The SBC and Racism: It’s Time to Take a Stand! tagged: ,

The SBC and Racism: It’s Time to Take a Stand!

Posted by in Baptist Life

Last year at the Southern Baptist Convention, I made a promise.  I told Pastor Dwight McKissic that I would use whatever platform I have been given to advocate on behalf of the motion he made to exclude from participation in the SBC those churches that practice or approve of racial discrimination or bigotry.

Here is Pastor McKissic’s motion.

I hereby move to amend Article III, Section 1 of the SBC Constitution to read: “1. One (1) messenger from each church which: (1) Is in friendly cooperation with the Convention and sympathetic with its purposes and work. Among churches not in cooperation with the Convention are churches which act to affirm, approve, or endorse homosexual behavior or racial discrimination and bigotry in any form.

The motion was referred to the Executive Committee by the convention president, Johnny Hunt.  That was a proper procedural decision.  A motion which changes the governing documents of the convention and the procedures by which we operate should be referred.

Unfortunately, the Executive Committee has decided not to recommend McKissic’s motion to the convention.  I’m not sure why they made that decision.  There was  little rationale given in the BP article to explain their decision.  I think it was a mistake.

I was thrilled in 1995 when the SBC repented of its racist past. It is time we take the next step.  We must state publicly and unequivocally that the SBC will not sanction racism, will not permit discrimination, and will not tolerate its presence  anywhere in SBC life.  Can we completely root out racism?  No, that is a heart condition that with only be fully solved when Jesus returns.  But we can take a stand that says that racism has no place among us.

Today, I’m beginning to fulfill my promise to Dwight McKissic.  I’m not even sure he will be there to ask that the convention vote on his motion contrary to the EC recommendation.  But whether he is there or not, we need to take this stand.  Forcefully.  Unequivocally.   Clearly.

I published a similar article today at SBC Voices.  I have never, in over 2 years of  posting here at sbcIMPACT, published a reprint.  This is a first for me.  Technically, this is not a reprint, but a slight revision.  But this issue is important to me, so I thought a dual posting was worth it.

A Question

If you were at the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Orlando last year, and are as pasty white as I am, I have a question for you.  Dwight pointed out to me that every person on the podium at the convention last year was white.  Every single one.  I’ll take his word for it, because I wasn’t paying attention.  I didn’t notice.

Did you?

Does that make us racist?  I do not believe that in our hearts most of us are racist.  We do not intend to discriminate.  But we simply do not understand the effect that nearly universal whiteness of our leadership has on our African American brothers and sisters.  Whatever we intend, we are giving them the idea that we are complicit in a decision to exclude people of color from leadership positions in our convention.

There’s a lot about this I just don’t know.  But here are some things that I know or believe:

The SBC was planted in racist soil

That is a harsh statement, but I think that history bears this out.  There was a time when Baptists, even in the South, stood against slavery.  But as time went on, Baptist preachers began to accomodate themselves to the cultural norm and even found biblical justification for slavery.  When the national Baptist organization enforced a policy that slave owners could not serve as missionaries, the split began which culminated in the founding of the Southern Baptist Convention.

I wish it were not so.  But the fact is that racism is a genetic defect in the SBC.  Our founders were good men who loved the Lord and wanted to proclaim the gospel.  They loved the Word and believed it. But they had this giant hole in their convictions that allowed them to be good Christians and still believe that racism and slavery were okay.  How?  I don’t know?  We all have blind spots, but this was a big one.

The SBC has been a haven for racism

Even when slavery ended, the SBC remained a place where one could serve Jesus and discriminate against black people.  My first pastorate was in a Deep South church in the late 80s and early 90s.  I was shocked when I saw the deep-seated racism that existed in the hearts of “fine Christian people” in that area.

Our youth ministry put up a basketball goal in the church parking lot so that we could have some “fellowship” games.  One day, the goal was gone.  It was a crisis.  One of our men had seen some black teens playing basketball in a street and invited them to come down to our parking lot and play.  They did.  When some of the folks saw that blacks were playing basketball on the church parking lot, they removed the basketball goal that day.  At next Sunday’s business meeting they “sent the pastor a message” by voting down a close friend as a deacon and taking away my raise for the year.  Why?  Because some black teenagers shot hoops on our parking lot.

And these people constantly told me that they were not racists!  One man, a pillar in the church, told me a story that “proved” that he was not a racist.  He and some friends used to go hunting and they would give the black lady who worked for them some of the meat (after she cleaned it of course).  His wife gave me a history of the county we lived in.  It mentioned the good race relations in the county and attributed this to the fact that the blacks there knew their place and stayed in it!

In the next county to the north, the courts had mandated integration in 1959, and instead of obeying the order, they shut down the public schools rather than integrating them.  A whole generation of African Americans grew up without schools because these folks were so committed to segregation.  And a majority of the folks that made that decision and enforced it were likely members of Southern Baptist churches.  They believed that God wanted their educated separately from black children.  Good Baptist folks and racists – at the same time.

I’d love to know what percentage of KKK membership through history has been Southern Baptist.  Actually, I don’t want to know.

The SBC has repented of our racism

Things have changed.  Even back in the heyday of segregation and discrimination, there were courageous men who took a stand against this blight.  And the light began to dawn on us.  Finally, in 1995, at our Annual Meeting in Indianapolis, the SBC formally repented of our racist past.   You can look here to read the resolution that was passed.  I was there and I was thrilled to stand on behalf of our forbears and repent of the institutional sin that had so marked our existence.

I think we have made great strides.  A few years ago, I was sitting at a table with some pastors from our association and a pastor told a racist joke.  Every one of those white pastors was offended at the joke.  A few decades back, we would have laughed and told another one, perhaps.  But, on the other hand, we did not move to disfellowship the pastor who told the joke.  Maybe in another decade we will be at that place.

But the SBC has taken steps to repair the damage our racism has done.  That is probably why men like Dwight McKissic are affiliated with us today.

The SBC is still a white man’s haven

But the simple fact is that the SBC is still a convention run by whites.  SBC presidents.  Entity heads.  Key administrative positions.  There have been so few blacks or people of color in any of these positions.  And there are still Baptist churches in certain parts of the country that discriminate in less open but nonetheless heinous ways.  It is shameful.

We have, by our actions, told people of color that we now want you on the bus, and you can sit anywhere you please.  That’s progress, yes.  But, the white folks are still the only ones with drivers licenses.

I do not believe that this is intentional.  I do not believe our leaders are intentionally exclusionary.  We just don’t see the problem, as I did not even notice that the convention podium was an all-white thing last year.

The SBC has not done enough to demonstrate our commitment to racial equality.

Dwight McKissic seems to think that there is institutional racism in the SBC.  I’m not sure I agree.  But I do think that we have NOT DONE ENOUGH to prove to men like Dwight that we are not racist. Since we have such an undeniable racist past, it is our duty to do everything we can not only to repent of racism (which we’ve done) but also to prove that we will not tolerate it in our midst any more. We have to prove ourselves and demonstrate the genuineness of our repentance.  If we did not have the past we have, that might not be the same.  But with our past, we have to go the extra mile and prove it!  Our words are not enough.

Here are some suggestions:

1)  We need to adopt Dwight McKissic’s motion! I don’t even know if Dwight will be there this year.  He’s had it.  But we need a motion to bring the referred motion to the floor and have a vote.  Folks, we have to tell the people of color in the SBC that we are going to be as intolerant of racism as we are of perversion.  We took a stand about homosexuality.  Let’s take a stand about racism.  Let’s tell the world that we are adopting a ZERO-TOLERANCE policy toward racism.

Our past dictates that we must take an aggressive approach in the future.  In my humble opinion, the Executive Committee blew it on this one.  We need to correct their mistake.

2)  Let’s get some driver’s licenses for some of our black leaders.  I hate quotas, but we need to instruct the committee on committees that they need to increase black and other ethnic representation on our boards.  The next time there is an entity head search committee, could we at least consider some non-white candidates?  I would love to know if either the IMB or NAMB search committees ever gave serious consideration to anyone but white candidates.

3)  We must be personally intolerant of racism.  If I had it to do over again, I would tell that pastor that his joke was not appreciated.  Instead of just fuming, and talking about it later with other fuming pastors, I’d say, “There is no place in a Christian organization for racist jokes.”  We need to be willing to confront racism.

So, I believe two things:

  • Since we have a clearly racist history, the burden on us is much greater to demonstrate clearly that we will not tolerate racism in any form in our convention in the future.
  • We have made progress in the last 20 years, but we have NOT done enough.

We can do better!