Faith leaders in Minnesota and across the United States expressed hope that their advocacy work for racial justice will gain momentum from the guilty verdict rendered against Derek Chauvin, the former police officer convicted of killing George Floyd.
As a student in college and seminary, then as a pastor in Texas, Dwight McKissic has been affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention for more than 45 years. Now he’s pondering whether he and his congregation should break away.
Dwight McKissic, a prominent Black Southern Baptist pastor in Texas, announced Friday that his church would make denominational changes in light of efforts by prominent Southern Baptists to condemn Critical Race Theory.
As some Black Southern Baptists urge their denomination’s flagship seminary to remove honors to enslavers, prominent White Calvinists associated with the school are defending not only the founders but even slavery.
In addition to increasing diversity in leadership, some Southern Baptists also want the convention and its entities to reconsider how they honor their early slave-holding leaders.
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Planned Parenthood of Greater New York announced it will remove founder Margaret Sanger's name from its Manhattan Health Center because of her "racist legacy." Meanwhile, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary refuses to remove the names of its racist founders.
Dwight McKissic shares an open letter to SBTS President Al Mohler and SBTS trustees requesting they remove honors on campus to the school's founders, including by renaming SBTS's undergraduate college and several buildings.
Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, says the school should stop using the name of a racist financial supporter, but added he will not remove the names of the slaveholding founders from campus buildings.