The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), the policy entity of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), is currently hosting its annual Leadership Summit in Nashville, Tennessee. Reportedly, over 500 Southern Baptist pastors and church leaders are gathered to discuss what the gospel means for racial reconciliation.
Critics and spectators may have been caught off guard by remarks made during the opening session. Dr. Russell Moore, President of the ERLC, began his keynote address by the acknowledging “the complicity of the SBC in the wicked sin of slavery and the relative silence of the SBC against the wicked sin of segregation in this country.”
Dr. Moore’s also noted this year marks the 20th anniversary of the SBC’s 1994 resolution denouncing its contribution to slavery and segregation. “I can’t help but notice that sitting here is the driving force behind that resolution, my predecessor, Dr. Richard Land,” said Dr. Moore as he encouraged the audience to applaud Dr. Richard Land’s courage in the face of hostility. He continued, “[In 1994] it took a lot of courage when there was a trustee on the board of the entity that I now lead who was a segregationist. And this president stood up to all of that and said we need to remember the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
Growing up in Southern Mississippi, Dr. Moore recalled a profound, early memory of Southern Baptists reflecting a racist mindset, he explained, that still persists today. The memory recalled a substitute Sunday school teacher who reprimanded a school-aged Dr. Moore for putting a quarter from his offering in his mouth. The Sunday school teacher told Dr. Moore not to put the quarter in his mouth because, as Dr. Moore recalled her saying, “for all you know, a colored man may have handled that.” Dr. Moore remembered that what happened next, was this same teacher ironically leading the Sunday school class in song, “Jesus Loves the Little Children.”
“Two different gospels were being articulated in that moment,” said Dr. Moore. “She probably didn’t see the contradiction in all those things.”
Two fundamental questions, says Dr. Moore, must be encountered to achieve racial reconciliation:
(1) What is the Gospel?
(2) What is the Church?
Dr. Moore noted that Americans live in a divisive culture where rivalries and conflicts exist between various races. But using Ephesians 3:1-13 as a road map, Dr. Moore noted that racism is not limited to American racial unrest. In fact, racial conflict could have hindered the early Church.
It would have been easy, Dr. Moore said, for early Christians to establish a Jewish church and a Gentile church and come together periodically. Because, as the Holy Spirit revealed through Paul’s writing, the Gospel is a matter of our adoption as children of God. Leaving one kingdom for another and divisions are erased. “Jews and Gentiles are united in one body and how are they united in one body? Paul says, through the Gospel,” said Dr. Moore.
White Christians have to be careful not to read Ephesians 3 and view themselves as the Jews, or regular people, and minorities as the Gentiles, or those welcomed in. Dr. Moore explained, “When Jesus says I’m sending you to the uttermost part of the earth, there aren’t any white people in Jerusalem…that’s who he is sending the mission to.”
“Sometimes we act as though getting racial reconciliation right is an act of mercy towards minority communities,” said Dr. Moore. “The fundamental problem of the dividing walls is the idolatry of the self. Racial reconciliation is not something white people do for others.”
To the pastors gathered in the audience, Dr. Moore directed a fierce warning: if you do not speak out against racial division, then you are contributing to hatred that will send members of your congregation to Hell.
To everyone in the room, Dr. Moore explained that racial reconciliation will take courage and knowing who we are in Christ. “We are not the state church of the Confederate States of America. We are not inheritors of a lost cause, but of a new creation,” said Dr. Moore. “The cross and the Confederate flag cannot coexist. One will set the other on fire.”
The Church should be careful not to assume that we are reconciled with one another simply because the “n-word” is no longer shouted from pulpits or we aren’t hosing people down in the streets of Birmingham. “That is a low, low bar,” said Dr. Moore. “Instead, what the Church is about, is about demonstrating and showing the manifold, the multi-splendored wisdom of God.”
The Church’s reconciliation does not mean that various races merely get along without using racial slurs, espousing hatred, or even killing one another. Dr. Moore specified, “The kingdom of God is not about coexistence. The kingdom of God is about reconciliation. And that reconciliation is within the Church.”
Reconciliation is about residing as fellow heirs of God’s kingdom. “The Church is not just a group of people who have been born again who are incorporating themselves together in order to do things,” explained Dr. Moore. “The Church is a gathering together by Jesus Christ gifting them and demo what it is that he plans to do in the fullness of time with the entire universe.”
Comment by brookspj on March 27, 2015 at 4:12 pm
Strong and prophetic words. I look forward to seeing the SBC heed them with equally prophetic action.
Comment by Scott Shaver on March 28, 2015 at 4:20 pm
SBC is incapable of action when it comes to enforcement of policy in local churches. The tail does not wag the dog. Never thought I’d see myself pen these words but maybe its time “Baptist” denominational appendages and lobby groups get the heck out of Washington DC.
They’ve become more like the voice of expanding government than the voice of the spiritual constituency they claim to represent.
Comment by JClarke on March 29, 2015 at 11:34 pm
Calling for ‘racial reconciliation’ means you’re a “voice of expanding government.” Wow, I did not know that. Are you aware that Paul wrote “We are called to a ministry of reconciliation”? That includes racial reconciliation.
Comment by Scott Shaver on March 30, 2015 at 11:38 am
No. JClarke says “calling for racial reconciliation means you’re a voice of expanding government”
I said the way the ERLC approaches the issue sounds akin to the voice of expanding government.
Let’s be clear.
Comment by Kyle on March 30, 2015 at 2:31 pm
You were correct, and it is scary to see the SBC going that route.
Comment by Kyle on March 30, 2015 at 2:30 pm
It means no such thing, it’s about reconciling people to God through Christ. “We pray on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.” Nothing even remotely racial there. You need to turn off CNN and read the Bible.
Comment by Gina Murray on March 30, 2015 at 3:34 pm
How can one be reconciled to Christ when he has an ought against his brother? Should he not leave the metaphorical offering and first go and reconcile the ought with his brother?
Comment by JClarke on March 30, 2015 at 4:48 pm
But reconciling people to God through Christ will in turn cause racial reconciliation. (Least I hope so). I don’t watch CNN and I read my Bible nearly everyday. I don’t know why you’re having hang-ups about this Racial reconciliation thing. This isn’t some leftist plot.
Comment by truelinguist on March 30, 2015 at 9:07 pm
Funny how “prophetic action” always seems to involve taking money from one group of people and giving it to another group. And to think, one of the Ten Commandments is “Thou shalt not steal.” So why do some churches support “prophetic action” that involves theft?
Comment by Scott Shaver on March 30, 2015 at 10:45 pm
Perhaps they’ve gotten their theology mixed with another (i.e. baptism by proxy for the dead)?
Comment by Tom on March 31, 2015 at 12:43 am
Did you see a call for reparations in that statement?
Because I sure didn’t.
Comment by brookspj on March 31, 2015 at 9:56 am
Care to be specific? I’m really not sure what churches or actions you’re talking about.
Comment by torrentprime on March 28, 2015 at 8:48 am
Sorry, but this sort of thing is totally silly, typical of liberals, and scaring when conservatives start doing it – I mean, collective guilt, which has no place in the Christian worldview. Each person is responsible for his own sins, not the sins of others – especially sins that happened centuries ago. If your father was a murderer, that is his issue with God, not yours. If your ancestors owned slaves, that is on their rap sheet, not yours. Apologizing for the sins of people long dead is a cheap and easy way to appear moral. “Look at me, I am SO righteous apologizing for other people’s sins.” Nope, the path to righteousness is repenting of your own sins.
Comment by yolo on March 28, 2015 at 11:54 am
I honestly think that it has something to do with the rejection of Free Will. I mean, the other denoms that historically rejected Free Will have all progressed towards nothingness. The denoms that believe in Free Will followed afterwards, Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists and so forth. Wrongdoing is not genetic. Make no mistake about that. Any psychiatrist that asserts that it does must prove it. That excuse has been tolerated for too often.
Comment by Namyriah on March 28, 2015 at 9:19 am
Well, how enlightening.
“The cross and the Confederate flag cannot coexist.”
So, Civil War re-enactors are all going to hell, Judge Moore? I know some re-enactors who are Christians. Can you see into their hearts? All those people living in the South 1861-65 – are they all in hell now?
If you’re doing this pontificating in the hope that the secular left will pat you on the head, you’re dreaming.
Comment by yolo on March 28, 2015 at 11:49 am
In California and other blue states, they’re asserting that the American flag and (well they’re atheists so it can’t be the cross) cannot exist. That’s what it has come to.
Comment by JClarke on March 29, 2015 at 11:25 pm
I think you are over-reacting. Dr. Moore said nothing like that and you know it. You are much too smart of man to be mischaracterizing statements and creating straw-men.
Comment by Kyle on March 30, 2015 at 2:27 pm
Actually, Moore was the one attacking the straw man. There is no church in American that displays the Confederate flag. It’s usually the liberals who create a “crisis” out of something that doesn’t even exist.
Comment by JClarke on March 30, 2015 at 4:55 pm
You’re creating a straw man right now. Dr. Moore wasn’t saying many Churches display the Rebel flag [see what I did there ;)] His point was the SBC isn’t the Church of the Confederacy etc…
Comment by Gary Whiteman on March 29, 2015 at 6:45 pm
Did anyone seriously believe that the election of O’Bama would lead us to becoming a post-racial society? Not even close. The media love racial battles too much. Any minor incident that can be twisted to show “whie privilege” will be.
Comment by Gina Murray on March 30, 2015 at 11:27 am
Interesting. I wonder how authentic general racial reconciliation can be achieved when the grand children and great grandchildren of the kidnappers and rapists have retained possession of generational wealth obtained as a result of kidnapping and wage fraud? In a setting where economic redress is expected in a capitalist system (see BP oil spill, Hurricane Sandy, Japanese internment…), should the intentions of those calling for reconciliation be interpreted as genuine with no serious attempt at the logistically challenging issue of individual or collective economic redress?
Comment by Kyle on March 30, 2015 at 2:28 pm
You forgot to include the Salem witch hunts and the blankets that gave scarlet fever to the Indians. might as well go the whole way if you’re into the whole “white privilege” song and dance.
Comment by Gina Murray on March 30, 2015 at 3:31 pm
Characterization of sincere questions about economic redress as a “song and dance” doesn’t foster dialogue. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If you would feel the same way were your family on the other side, then I guess your conscious is clear.
Comment by Namyriah on March 31, 2015 at 5:42 pm
How would you like to “foster dialogue,” Gina? As a rule, when the left brings up “dialogue,” it inevitably involves forcing some group to cough up $$$$$ to another group. the Reverend Al Sharpton is a master of “dialogue.”
Comment by truelinguist on March 30, 2015 at 9:04 pm
Whose grandchildren and great-grandchildren are you referring to? If you’re into the whole reparations thing, here’s my sob story – I’m the descendant of Scotch-Irish who came to America in the mid-1700s as indentured servants, meaning for 7 years or more we were practically slaves. So get out your handkerchief and tell me, should people of English descent pay me a big chunk of money because my ancestors were just one notch above slaves, and sometimes treated worse than slaves? Do you think I – and millions of other Americans of Scotch-Irish descent – should receive what you call “individual or collective economic redress”?
Compassion is a lovely thing, but not when it’s coupled with stupidity.
Comment by 0pus35 on March 30, 2015 at 5:37 pm
Hmm, let’s look at some percentages:
Southern Baptists, 86 % white
vs
United Methodist, 94% white
Episcopal, 92% white
United Church of Christ, 90.8% white
Presbyterian Church USA, 92.6% white
United Church of Christ, 91% white
Kinda looks like the SBC is doing pretty well, racially speaking.
Comment by Namyriah on March 31, 2015 at 6:07 pm
Odd that no one ever faults the predominantly black denominations for having so few white people. Hmmm.
Comment by Lon Desantiago on March 25, 2018 at 10:16 pm
*This really answered my problem, thank you!