Anthea Butler writes that when White evangelicals ignore race as the motivating issue, she doubts their witness. Their handwringing, the self-abnegation, is meant to assuage their own discomfort, rather than the discomfort, violence, and continual distress of Black people in America.
The president of the National African American Fellowship told Baptist Press the SBC seminary presidents’ statement created concerns among African American pastors.
People reportedly affiliated with the hate group Proud Boys tore down Black Lives Matter signs belonging to churches in Washington Saturday night, setting at least one aflame. The damage to the signs came after supporters of President Donald Trump flocked to the nation’s capital.
On Nov. 25, vandals attacked Mount Vernon Missionary Baptist Church, a historic Black Baptist church in rural Callaway County, Missouri. On Dec. 6, Word&Way Editor Brian Kaylor met Mount Vernon’s pastor, Gordon Coleman, at the church to talk about its legacy and the damage.
At a recent annual meeting, seminary presidents in the Southern Baptist Convention reasserted the SBC’s dismissal of Critical Race Theory. Jim Wallis argues that opposing CRT as bad sociology is bad theology.
A primary method of Critical Race Theory is counter-storytelling. CRT tells stories that challenge dominant stories, norms, and assumptions. Read full piece
Last week’s statement from the presidents of six SBC seminaries opposing critical race theory isn’t good for the denomination. I don’t think they understand how problematic it is to have six White men meeting to discuss race without having anyone of color in the room
At this point, it is clear this is who the SBC is. The SBC remains committed to the very racism and hatred that instigated its founding. Read full piece
In one of the most conservative cities in North Carolina, a United Methodist pastor gingerly approaches racial issues without alienating his flock. Being a Black pastor in a predominantly White church in the age of Trump has been a challenge.
Whether things that emerge from outside the church can be put into service for the work of the gospel is a perennial question in Christian history. Read full piece