are all the same closed systems for splaining the world. It's like: should we accept an addendum of this new text to our holy text or shouldn't we? 


    P.S. Comes to mind back when popes had much more control of the world, it was so much easier to deal with this, pope calls it heresy and they get burned at the stake. Over and done with. This worked well until the whole Galileo thing, Renaissance threw ancient greek and latin texts into the mix and the printing press made them all available, before you knew it there was science and nobody cared if the pope agreed or not...

    (I know, I know, extended CRT says other than western civilizations had it all figured out way before the west messed things up, they were glorious civilizations of higher knowledge and better systems, equality and tolerance for all, geniuses at math and sciences, etc. Islam, China, Persia, africa pick one, all better, I've read it all a million times so let's not even bother--all I  would like to say on that is that it would really mess with the heads of American Christian Baptist minister "scholars", though, if they go there. Cause "Jesus" is such a minor figure in end game of CRT.)


    Next time I'm stressing over my Kabbala I'll remember that.


    And what is the pattern, for those of us who arent psychic?

    Did you read none of/some/most/all the articles?


    This all seems good to me. The more infighting and internal strife in religious sects the better. The more divided and smaller the churches the less power they have. The nonsense that religions insist you believe makes Qanon look reasonable and sensible and religions are much more dangerous. I'd like to see more schisms in these huge religious organizations.


    Interesting piece in NYT about Christian Nationalist involvement in the Capitol attack

    An enlightening comment about how Black and white Christian Nationalists tend to view the Bible

    A small percentage of African-Americans qualify as Christian nationalists, but Perry pointed out that “it’s obvious Black and White Americans are thinking of something completely different when they think about the nation’s ‘Christian heritage.’ ”

    To ask white Americans about restoring America’s Christian character, Perry continued,

    is essentially to ask them how much they want to take the country back to the days when they (white, native-born, conservatives) were in power. To ask Black Americans about America’s Christian past is more likely to evoke thoughts of what we’ve traditionally thought of as “civil religion,” our sacred obligation to being a “just” nation, characterized by fairness, equality, and liberty.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/28/opinion/christian-nationalists-capitol-attack.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage


    Obviously, CRT could not pass muster


    Huh? White conservative native-born are largely still in power, and whites still outnumber everyone else. Folks be getting over their skis on this race stuff. Whitey ain't clocked out yet, but thanks for your concern.


    My post is about how white Evangelicals view the message in the Bible and how it differs from how many Blacks, even Conservative Black pastors who joined the SBC interpret the Bible. This may help explain why Black pastors have no problem with CRT.


    Is that saying anything?  Blacks will of course largely support blacks, whites whites, duh... But we're the 20s the good old days? Not perfect, but lynchings down, black social position up, jobs and good times. Do simpler times only attract for racism?


    People who live in 2021 base their existence on 2021

    They do not base it on not living in slave's quarters

    They do not wake up thankful that are no lynchings


    You can't keep things straight, can you.

    To ask white Americans about restoring America’s Christian character, Perry continued, is essentially to ask them how much they want to take the country back to the days when they (white, native-born, conservatives) were in power. 

    People who live in 2021 base their existence on 2021

    Addicted to contradiction?


    PP

    Huh? White conservative native-born are largely still in power, and whites still outnumber everyone else. Folks be getting over their skis on this race stuff. Whitey ain't clocked out yet, but thanks for your concern.

    and

    But we're the 20s the good old days? Not perfect, but lynchings down, black social position up, jobs and good times.

    Edit to add:

    The power Perry is talking about is the power to deny access to microphones to many in the Black community 

    Now we have Hawley whining about being cancelled while speaking to millions on a nationwide news broadcast.


    Regarding power, note that the SBC did not feel the need to discuss the CRT issue with Black pastors in the Convention.


    So? What's your point? I'd  feel absolutely certain to bet that not every single person with black skin that's in the convention agrees with adding CRT to their "canon." One does not equal the other. It's not "racism" it's anti-CRT-ism. It's not the point of a religion to let everyone in the religion believe everything they want to believe, sort of the opposite. We freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion. Martin Luther did not agree with the pope, he had to leave and start his own.You reported all anyone needs to know by reporting the disagreement. Over and done with, the thing stands for itself: according to the way they operate (I would point out here that some religions are even more dictatorial) the ones in power don't want to add CRT. If others do, start your own church that does.

    That's the way this is supposed to work, nothing wrong with it.You don't like that you have to find another country. 


    p.s. ocean-kat is outraged that anyone believes in what most religions teach, and he can't do anything about it either.


    AA 

    So? What's your point? I'd  feel absolutely certain to bet that not every single person with black skin that's in the convention agrees with adding CRT to their "canon."

    Me

    Here is why some Black SBC members think CRT is appropriate

    Some churches are considering an exit from SBC

     


    PeePee ... 01/26 - 1:51pm

    Seems like 10lbs of shit in a 5lb bag. Humans aren't that clever - if they have to juggle 10 variables to understand or decided on any issue they're screwed.

    RMRD ... at the beginning

    Black ministers who joined the Southern Baptist Convention are not radical lefties. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

    AA ... late to the party

        So? What's your point? I'd  feel absolutely certain to bet that not every single person with black skin that's in the convention agrees with adding CRT to their "canon."

    RMRD at the beginning

    Black ministers who joined the Southern Baptist Convention are not radical lefties. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

    OGD ... even later now to the party...

    Why not simply agree that we all disagree and that we'll never agree?

    Although...

    "It will be interesting to see how this plays out."

    ~OGD~


    You're off-message - unity, or as Rodney said, "why can't we all just get along?" Whether it's interesting is another matter - not everyone seems programmed to entertain.


    I would disagree that it's off message; OGD's main message seems to be far from any concept of unity; it's all about creating a narrative about the cast of characters on Dagblog. Real news is boring, and there's not enough pro-wrestling on tv to comment on, so he's going to review the behavior of the pseudonymous characters on Dagblog and hopefully get them to line up on tag teams, see if he can get some brawling going among the characters. Reminds me a lot of  "Real Housewives" fans on twitter, they endlessly debate about each wife's behavior and then move on to debate with each other's analysis of each wife. 


    Lol


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