The 15-million-member Southern Baptist Convention, holding its annual meeting of church messengers in Phoenix, is expected to vote today on a condemnation of “alt-right” white supremacy.
A proposal to condemn a white nationalist group drew some backlash during the convention’s annual meeting yesterday when a committee first declined to bring a proposed resolution to a vote. Leaders from the Southern Baptist Convention were strongly divided over a resolution to consider the proposal of Dwight McKissic, a black pastor at the Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas.
McKissic had previously published his draft resolution on a popular Southern Baptist blog called SBC Voices. An excerpt from it read:
WHEREAS, this toxic menace, self-identified among some of its chief proponents as “White Nationalism” and the “Alt-Right,” must be opposed for the totalitarian impulses, xenophobic biases, and bigoted ideologies that infect the minds and actions of its violent disciples; and
WHEREAS, the roots of White Supremacy within a “Christian context” is based on the so-called “curse of Ham” theory once prominently taught by the SBC in the early years—echoing the belief that God through Noah ordained descendants of Africa to be subservient to Anglos—which provided the theological justification for slavery and segregation. The SBC officially renounces the “curse of Ham” theory in this Resolution; now be it therefore
RESOLVED, that the Southern Baptist Convention, meeting in Phoenix, AZ, June 13-14, 2017, denounces every form of “nationalism” that violates the biblical teachings with respect to race, justice, and ordered liberty; and be it further
RESOLVED, that we reject the retrograde ideologies, xenophobic biases, and racial bigotries of the so-called “Alt-Right” that seek to subvert our government, destabilize society, and infect our political system; and be finally
However, Southern Baptist leaders worked on the language late last night, and the convention will indeed vote this afternoon on the resolution condemning the alt-right movement — the political movement that came to the forefront during the presidential election that mixes racism, white nationalism and populism.
Prominent Southern Baptist leader Russell Moore, the president of the convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, said Wednesday morning in a Twitter post that he expects the convention will “enthusiastically” pass the new resolution, according to the Arizona Republic.
“The so-called Alt-Right white supremacist ideologies are anti-Christ and satanic to the core. We should say so,” Moore said on Twitter.
The drama over the resolution revealed deep tension lines within a denomination that was explicitly founded to support slavery and highlights the disagreements within the demonination around the election of President Donald Trump.
