Southern Baptist Convention 2007 Annual Meeting – Resolution No. 3 – ON THE 150TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE DRED SCOTT DECISION

The interesting thing about this resolution is it is “too little and too late” by about 223 yrs. (ever since the Declaration of Independence was adopted). What is worse still is that Baptists of the South would enlist in the cause of the South, thinking they were defending their home land when the ostensible issue was slavery (and the hidden one was a planned war by outside forces that wanted to reduce the population, increase their wealth, further a certain agenda of preparing America for the next century, etc.). One Southern Baptist stated that Baptists would fight in defense of slavery. When the War began, a cannon ball from Ft. Sumter smashed its way into his grave like an exclamation point from God. 650,000+ casualties resulted, and it took the casualties from the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Indian Wars, the War with Spain, World War I, World War II, Korea, and Vietnam (when the casualties there exceed 58,000 ) to equal that one war. My prospectus for the doctoral dissertation at Columbia University was on the subject, “The Baptist and Slavery.” It was to have been an investigation into the tremendous Christian personalities that God produced in the African Americans during slavery (I had come across materials in Baptist Records which pointed to that reality as, e.g., when Whites would purchase the freedom of Blacks so they could preach. In one case in Va. a Black minster pastored a white church for ten yrs). I could say more, but let me add that I did my doctor of ministry project on Chrstian Love & Race Relations without the support of the institution that conferred the degree. The person in charge of my project said to me, “You ought to have known better than to select a controversial topic like this. If that church fires you, I will be right there behind them, supporting them.” When I did the project (10 sermons on I Cors.13 & 10 lectures in Black History) without getting fired, then I felt like the director started nit picking me to death. I got riled. So on the Friday before the Graduation ceremonies (which began on the next Friday and continued on the Saturday after), I called an official of the seminary and stated the issue rather plainly and added, “that I wanted this matter changed, that if it was not, I wasn’t going to the Board of Trustees with a complaint, I was going straight to the floor of the Southern Baptist Convention and raise one of the biggest stinks ever seen. And I knew how to get it done.” The next week end I graduated, not having enough time to get even my announcements out. It was sort of like the black couple who went into a store to buy a washing maching in the days of the Civil Rights Effort. When the wife saw the long row of white washers, she asked: “Don’t you have any other color?” The salesman knew where she was coming from, and he responded accordingly he flippd open the lid of a washer, pointed and said, “No, but there is a black agitator in every one of these.” I think some of the folks at that institution thought they had a black agitator in this white preacher. The reality was that the school had had a student previously who had integrated the town swimming pool whih aroused the KKK. They beat him up on campus one night, slashed his tires, and threatened the seminary. They had to get the student out of there, and they did (this was in the very early 70s). A few years later I came along with my project. I did not learn about the other student until about 3 yrs ago, and yet we had pastored in neighboring churches and exchanged pulpits with me(he also did not know about my experience until I knew about his). The end result was the good that came to members of the church in which I did the project. God had His own plan in operation, and neither the church, the seminary, nor I knew then what He would do.
The great thing about all of this is that God has His own agenda, and it might or might not agree with our agendas. I bow with humiliation over my own arrogance in the whole affair. I feel for the seminary officials who caught some of my frustration, when they might have been worried about even more pressing threats. I grieve for the African Americans who have proved over and over that this nation is just as much theirs as it is ours (if not more so due to having been enslaved). The most segregated hour in America is beginning to pass away. God speed the day, when racism will never again rear its ugly head. My knowledge of Black History (the term used when I was pursuing studies in that field) was rather extensive. Along with it was knowledge of I Cors 13 and agape love (I had done 2 yrs of research in the Greek and had written 50 page paper with 305 footnotes in an honors course) and had prepared and preached 10 sermons on the verses of the love pericope which all scholars agree (be they so-called liberals or conservatives) is based on the character and acts of Jesus of Nazareth. Truly a proof that we have God in human flesh in that Man. I wish I had known more about the diplomacy of love at the time I did that I did the project. I now see that the conflict over theology (moderates vs conservatives) blinded my mind to certain realities just as it did people in the seminary (I was almost flunked out of the doctoral program for a paper which I had written on the Inspiration of Scripture (a defense of the verbal inspiration article of Billy Graham’s Lausanne Covenant). That episode and others made me feel that the seminary was not supportive, and they probably felt that I was there to attack them….which was not so. In fact, I thought their approach was creating their difficulties with the conservatives. Even to this day, the moderates and the conservatives are like two peas in the same pod, one of one color and one of the other. Consider the race issue. Yup, I do not agree with the moderates on the issue of inspiration. The Bible does not contain the word of God. Jesus, the living Word called the scripture the word of God (Jn.10:35). Even so I still would have no one fired just as Jonathan Edwards called attention to Judas as a warning to those who wanted to go after the unconverted ministers (and I am not suggesting that they are unconverted. I am just making point). I want every one to come to the truth by persuasion concerning the evidence – not by coercion. And I have this confidence: Give the Word its freedom, and it will win the day on its own. My field in my M.A. program was American Social and Intellectual History, and I must say that when I look at the Bible in the light of the intellect I must conclude that it reflects the omniscience which inspired it. The ideas there will empower saved sinners to grow up, to mature, to become balanced, flexible, creative, and magnetic. It is certainly instructive to consider that a Black minister was the person to sell America on equal rights for all. He wasn’t perfect (and neither am I), but I do wish I could do so well in both the realm of justice and in the realm of salvation as both are in the biblical mandates of our ministry. God have mercy upon all of us and upon all the souls on earth as Mr. Spurgeon so prayed. Surely, he was right. There is coming a day, when Jesus shall receive what He earned by His shed blood: the whole earth in one generation and for a thousand generations. God speed the day.

Dr. James Willinghams last blog post..The Climax of the Reformation