Dr. Albert Mohler and SBTS have just released a groundbreaking document called “Report on Slavery and Racism in the History of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.” I gave it a quick perusal, so I am not going to offer much analysis at this time, other than to say that this kind of honest appraisal of our history is needed among Southern Baptists.
A PDF of the full report is available here.
The report begins with a letter from Dr. Mohler with an overview and explanation. It is helpful and is copied here inn full.
Dear Friends:
We are living in an age of historical reckoning. Communities, nations, institutions, Christian churches, and denominations are now called upon to ask hard questions and, when necessary, to face hard realities. This is true of the Southern Baptist Convention, and it is true for The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
In 1995, when Southern Baptists celebrated the one-hundred fiftieth anniversary of the founding of our convention, we recognized a reckoning was required. The Convention overwhelmingly adopted an historic resolution which, among other affirmations, stated:
- Our relationship to African-Americans has been hindered from the beginning by the role that slavery played in the formation of the Southern Baptist Convention; many of our Southern Baptist forbears defended the right to own slaves, and either participated in, supported, or acquiesced in the particularly inhumane nature of American slavery; and in later years Southern Baptists failed, in many cases, to support, and in some cases opposed, legitimate initiatives to secure the civil rights of African-Americans.
That was an historic act in which the Southern Baptist Convention also declared to the public, “we apologize to all African-Americans for condoning and/or perpetuating individual and systemic racism in our lifetime; and we genuinely repent of racism of which we have been guilty, whether consciously or unconsciously and we ask forgiveness from our African-American brothers and sisters, acknowledging that our own healing is at stake.”
That was more than twenty years ago. I was honored to be part of the small working group of both white and African-American Southern Baptists who drafted that historic statement. Then, as now, I was president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. At that time, I think it is safe to say that most Southern Baptists, having made this painful acknowledgment and lamenting this history, hoped to dwell no longer on the painful aspects of our legacy.
That is not possible, nor is it right. It is past time that The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary—the first and oldest institution of the Southern Baptist Convention—must face a reckoning of our own. Since our founding in 1859, at no moment has the history of this school been separated, by even the slightest degree, from the history of the denomination. What is true of the Convention was and is true of her mother seminary. We share the same history, serve the same churches, cherish the same gospel, confess the same doctrine, and bear the same burdens.
We cannot escape the fact that the honest lament of the SBC should have been accompanied by the honest lament of her first school, first seminary, and first institution. We knew ourselves to be fully included in the spirit and substance of that resolution in 1995, but the moral burden of history requires a more direct and far more candid acknowledgment of the legacy of this school in the horrifying realities of American slavery, Jim Crow segregation, racism, and even the avowal of white racial supremacy. The fact that these horrors of history are shared with the region, the nation, and with so many prominent institutions does not excuse our failure to expose our own history, our own story, our own cherished heroes, to an honest accounting—to ourselves and to the watching world.
We have been guilty of a sinful absence of historical curiosity. We knew, and we could not fail to know, that slavery and deep racism were in the story. We comforted ourselves that we could know this, but since these events were so far behind us, we could move on without awkward and embarrassing investigations and conversations.
In the larger secular world, just about every major institution of American public life is being called to account for some aspect of its history. This cultural conversation, often confused and intense, is far from over. I also believe that no secular worldview can bear the weight of this reckoning. Thanks be to God, we hold to a theology grounded in Holy Scripture that is able to bear this weight. We know that evil is not merely moral wrong; it is sin, a falling short of the glory of God and the breaking of God’s commandment. We understand the wrong of American slavery and segregation to be sin, a rebellion against God’s creation of human beings equally in his image.
We do have heroes and heroines, even as we find them in the Bible. But, in the end, the Bible reveals only one true hero, Jesus Christ. Even the heroes and heroines of faith honored in the Bible, as in Hebrews 11, were sinners. That same Bible is honest about their sin. We must be equally honest about our theological, denominational, and institutional heroes.
The founding faculty of this school—all four of them—were deeply involved in slavery and deeply complicit in the defense of slavery. Many of their successors on this faculty, throughout the period of Reconstruction and well into the twentieth century, advocated segregation, the inferiority of African-Americans, and openly embraced the ideology of the Lost Cause of southern slavery.
What we knew in generalities we now know in detail. As president of this school, I have sought models for how an institution can honestly deal with such truths. In candor, I found the most encouraging model in the approach of Princeton University in its “Princeton & Slavery” project. Princeton’s report begins with these words: “Princeton University, founded as the College of New Jersey in 1746, exemplifies the central paradox of American history. From the start, liberty and slavery were intertwined.”
If you change the name of the school and the year of its founding, you could make the same statement about almost any prominent and early institution of American life through at least some point in the nineteenth century. Those words would certainly be true of Southern Seminary.
A year ago, I asked a team of Southern Seminary and Boyce College faculty members to spend twelve months conducting a thorough investigation of these questions. Some of our own students were asking these questions. We all should have been asking these questions. How can a school like Princeton University face the truth while we, holding to the truth of the gospel, would refuse to do the same?
The chairman was Dr. Gregory A. Wills, professor of church history and former dean of the School of Theology. Author of our sesquicentennial history, published by Oxford University Press, and a skilled historian, Dr. Wills convened the meetings and wrote the draft of the report. Others serving with him include Dr. Jarvis J. Williams, associate professor of New Testament interpretation; Dr. Curtis A. Woods, assistant professor of applied theology and biblical spirituality and associate executive director of the Kentucky Baptist Convention; Dr. Matthew J. Hall, dean of Boyce College; Dr. John D. Wilsey, associate professor of church history; and Dr. Kevin Jones, associate dean of Boyce College at the time of commissioning and now interim chair of the School of Education and Human Development at Kentucky State University. To each of them we owe a great debt. Their year of labor is now an important contribution to Southern Seminary’s history.
With this letter, I release this entire report to the public. Nothing has been withheld. At the onset, I made a pledge to this team that I would hold nothing from the public and would release their report in full.
What does all of this mean? We are faced with very hard questions, but they are not new to historic Christianity. When I arrived as a student at the Seminary in 1980, I came ready to make the history of this school my history, even as the history of the Southern Baptist Convention is my history. Over time, I had to think some hard thoughts. How could Christians hold, simultaneously, such right and wrong beliefs? How could a heroic figure like Martin Luther, that great paragon of the Reformation, teach, defend, and define the glorious truths of the gospel while expressing vile medieval anti-Semitism? The questions come again and again.
Eventually, the questions come home. How could our founders, James P. Boyce, John Broadus, Basil Manly Jr., and William Williams, serve as such defenders of biblical truth, the gospel of Jesus Christ, and the confessional convictions of this Seminary, and at the same time own human beings as slaves—based on an ideology of race—and defend American slavery as an institution?
Like Luther, they were creatures of their own time and social imagination, to be sure. But this does not excuse them, nor will it excuse us. The very confessional convictions they bequeathed to us reveal that there is only one standard by which Christians must make such judgments, and that is the sole authority of the Bible. They preached the gospel of Jesus Christ to all people, slave and free. We hold to that same gospel, pointing sinners to the promise of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. Like our founders, we believe that repentance, which they confessed as an “evangelical grace,” is essential to the gospel. The very gospel truths that they taught, defined, and handed down to us are the very truths that allow us to release this report with both lament and conviction.
We must repent of our own sins, we cannot repent for the dead. We must, however, offer full lament for a legacy we inherit, and a story that is now ours. But this report is not the shattering of images. Boyce, Broadus, Manly, and Williams would be first to make that clear. As Christians, we know no total sanctification or perfection in this life. We await something better, our future glorification by Christ.
We also rejoice in knowing that Christ is creating a new humanity, purchased with his precious blood. Thanks be to God, we are seeing the promise of that new humanity, right here on the campus of Southern Seminary and Boyce College. Right here, right now, we see students and faculty representing many races and nations and ethnicities. Our commitment is to see this school, founded in a legacy of slavery, look every day more like the people born anew by the gospel of Jesus Christ, showing Christ’s glory in redeemed sinners drawn from every tongue and tribe and people and nation.
We are particularly humbled by the grace and love of the many African-Americans who are counted among our alumni, students, faculty, and trustees. Our commitment is that this school will honor you, cherish you, and welcome you—everyday, evermore. You are many and you are precious to this school. You are helping us to write the present and the future, by God’s grace and to God’s glory.
In light of the burdens of history, some schools hasten to remove names, announce plans, and declare moral superiority. That is not what I intend to do, nor do I believe that to be what the Southern Baptist Convention or our Board of Trustees would have us to do.
We do not evaluate our Christian forebears from a position of our own moral innocence. Christians know that there is no such innocence. But we must judge, even as we will be judged, by the unchanging Word of God and the deposit of biblical truth.
Consistent with our theology and the demands of truth, we will not attempt to rewrite the past, nor can we unwrite the past. Instead, we will write the truth as best we can know it. We will tell the story in full, and not hide. By God’s grace, we will hold without compromise to the faith once for all delivered to the saints.
We will seek to be faithful to Jesus Christ, his gospel, and his commands. May God lead us, guide us, correct us, protect us, and teach us. This is our witness.
Sincerely,
R. Albert Mohler Jr., president
December 12, 2018
The kneejerk reaction will be to say, “another apology.” That is inaccurate. Mohler stated it very well.
We must repent of our own sins, we cannot repent for the dead. We must, however, offer full lament for a legacy we inherit, and a story that is now ours. But this report is not the shattering of images. Boyce, Broadus, Manly, and Williams would be first to make that clear. As Christians, we know no total sanctification or perfection in this life. We await something better, our future glorification by Christ.
We can only repent of our own sins (I still believe in corporate sin and repentance, but that is a debate for a different time. But he differentiates between repentance and lament – a worthy distinction. The report walks the reader through a brutally honest history of SBTS and its racial attitudes. How can we not lament when we examine the history of the SBC as regards racism, segregation, and related topics?
Every Southern Baptist should read this. Dr. Mohler and SBTS are setting the proper course here, in my opinion, though a more in-depth reading of the document will be necessary. I am sure this will be the topic of much discussion.
I realize that discussions tend to take on a life of their own, but I would make a couple of requests. If you are going to discuss the document, read it first!
If you call this another “apology” then you have likely not read the document, since they clearly differentiate between lamenting the past and repenting for someone else’s sin. Such comments risk summary execution.
Whenever racism is the topic, things can tend to get a little strange here. Let’s honor Christ in all we say.
Around 2000 or 2001, I was a young minister in a Southern Baptist church in Montgomery. I learned a story about when the Freedom Riders gathered at First Baptist Church on Ripley Street (the black First Baptist in Montgomery founded by 700 freed slaves in 1866 and pastored by Ralph Abernathy). 1500 people filled the church to encourage the Freedom Riders and the meeting was attended by Dr. King, Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, Diane Nash, John Lewis, James Farmer, Solomon Seay, Fred Gray, and Virginia and Clifford Durr – luminaries of the Civil Rights Movement. The Freedom Riders had been beaten mercilessly the day before in what was state sponsored terrorism. Now, as the congregation gathered on May 21, 1961, a mob of 3000 people wielded torches and threw rocks, bottles, and Molotov cocktails onto the roof of the church, breaking windows where shattered glass rained down on those gathered inside. The mob held the church under siege for hours while those inside prayed and sang songs like “Love Lifted Me.” I learned this story and the question that came into my soul was, “How could THIS happen in a city full of churches?” So, I decided to go back and dig deep into history to get the answer to my questions.
For the next decade, I studied, read, interviewed people, walked the streets of the city and drove through the backwaters of the South looking for answers. I am a descendent of Southerners dating to North Carolina and Virginia in the 1600s-1700s and Louisiana and Mississippi in the 1800s. All my ancestors fought for the South in the Civil War. Some owned slaves. I’m as much a Son of the South as any man who ever lived. So, it was a personal journey as well. How could a region and people so immersed in the Bible and Christianity engage in such incredible evil over such a long period of time and call it right? What happened when we decided that segregation and outright racism was no longer appropriate? Did we really repent? Did we ever have a reckoning with the past? Or did we just try and move on? I knew about the 1995 apology by Southern Baptists, but had anything really changed?
In early 2014, I finally published When Heaven and Earth Collide: Racism, Southern Evangelicals, and the Better Way of Jesus. It was an attempt to understand what went wrong in Southern evangelical theology, why, and how to fix it. Even then, it was like I was writing and proclaiming into a void. At the SBC that year, I called for an investigation into how much progress had been made on racial reconciliation since the 1995 Apology. The next year the report gave us the answer: Very little. Many of us have kept working on this and calling for a reckoning and change. I pray that this report by SBTS aids in that endeavor. We have to understand how the heresy of racism and white supremacy affected us and created grooves in our theology that are still with us today so we can better cling to the Cross now and see our witness restored. Together.
I’m just looking this over. I think they really did it. Unbelievable. Just looking at the section headings and footnotes, they traveled the contours of the journey. 71 pages. This is definitive, I think, just at first glance.
I’ll plow through it in depth later this week as I travel, but I just want to say a hearty thank you to those at Southern and Boyce who put this together. This work is sorely needed and should be read and digested by every Southern Baptist pastor and leader.
This is the best Christmas present ever. I am very emotional, yes I wrote emotional, over this.
Inasmuch as SBTS is a Christian and an educational institution, it is appropriate for this work to have been done.
We are never served well by ignorance or covering up.
So I am glad this work was done. Should have been done when the SBC did the apology.
As with any moral endeavor, however, work like this can be inappropriately used. I believe Dr. Mohler has avoided it.
Whether the SBC and SBTS will remain effective in our calling is for future generations.
The effectiveness in evangelism and discipleship of the SBC and SBTS since their founding can hardly be overstated. That is unbelievable to consider in light of their failings.
It is good that we have chronicled and lamented for our ancestor’s sins.
But having done so, my prayer for the SBC and SBTS is that we would be half as effective in reaching people for Christ as our ancestors.
One would think that we will be, especially after having identified and shed their besetting sin.
If we have the love for Christ and the souls of men that they did, we can be even more effective.
If we are not, the reasons will have nothing to do with their sin – racism. It will have to do with sins of our own.
I think that if this was late 1950’s this report would be noteworthy relevant and needed . As a child raised in the 1950’s and early 60’s it was pretty apparent why the SBC was created in 1845. That the two major Presidents of SBTS were supporters of institution of slavery and chaplins in the Confederate army tells you where their hearts and minds were . That is history. That their was racism in the SBC would only shock those who knew absolutely nothing of American history. Slavery and racism is a part of history all America has worked to atone for and do the right thing, it is ongoing. That being said America is the least racist and most fair to minorities than any country in the world. The SBC has taken a strong, deeply held , public and policy denouncing racism and acknowledging the sins of past. If they want to eradicate the honors and memories on campus to founders they should, it is a private institution. I personally would not but make sure the history both good and bad is widely known.
That it has taken this long to expound and expose the inner details of the known SBTS views on race shows how late to the party and now, other than clearly expose the racial views of the SBTS leaders serves as a good read but little else.
Unless the authors want to make a personal and professional atonement for the sins of the past. How about resigning the leadership positions and appoint extremely qualified black SBC members to have leadership positions. How about making this widely publicizied to the general SBC membership with an action plan , if that is considered a remedy. How about removing any tribute to the memories of the SBC leaders of the past who had the wrong view on racial justice and supported the sin of slavery? Is there an action plan? Is it needed? Other than filling in a historical gap what is the point of the report.
I think it is well done , researched and presented. As a long term SBC , I did not know the exact history , certainly of SBTS but “knew” the cornerstone of the creation of the SBC was the sin of slavery . So while a great effort what is it really going to accomplish, other than again rubbing the salt in the terrible historical wound of slavery and the SBC part in it.
I would just say rebrand the SBC, rename while keeping the purpose of the SBC vibrant. In essencd many local churches do not id as SBC affiliated churches.
How many monuments and tributes are on the SBTS campus to the early founders and Presidents, who were all supportive of slavery? Where is the action. Either move on with life or make real serious adjustments.
The truth is, while some knew all this, much of the history was forgotten or buried. We were still saying the SBC started over missions most of the time until a few years ago. Yes, we knew the slavery story, but we just located that to 1845 and said things have changed and we’re all better now and have been for a long time. We stuck in all in the past and anyone who wanted to talk about how the past is not even past, as Faulkner said, was labeled a problem or just ignored. We had to get on with the mission. Well, 175 years later and we still can’t talk about nominating an African American for an entity head position without people going ballistic that we’re focusing on race while they say nothing when another white guy gets the next open spot again and again and again. And, 97% of trustee appointments are white. So, if we want to change things, yes, I agree, we need to change things. But, understanding that our past helped create this present, and how/why is also important. I appreciate the efforts of those at SBTS who did this work. I pray the rest of us will use it to better understand the legacy we’ve inherited and how it created divisions and relationships that still affect us today.
Well answered Alan Cross.
Who controls the nominee process to be an entity head? Who can hire , appoint or promote a minority to a real leadership position? I think “the rest of us” while not knowing the exact details , know the foundation the SBC was built on and how it has evolved.
Who is the “other” white guy ” that should have not gotten their entity head position in the past 10 years, was there a better minority candidate? If so at whose door step can that be lead? What is the minority hiring at SBTS and outreach to African Americans? Was David Platt selected for his ability or his race? Were there absolutely no black candidates available when he left?
So as the old commercial says “where is the beef”. The ERLC has filled many positions and not a big African American presence there.
Let the guys at SBTS retire and make room for qualified people with a large percent of minorities nominated. If not we can just keep blaming the pew sitters, who really do not want to change. Neither fo the leaders , except on paper or for their own good. Do as I resolute not as I do.
Say what?
Steve,
It depends on what perspective you are looking from.
You are a long time SBCer and I am not.
I think the SBC past is deplorable and I am glad they have repented and are repenting in the ways they can, since they can’t actually repent for the sins of those who have died.
But there seems so much hidden in the way they, the SBC, goes about its administrative leadings and doings, that leads me t think that they are alignments internally that are more about power and control [translate: money] than about the purity of the Gospel. Patterson seemed like an example of that but I said “seemed” because again there seems like there is much secrecy. And although the motivations aren’t directly racist or directly against minorities theymight end up being so because they are directly relational and few minorities are involved in the group or club or ‘family’ orwhatever label fits best. Thus I know a gut who knows a guy so lets make him the prez because he’s a good guy, and he is. But since we dont know any minorities [or very few] well they get left out of the loop.
Or in other words, the powers that be and decide want to know who because they want to trust and they trust who they know. And though who they dont know might be quite trustworthy and able, they dont know them so they dont choose them.
From my perspective, and what I have read, denoms fall apart over doctrinal issues: when they accept lower Biblical standards, they fall apart and go downhill. This seems like a natural occurrence for as a people start walking away from God, His hand of blessing is withdrawn more and more.
Now the SBC has been losing members every year. One reason it seems to me is that its membership was inflated artificially by a wrong way of looking at it and by its acceptance of an easy believism/baptism thrust that was coupled by a lack of discipling new members. It was like Get em saved and baptized and our work here is done. THus many people cot dunked and soon didnt come back yet would proclaim they were saved as in Once saved always saved. So maybe our downward trend is just a necessary pruning.
BUt maybe there is a darker side to the internal workings and power structures imbedded in the denominational life. If there is, I wouldn’t know. But it wont last for the denomination will implode in on itself. Sins will be exposed.And changes will happen. Let us hope they are changes for the better and they mean a continuation of the good work the SBc is doing here and abroad.
Louis: We are just as effective and we will be even more I think. The fact that our “ancestors” had an effective outreach just shows that God will use us despite sins. That is grace. But will also forgive the damage done by holding the views they held. This was the right thing.
The best testament and conversation for our future is contained in, and begins with, our recollection of history with truth and accuracy. Thank you Dr. Mohler
In my world, relatively few Southern Baptists will ever read or hear of this document. (public either)
In my world, sadly, many pew sitters remain prejudiced against blacks and others who threaten their existence as a white person. (Christian or not).
I used to say “few” because I wanted it to be so. Burt a respected friend reminded me of the truth. It is indeed “many”.
Southern Baptists, it appears. must have their own Perestroika–a dying-off of those (pulpit and pew) who have no intention of repenting of hateful prejudice— Hate, especially against blacks, but also any other ethnicities (or Calvinists or non-Calvinists) who commit the serious crime against them of being different.
(This includes too many pulpits as well)
This is why our mass, collective apologies and attempts at universal repentance ring hollow in the public arena.
Prejudice, like bullying, will always be with us at some level. It also does the same evil in the black community as we have seen in the last two days with the black girl hanging herself.
Our pulpits must produce clear, unambiguous, biblically solid statements on this matter. For the sake of clarity and stubborn sheep, it must be preached regularly until this ugly virus (it will never completely die) remains dormant.
Glenn, you said,
“Southern Baptists, it appears. must have their own Perestroika–a dying-off of those (pulpit and pew) who have no intention of repenting of hateful prejudice— Hate, especially against blacks, but also any other ethnicities (or Calvinists or non-Calvinists) who commit the serious crime against them of being different.
(This includes too many pulpits as well)”
I used to think that. I no longer do. Time doesn’t heal anything. As generations age, they become more closed and fearful, by nature, not less. Just having people age out, die, and lose influence doesn’t change deep seated attitudes. The next generation just picks them up and they morph and take new forms, perhaps, but the results are the largely the same. We remain divided.
The Cross of Christ has to do what time cannot.
Alan,
I agree with you that it is the Cross of Christ that must do what must be done.
But I agree with Glenn that time helps weed out those who were or became prejudiced.
For either the work of the Cross is effectively sanctifying His people or it is failing.
If it is being effective, than the people grow in grace and as individuals and as congregations, they rebuke their former sins and sinful attitudes and change, becoming more Christ like and maturing in Him. That takes time. Growth takes time.
If it, the Cross of Christ, is failing to be effective, it is because God is choosing to lift His hand from the people, and allowing them to become hardened in their sin. That path ends not so well. The division is unhealed but does not remain that way because the entity perishes, the unity disintegrates, the group disappears as that group. Edom is gone. Gone. Not coming back.
Thus if it is effective and thein time, healing happens or it is not, and in time it becomes gone Edom.
God’s choice. Let us pray that He chooses to heal us from the pain/consequence of the sin and stain.
Debbie:
I too said it was the right thing.
Appreciate your acknowledgement.
Louis: I think my objection to what you wrote was this. It’s called changing the subject. I agreed with your saying we did the right thing it was the but sentence behind it that I disagree with. The but behind it minimizes this subject matter. Always has and always will.
Based on the Baptist Press article, I agree with what SBTS has done. Good, interesting information.
http://www.bpnews.net/52112/seminary-releases-honest-lament-on-slavery-racism
David R. Brumbelow
Thanks Dave for posting. The report is 72 pages (pdf) and I’m guessing about 95% of it will be news to me.
It is a stunning document – scholarly and revealing.
A Diiferent Perspective.
I needed a church home.
I didnt like the baby baptizing Presbyterian way.
I looked at joining a MacArthur protege’s church but I didnt like the dispensationalism.
Then I found a Southern Baptist church in my neighborhood whose pastor had similar theological leanings and I went there and joined.
I was raised Catholic and got saved while attending a United Brethren church. I moved away after marriage and when I moved back, that church was no longer an option for me.
Since i have been attending my church we have become quite diversified in our membership. [Nothing to do directly with me or my meager efforts].
A lot of this racial stuff the SBC has been going through seems like a different world to me, one I was never a part of.
Its like many of you have baggage I have no experience in.
My prayer for you all is to keep growing in Christ, as individuals and as congregations.
The SBC is a tool, a wonderful tool, to use to spread the Gospel to the world through IMB and NAMB, and also to train up new ministers and other other workers. But it will never be my identity in that I dont think of myself as a Southern Baptist, at least it seems, like y’all do. I am a Christian that goes to a Southern Baptist church. And I appreciate what the SBC brings to the table especially in missions. God has used the SBC to bring the Gospel to millions. My prayer is that He will use the SBC to bring it to millions more.
And i wonder how my new un-white brothers and sisters think of the SBC. I bet they are like most of the congregation and have no idea of any of all this. We are in Ohio, so maybe its different in the Legacy states. I really have no idea and cant judge it one way or the other, nor feel the need to.
Let me end with these words from Phillipians 3:12b-
…I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude; and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you; however, let us keep living by that same standard to which we have attained.
God Bless.
Michael says exactly what I’ve wanting to say. I’m a Yankee… (not a Yankee fan though!) I am not a Southern Baptist because of family history, or location. I am one because of theology. I’ve never seen a racist issue in church.
I appreciate the history of the major SBC institutions like Southern Seminary, etc., but that is not my history. Nor is it my experience. Would I like more outreach to our black and Hispanic neighbors? Yes. And we are working on it.
Just reading the introductory statement made an impact on me. I anticipate further impact of a more significant kind as I read the full document.
I came to the SBC later in life – not inheriting a pew or a legacy in any sense. As a “border state” resident in what was a strongly pro-Union location, you might think there wouldn’t be any issues but racism still rears its ugliness. I know because I have a mixed race family and get to see its impact – although, thankfully, infrequently.
This report will help me ground what I already knew when I came to this denomination and help me personally grapple with understanding the full weight of “there is none good but God” as it is documented and illuminated.
Thanks for posting this here, and for the work of SBC Voices and people like Alan Cross in the thorny thickets of reconciliation of brothers and sisters and sinners to God.
James Ellis
I have now read the document in full.
It is great, in my opinion. I am glad this was done. I wonder how many educational institutions in the US have done this.
I was a history major, so none of the information surprises me. I am surprised that it’s not worse.
This document puts in one place enough information to inform people going forward.
This was not an easy read in the least, but necessary in every way. I lived in the building named after Carver when I attended Boyce College. In fact, most of my classes were in there. The part where he was for Jim Crow laws, but against racism towards the Japanese Americans was particularly sad to me. It shows how easy it is to have blindspots and wrong conclusions in our theology.