Black Lives Matter and the Southern Baptist Convention

by Charles S. Oaxpatu

You may not have felt the “p” waves and “s” waves on Monday of this week, but a significant earthquake occurred in the halls of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) in Nashville, Tennessee. Its source was a major op-ed article published in The New York Times.

In this article, written specifically to make a very broad and quite loud public announcement, well-known African-American pastor and scholar, Professor Lawrence Ware at Oklahoma State University, publicly announced that he is leaving the SBC. Why? He is leaving because of the SBC’s failure to come to fully appropriate and repentant terms with its past history of racism and the current racism it allows to exist in its midst. By the word “midst,” I mean in its lofty halls and in its thousands and thousands of SBC churches across the United States, particularly in the American South.  You may read the entire op-ed by Professor Ware at the following safe link:

Why I’m Leaving the Southern Baptist Convention

Here at the Flee from Christian Fundamentalism blog, we openly and joyously applaud Dr. Lawrence’s decision to take a stand on this vital and important issue. We believe racism against African-Americans and any other group has no place in the church of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and no place in the hearts of authentic Christians—and as the old Baptist preachers used to say in a thundering voice: “We shall stand on that position until the world is on fire!!!”  Black Lives Do Matter.

The SBC needs to get its hind end in gear. It has no quibbles or qualms about purging Southern Baptist administrators, seminary professors, missionaries, pastors, and employees who fail to tightly tow the fundie party line, as it well proved between 1979 and 2003. Therefore, I guess someone has to ask the most basic question. How long is the rank hypocrisy on racism going to continue in the SBC? Given its historical and recent penchant for purging people:

WHEN ARE THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION AND ITS CHURCHES

GOING TO

PUBLICLY IDENTIFY AND PURGE

ITS

RACIST ADMINISTRATORS, RACIST SEMINARY PROFESSORS, RACIST MISSIONARIES

RACIST PASTORS

AND

RACIST CHURCH MEMBERS?

How about it Southern Baptists? Inquiring American Christians would like to know. How long are the racism and hypocrisy in the SBC going to be tolerated? You folks tolerate little else. You have a 38-year history of purging much. When is your recent Christian talk on racism in the SBC and its churches going to translate into the purgative actions for which you are so famous?  We think this is a more than fair question.