The SBC and white-led racial reconciliation

Here, guest writer Deborah Brunt offers her perspective with regard to her denominational tradition and a recent initiative calling for racial reconciliation. 

Ronnie Floyd, president of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), has launched a racial reconciliation initiative, signed by several SBC pastors of different races and ethnicities.

The heartcry and united purpose expressed in the Baptist Press article is encouraging. Yet I’d suggest: The one white-led “initiative” that can actually further, rather than hinder, racial reconciliation will be an initiative to humble ourselves, in order to:

• see, grieve and turn from sins we haven’t wanted to admit; and
• adopt a learner/follower attitude toward other races and ethnicities, as we seek together to restore relationship.

The signing of the new SBC initiative by pastors of different races may seem a step in the right direction, as did the election of a black SBC president in 2012 and 2013, and the SBC’s Resolution on Racial Reconciliation, enacted 20 years ago. The current initiative’s signers may well be sincere in their desire for breakthrough. But for all their good intentions, might these SBC pastors continue instead only to further illusion?

In recent decades, openly teaching racial inequality has fallen into profound disfavor. At the same time, white membership in the SBC and other denominations has declined. Indeed, church growth in the US is happening in ethnic sectors, but not in non-Latino white.

Today, white Christians do not want to be seen as bigoted, nor do they think of themselves as such. Denominational leaders do not want to lose followers or income. Yet white people do love our privilege; we love to be seen as the heroes; and we’re terrified of losing control. So we have a strong proclivity to act like we’re leading toward change in race relations, when the changes are mostly cosmetic and we’re still committed to doing things the way we always have.

White men created the Southern Baptist Convention in 1845 to defend and align with a Southern culture adamant to retain slavery. In spite of steps taken to create distance from that past, white men still control the denomination, its entities and its attitudes.

Whether Southern Baptist or not, it’s time for white Christians to stop – and even recant – our efforts to “lead out” in racial reconciliation.

keytruths.com

Further, it’s time to repent for believing we’ve already repented for our racial wrongs. Our confessions have yielded far too little genuine, lasting fruit, maybe because we’re so prone to overlooking our sins and so eager to deplore theirs. If we’ll really listen to our prayers of confession, we’ll realize how often we only lament the acts of people “back then” or “out there” or who we otherwise would classify as “them,” and not “us.”

Now 150 years after the Civil War, it’s past time for us to take the long, hard look needed to get gut-level honest about the depth and breadth of our sins. It’s time to see – then grieve, confess and turn from – sins currently operating in our lives, our families, our relationships, our churches and our US Christian culture. It’s time to admit we need guidance and help from others who aren’t “us,” in order to be free.

Deborah Brunt is an author and blogger at keytruths.com. Her book, We Confess! The Civil War, the South, and the Church, explores in-depth the issues identified in this article. Continue reading with her follow up article on 'Pride and Privilege.'