Why Critical Race Theory Enrages Conservative Evangelical Christians

Secret Recordings, Leaked Letters: Explosive Secrets Rocking the Southern Baptist Convention,

Baptist News Global: Could you win a Quiz Show by Defining Critical Race Theory?

The Southern Baptist Convention met in New Orleans, Louisiana in 2012, following the devastation the city experienced from Hurricane Katrina.  For the first time in the denomination's history, it elected a black man, Fred Luter, as its president.  Luter is a native of New Orleans, born and raised in the city, and is the pastor of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church, an inner city church that has grown into the largest Southern Baptist church in the state of Louisiana under his leadership.

Franklin Avenue had been a white, Southern Baptist church from its founding in the 1940's, but the neighborhood around the church shifted and eventually, the white congregation that was left after a long decline, turned the buildings over to the New Orleans Baptist Association which planted an African American church there with the same name, and continued its affiliation with the Southern Baptist Convention.  Times had changed, and the SBC had actually begun welcoming black church members and predominantly black churches into affiliation by the 80's.  Luter became pastor in 1986, when it was still a mission congregation supported by another church, and under his leadership, it grew from about 60 in attendance each week to over 6,000.    

Churches with predominantly African American membership were not always welcome in the Southern Baptist Convention, which did not repudiate its segregationist and slavery-endorsing past until a resolution was finally passed in 1995.  But it takes more than a resolution to change attitudes and actions.  The denomination did have some visionary individuals, mostly at the local church level, who saw that segregated churches preaching and teaching the Christian gospel was inconsistent with the principles of that gospel, taught by Jesus and the Apostles and recorded in the New Testament.  By the time Luter became pastor of Franklin Avenue Baptist, there were several hundred predominantly African American churches that were affiliated with the SBC, though most of them kept their ties to the historically African American Baptist denomination to which they also belonged. 

There are still very few churches in the SBC that are diverse or integrated. The denomination's statistical analysis says that there are over a million church members who are African American, out of 13 million total.  But that membership is nowhere near the point where they are proportionately represented on the trustee boards and committees of the denomination's entities.  The SBC's inner core of leaders is still an insider group of older, white men who profess loyalty to the doctrine and theology introduced by the "Conservative Resurgence," a takeover group of fundamentalists within the denomination who have tight control over all of the positions holding power.  

During Luter's presidency, which was supported by messengers at the convention over some objections from a few of the inner circle oligarchs, the door was opened to a much wider spectrum of members, including several African Americans and Latinos, who together represent the only demographic segment of the denomination showing any growth in membership at all.  Most of those who were appointed by Luter have either been term-limited out, or, terminated on pretext of theological error.

Opposition to Critical Race Theory has Extremist Right Wing Political Roots 

Take a look at the piece I referenced above from the Bowling Green Daily News in 2021.  An African American employee at the North American Mission Board, who was also a pastor, was fired for disagreeing with a position taken by Georgia pastor Mike Stone, who was, at the time, a candidate for SBC president.  The disagreement wasn't disrespectful, and it wasn't a violation of any NAMB policy or doctrinal position.  Though the denomination passed a resolution on CRT at its Birmingham convention meeting in 2018, resolutions are not binding on churches or on SBC entities, and are a reflection of the thoughts and convictions only from that specific gathering.  To enforce resolutions, trustee boards would have to transform them into policy. 

It was, in fact, the presence of several African American pastors on the resolutions committee in 2019 that prevented the convention from completely embarrassing itself over a resolution that was initially introduced to the committee which was full of misinformation and incorrect assumptions and interpretations of CRT.  Other than inflammatory rhetoric and labelling CRT as "Marxist" which is the new conservative catch-word to sling at anything conservatives don't understand and don't like, no one has yet pointed out, theologically and biblically, exactly how Critical Race Theory contradicts scripture apart from the right wing extremist labels, which are inaccurate characterizations of the theory.  

Since then, the African Americans who served on the resolutions committee, including the Chairman, Curtis Woods, pastor of Severns Valley Baptist Church in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, and Walter Strickland, a professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, have taken a beating in social media, endured caustic criticism that is neither consistent with a biblical, Christian manner in which to deal with disagreements like this, nor are the things being said about them truthful.  Woods has since resigned his pastorate, citing "clinical depression" as the reason for his inability to continue, and Strickland has been the target of all kinds of attacks.  Both of these men are solidly conservative, Evangelical Bible scholars, and they are intellectually and spiritually capable of discerning and interpreting the role of Critical Race Theory in the African American church, with scriptural truth.  

Far right wing politics attacks what it finds disagreeable, not with facts or truth, or with a solid, discerning, evaluation of whatever it is that it is confronting, but with talking points that are invented to support their position without having to engage in discussion or dialogue.  The resolution that was originally going to be presented to the Southern Baptist Convention was, itself, a complete distortion, full of dishonest conclusions about CRT, including misquotes and revisions of what those who've written about CRT have said.  It was completely political, and not something a Christian denomination, especially one as large and visible as the SBC, had any business promoting.  

I think there has been an expectation among the old guard bureaucracy in the Southern Baptist Convention, that African Americans who joined the convention would also join the Republican party.  To be honest, the reaction to all of this is evidence which supports my contention that this is the case.  Though they've tried, African Americans have never been brought into true leadership in the SBC.  Many of those who came in under Fred Luter's leadership, and through his committee appointments, have been pushed out the same way Tez Andrews was dismissed.  So far, Walter Strickland has stayed with his position at SETBC, and continues to be an advocate for racial reconciliation in the SBC, but I'm sure that's not an easy job.  

Still No Biblical Explanation Making Resolution 9 Inaccurate

Other than using the buzzwords and catch phrases, and attempting to equate Critical Race Theory with Maxist ideology, which is a false comparison, I have not seen anyone really come up with anything that proves Resolution 9 to be wrong.  Those who want to restore and bring back the original resolution seem to be oblivious to its incorrect assertions and false narrative regarding Critical Race Theory.  But perhaps the biggest failure of those who continue to press the false narrative is a failure to look to the black church leadership within the SBC for guidance and perspective.  White pastors and church members, especially those who still exhibit a touch of racist white supremacy in their worldview, connected to their cultural background, do not have the experience that African Americans have with the bigotry of white supremacy.  

Critical Race Theory is just exactly what its title suggests that it is, a theory.  The African American leadership in the SBC, in bringing forth resolution 9, clearly acknowledged that scripture is the determining authority in all matters of Christian faith practice.  What enrages conservatives isn't that it has Marxist origins, which it clearly doesn't, or that it denies the authority of the Bible as scripture, which it also clearly does not do.  They are enraged because it argues for racial equality and that's not something they are willing to concede, at least, not those who keep insisting that the convention in 2019 didn't know what it was doing, was duped by the committee, and needs to rescind the resolution.  There are those in the SBC, to its credit, who are sincere Christians, understand that the denomination needs to stop talking a good talk about race and put up or shut up when it comes to sharing the leadership with people of other races who are equally capable, and just as spiritual.  

The African Americans who have been close enough to leadership in the SBC to be recognized as solidly Biblical in their perspective have not placed Critical Race Theory above the Bible.  The language used in SBC Resolution 9 is much more accurate than the anti-CRT, highly political rhetoric that was initially presented, and was something about which the SBC had no business making a statement anyway.  But there's a real lack of spiritual maturity and either a lack of understanding of the kind of equality that the Christian gospel teaches, or deliberately ignoring it, when it comes to listening to, and submitting to the leadership of, African American Baptists who have become part of the SBC. 

It's tough for a denomination to admit, when they claim to believe in the inerrancy and infallibility of scripture, and consider themselves conservatives who are right there next to Jesus on the right hand of God, that the whole premise on which their denomination was founded was racist, sinful and wrong.  And that enrages them.  

There are clearly elements in the Southern Baptist Convention who are unwilling to come to a resolution that is different than the one to which they are stubbornly holding, and which may be culturally comfortable for them, and for their churches.  Those attitudes undermine the very gospel that they claim to follow and which they have determined in their own doctrine and theology to be "God breathed, truth without any mixture of error."  Believing that is more than signing on to a statement of faith.  It is putting it into practice.  The African Americans within their denomination are equals, and deserve to be treated as such, including consideration given to their perspective on an issue where their experience runs much deeper than those of their white brethren.  

It is my personal opinion, having been raised in a Southern Baptist church and educated, at least in part, in two of its affiliated institutions of higher education, that the denomination has undermined its own ability to preach and teach the truth by flying way too close to the far right political flame.  They've allowed the intrusion of a political philosophy that glorifies sin and worldliness in the person of its candidates, and which is now trying to change the very message of Jesus himself with some members claiming that his teaching on loving your neighbor, turning the other cheek and going the extra mile are "liberal talking points."  

There are real Christians within the Southern Baptist Convention who understand the Christian gospel and whose intentions are to open the doors of ministry cooperation within their churches and institutions as wide as they can go in faithfulness to Christ and the gospel.  They've had their moments of success, though the membership numbers are indicating that a large segment of church members are giving up and going elsewhere.  And many of those are African Americans who represent one of the few constituencies in the denomination that is still growing.  Politics is ripping this evangelical denomination apart.  Can it ever be put back together?

  

Desantis is a Loser, and Biden is a Winner and That's What we saw in Florida Yesterday

 Joe Biden is President of the United States, and as part of his official duties, he visited the hurricane ravaged areas of Florida, a state that gets an awful lot of federal help, not just putting it back together after the flat sand bar that it is gets devastated by hurricanes, but also to help prop up its public welfare expenses.  At a time when partisan bickering and hatred should get laid aside in favor of helping people who were affected regardless of their political affiliation, Florida's governor chose to play politics instead of doing something to benefit the people he governs.  The kind of attitude he exhibited by shunning an appearance in a declared disaster area when the President is visiting is exactly why this loser is getting no traction in his campaign for President and why, in fact, he is losing to someone in his own party who is a bigger con artist and jackass than he is. 

Actually, in the con artist and jackass department, between Desantis and Trump, I have to say it's a draw. 

I know voters in Florida recently seem to have lost their minds, voting against themselves and their interests in the last two Presidential elections, and the last two midterms, when it comes to their state legislature and governor.  In a state where there are so many people past 65 years of age, living near the coast in trailers, and who came from that large island 90 miles south, to escape oppression, the rest of the country is confused by your lack of discernment, and your tendency to elect politicians who could care less about your economic status, or your personal freedom.  But this week, your governor sent a clear message that he no longer cares about you.  He's more interested in his campaign to get elected President of the United States and this is just one of many things he's done to tell you, Floridians, that he is only interested in using you to help him.  

And that's going to cost you.  It has, in fact, already cost you plenty.  

President Biden waited only as along as he had to, until the arrangements necessary for his visit wouldn't interfere with recovery efforts, to come, see for himself, and become your number one advocate for getting every federal government resource you're paid for through your taxes over the years.  That's why we're taxed, you know.  It's not some government plot to separate the rich from what they think are their entitlements.  Our constitutional democracy is a government for the people, and protecting them is a priority, at least, it has been for Presidents and members of Congress who are Democrats.  For Republicans, it's more about keeping their wealtly contributors, and their wealthy selves, from having to participate in the greater good with their cash flow.  

It didn't matter to the President that the counties most ravaged by this particular hurricane have voted majority Republican in recent elections [except Leon, where Tallahassee is located].  The high winds, storm surge, heavy rain, flooding and wind damage didn't distinguish between Republicans or Democrats, Christians or Muslims or Buddhists or Nones.  Nether does President Joe Biden.  And that's one of the real differences between him and his Republican opponents and detractors.  He sees you as Americans who need a hand.  They see you as means to an end. 

Argue with me all you want to about this, the fact of the matter is that the governor deliberately chose not to show up when the President did.  Senator Scott did.  I don't like him, and I don't agree with hardly any of his politics, but give the guy credit, he was mature enough, and he cared enough about his constituents to show up, stand beside the President and also advocate for the people who need the government's help.  It could be that he may also decide he wants to run for President but he's not going to throw Floridians under the bus to do so, or at least, when it comes to things like this, he demonstrated some maturity and avoided the kind of political poison and hatred that much of his party has adopted as their platform.  At least he did so on that one day.  

Even during the press conferences and news coverage of the hurricane preparations, and what was going on as it approached, and then when it devastated the coast, every time Desantis appeared on camera it was like he was watching himself in the mirror to see how he was coming off, and whether he could use the news clips in campaign ads, that is, if his dwindling contributions will allow him to afford to run them.  His body language, tone of voice, which I think sounds a little bit prissy and arrogant, and whole appearance was like he was on stage in a performance.  

Oh, by the way, that FEMA money and assistance you are getting isn't for the purpose of buying your vote.  We've had situations in the past where some politicians, ahem, ahem, have demanded that their signature appear on the treasury department's relief check to make it look like it was their doing that you got the help for which your tax dollars had already provided.  You won't see or hear anything like that from this President, because he is genuinely humble and that's clearly not how he operates.  He's had to make a couple of trips like this recently, and you could see the grief in his demeanor, and hear it in his voice, standing in burned out Lahaina, Hawaii and now, in the Florida Big Bend.  Americans suffered and their President came to stand with them.  

In Florida, your governor, who doesn't do anything that isn't for his own political benefit, was a no show.  

Plaque Honoring Contributions of Slaves Placed in Campus Building Named After a Slave-owning Founder at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

 When is a Prominent Memorial not as Major as Advertised?

The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary is considered the "flagship" seminary of the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest Protestant denomination.  Located in the Crescent Hill district of Louisville, Kentucky, its southern colonial style architecture fits in well with the wooded campus and surrounding neighborhood.  Buildings on the campus are named for the school's founders, as well as other prominent Baptist leaders of the same era, most of whom believed in slavery, including the belief in white supremacy and the inferiority of black people, and who also owned slaves themselves.  Some of those slaves were used in building and developing the campus and its upkeep.  

That's not a surprising part of the denomination's history.  It was founded when the Triennial Baptist Convention in Philadelphia declared that slave owners could not be sent as missionaries, a statement which underlined the abolitionist attitudes of Baptists in the northern states and made the political and theological statement that slavery was wrong and sinful.  Baptist churches in the south sent delegates to a meeting in Augusta, Georgia in 1845 and separated from the Triennial Convention, setting up their own denominational structure which became known as the Southern Baptist Convention.  

The denomination has affiliated churches in all 50 states, and because of its mission enterprise, all around the world.  But the largest groups of affiliated churches are found in the 11 states of the old Confederacy, along with Kentucky, Missouri and Oklahoma.  And the Southern Baptist convention, as a denomination, is very much a leftover institution from the days of the Confederacy, a cultural institution which is the place where much of the antebellum southern culture still survives, and thrives.  

Calls to Rename Campus Buildings Which Were Named After Slaveowners

Dr. Dwight McKissic, pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, who is a recognized leader among African Americans affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, and who has served as a member of the board of trustees of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth, has been one of the most active voices calling for the Louisville school to rename the campus buildings currently named after slaveowners.  I don't mean to sound condescending, or patronizing, but come on, this is the 21st century and Southern Baptists, while taking their very sweet time doing so, have finally repented of their anti-Christian, anti-Biblical beliefs in the inferiority of African-Americans and their very sinful treatment of them as slaves.  The fact that the men who founded the seminary held these beliefs disqualifies them from having the honor of buildings named after them, because it was not honorable what they did and what they believed.  

On a recent trip to Louisville, Dr McKissic was invited by seminary president Dr. Al Mohler to visit the campus and see a plaque which had been, according to Mohler, "prominently displayed" on campus, memorializing the work of the slaves, nameless, who had worked to help build and take care of the seminary grounds.  The plaque is placed in the Broaddus Chapel, used for weddings and for preaching classes, and named after one of the slave-owning founders of the seminary, John A. Broaddus. 

That's a little more than ironic, to me.  There's a deliberate message in placing a commemorative plaque honoring African American slaves and their contributions to building the seminary in a building named after one of the men who owned some of those slaves.  Dr. McKissic was very gracious in his comments, though he was unable to come to the campus and see the commemorative plaque.  

"To focus on whether it is a major marker, or in a prominent location, misses the larger point.  The fact that slaves are officially acknowledged as making a significant contribution is, to me, far more important than the fact that the plaque is located in a building named after a slave owner," he said.  

"It definitely does not accomplish that goal [of removing the names of the slaveowners from the buildings entirely] but it does acknowledge that African Americans played a significant financial and functional role in the development of the initial buildings of in the original Southern Seminary Louisville location," he added. 

Those comments are a tribute to the kind of spirit that Dr. McKissic has brought to the Southern Baptist Convention, and to his willingness to be engaged in helping the denomination build relationships that include fellow Christians who happen to be African American in leadership and as full partners in the mission and ministry of the denomination.  It's a pity that the rest of the denomination fails to respond to that kind of willingness to do what it takes to make it work. 

When asked why he thought the seminary's leaders have not removed the names of the original founders who were slave owners, he said "I understand that the descendants of the slave masters do not have that inner drive to act in the ultimate realm of spirituality by removing the names of slave masters from the building.  I recognize they just can't do it.  It requires a level of spiritual maturity and social reckoning to do so."  

"If the founders were abortion advocates," he said, "they would have no hesitancy in removing their names.  Most Southern Baptists do not equate the evil of slavery with the evil of abortion.  But they are wrong," he ended.  

Seminary Leadership is Tone Deaf

The plaque, which is nothing more than a token acknowledgement of the contribution made to the seminary by African American slaves, and along with it, acknowledgement of its past history with the sin of slavery, is not prominently displayed, nor was its placement acknowledged in such a way as to create awareness of its location and existence.  From all appearances, this looks like an afterthought, some kind of propaganda piece that will silence the critics and let the fact that the seminary continues to do nothing about the names of its buildings get swept under the rug.

Dr. McKissic, and other African Americans in the Southern Baptist Convention, including students who attend Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, are correct to evaluate the school administration's lack of action as a lack of spiritual maturity and social reckoning.  But then, how does a theological seminary, teaching the Christian gospel to prospective ministers and missionaries, still have credibility without spiritual maturity?  

Denominational leadership, at least openly on the surface, has given itself pats on the back for the progress it has made in welcoming African Americans into the full fellowship.  It has made progress, including the selection of African Americans to serve on committees and boards, as Dr. McKissic did at Southwestern, though not as comfortably and amicably as the seminary administration made it sound.  The convention messengers twice elected an African American as President, Dr. Fred Luter, pastor of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans.  

It would be very easy to make the change, pass a resolution, rededicate the buildings in a campus chapel service with all students present and Dr. McKissic as guest speaker, and be done with it.  That would only improve the image of both the seminary and the denomination and it's action which speaks louder than words.  But the approach they've taken opens up legitimate questions about the sincerity of their faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ and whose ideology it is that they really follow and respect.

Influenced by the Far Republican Right, a Christian Denomination Sharpens its Skills in Oligarchy and Deception

Southern Baptist Convention Conducting Internal Investigation into Willie McLaurin's Educational Background 

Here we go again.  

The Southern Baptist Convention, which is the nation's largest Protestant denomination, and the largest conservative Evangelical denomination, is making the news yet again, and not in a good way.  The most recent interim President of the Southern Baptist Convention executive committee, who is essentially the CEO of the denomination, suddenly resigned after it was discovered that his resume falsely represented his educational background.  A search committee, interviewing Willie McLaurin for consideration as the permanent President of the Executive Committee, discovered this in checking with the colleges and universities he listed as having attended and from which he received several degrees, including a doctorate from one of them.  

McLaurin is the fourth individual since 2010 who has either resigned from the executive board presidency because of a moral or ethical failing, or who has failed to meet the expectations required by the nation's largest Protestant denomination of it's CEO. Southern Baptists appear to have adopted the lack of transparency, dishonesty, nepotism, favor-granting, misuse of power and misappropriation of funds that characterize the far political right of the GOP which many of them have allowed to infiltrate their churches.  Birds of a feather, and all that.  It's subjective to argue that Southern Baptist denominational politics resembles the corruption of the Republican party, but here's more evidence, on top of a nasty sexual abuse scandal by clergy and church leaders.  It's my conclusion that there's a connection, because it sure looks like it.

The question at this point is how someone, who was previously employed by the Tennessee Baptist Convention in its executive administration, and subsequently at the SBC's executive committee as Vice-President for Great Commission Initiatives, a high dollar, high power executive office, got that far without having his educational background vetted. It would be unusual for someone at that level of executive leadership either in a Baptist state convention office, or at the Southern Baptist headquarters, to not have at least a master's degree, preferably from one of the six seminaries operated by the denomination.  Someone didn't do their job, and in the very backward manner in which Southern Baptists often operate, it was because someone higher up,, and with influence, was doing McLaurin a favor in exchange for some benefit or favor from McLaurin later on.  

A Troubled Office 

The President of the Executive Committee, while not actually the "head" of the denomination, is the CEO of its business operation.  The committee carries out the work of administering the unified budget plan, distributing funds to six seminaries, two mission boards, the largest Christian publishing house in the world, and the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, and follows the directives and recommendations of the messengers at the annual, two-day convention where business is conducted and voted on by messengers from the churches.  So this office is the most visible face of Southern Baptists to the world.  It hasn't been a very good representation since 2018.  

The person who holds this office is chosen by a search committee.  No one gets any paid position in the Southern Baptist denomination without bowing at the feet of a small group of far right conservatives who plotted a takeover of the trustee boards and committees that control the business operations and carried it out by the end of the 1980's.  So the last four occupants of this most visible, and powerful, of Southern Baptist denominational offices, who have not been very consistent with their Christian testimony, have held the position because of the conservative faction's use of their own influence and power.  

Yes, I'll repeat that.  Conservatives control who gets the jobs in the SBC, and are responsible for the last four failures.  

McLaurin is one of two of the past four presidents who served in an interim capacity, but sources inside the committee say he was about to be made the permanent president, becoming the first black executive to lead anywhere in the denomination.  His predecessor, Ronnie Floyd, resigned when the convention itself overwhelmingly passed directives over his strenuous objection, mainly related to waiver of privilege so that investigators could get to the bottom of the clergy sex abuse scandal.  Prior to Floyd, another interim, August Boto, was stonewalling convention messengers' desires to "do something" about the sexual abuse scandal.  He refused, citing legal liabilities and fear of lawsuits.  And Boto became interim when Frank Page resigned, citing an "improper relationship" as his reason for stepping down.  

That's quite a record for a conservative, fundamentalist, Bible-thumping, majority Republican, Christian denomination.  It appears that marital infidelity, silence and lack of transparency, resistance to the will of the people and lying have become the values which characterize leadership in the SBC.  This didn't happen in a vacuum.  McLaurin held two paid executive positions, one in the Tennessee Baptist Convention, the other at the SBC executive committee, prior to becoming interim.  So how is it that no one bothered to check his resume the first two times he was hired?

Yes, Right Wing Politics is at the Bottom of the SBC's Problems

There are those within the Southern Baptist Convention who claim that the lack of transparency has always been a problem, that a small oligarchy of prominent, mostly larger-church pastors and a handful of wealthy church members, have always called the shots and bent the rules to their favor, to avoid controversies and questions from the messengers who attend the annual meeting, and where accountability for convention business rests.  That's an accurate statement.  But until recently, the denominational politics was largely internal, mostly doctrinal and theological fights between fundamentalists, conservatives and moderates.  It's only been since the 1990's that secular, Republican politics intruded into the debate, and only since Trump that it has had the kind of corrosive, corrupting effect that is clearly visible now.  

The tight, self-appointed leadership oligarchy has done this to themselves.  One of the two men who is labelled as an "architect of the conservative resurgence," Paul Pressler, an influential Texas Republican and a state appeals court judge, was interested in commandeering the influence of the denomination on the side of Republican politics, turning it into a political action committee. Pressler manipulated, or more accurately, bullied the trustees of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) of the denomination to make Richard Land its executive director, to facilitate the marriage with the GOP.  Land infamously authored the letter from the Christian right to Dubya, explaining how blowing the smithereens out of Iraq would be a "just war" from a Christian perspective.  This willingness to distort and use the Christian gospel for something it did not, in any way, shape or form, justify, is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the corruption of the Southern Baptist Convention by its leadership. 

That's one of the reasons why Trump's immorality, fraud, lies, deception, and promotion of worldliness like prostitution and gambling interests didn't draw criticism from Southern Baptist leadership when he ran for President, but, in fact, actually got support from some prominent leaders including Land, Pressler and Robert Jeffress, the pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, whom Trump calls "one of my favorite Evangelicals."  They rejected two of their own members, Ted Cruz and Lindsay Graham--not stellar, outstanding examples of ethics or morality themselves, but at least, they belong to and attend Southern Baptist churches-- in order to support the evil, antichristian demagogue, not only during his run for the Presidency, but also through the GOP nomination process. 

So the crocodile tears and caterwauling over Willie McLaurin's phony resume credentials is subterfuge covering up a much bigger internal problem, including rank deception and dishonesty, also known as lying, which, apparently worked right up to this point.  Willie McLaurin is black.  If he were white, I seriously doubt that the person, or persons, on the search committee who found this deception would have bothered to check.  This was his second try at the executive position, after a first choice by the search committee was voted down because, well, because he had been the chair of the search committee.  Many of those on the Executive Committee had resigned themselves to the reluctant conclusion that McLaurin might be the first African American to hold any executive leadership position in the Southern Baptist Convention, anywhere.  Now, they are absolved of that dilemna.  

The bigger problem for this denomination is a severe and spectacular decline in its membership and attendance, way beyond the dent put in attendance by COVID.  In just the past decade, membership has declined by 3.2 million, with more than 400,000 leaving in each of the last three years.  Expectations are that 2024 will bring at least a drop of 500,000.  They lost 100,000 members in the weeks after the convention annual meeting in June, when they voted to kick out churches who had women on staff designated as "pastors."  One church they booted, the largest in the denomination, had over 40,000 members, and another large, prominent church, which left rather than remaining in to be booted later, over 30,000.  Reports are that about 30 other churches have since severed their ties.  

It's pretty clear, from the evidence, and in spite of efforts on behalf of SBC leaders to blame their tanking membership on everything but what's causing it, that being good at deception, lacking transparency and being run by a small group of self-appointed leaders who admire political leaders that bear no characteristics of, or resemblance to anything "Christian" is a problem.  

You can't make this stuff up.  

  

  

The Walls Conservative Evangelicals Have Built That Caused the March on Washington in 1963 Are Still Standing

Baptist News Global: Author Rick Pidcock Provides Insights into White, Evangelical Perspectives on Race 

In The Signal Press, I've frequently referenced a verse in the small, but powerful New Testament book of Jude.  Jude is not a common text among most conservative Evangelical preachers, especially those who don't necessarily use the Common Lexionary or the Christian calendar in their planning of sermons.  It's verse 4 which I have frequently cited as a prophetic word, especially for those who are blending far right wing politics with conservative Evangelicalism in both its Pentecostal and Fundamentalist forms. 

For certain intruders have stolen in among you, people who long ago were designated for this condemnation as ungodly, who pervert the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only master and Lord, Jesus Christ.  Jude v. 4, NRSV

These words had a specific application to a church not long after the time of Jesus.  In its early days, the church was subject to intrusion by pagan philosophy and false doctrine, in some cases having to rely on short epistles providing guidance and direction from the Apostles, like Jude, while they were becoming more familiar with the Christian gospel.  So these words are not a specific "prophecy" for today, as some Christians believe about parts of the Bible, but they are "prophetic" in that they resonate with much of what has happened in many churches where far right wing politics have become indistinguishable from church doctrine and theology.  

Certain intruders have stolen in among today's conservative Evangelical churches, replacing sound doctrine and theology with right wing political rhetoric, turning churches into cults with a political mission and purpose and in some cases, replacing Jesus with loyalty to a political "savior" which completely subverts the Christian gospel.  Fear, says Rick Pidcock, the author of the piece linked at the top of this article from Baptist News Global, fear of change is the underlying motivation, while opposition to change, especially from a hard line Calvinist approach, represents God to the far right.  

These are blemishes on your love feasts, says the Apostle Jude, while they feast with you without fear, feeding themselves.  They are waterless clouds carried along by the winds; autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wamdering stars for whom the deepest darkness has been reserved forever.  Jude 12-13

These words of Jude resonate with me as I relate them to the far right wing politics of our time.  It is such an apt description of the far right, that I almost marvel that the ink is dry on the page, and that Jude is an ancient apostle, and not a columnist or editorial writer for a progressive Christian publication like Baptist News Global.  

These are grumblers and malcontents; they indulge their own lusts; they are bombastic in speech, flattering people to their own advantage.  Jude 15

It's hard to believe this was written in the late first century and not right after a Trump rally.  

I'll stop here, and point you to Rick Pidcock's piece in Baptist News Global.  It's an eye opener.  

Why Don't Journalists Call Out Bad Talking Points?

Washington Post: The Truth About Russia, Trump and the 2016 Election 

Vivek Ramaswamy slips it into his talking points as if it were fact.  The Democrats lied about Russian collusion in the 2016 election, therefore it justifies the lies Trump has told since then.  He slipped that statement into his comments on Meet the Press Sunday morning, and Chuck Todd didn't bat an eye, offered no question about it and let it slide.  That's expected with much of the main stream media. 

But this morning, on a talk show in Chicago, during a discussion about whether these indictments and charges against Trump are politically motivated, Santita Jackson had a guest on her program who stated flatly that Trump, as a former President, shouldn't be charged with crimes under the administration of his successor, but that the people ought to determine whether he is guilty of insurrection by the manner in which they cast their ballots.  I get it, with Jackson's program, she goes out of her way to be fair, and to represent various viewpoints, but this guest also mentioned the fact that Democrats pulled a similar "stunt" in 2016, getting the CIA, according to this guest, involved in trying to "overturn" Trump's election.  

It was nothing of the sort.  Except for the fact that the DOJ came under Trump's control and therefore would not pursue the conclusive evidence of Russian interference and Trump campaign collusion that Robert Mueller found in his investigation.  Primary evidence came from the FBI, but it is clear that this had nothing to do with any effort to prevent Trump from being inaugurated.  Those are all right wing talking points that we haven't heard until now, with Trump's back to the wall and the very real evidence of his attempts to overturn the results of a legitimate election.  

I give Jackson's other panelists this morning credit for pushing back, though no one actually corrected the statement that it was just a Democratic political ploy, and that there was plenty of evidence that it happened.  Mueller, in fact, left the door wide open for an indictment, practically writing it himself.  There's no evidence whatsoever of any strategy on the part of either President Obama or his DOJ to use this to stop the peaceful transfer of power. That's become a right wing talking point since the Trump indictments, an example of right wing "whataboutism."  

The problem they have with their "Democrats did it too," rhetoric, including what now involves the President and his son in their business dealings in Ukraine, is that the facts don't point to anything illegal, or, for that matter, "seditious."  More than two years have gone by, with scrutiny of Hunter Biden's business details under a microscope, and some unpaid taxes is all that can be found.  They love to point to phone calls and meetings, but pointing to them is one thing, their contents is quite something else.  Trump's phone calls and meetings involve openly seditious, conspiratorial statements and directions.  There's nothing at all implicating the President.  

And good journalists can cover this without letting the false narrative go unchallenged.  

  

Are You Angry Enough Yet?

One Dead, Several Injured in Shooting at Oklahoma High School Football Game 

Ironic, wasn't it, that the anti-woke governor of Florida, the guy whose attacks on teacher classroom autonomy, local school board control, Critical Race Theory, student freedom of conscience and just about every other constitutional right except, of course, unrestricted and unregulated gun ownership, had a statement to make about the tragic and racially motivated shooting in a Dollar General store in Jacksonville, Florida this past week.  It's hard to take his remarks seriously, as it appeared those who heard them not only failed to applaud, but actually booed the guy.  

I don't think I've ever seen a statement made by a governor in a more resistant, unemotional, "do I have to do this?" attitude than Ron Desantis when he was making his obligatory remarks.  We're seeing exactly how unfit and unqualified he is to be the governor of Florida, much less President of the United States, something he will never get to do.  

Florida might be the capital of mass shootings, along with Texas, where going to an outlet mall in the suburbs can be fatal.  But in yet another red state, Oklahoma, a sacred high school football game, a community ritual, was interrupted by gunfire, taking the life of one person and injuring multiple others.  Lots of tongue clicking, head shaking and "thoughts and prayers" with that one, but will it make a difference?  Will Jacksonville?  Not any more than the shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida did, or, for that matter, Columbine.  

Even Though This Hits Home for Some Republicans, They Will do Nothing About it

Last spring, a heavily armed shooter entered The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, shooting up the building and leaving three students and three adults, along with himself, dead in its wake.  There were close connections between one of the teachers who was murdered, and the wife of current Tennessee governor Bill Lee, and the school and church where the shooting happened had close ties with the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) congregation just a few miles away where Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn is a member.  It did not matter that this tragedy hit so close to home, both Republican politicians were unmoved, offering nothing to assure anyone this would not happen again.  

That kind of calloused indifference is characteristic of both Governor Lee and Senator Blackburn, wealthy people who really aren't moved by much of anything.  

Football is the social life of most Oklahoma communities.  So a shooting at a game would almost certainly hit close to home, disrupting the social life and threatening the very heart of the community.  I'll wait to see if anything comes of the incident except blaming someone else.  The two schools involved in the game, Del City and Choctaw, are in the Oklahoma City suburbs, both overwhelmingly white and relatively affluent communities, though Choctaw still retains some of its rural characteristics.  The superintendents of both school districts issued a statement that their "thoughts and prayers" were going out to the victims of the shooting.  

Yet Another Racially-Motivated Shooting Encouraged by Today's Political Rhetoric

Neither the governor of Florida, not the former failed President 45 of the United States pulled the trigger in the Jacksonville shooting.  But their rhetoric has encouraged violence, it's been open and clearly stated, and it doesn't matter whether there's a specific statement that prompted it, or whether it was just an overall attitude of racial bigotry that devalues the lives of black people.  Their racist attitude and their obligation to support the gun lobby because of all the money they've taken from them, is to blame.  That's up to we, the people, to rectify.  

Freedom of speech and expression, guaranteed in the constitution, covers despicable, disgusting, and to use a word that the failed President 45 overuses, disgraceful racist bigotry.  They can be racist if they want to, they can say what they want to say, they can wear hoods and robes if they're too ashamed for people to know who they are.  But they can't commit murder, intimidation, inflict physical or psychological harm.  Crimes committed by racists should have separate sentences designed to discourage the practice and make sure these racists are not released back out into society, ever again.  

For the politicians who downplay this, claim it's not happening, or seem indifferent to it, and especially those who want to eliminate the educational objectives designed to fight against systemic racism, the effect of not having any support from its victims should drive the point home.  Systemic racism exists, is a real thing, and can be eliminated with education and time.  If Evangelicals put the energy into fighting against this, instead of letting it invade their congregations and drive their political loyalty, that they did into their opposition to Roe v. Wade, they might have also made a difference.  It's a sin, but not one they want to avoid.  

The Means to "Vote 'Em Out" Exists, Even in Deep Red States

Using Texas as an example, the numbers work for voting out bigots, racists and politicians owned by the gun lobby.  People of color, including the African-American and Latino population, make up 53% of the total.  Non-Hispanic whites make up 39.7%, while Hispanics make up 39.3% of the population.  If you calculate the percentage of votes for Republicans and Democrats among whites, compared to Hispanics, they are almost mirror images of each other, with whites coming in at 67.5% Republican, and Hispanics at 68.5% Democrat, according to exit polls in the 2022 election.  That should offset each other, with African Americans delivering the difference for Democrats.  

But here's another important difference.  Voter registration and participation is much higher among the white population than it is among Hispanics and blacks in Texas.  The percentage of white, Republican voter turnout bested both white Democrats and Hispanic Democrats by more than 15%, with an African American turnout that was slightly lower, the numbers just weren't there.  There's a lot of voter intimidation in Texas, lots of fear, that keeps a percentage of the minority population away from the polls, and from even registering to vote.  If we want change, that's where it has to happen and those disenfranchised voters, mostly minorities, in Texas, Florida and elsewhere, have the wherewithal to change the outcome of elections.  We have to find a way to get the message out, and help by motivating them to vote, and supporting them when they do. 

A Bold Proposal is Exactly What We Need

As an educator myself, I see schools as a means of providing necessary instruction which will give students the facts about systemic racism that they need to be discerning in their voting, and in the other aspects of their life, including bringing down the racial barriers that exist in this country.  When they've been given a chance, they've done exactly that.  I would like to see the federal government get creative, think out of the box and find ways to bypass Florida's restrictions on educational objectives.  Cutting federal funding off sounds drastic, but money talks.  But there's a lot of money for getting the information into the hands of students who are being denied the truth in their school classrooms. 

California Governor Gavin Newsom has come up with a proposal to put gun control into the constitution without violating the second amendment.  Part of that requires interpreting the second to mean exactly what the founders intended, not the unrestricted chaos that we now have, courtesy of the NRA and gun manufacturer money.  The other part rests on raising the minimum age to own a gun to 21, running universal background checks on all purchasers, instituting a waiting period for gun purchases, and restricting civilian access to military weapons that the founders did not have in mind when they wrote the second amendment.  

America fights tyranny at the ballot box, and we have the best equipped, best trained military in the world.  We don't need private citizens with arsenals of arms for any reason, including internal security.  The states take care of all of the weapons needed by the "well ordered militia," or national guard.  

My Dad always used to say that when people get angry enough at politicians, they take action and vote them out.  So, are you angry enough yet?  We got angry and kicked Trump and his swamp rats out.  Are we ready to start on these red states?