SBC Leaders Backtrack on Critical Race Theory . . . Again

Conversations That Matter

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Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. We are gonna talk today a little bit about the

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Southern Baptist Convention, once again. And everyone groaned, no. I should say the special episodes are the ones that aren't

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SBC related just because lately we've been doing so many SBC type content.

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I mean, every week it's like a new compromise or, I mean, it's not new, it's like the same broken record but it's showing up in a different way.

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Compromise, just Southern Baptist elites going crazy on something. It's like they're really trying to destroy this denomination.

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And really what it is, is ultimately I think there's, every time orthodoxy tries to compromise with heresy, with error, you get error.

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10 times out of 10, you get error. You can't mix the two. And I think that's the problem right now is you got two sides diametrically opposed and then you have these elites in the middle who wanna keep the denomination and the institutions in the denomination, the entities afloat, and they wanna keep these two groups happy.

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You can't do it. Ain't gonna happen. So that is the futile effort. And when you do that, you just keep drifting left.

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And I mean, theologically left. That is what's happening and that's what's gonna continue to happen as long as these compromises continue to be made.

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So let's get into it a little bit. Oh, one objection, by the way. So a few people say, John, you're not a

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Southern Baptist. You can't comment on this, which by the way, I should point out. I'll give you the reasons

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I'm doing this. I've said them before, but I wanna point out first, that's very exclusive to say

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I shouldn't be able to comment on your little club just because I'm not part of it, even if it affects my life. I mean, I thought

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Southern Baptists were trying to be inclusive. They don't wanna be bigoted. I mean, I thought that was

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Christian nationalism that was exclusive and bigoted and all the rest, showing partiality, et cetera.

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Not the Southern Baptist, but apparently that's one of the arguments that's being made there. So that's a little hypocritical if you're gonna criticize

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Christian nationalists for their exclusivity. But no, you're not being very inclusive to me right now.

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But the other thing, and on a serious note, it's a bellwether. It's a big denomination.

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I mean, what happens in the SBC affects the rest of evangelical Christianity in the United States. There's no question about that.

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That affects all of us. And I do genuinely want to help people who are in the denomination when

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I can. There'll be a day that I'm saying, look, it's a broken record. I've done it so many times. You know, go watch the other videos of similar things, examples, but I'm not quite there yet.

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And I do wanna help give you some thoughts as we go through some of the material we're gonna go through today.

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So let's do it. The material is concerning the statements that were made by the seminary presidents a few weeks ago against critical race theory.

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They said, hey, we don't believe in that. We don't agree with it. I pointed out in another video that that lasted not even a week.

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The ink was still drying and we're already seeing compromise. And that compromise just continues. And that's what this video is about.

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It's an extension of that. The compromise just continues. That statement was not significant.

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And so let us continue to dive into this and I'll show you some of the things that have been going on in the

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SBC. Let's start, let's see, where do we wanna start? Let's start with this statement, just cause it's up here.

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It is a statement on justice, repentance, and the SBC. I'll blow it up there and you can see all the different people who have signed this.

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And I guess those are the original signatories. And then, let's see, those are the original signers, yes.

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And who else has signed it? Let me just see real quick. I haven't actually clicked on this.

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There's a lot, oh goodness. Yeah, there are a lot. Oh no, there's, wait, hold on, load more.

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Yeah, I don't know how long this goes. I think there are a lot. Okay, so here's the part, here's why

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I'm commenting on it at all. And that's because we had

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J .D. Greer. Let's see if I can upload, I don't think I put in this ad source.

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And I'm just gonna show you where I saw this first and why I kind of thought it was in some ways significant.

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Here we go. There it is. J .D. Greer and Ed Stetzer both put this out.

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Ed Stetzer on the 18th and J .D., both on the 18th. J .D. Greer said, thank you friends for a gracious and important statement.

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I encourage all great commissioned Baptists to carefully and soberly consider these words. And then

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Ed Stetzer, and he said this move is towards the right thing.

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So they're endorsing on some level this statement. So I wanna go through the statement and then what we're gonna do is

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I'm gonna go through some recent statements by Danny Akin, the president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary where I went.

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And also a letter that went out or an email that went out to all the faculty at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary where Adam Greenway is.

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So this is very tailored to Southern Baptist in particular. We're gonna start though with this.

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And I put it in a word processor so that I could underline and read some of the things so that I don't wanna read this word for word.

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It'll take too long with the other statements I gotta get to. But this was called the 155th anniversary of the proclamation of the 13th

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Amendment, abolishing slavery and involuntary servitude. And this statement was put out, they use

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Luke 4, 18 through 19 about the spirit of the Lord has appointed me to proclaim good news to the poor, et cetera.

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Of course, that context is about spiritual poverty, et cetera but social justice advocates in the church have always used this to say what they say here.

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We affirm that the fullness of the gospel speaks to our need for salvation as individual sinners as well as addresses the brokenness of the world.

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And so I pointed out in my book, Social Justice Goes to Church. You can get that on Amazon or go to socialjusticegoestochurch .com.

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I pointed out this is a very old interpretation. In fact, the new left influenced

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Christians in the 70s and late 60s use this verse. Jim Wallace used this verse quite a bit to prove there was some kind of a corporate element to salvation.

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And so they start there. Then they go through, let's see what let's, we're gonna have a new heaven and a new earth.

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We anticipate, however, human inability to achieve full justice before the return of Christ cannot become an excuse to avoid dealing with injustices in our lifetime.

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And there's a truth to that, right? Just because God's gonna come back and reign does not mean that we, let me pull this up so you can see it too.

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Here we go. Sorry about that. I was reading that and you couldn't see it. So let's go through it.

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Yeah, so there's some truth to this that we should be pursuing justice, but you can never pursue it perfectly.

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And that's kind of the point. You'll never be able to actually achieve that. You shouldn't expect to achieve that.

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And that's not part of the call of the gospel either. And that's the conflation here early on.

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So that's one of the social justice problems that they conflate that with the gospel. The gospel ends up doing, they make it try to do things it's not meant to do.

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Southern Baptist Convention was founded with injustice towards African, sorry, slaves at its very core.

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And I put in red at its very core because that's the key phrase that you need to focus on. This is the attempt, and you see this not just with the

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Southern Baptist Convention. You see this with all kinds of things. The 1619 Project, this is what they're doing.

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This is what critical race theory and memory studies. I try to shine a light on that. Memory studies is the issue here. That's what they try to do with all sorts of elements of American and Western history.

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They make oppression or racism or xenophobe, whatever.

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They make their issue the primary thing that defined a group of people from the past or defines us today because we're living in the legacy of that group of people.

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So racism, this is a CRT assumption. It just impacts everything.

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That's a systemic racism idea that CRT has. It's on the McDonald's menu. It's everywhere. It just motivates everything.

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And so it's impugning people's motivations. And so the attempt being made here is no different.

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We've seen this a million times. Using at its very core is supposed to be an attempt to say that that was the fundamental thing definitional of Southern Baptist.

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That is who they are by definition. That is their identity. They just wanted to found their denomination on injustice towards African slaves at the core.

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The SBC was found in large part so that white Southern slave holding Christians could appoint and support missionaries while continuing to hold their slaves in chains.

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So the emphasis is on they have a motive to continue to hold their slaves in chains because why?

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Because they like it. They want that. That's something that benefits them. So we don't even need that kind of language because it's all around us to impugn the motive.

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You start using this kind of language. That's what you're communicating. This historical reality is neither disputed nor can it be ignored.

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And I would beg to differ. This historical reality is not necessarily a historic reality.

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This is a half -truth. This isn't a whole truth. And a half -truth, when it gives this impression, it amounts to a lie.

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And I want to, I can't go through all of it in this short video, but I want to at least point you towards at least one thing that I think would help you out.

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If you go online to Baptist Studies Online, you can find, and I'll show you here.

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You can find, I'll blow it up, the William B. Johnson's address to the origin of the

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Southern Baptist Convention in 1845. So this is kind of like, this would be a significant speech and because it's the first president of the

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Southern Baptist Convention explaining why there's a Southern Baptist Convention. Now, no show of hands, but how many of you have actually read this?

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How many of you have ever heard it referenced? How many of you have heard though that the Southern Baptist Convention is just founded on the idea of oppression, like this says, it's fundamental to it, or it's just all about racism.

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That's what was motivating them. It's all about slavery. That was what was motivating them. How many of you have heard that?

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You've probably all heard that, but it's been something that's just repeated, repeated, repeated. How many of you have actually gone back and read the source at least, and there's many sources you can read, but this would be like probably the major one, like the main one you'd wanna read.

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So the answer is probably not too many of you. And I'd like, let me bring you through a few things.

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I don't have time to get into all of it, but I want to show you, give you a little historical context for the issue over abolitionism that eventually led to the formation of the

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SBC. You could accurately say the authority of scripture led to it. I mean, that's what they would have said.

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I'll show you some of that. You could also say the issue of abolitionism led to that in some ways. And I realize most of my audience probably has an idea of what abolition is in their head, and it might not be the most accurate definition or understanding historically.

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I don't have time to correct all of those things or to get into the details of it. If anyone's curious about getting into this more,

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I can recommend some resources for you if you wanna understand, and I can give you some other primary sources.

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But for our purposes right now, I just want to walk you through in general what the issue of abolitionism was really about in the minds of the original founders of the

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Southern Baptist Convention. And once you understand that, once you get the big picture, you have a very hard time going back into history and vilifying these guys by saying, well, they just were motivated by racism, and then using that as a wedge for today's identity politics, which is how it's being used.

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Make no mistake, this is all about a present political objective, but using ancestors as the political tools for that.

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And so I want to at least give you some context, because like I said, most of you probably haven't read the primary sources or even heard them referenced, and most people telling you it was just formed over racism, they don't realize the issue between North and South wasn't even over racism per se.

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And the issue in this Baptist Convention was not over racism. And I'm gonna show you something that's gonna put a whole wrench in that in a moment from Johnson's address.

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It was over a particular understanding of the biblical teaching on the relationship between master and slave.

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And there were other things too, but that's the main thing. For our purposes, that's the main thing. And so let me just bring you through a few things here.

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If you start, we start in 1822, Denmark Vesey had a slave revolt in Charleston, South Carolina, violent revolt.

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Dr. Richard Furman, who was the Baptist State Convention head in South Carolina, this was before the

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SBC, basically tried to distance himself from this and say, look, I'll read you some of his quote.

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The convention are particularly unhappy in considering the idea of the Bible's teaching the doctrine of emancipation as necessary, intending to make servants insubordinate to proper authority, has obtained access to any mind.

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Several of these Vesey's followers were grossly immoral and in general, they were members of an irregular body which called itself the

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African church and had intimate connections and intercourse with a similar body of men in a Northern city, among whom the supposed right to emancipation is strenuously advocated.

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Thus did, so this is what he did. This is what he's doing. He's telling the governor, this is a letter to the governor or statement to the governor.

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He's saying, look, this is not, we didn't do this. We didn't teach them this. This was instigated by people who were abolitionists in a

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Northern city, teaching them to rebel, to revolt. And this is part of one of the issues that many

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Southerners feared in certain areas, instigating them to revolt because slavery in and of itself, that relationship is evil and by any means necessary revolt against it.

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And this is what he's saying is like, that didn't come from us. And then he goes on, he tries to affirm a biblical teaching in what in his mind is a biblical teaching of that relationship and say, look, it's not in and of itself and this is the issue you need to remember in and of itself.

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Those who formed the Southern Baptist Convention did not believe slavery was an evil in and of itself as such.

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Doesn't mean that there weren't progressive emancipationists. It doesn't mean that they thought, not all of them thought slavery was a moral good.

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Some of them certainly did, but the issue that ended up breaking the convention apart more than anything else was whether or not the

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Bible taught that that relationship in and of itself was evil because they said, hey, hold on. If you do that, then what do you do with the apostles?

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What do you do with the patriarchs? What do you do with what scripture says about this issue? That was their issue.

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Let's keep going. Alabama in 1835, certain individuals, this is the group of Baptists in Alabama.

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It says certain individuals mostly residing in the Northern parts of the United States calling themselves abolitionists who are fanatics.

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They are trying to interfere with the relation of master and slave. Their activities were inconsistent because, and this is their critique, abolitionists will oppress the slave, arm the assassin to shed the blood of the people of our good state, and alienate the people in one state from those in another, thereby endangering the peace and permanency of our happy republic.

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Many people don't realize because of the way civil war studies is taught today, it's neo -abolitionist narrative, or now it's actually more of a neo -Marxist narrative, but it relies heavily on a neo -abolitionist narrative, that many of the abolitionists, this is the kind of thing they promoted.

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This is the kind of thing that happened. So many quotations from abolitionist societies in the North saying, you know, the full gospel was not preached by those in the

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South because slavery exists. You can't have the gospel if slavery exists. And one of the things that many

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Southerners, Southern Baptists had a problem with is like, well, what do you do with scripture? And that, it kept coming back to that in all these debates.

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Mississippi Baptists in 1837, the movement of the abolitionists at the North is misguided and impolitic and calculated to detract from the social, civil, and religious privileges of the slave population.

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So they're saying this is bad for the slaves too. Maybe there's a little care there for the slaves as well with some of these individuals.

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I know you're not supposed to say that. It's almost like heresy to say that, but you have to go back into the historical record and see, okay, what are they actually saying?

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What are the primary sources saying? You're gonna find things you don't agree with. You're gonna find things that are ugly, but you're also gonna find things that are gonna surprise you because you've only been told a lopsided version of this.

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Now, let's get into the tipping point here, when it snapped.

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James Hutkins and Williams Tyrone were found to be slaveholders in 1843, and the anti -slavery

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Baptists demanded that the Triennial Convention Board investigate them. By 1844, the battle lines between the

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North and South were firmly drawn at the convention of the American Baptist Missionary Union where James Reeve was denied entry to the

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National Board for owning slaves based upon the view that missionaries had to manumit slaves before being accepted.

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So the mission board in Boston is basically saying, look, you can't become a missionary if you hold slaves.

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There's no way to become a missionary. And I believe that extended to if you go to a church in which that's acceptable, if I'm not mistaken, but let's keep going.

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It was this action that precipitated the Georgians and Virginians to establish the SBC. At this point, the

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Great Lakes Region Baptist had already formed an abolitionist convention. So the Southern Baptists weren't the first ones to break off. You had the

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Great Lakes Region Baptist breaking off first. Now, and then the Southern Baptist Convention forms.

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Now, this is, I'm just trying to give you some historical context to work up to this. William B.

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Johnson, the first president of the SBC. He said, he expressed his reluctance to separate from those in the

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North. And he called the division painful. After expressing a common bond in the principles of the gospel, an unwillingness to exclude those of like faith in the

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North, as many Southerners have been excluded, he laid out the reasons for the departure, claiming, and this is important, listen up.

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Johnson claimed that the missionary board in Boston had thus acted upon a sentiment they had failed to prove.

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What was that sentiment? That slavery is, in all circumstances, sinful. Again, that is a different thing.

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You may not, let me repeat that. They thus acted upon a sentiment that they failed to prove, that slavery is, in all circumstances, sinful.

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So what he's saying is, there are situations, and he's not denying that there aren't situations in which slavery can be sinful.

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Bible says that. What he's saying is that there are actually situations, though, in which it is not sinful. And you'd have to destroy scripture if you were to claim otherwise.

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That's the argument. That's the problem they had. They said, don't call something sin, which God does not call sin.

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Be very specific about what God says is sin. Johnson demonstrated that the board was not only in violation of scripture, and this is key, but also the constitution of the general convention for usurping the convention's authority to define the qualifications for being a missionary.

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So he said, look, this is, you're not following the rules of the convention. If you're not doing that, you know, we can't partner with someone who's not gonna follow the rules of the convention.

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You could break it in other areas. I mean, there's no trust there at that point. Furthermore, the missionary board also violated the convention's resolution that specifically allowed for the expression and promotion of views on the subject of slavery as long as such views were communicated in a

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Christian manner and spirit. The missionary board made the relinquishing of such speech a requirement in order to serve.

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Emphatically, Johnson twice cited 1 Thessalonians 2 .16. They would forbid us to speak unto the

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Gentiles. In other words, they're not letting some of the people that wanna be missionaries become missionaries.

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They're forbidding us from being missionaries. And he said, look, this is a violation of 1 Corinthians 2 .16. And he said, that's the main reason for the schism.

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The main reason for the schism is you're forbidding us to speak unto the Gentiles. He says, we can never be a party to any arrangement for monopolizing the gospel.

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Any arrangement which like that of our autocratical interdict of the North would first drive us from our beloved colored people.

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Wait, did he just say that? Our beloved colored people? Of whom they prove that they know nothing comparatively.

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Let me stop there. If you understand some of the debates politically that are going on, no political party had a solution for emancipating slaves.

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There were many people who wanted to do it. In fact, in the 1830s, there were more antislavery societies in the South, progressive emancipationists.

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That's the difference between the abolitionists and progressive emancipationists. The abolitionists wanted it done immediately and oftentimes by violence if necessary, right?

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That's the John Brown, the secret six kind of wing. They were much different than the progressive emancipationists.

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So if you understand the issues politically going on, put this in its kind of social political context, what he's saying is, look, you're saying that it's wrong.

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We have to, but you can't be a true Christian. You can't serve as a missionary. You can't be involved in Christian work. You can't exercise your spiritual gifts if you hold slaves.

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Even if you inherited the slaves, even if you're trying to take care of them, even if they're not ready to go out on their own and exercise their freedom, and you're trying your best to care for them, that kind of thing.

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Even if it's that kind of situation, you're denying them. And even though they're paying you to do missions, you're not giving them the benefit of being able to partake in the very thing they're funding.

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That's what he's saying. And he's saying, and there's no solution during this time. There is no, he says, again,

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I'll read it. He says, the North would first drive us from our beloved colored people, drive us from them.

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So we're supposed to get, we're supposed to free them. That's what you're saying, he's saying, to the Boston missionaries. We're supposed to free them, but you're proving that you know nothing, is what he follows it up with.

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He's like, where are they gonna go? What are they gonna do? How is this gonna work? There's nothing practical there.

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So he follows this up, and this is his very next statement, of whom they prove that they know comparatively nothing, know nothing comparatively, and from the much wronged aborigines of the country, and from the much wronged aborigines of the country.

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So he's saying, we can't be a party to agreement, and our arrangement, that would drive us from our beloved colored people, word he uses, and from the much wronged aborigines of the country, and then cut us off from the whitening fields of the heathen harvest labor.

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He admits that indigenous people are much wronged. Yes, he admits, he says, our beloved colored people.

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Yeah, that's what he says. He says that. Now, you may disagree with some of what he says here.

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In fact, I mean, I wouldn't, we wouldn't even use some of this language today, but is that a different picture than what you're getting from other places?

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Yes, it is. Notice the issue that he's harping on here is not the issue that you hear harping on, where they're just motivated by racism and wanna keep their slaves in chains.

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Is that what you're hearing him say? Did he say that? In an emotional ending, Johnson refers to his northern counterparts as beloved brethren and co -agitators in this cause of world missions.

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He sets the goal for the new denomination to extend the Messiah's kingdom and the glory of God until the deserts of unconverted human nature rejoice and blossom as the rose.

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Now, you can go do a lot more research on this. This isn't exhaustive, and there would likely be people who are going to rake me over coals for even reading what

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I read, but you have to start somewhere. And I think a good place to start is William B. Johnson's address to the origins on the origins of the

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Southern Baptist Convention. Start there, read it, try to understand it. And I think if you do that, then you're gonna start to see through some of these statements.

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So let's go back to the statement. Southern Baptist Convention was formed with injustice toward African slaves at its very core.

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SBC was founded in large part so that white Southern slave -holding Christians could appoint and support missionaries while continuing to hold their slaves in chains.

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Well, were those the root issues? Was that the core? Was that the major disagreement? No. This historical reality is neither disputed nor can it be ignored.

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Well, it was disputed by the very first president of the convention. Now, here's the truth. Let me give you the truth in this.

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The truth is that, yeah, slavery totally existed in the South at that time, and in actually parts of the

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North at that time. The SBC, when it was founded, it was founded in large part as a reaction against the tactics of abolitionists in the

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North who were breaking the rules of the convention and subverting, in their minds, the authority of scripture.

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But that's a much different motivation than they just wanted to continue to hold their slaves in chains. Would you say that about someone?

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Would you say, well, we just wanna hold our slaves in chains, but in the same breath, they're beloved to us, and say the much -wronged

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Aborigines. So this is just, it's on purpose.

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It's an attempt to twist. And then it goes on. Yet, in the current moment, we see attempts to downplay this historical reality.

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They're gonna say I'm downplaying it or something. No, no, no. Actually, what we're seeing are attempts to exacerbate and mischaracterize this historical situation.

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Many people deny the existence of systemic injustice as a reality. What do you mean by that?

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What do you mean by that? I don't deny it, in the sense that there are evil systems that can be perpetuated because of evil laws that come from evil hearts.

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The evil resides in the heart. But if you wanna say that there's a system that exists, and you can't point me to the law or to the heart, and it's just systemic, no.

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And I don't use the word systemic because I know where it came from. It used to be institutional. Now it's systemic. But this is a new left word.

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It is a Marxist word. That's where it comes from. Yes, it was used in 1995. The SBC used it.

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At least at that time, they were talking about slavery specifically, so they gave an example of what they meant, what could have been enshrined in laws, that kind of thing.

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I still don't agree they should have used that term, but they did use it. But at least, like I said, they're pointing back to something that actually is concrete.

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This is just a boogeyman that's not concrete when we hear it today. It's systemic injustice. In where?

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What are you talking about? Well, it's just there. And all these general statements, or if they get specific, it's the police. It's something that you can't verifiably prove generally.

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So it's a different situation now that critical race theorists have gotten ahold of it. But anyways, they continue.

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Many who recognize systemic injustice are labeled as Marxist, liberals, and critical race theorists even though they are theologically orthodox and believe in the total sufficiency of scripture.

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Well, you can say that. A lot of liberation theologians said that kind of thing. Doesn't mean it's accurate, okay? If you're gonna use that term systemic injustice and you're not gonna point to laws or people, but you're gonna just say, oh, it's embedded.

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And that's somehow, there's a sinful component to that. Well, I'm sorry, that's outside of orthodoxy. While God desires us to continue growing in an area of racial justice, the actions of some in this

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SBC, in this convention, appear to be more concerned with political maneuvering. Now, I think that's projection when we look at that.

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That is, who's doing the political maneuvering? This whole statement is political maneuvering.

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So, I mean, watch out for that kind of thing. Let's keep going, let's skip ahead here. For any person, our actions should never be motivated by a desire for power and influence.

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There we go. Now we're getting to, I think, what this is really about. Fear can also be an overwhelming motivation for any of us.

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So impugning the motives of people who are against critical race theory, et cetera, by saying, well, they're just motivated by a desire for power, influence, and they have fear.

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Really? Give me the sources. What are you talking about? How do you know that? This is right around the time Christian nationalism is being vilified, as if Christians should never pursue power, which means,

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I guess, any influence Christianity has in a society. Christians, I mean, this is so damaging because it's vague.

29:01

Let's keep going. What has felt like progress to our brothers and sisters of color has caused many of our white brothers and sisters to believe they're on the losing side?

29:10

Okay, how do you know? I don't feel that way. What are you talking about? This isn't a black versus white thing.

29:16

This is a truth versus error thing. Why make it a black versus white thing? They're injecting this, guys.

29:22

I have not seen that injected by anyone on the conservative side. Keep going.

29:28

We stand with our brothers and sisters of the National African American Fellowship, of the SBC, when they affirm their acknowledgement of systemic racism.

29:36

So they're affirming systemic racism. Again, vague, they don't give examples. Further, we stand firmly in opposition to any movement in the

29:42

Southern Baptist Convention that seeks to distract from racial reconciliation through the gospel, and that denies the reality of systemic injustice.

29:48

Well, racial reconciliation according to whom? Because Jarvis Williams' version of racial reconciliation involves critical race theory stuff.

29:56

It's the platforming of racial minorities because they don't have power, diversifying your theological library, taking down images and statues and things that are symbols of whiteness in his mind, et cetera.

30:11

I mean, what do you mean by that? Of course, they're not specific. And the reality of systemic injustice.

30:17

So if you say that, look, I don't believe in systemic injustice. I believe that there's injustice and that it can work itself into systems, but I don't believe in this concept that systems in and of themselves can be sinful or unjust in and of themselves as such.

30:35

If you say that, which I say, then I guess these individuals say, well, we can't be in a convention with you.

30:43

And again, the reason I say that, guys, it's not because there aren't systems put in place. We can think of some systems put in place that were wrong, that were unjust.

30:50

The transatlantic slave trade is one of them. And it's not a system though, in the sense that we think of systems today.

30:57

It actually was very organic. It wasn't like a modern state where everyone got together and voted, hey, we're gonna let this happen.

31:04

It just kind of happened. People individually went over, they purchased labor and they brought that labor back to in large part,

31:12

South America, Central America, and then for the 5 % that came to the United States. So if you wanna call that a system,

31:21

I'm okay with that. I am, but just realize that words are, the meanings are kind of changing in some ways.

31:28

And the way that systemic injustice is talked about today, it's like there's this official narrative that is injected into everything.

31:35

And that's what I don't agree with. You gotta point me to where it is. You gotta show me, and when you point me to it,

31:40

I'll stand with you against it. But don't just impugn people's motives, vilify people. When you don't have any standing to do so, that's called lying.

31:48

That's actually slandering, and that's wrong. And so any kind of concept of systemic injustice, which is slander, which is how it's used often today, then no,

31:56

I can't agree with that. And I couldn't be in a convention with someone who supported that either.

32:02

You couldn't trust someone like that. They're gonna use that and vilify you if they don't get what they want.

32:09

So let's keep going. We believe God is calling us to repentance as individuals and as conventions of churches, but our hearts have grown cold.

32:16

Okay, there we go, the virtue signaling. We're grown cold because we want money and institution and influence, then this is what it's working up to.

32:27

People who are against us just want power. And using the R, including themselves in it makes it sound pious.

32:35

We need collective repentance for attempting to address social problems through human power instead of prostrating before God.

32:43

These commitments are not upheld and it will signal to many in the SBC that cooperation has already ceased to exist. Now, I've said this for a long time.

32:50

Cooperation has ceased to exist. But let me remind you of something. That was the recent statement.

32:58

Can I read for you? This is what, this is fresh. This is just from a few weeks ago.

33:04

I had written this and I will, it was on why we should cancel

33:10

Lottie Moon. If you're gonna be consistent Southern Baptists, cancel Lottie Moon, okay? You're not gonna do it, but if you were consistent, you would.

33:18

Here's part of this article. In 1989, the convention issued a statement against racism and bigotry.

33:24

They apologized for slavery in 95. In 96, they made a statement condemning arson in African -American churches. In 2007, they denounced the

33:31

Dred Scott decision. In 2015, there was another statement on racial reconciliation. The next year, they issued a statement against the

33:37

Confederate battle flag. In 2017, the convention adopted a resolution against the alt -right. In 2018,

33:43

Danny Akin sponsored a resolution which condemned William B. Johnson, who I just read for you from, because of things.

33:52

It's because Johnson's crime concerned his disagreement with the mission board in Boston, which had placed itself in direct opposition to the constitution of the convention by disqualifying slaveholders from becoming missionaries and had failed to prove that slavery is, in all circumstances, sinful.

34:05

This was offensive to Danny Akin. And that resolution, though, however, failed, but then the convention adopted a resolution against using the curse of Ham as a justification for slavery.

34:15

Guys, this is, I mean, Al Mohler's talked about this numerous times, there's a stain of racism. It never ends.

34:23

It never ends. And then this statement. How many, I mean, we already had a statement this year about systemic racism and George Floyd from SBC Elites.

34:33

How many statements are you gonna do? How many statements, guys? Is forgiveness just this hard to come by?

34:40

Is it hard for Jesus to erase these kinds of things, to move on from them?

34:47

Or will this just be constantly used as a political wedge to vilify opposition and get what you want?

34:52

Because I see that as the way it's being used now. I mean, that's an ultimatum in that letter. That's a threat at the end.

34:57

Oh, we're gonna leave if we don't get what we want. We have to have this corporate repentance thing or we're leaving.

35:03

Really? Because you've had corporate repentance how many times? Over how many years? What is it now that's so offensive?

35:09

It can't be the formation of the convention. That's already been talked about how many times? It's something present in political, guys.

35:17

And what are we living through right now? A contested election. Many evangelicals who supported Donald Trump.

35:23

Make no mistake, that's what this is about. That's what this is about. Now, John, how can you prove that?

35:29

Well, look, I'm giving you my opinion on this. I don't know how to make any other sense of it.

35:36

If you have a better way of making sense of it, then tell me. But I mean, I just heard a interview with a professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary who

35:44

I believe signed this statement, and Danny Akin. And that's what he's saying. He's saying it's

35:50

Trump. Saying, look, you know, we, and I probably should have gotten the clip, but this is already a long episode as it is.

35:57

But he says in it that, you know, evangelicals who had no problem with this racist, you know, going into the

36:07

White House for another four years, you know, they're a problem. In the conversation about CRT, et cetera.

36:12

So, you know, there's no doubt in my mind that that's what this is coming back to. Because they're applying this to Christians who want power.

36:19

Power where, what are you talking about? Political power, guys. That's what this is talking about. All right, let's keep going.

36:27

That was that statement. Let's go over another statement here. This is from Adam Greenway.

36:33

This will take shorter if I can pull it up here. This went out to all the students at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

36:46

And it's interesting. I'm not, it's long, so I'm not gonna read the whole thing.

36:53

He asks, have Southern Baptists forgotten the Ninth Commandment? Now remember, Adam Greenway signed this statement a few weeks ago against critical race theory, or at least he said that he was against it with these other entity heads of other seminary institutions.

37:05

So he gets flack from the left. He says, the unfolding conversation about CRT and intersectionality taking place reveals not only that we deserve a failing grade on the, that we deserve a failing grade on basically the way we've treated each other.

37:20

He says he enthusiastically signed the recent statement that condemned critical race theory.

37:27

He gives his reasons. What motivated me to write these words was twofold. The first was he had someone, an op -ed,

37:35

Ralph Douglas West said that he was gonna withdraw from the PhD program at Southwestern because the president colleagues need to repent.

37:44

They need to repent because they went out against CRT, and if you say anything against CRT, then you need to repent. Pastor West has even been defamed as a

37:51

Marxist by some self -appointed defenders. So he's saying, hey, look, I don't think he's a Marxist, which

37:57

I don't know Pastor West, but look, someone condemns critical race theory and you're gonna leave if they don't repent.

38:03

I don't know, you might have a Marxist pwn in you. Just saying. The second email he said he got was from a student who said, should

38:09

I even stay? Am I welcomed at this school? Because if they're against critical race theory, how can I be welcome there?

38:16

And he's saying, I realize other African -Americans might feel similar and ethnic minorities. So, I mean, this is a problem, guys.

38:22

I mean, I just want you to think about this. Consider this. If you say, you know, we're against critical race theory and we believe in biblical sufficiency, and you have people now saying, we gotta leave your institution unless you repent or I don't feel welcome here because of that statement, that shows more about them than it does about you.

38:41

I'm just saying, I'm just saying, that shows how far this has gotten into our institutions. And that is, in my opinion, very concerning.

38:50

He says, I have heard and read critics who have said that any rejection of CRT is a denial of systemic racism.

39:00

He says, I emphasize feels like, because those words are the crux of the criticism. He's always, what he's saying is, he's saying, look,

39:06

I believe in systemic racism. He says, misconstruing the statement rejection of CRT as being synonymous with the code for the

39:14

SBC Seminary presidents denying systemic racism is bearing false witness. One of my colleagues has even written specifically about how

39:20

Christians should affirm the reality of systemic racism. CRT is not a value neutral collection of insights about the individual and collective experience of African -Americans and other ethnic minorities incapable of being understood by Anglos.

39:33

It is a comprehensive ideology that makes transcendent truth claims about creation, humanity, and social order that stand in diametric opposition to the

39:40

Baptist faith and message. Critiquing CRT is not about preserving whiteness, but rather pursuing righteousness and justice, as God says through the prophet

39:47

Isaiah. Now, he's right about that last section, but I wanna point out to you the vague, hey, we believe in systemic racism, but it's so vague.

39:55

And he affirms those who have a problem with his condemnation of critical race theory. Now, this is kind of like resolution nine all over.

40:05

We deny critical race theory as a whole because it's a comprehensive ideology, but hey, it doesn't mean that we don't believe in systemic oppression.

40:15

Well, what do you mean by systemic oppression? And the reason I think it's so vague and it's not defined is because as soon as you start fleshing it out, it's gonna reveal, well,

40:22

I guess you believe in CRT then. And that's been the major problem because of the hiding in ambiguity, there is going to be constant friction because people don't exactly know what you're talking about.

40:37

You have to come out and define what you mean by it because we're gonna assume at this point, if you're using it the way that it's being used all around us, you must mean that we're racist because we're white or we're racist because we benefit from a system supposedly, according to sociologists, or we're racist because of what our great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather did, or we're racist because we have a

41:01

MAGA hat or we like the American flag, or in the case of the Southern Baptists, we have a

41:07

Confederate battle flag somewhere to honor our ancestors who fought in that conflict, or the list goes on and on and on, a symbol, a hero.

41:17

We look up to George Washington. That's the way it's being used. And to strip the landscape of things that were identity markers before, and if you're gonna just keep saying systemic racism but never to define it, that's gonna be an issue.

41:31

Now, last but not least, guys, I wanna show you this clip. This is from Danny Akin.

41:38

This is a show that he was on with his son and a professor at his school of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and here's a few things that Danny Akin said.

41:47

I accept the criticism that our statement left itself open to critique, criticism, and, well, you spoke to this, but you left all of this off.

41:58

Why? And I understand why many of my good brothers and sisters feel that way, and I regret that and grieve over that.

42:07

I accept that we could have been more clear. We could have been maybe more precise on some things.

42:14

Maybe, again, the best thing would be not to even raise it because, again, unfortunately,

42:20

I think it's caused more strife, more pain. It's kinda like Resolution 9, which

42:26

I know we'll get to in a moment. I think there are many, many good things in that resolution.

42:32

It's not all bad. There's some people who don't see one scintilla of positivity in CRT.

42:40

I know that Dr. Akin has expressed that he can see. He's sympathetic to the fact that it raises sensitivities and it raises concerns and it raises questions and it posits theories that you say, hmm, that's good,

42:55

I need to wrestle with that, I need to grapple with that, I know him. I want our faculty and our students to be aware of critical race theory and what

43:04

Deuce said a moment ago, where they raise really good questions, where they expose underlying, hidden aspects of racism.

43:17

I'm thankful for that. Again, as an overall framework and ideology, I think it comes up short, but that doesn't mean everything that they say is wrong.

43:27

In a number of instances, it's very clear it overlaps with Revelation and what

43:33

God's Word says about these issues. It just simply highlights them in our particular context and kind of, oh, well, yeah,

43:41

I can see how that, the Bible's talking about that right over here. So I do think that has been helpful.

43:50

I wanna be very clear. I believe that racism exists, both on the personal level and the systemic or structural level.

43:58

As I've said for a number of years now, sinful humans by their very nature are going to build sinful structures that benefit those in power.

44:07

You cannot convince me that that is not a backtrack. He's trying to pull out, pull back from the statement that was made a few weeks ago condemning critical race theory.

44:19

He's now saying, hey, there's some good points to it. I mean, this is Resolution 9. He's just, and this is what we've had for a long time.

44:26

Resolution 9 created this schism, in a sense, because it said, wait a minute, you can use critical race theory and intersectionality as analytical tools, as long as it's subservient to Scripture.

44:37

But to use the tools, as we pointed out many times on this program, is to buy into the assumptions of the worldview that it comes from.

44:44

You can't separate the two. The tools are based on certain assumptions. So you're not gonna, you know, finding tools to go back and find out where's the racism at?

44:53

Well, you have to first buy in this idea that there's this systemic racism that embeds itself in things that can only be visible to those with certain perspectives, and it's not necessarily objectively, you know, identified.

45:07

And I mean, once you start going down that path, well, you've already, you've left the truth. Scripture is sufficient for that.

45:12

That's what Scripture's for. That's what, there's no, there isn't like a moral framework outside of Scripture that Scripture didn't account for.

45:20

We have the fullness, for so the man of God can be equipped for every good deed in Scripture. So you can't have it as analytical tool, but that's what you keep getting, is a replay of Resolution 9.

45:32

Every single time they criticize critical race theory, they will not retract Resolution 9. Every time the

45:38

Resolution 9 committee tries to make another statement, they end up reaffirming the core issue of Resolution 9.

45:43

Every time you hear them say, well, I would have phrased it differently, they end up regurgitating what Resolution 9 argued for every single time, without exception, that I have seen.

45:54

So that's where we are. And you see that Adam Greenway waffles a little bit, although his statement was a little stronger, but what his letter evidence is is that he is getting pressure from the other side, from those on the left.

46:06

Danny Akin is trying to cater to the left. Don't think that the pressure is just coming from the right, coming from the more

46:18

Orthodox Christians in the SBC. And it's certainly not a black and white thing. I reject that completely.

46:24

There are so many people who are my brothers and sisters in Christ, who are blessed with a better melanin count than I have for being, for going to the beach.

46:35

I get sunburned, I get burnt to a crisp. And I think there are some genetic superiorities,

46:42

I will say, to having darker skin. But I absolutely love my brothers and sisters who are

46:50

Orthodox to the bone and reject this nonsense. And to make this a race thing is just disgusting, as the statement suggests, in my opinion, that this statement on repentance that J .D.

47:03

Greer likes. J .D. Greer, by the way, also was with the seminary heads decrying CRT, saying, well, we don't teach critical race theory.

47:10

And then he endorses that kind of a statement. So you gotta come to terms with, well, then what is critical race theory?

47:16

And when is it a problem? And that's what they won't address. They won't define it. Look, I can define it very simply for you.

47:24

And this will take into account pretty much all the different flavors of it out there. Don't let the nerds tell you, oh, it's, you need us experts.

47:31

That's why you need us to define what CRT is. It's really simple, guys, because it's just an extension of new left ideas.

47:36

It's actually nothing really new. It's just further developed. Racism is systemic.

47:43

It's embedded in everything. It's fundamental to the fabric of culture because it's connected to the hegemony, the power structure that exists.

47:50

And race is part of that. So it doesn't matter what you're doing. There's, you know, you could be in your knitting club and racism could be affecting that somehow.

47:59

So that's step one. Buy into the systemic racism argument. It's not even an argument.

48:04

It's just an assumption. The solutions for these things, in other words, identifying them, coming up with ways of improving and doing better, et cetera, getting rid of racism, rooting it out, it must come from a certain perspective.

48:18

The minority perspective is the superior perspective. So there actually is a racism embedded within this, like, you know, a classic kind of racism because people are morally superior.

48:29

They have a superior knowledge if they are in a quote unquote minority group or oppressed group, according to sociologists.

48:35

So buy into that standpoint theory that we need these other perspectives to understand so many things because race is just embedded in everything because this power structure is there.

48:47

And of course, yeah, there's other things I can mention. I got Derek Bell and, you know, his idea that, you know, even the civil rights movement was a racist move because it didn't really address the problem.

48:59

It just made it go underground more. And I mean, there's other things that have been added, but if you really want to know the core, what's the gist of this?

49:07

What's the issue that's creating the problem? It's that. It's the postmodernism that comes from standpoint theory. It's the Marxism and the need for some kind of a revolution to change all the social structures that comes with this idea that there's systemic racism and it's such a problem.

49:21

That's it, guys. You don't need to know that a whole lot more because you got enough problems right there. Those are the core fundamental assumptions.

49:27

Everything else pretty much comes from that. So I can define it for you very easily.

49:32

Most people who have read any books on this can define it for you very easily. If you just live in our society and you look around and see what's happening in HR departments, you should be able to define it fairly easily.

49:41

And then you should be able to identify very clearly why that would be in conflict with what the Bible teaches about the anthropology of man and the providence of God, et cetera, et cetera, and biblical justice, which we've gone over many, many times.

49:55

But that's not what you're getting from the SBC elites. You're not getting that. And that's a real problem, guys.

50:01

And they are steering the whole ship into an iceberg because you're gonna have to go to the left, you're gonna have to go to the right.

50:08

I would suggest if you go to the left, you're just gonna sink more slowly, but you will avoid the iceberg short -term, but you're going straight into an iceberg because they're unwilling to define these things and actually be clear.

50:22

They want to have their cake and eat it too. And it's just not gonna happen long -term. So, I hope that was helpful to you guys for you and the

50:31

Southern Baptist Convention. God bless you all. And thank you so much, by the way, for all the support.

50:37

It's just, this has been an amazing year in so many ways. And I just wanna thank all of you who have supported this podcast and helped us.

50:45

We've done a variety of things, and I plan to go over some of those in a show to just talk about, hey, what have we done?

50:51

Us together, this audience, this audience is, you guys are just amazing. And it's not me, guys.

50:57

It's you who have really moved the needle in these denominations and in other areas as well.

51:03

So, hey, God bless you all. And until next year, which maybe

51:08

I'll get another one out before next year. Let's, we'll see. But have a happy new year. Bye now.