The World is Watching SBC

Conversations That Matter

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Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. We are gonna talk about some

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SBC stuff again, some aftermath from the convention. And I've titled it

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The World is Watching because this was the, I think this is the takeaway that a lot of political and theological conservatives are gonna remember for years to come about SBC 2021.

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They're gonna remember James Merritt, former SBC president, leader of the resolutions committee, on stage when they put forward a resolution,

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I showed it on this podcast, that supposedly dealt with racism but did not include critical race theory as part of the discussion.

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And someone from the floor challenged it and said, why don't we include language about critical race theory? And James Merritt went off on the guy.

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And one of the things he said was the world is watching. That was the justification. That's why we can't put the term critical race theory and in our actual resolution and speak out against it because the world's watching.

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This is part of the logic that's, I think, wrecking the whole convention in a way. They're really playing to the world and not the

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Lord, unfortunately. And this is one of the things Tom Askell to his credit said it and he was the first one

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I heard. And now many people are saying, hold on, the Lord is watching. Russell Fuller said that. So in honor of this logic that we need to do things a certain way because the world is watching,

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I wanted to show you just a few things that have happened over the last few days. I haven't been paying actually exceptionally close attention, but some things just get thrown into my lap and a few things have.

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So we're gonna watch some interviews. I don't think I've even watched either of them in their entirety. I've watched some of them, parts of them, but I thought

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I'm gonna save this. We're gonna talk about this because if the world is watching, why in the world are those who are so concerned about the world watching acting the way they are?

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This is what doesn't make sense to me. If the world is watching, I take that to mean we need to let our good works be a light before men so that they can see them and glorify our

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Father in heaven. We wanna be a good witness. We certainly don't want to have unnecessary conflicts spill out into the world.

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We want them to see us living in such a way that it matches the way that Christ wants us to live.

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This is what we're getting. So let's see if the world watching has changed behavior any and if so, how has it changed that behavior?

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What is the world supposed to think when they see some of these things? I'm gonna show you just, this is the guy who said it, right? We're gonna start there.

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This is the guy who said, hey, the world's watching. So look, we can't, yeah, I can't put language against critical race theory in this resolution.

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If some people were as, you know, they were as concerned about critical race theory as they were the gospel, the world would be saved.

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I mean, all this high and mighty talk, this is how this person,

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James Merritt, acts on public, so the world's watching, social media. He said, he could not be more proud of SBC 21, my wonderful family of Jesus lovers, voted in some great resolutions and a president,

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Ed Litton, who will take us forwards, not backwards. So you can already see the ideological stuff creeping in there.

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We're gonna base it on this metric of whether or not it takes us in a certain direction. Based on what?

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What's the forward in what? Inequality? Is that what we're measuring things by? He'll take us forwards, not backwards and to a bright future, not a dark past, who ran for service, not power.

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Scott is good. So he ran for service, not power. Are you implying, someone asked,

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Mike Stone ran for power? Glad to see you calmed down yesterday, after yesterday's rant as chairman of the committee on resolutions.

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Just wish the resolution was 1500 signatures, could have made it to the floor, but of course you had the power.

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So this is actually a pithy response, but he's saying, look, man, you're a hypocrite. That's what he's saying.

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You're saying, you're the one that's exerting power against the will of some of the people that you claim are your wonderful family of Jesus lovers.

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Is power such a bad thing? What is it about, are you insinuating Mike Stone ran for power, is what he says.

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Nah, I had the votes, count them. And they kept the power out of the wrong hands.

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SBC for the win. They're strutting around, guys. They're strutting around and claiming their victory is symbolic of they have the votes.

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They, the people, the wonderful family of Jesus lovers is all behind, behind them and what they wanna do.

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This is not some Yahoo on Twitter. This is the chairman of the resolutions committee, former president of the

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Southern Baptist Convention. I think it's interesting. The world is watching. This is what the world is seeing.

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Here's another one. This was sent to me, Herschel York, professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

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Says, I heard a group of Jehovah's Witnesses got upset that at their annual meeting, they passed a resolution against pork that did not specifically mention bacon.

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The comparison he's trying to make here is that because resolution two about on racism did not include specifically terminology that opposed critical race theory, it's akin to passing a resolution against pork that doesn't specifically mention bacon.

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Here's the problem. There was this little thing called resolution nine that passed two years ago that justified using critical race theory and intersectionality as analytical tools.

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You can eat some of the bacon. We're against all that pork, but you can eat bacon.

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So if that resolution passed, and now you're just saying, you know what, we're gonna just say again, you know, you can't eat pork, but you don't specify, hey, hold on, bacon's included in that, then you're being unclear because two years ago, you could eat the bacon.

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That's the point. This is, and it should be insulting that for Southern Baptists, their money is going to finance the salaries of people like Herschel York to train pastors.

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It's insulting. I understand we have one -offs sometimes where we just, we say things, you'll regret that,

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I'm sorry, that was dumb or whatever. We all do that. But Herschel York, I've consistently, people are sending me stuff on Herschel York.

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That's this level of thought. It doesn't hardly qualify as critical thinking. You'd have to be so blind, and I know he's not.

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He was there. He knows about what happened in 2019. So it's just, it's a way to make the other side supposedly look dumb, but really, if you understand what's going on, it doesn't make them look dumb.

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It makes the person who makes this comparison look kind of foolish. So, I mean,

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I guess you shouldn't have any vice lists in scripture if you're gonna be sarcastic, right? If we're gonna just keep being, oh, you should never specify the seven deadly sins or whatever.

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No, well, those aren't scriptural, but the seven things the Lord hates, right? You shouldn't specify those out because you just say a general thing against evil and everyone's supposed to get it.

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No, of course not. Here's what he says too. A second observation about SBC 21. Southern Baptists do not like critical race theory, but they also don't like being told that caring deeply about racial reconciliation is critical race theory.

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They know the difference. No, they don't. I've done, go watch the episode I did on Jarvis Williams.

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It's called Jarvis Williams' Gospel. Go watch it. Jarvis Williams teaches at his seminary.

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Herschel York is friends with Jarvis Williams. Jarvis Williams calls what he teaches racial reconciliation, and it matches every single element of critical race theory, every single one.

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It is critical race theory. So this is just, it is either someone who is extremely ignorant or someone who is extremely devious.

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You pick one. But this is what the world's seeing, right? It's public forum. The world's watching. This is how he's treating the conservatives who care about this kind of thing, and he's mocking them.

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Instead of saying they had a legitimate concern, we won, no hard feelings. I mean, there's none of that.

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It's mocking them, mocking them. Gloating in the wind is what seems to be happening in my estimation in some quarters of the

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Southern Baptist Convention. So let's see, though. The big thing isn't these guys, right? These guys are, they're low on the totem pole in a way.

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I mean, they're high up in the SBC. They are, they're very high up, but they're not the president, right? What has the president been saying?

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And so I wanna talk about this. President of the Southern Baptist Convention and has allies, he's the most progressive one running of the four.

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He won, Ed Litton. And this is what's been going on. This is what's being said on the media.

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And so I want you to think about that principle, the world is watching, and then compare it to what the president of the

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Southern Baptist Convention is saying. Billion members. On Tuesday, the

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SBC elected Pastor Ed Litton as its president. He narrowly defeated another pastor,

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Mike Stone. Pastor Stone was backed by a group called the Conservative Baptist Network. That group argues that the denomination is drifting too far to the left on cultural and theological issues.

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Now, make no mistake. The Southern Baptist Convention is still quite conservative on many social and political issues, but there are some growing rifts, including around how to discuss race.

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Last November, presidents of the SBC's six seminaries issued a statement rejecting critical race theory.

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That's the academic concept that racism is systemically embedded in America's legal systems. Pastor Ed Litton released a statement acknowledging systemic racism.

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In addition to being the convention's new president, he's the pastor of Redemption Church in Sarah Land, Alabama, and he joins us now.

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Pastor Ed, welcome to the program. Good to have you. Can I just make this point? The liberal, quote unquote,

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I mean, this is MSNBC, as far left as it gets. Don't you think that this anchor did a pretty good job briefly trying to summarize the issue?

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I mean, I'm not expecting perfection, but it's so much more clear than the muddy stuff that we've often got from the leaders in Southern Baptist seminaries.

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He says, here's the issue. It's critical race theory, systemic racism. They're fighting over this. Let's talk to Ed Litton about it.

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Let's have him weigh in and he'll clarify this. I'm just saying those on the progressive side that are outside the convention seem to at least understand, or at least they sound like they understand these issues in more clear terms than those inside the convention trying to say, we're against critical race theory.

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How dare you say that we're for it? By the way, let's bring in implicit bias training and let's demonize whiteness and let's be careful about microaggressions, et cetera.

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So here is Ed Litton. How is he gonna represent the Southern Baptist Convention to the world that is watching?

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Joshua, it's good to be with you. Thank you for the invitation. Can I ask you kind of a screwy question to start off? It's a weird kind of opaque question, but I think it will speak to a lot of what's going on.

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What is a Southern Baptist? I'm not even sure how to define what a Southern Baptist is these days, but how would you define what a

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Southern Baptist is? Well, it's somebody who is Baptistic in their theology.

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We believe in a conversion experience for an individual. And we believe in baptism by immersion as a public statement after conversion.

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And then there's a commitment to the infallibility of God's word, the sufficiency of God's word.

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And we agree together as separate almost 50 ,000 different churches to cooperate for the purpose of getting the gospel and help to the nations.

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So that's generally quickly who we are. See, I think that most people, if you ask them in the public, what is a

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Southern Baptist? I think you can expect that. By the way, that's not a bad answer, but perfect opportunity to share the gospel right there in no uncertain terms.

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I'll let you be the judge at Ed Litz and do that. World is watching. Remember, what's the main thing we wanna communicate to the world?

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But it's not a horrible answer, but let's hear the exchange.

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They would have a very different answer and their answer might be wrapped a little bit more in politics or social issues, maybe issues like critical race theory or how race is dealt with.

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What is your sense of how best to deal with some of these differences as the president of the denomination with the understanding that you're not necessarily telling every pastor how to run their church, but as the president, you have influence and some leadership.

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How do you deal with that? Well, I'm a pastor. And so I approach these issues every day in the city of Mobile, where I live, and we have a unique racial history.

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So we engaged after Ferguson with other pastors from other denominations and other races.

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So we began to sit down and have a conversation that led to a friendship, that led to action in our city that we think is making a difference.

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And so it's very important that we sit at the table with one another and help to deal with an issue that has been a stain on our denomination, that has been a part of our culture from the very beginning.

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And we're seeing that God can heal these wounds and these separations that divide us, but we have to come to the table.

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We have to listen and we have to share. We have to help each other understand each other's struggles and pains.

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In terms of listening, that seems to be something that's a core issue for a number of...

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I wanna just make the point. He said this is a stain that's been there from the beginning, right?

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So this is the same thing Al Mohler said too, and the same thing all the progressives like to work off of. Stain, there was slavery, there's segregation in the greater culture.

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And so Southern Baptists were complicit in some ways. And so that is continuing on today. That's where the critical race stuff enters in because you're saying, well, how is it continuing today?

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Well, you gotta listen, you gotta listen or else you're not gonna know. And so he emphasizes listening. This is where the standpoint theory generally comes in.

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Let's see if it comes in. In organizations and groups, particularly political factions, we saw that the former vice president,

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Mike Pence, was not particularly listened to yesterday when he spoke at the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference in Orlando.

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Maybe you've seen this video of what happened to him when he took the dais. I wanna thank my friend

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Ralph Reed for those overly generous words. I'm deeply humbled by them. Ralph Reed knows me well enough to know the introduction

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I prefer is a little bit shorter. Now, in addition to people yelling that Mike Pence is a traitor from the stage of the

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Faith and Freedom Conference, we've also heard this week about the Catholic church here in the U .S.

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taking a step closer to denying communion to President Biden because of his views on abortion.

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This is really turning a lot of people off from the work of evangelism, from even the possibility of winning people over for Christ, which is central to the

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Southern Baptist Convention. Isn't it amazing? This progressive anchor understands the purpose of the

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Southern Baptist Convention better than it seems like they're able to articulate it. I just, I'm amazed by this.

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He understands evangelism, that this is the purpose. But look, in his mind, this is turning people off when you get kind of, you know, you put up barriers based on theology, you know, and this is, he's setting it up.

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The T is set up for a litany, hit it out of the park. Jesus says, I am the only way, the truth and the life.

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No man comes to the Father, but through me. We believe in salvation by grace, through faith.

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And if you confess your sins, God is faithful and just to forgive you your sins and cleanse you from all unrighteousness.

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Boom, go, let's hear Ed Litton do it. Let's see what he does. Draw the line in the merging of politics and scripture.

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That's a great question. As a pastor, here's where I draw the line. I have very strong conservative theology.

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I have very strong conservative political views. But I'm called to make disciples of the people in my church and people in my community, disciples of Jesus, not of a party.

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I'm to make disciples who will follow Jesus and live by his teachings. So my job as a pastor is to help people know the word of God and to know how it is to practically be lived out in their lives, which includes politics.

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And so we encourage our people to be the best citizens possible, to vote, to give to candidates they prefer and they believe have character and can lead and that we serve our cities.

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We bless our cities, the places that God has put us. But when it comes to leading my people into a certain political direction,

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I have learned that that's something best left to them. When we marry politics with the church, it causes trouble and it takes us off our mission.

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Our mission is to get the good news of Jesus Christ all over this country and every one of our communities and around the world.

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We'll see another. Okay, the anchor may catch it, we'll see, but I hope you caught it. He said that this is part of a discipleship is

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Christians being involved in politics. And then he turns around and he says, but this is an individual choice that they need to make.

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The church should never get involved in it. It's very sloppy what he's saying. And so no one's really exactly sure what he means by that.

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Because normally in discipleship, if there's a sin issue or something that you're working through, there's gonna be some conclusions you draw.

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There's gonna be, here's how to navigate this. But it sounds like there's hardly anything other than a framework of vote for someone that you prefer, he said, and that has good character.

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According to what? According to your preference? So this is where it gets really sticky. And I think this is where he's sidestepping the culture, the culture war, if you wanna call it that.

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I also want you to notice something. In the upper left -hand corner, you'll see this now, it'll bother you, some of you, or not bother you, you'll see the contradiction.

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You'll notice it, because there's a little thing in the upper left -hand corner. There's a picture on the wall that Lytton has.

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And I just noticed this. It's a picture of George Washington praying. I just thought

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I would mention he has a Southern Virginian, a Southern white man who is a slave holder in a prominent position in his study.

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I just thought I'd mention that. Don't know if Ed Lytton realizes that there's an attempt to cancel even some of the founders like Washington.

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But we'll see if that stays up. I don't know. Looks like there's also maybe a dollar bill underneath with Washington on it.

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I can't tell from here. I think it is a $1 bill. But anyway, we shall continue.

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Let's see if the moderator catches that little bit of almost contradiction that Lytton put out there on politics.

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Flip side of that, I think, is that there are some congregations that say that more of their members are being influenced by QAnon, and they're having to deal with this screwy conspiracy theory in conversations between congregants and pastors.

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I don't know if you respond to that with a political solution or a religious solution, but what are you seeing, and how do you deal with that?

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Well, I honestly haven't seen it in my church, but I do hear of pastors in some cases. I think it's a fringe movement.

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But here's the reality. We are people of the truth. And so conspiracy theories have never bode well.

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We don't accept those. We look for what the truth says. We believe God is the source and the author of truth. So our first move is to say, does this fit with God's word?

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And arms... Why can't you do that with politics, though, in general? Why can't you do that with, I don't know, something like critical race theory?

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Is that also a conspiracy theory in some ways? Like everyone, there's all these power dynamics, and you have to listen because you can't quite find the racism unless you listen to the...

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QAnon's the same way, the way it operates. You gotta listen to those who are able to read the code to tell you what's really happening.

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And the cabal or whatever, it's the same thing in many ways.

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But look how he treats both of them, so differently. It does not fit with God's word.

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And so we are to be servants in the culture and trust that God will raise us up for the purpose of having influence in the culture.

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One last thing I would... You gotta ask, do the riots that happened in 2020, did those fit with God's word?

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I haven't heard Lytton say anything against those, but the capital insurrection, quote unquote, yeah, and that's related to QAnon, and that's against God's word.

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He'll condemn that in no uncertain terms, but then say, well, people should have the choice to vote for who they wanna vote for.

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That critical race theory is... He didn't condemn that when he had the opportunity to do it.

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Instead, he talked about listening and fighting racism. And then again, it's bothering me now, all the while having that white

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Virginia slave owner in the background in his office. Speaking of which, I should also say, the Capstone Report, am

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I gonna lose it if I do this? Let me see, hold on. I might lose it.

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Let me see, how do I do this? So, Capstone Report put something out that was interesting as well.

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So, I read the title. New SBC president has no blacks on church staff.

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The people... I noticed this at Southeastern. The people that push diversity the most sometimes went to the, quote unquote, whitest churches in town.

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But anyway, that's what Capstone Report is putting out there. So, let's keep going here.

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See if I can bring this back up. We're gonna finish this interview on MSNBC. Before I have to let you go, and I could continue this conversation for quite a while, but in terms of understanding what the

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Bible says, there's been research, including from the Pew Research Center in terms of who has the best general knowledge about the

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Abrahamic faiths, Christianity, Judaism, Islam. And it found that the people with the most knowledge tend to be either

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Jewish or atheists and agnostics, that people who are actually practitioners of Christianity tend not to have the strongest general knowledge.

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Also, there is a Bible verse that keeps standing out to me. It's from 1 Peter that says that believers should always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have, but to do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience.

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Pastor Lytton, before I let you go, I have encountered way too many Christians who express zero gentleness and zero respect when talking to people who don't share their views, whether it's atheists, agnostics, gay people like myself, or just people who don't share their politics.

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And that is not biblical, that is not scriptural, that is not what the Bible teaches believers to do.

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Before I have to let you go, what do you plan to do as the president of the Southern Baptist Convention to make people of faith more palatable, less contemptible, and maybe a little more

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Christ -like in the way they deal with the rest of the world? That, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call a loaded question.

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He snuck in all kinds of assumptions here. Christians are dumb, they don't know their own

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Bibles. He's gonna be the one to show you, because, I mean, Ed Lytton may not even know, president of Southern Baptist Convention, so this news anchor, he's gonna educate you on what the

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Bible says. And then the question isn't whether what he said is valid or invalid, or to react to it.

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His question is, what are you gonna do to rectify the situation that Christians are mean? So they're dumb, they're mean,

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I know more about the Bible, what are you gonna do to make them less offensive to me as a homosexual?

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Now, this is a golden moment for the president of the Southern Baptist Convention. Because this, again, he's had like three opportunities to share the gospel.

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This is another opportunity to share that, look, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven.

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Not everyone who claims to be a Christian is a true follower of Christ. Christ said that if you love me, you keep my commandments.

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And this is what Christ has said. These are his commands on certain sins, including sexual deviancies.

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And so I call my people to understand the commands of the Lord, the people that I have under me in the denomination, and then to repent of their sin, because we've all broken those commands.

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Boom, right there. Perfect, let's see if he does it. Well, let me say this. First of all, you're right.

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And tragically, as part of the whole culture seems to be struggling with giving honor and respect.

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I respect you because God created you. I respect you because Jesus paid a high price to redeem you.

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I respect you because the word of God teaches me to respect you and to honor you. And the fact is, we're seeing a breakdown in our culture, which even impacts our churches sometimes.

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But I will say this, this people called Southern Baptists are a good people. When I won last week, people who voted against me came up very kind.

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Do you realize what he's doing again, speaking out of both sides of his mouth? We have a problem. People are mean, it's the whole culture, but Christians are mean.

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And then Southern Baptists though are really nice. What is this? William said, I didn't vote for you, but I love you in Christ and I will pray for you.

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I think again, the fringe is loud right now in our culture on every level.

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And what it means is we have to practice exactly what you're holding us accountable to. And that is what the word of God says.

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Pastor Ed Litton is the new president of the Southern Baptist Convention. This is incredible to me, that there were so many opportunities for a clear resounding gospel.

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And this man comes away thinking, probably he's justified that the president of Southern Baptist Convention agrees with him.

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His analysis is correct. Critical race theory isn't a problem. He spoke out against QAnon.

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I mean, Ed Litton basically functioned in the political way that progressives would want someone like him to function.

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He pushed the envelope to the left. He was all tolerant. He didn't, in their minds, their version of that.

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Very accepting and inclusive and all these kinds of things. So this is the new president of the

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Southern Baptist Convention. Remember the world is watching, right? But I think this is what the world is watching means. This is the kind of thing, this is so different than the way

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Jesus interacted. Jesus gave grace to the humble, but resisted the proud.

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And he was completely convictional and uncompromising when it came to sin and what the word of God said on things.

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And anyway, there was another video that I wanna play for you that is even more confusing from CNN.

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Same talking points. The anchor brings up critical race theory and then brings up QAnon. And it's worse in a way.

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I'm gonna spare you though. We're not gonna play it for the sake of time. I'll just summarize it. You can go look it up if you want.

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The anchor wants to understand why Ed Litton believes in critical race theory, essentially, or why the

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Southern Baptist Convention is going that direction. So he brings up a statement that he made about systemic racism or a statement he signed that talked about it.

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He affirms that there's systemic racism and then says that it's a false narrative to believe that there's any critical race theory going on in the

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Southern Baptist Convention. This is the play. This is what they're all doing. No critical race theory here. We just believe, as Capstone Report is reporting right now from a tweet

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Ed Litton made, we just believe that all months are White History Month except Black History Month. Everything else is

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White History Month. We just believe that we need these minority voices to understand oppression, et cetera. We just believe that we gotta diversify this convention.

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Man, so lacking in diversity. We just believe that, oh, we have this stain of racism that outlasted segregation and slavery that's still with us we gotta deal with in the convention.

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We just believe, fill in the blank, but we don't believe in critical race theory. That's one thing we don't believe.

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This is the game that is being played and Ed Litton is one of the chief ones now playing it, unfortunately, and it's very confusing.

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Then you could see in the CNN interview she's even more confused. The news anchor's like, wait, what? What are you talking about? And then they moved to the

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QAnon stuff and Ed Litton condemns QAnon and he has a responsibility with his people to not take such unsubstantiated claims seriously even though he takes the claims seriously.

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I mean, he signed Dwight McKissick's, again, which is just way out there, statement on social justice.

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So that's Ed Litton and that's the direction of the SBC. And one other thing

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I wanted to bring up for you, I won't read the article, but you can go on Capstone Report and look it up. The Washington Post is reporting that there were people paid by NAM to go to the convention to vote for Litton.

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Now, the world is watching, guys. World's reporting that. World is interviewing

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Ed Litton. How's he doing? How's the Southern Baptist Convention doing? How are the people that won, how are they doing with their attitude?

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Is it just a gentleman's debate over principles or is it personal? World's watching.

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I bring this up for two reasons. Number one, you need to understand this is probably gonna be the next year.

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And if it's the next year in the Southern Baptist Convention, that you're gonna have to put up with this, at the very least, do you wanna stay?

30:24

I'm just adding this to the eight reasons to leave. You're gonna have to put up with this for a year. You're gonna be associated with Litton and this convention if your church is still remaining in the convention.

30:34

So that's my, and I should say, for those who really do wanna stay and think they can fight this out,

30:41

Rod Barton has agreed to do an interview with me about this, we haven't set up a time yet, but that should be coming.

30:47

So I do disagree though, I think, with his assessment at this point, though I respect him greatly.

30:54

I don't see how this is recoverable with all the metrics that you have to contend with.

31:01

But you also have to deal with this. And this association, is this one that you want? The other thing is the gospel.

31:08

The gospel can be, this is the main message that Christians should be putting out there when they have an audience like MSNBC or CNN, what better opportunity?

31:17

Al Mohler, to his credit, used to do this quite a bit. When he would get in the media, he would somehow figure out a way, even if it was short, to get the gospel in there.

31:25

Ed Litton's not doing that. And I just wanna point that out to you. I do see that as significant.

31:31

So those are some reasons to consider if you're still in the SBC, maybe not remaining in much longer in addition to the eight reasons

31:38

I gave last week. Hope this was helpful for some of you. Maybe discouraging in some ways, and I get that.

31:45

That's why we're not just putting out content about the SBC or about the downward spirals of many things.

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We hope to put out, I hope to put out content that's helpful, intellectually stimulating, discerning, and gives you some of the content you need to know.

31:59

Some of the content you don't wanna know, you need to know. And if you're in this Southern Baptist Convention, you need to know about this. So God bless you.