January 9, 2019
To the editor:
Jimmy Allen was a gracious and courageous prophet during a time when white Baptists struggled about being gracious and prophetic. That struggle continues.
One wonders how our history and future might have been different if white Baptists had heeded the gracious prophetic vision of Jimmy Allen and black Baptists had heeded the gracious prophetic vision of Martin Luther King Jr. Instead, white Baptists in the South lionized Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell. Black Baptists lionized Joseph Jackson and T.D. Jakes.
Baptists, the United States, and the world are not better because of those fateful choices.
Wendell Griffen
Little Rock, Arkansas
