This article is part of a series on Critical Race Theory published throughout the month of December. See the links below for previous articles in the series. On Nov. 30, 2020, presidents of the six seminaries affiliated with the Southern…
SBC seminary presidents are ‘complicit with evil,’ revered California pastor says
J. Alfred Smith Sr. is not happy with the six Southern Baptist Convention presidents, who recently issued a declaration against Critical Race Theory. “They are more afraid of Critical Race Theory than the ugly racism that has our democracy about…
Want to understand Critical Race Theory? Read the Good Samaritan story
This is the third in a series of opinion columns to be published over the next three weeks exploring Critical Race Theory. Critical Race Theory grew out of the work of legal scholars of color who recognized how racism was structured…
I didn’t understand the Black experience in America but I am learning
Diane Wesh first fled the cultural racism of America by what she called “solo travel,” which was getting away from the forces of racism she experienced every day of her remembered life. This is part of her story: “Being Black…
SBC seminary presidents are propagating fear to maintain control
This is the first in a series of opinion columns to be published over the next three weeks exploring Critical Race Theory. Earlier this month, all six presidents of the seminaries controlled by the Southern Baptist Convention announced a total…
How 300 children lost their fathers to lynching on a single day because of a conspiracy theory
At last count, 73,923,495 Americans have voted for Donald Trump. Trump eclipsed Barack Obama’s previous record by more than 4.5 million votes. Trump topped his own 2016 performance by 11 million votes. That’s huge. Trump lost the election; but he…
Panel urges Southern Seminary to make amends for past racial sins
Panelists at a Dec. 2 virtual forum on “Race and the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary” agreed the Louisville, Ky., school’s entanglements with slavery and racism demand a stronger response than the school has put forward. However, participants in the West…
Understanding Black theology, white fragility
Back in 2011, Raphael Warnock, pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta (and currently in a runoff for one of Georgia’s two U.S. Senate seats), preached a sermon drawn from the Gospel of Matthew about whether a person could serve…
Why conservatives can’t get Jeremiah Wright out of their heads
The spectacle seemed to dominate every news station, barber shop, beauty shop and church fellowship hall across the nation. For months on end, an excerpt of a sermon offered in the sacred confines of the Black church had taken center…
Reports of the death of white Christian America are greatly exaggerated
In the beginning of his 2016 book titled The End of White Christian America, Robert P. Jones issued an obituary for white Christian America. The time of death was listed as “in the latter part of the first decade of…
‘Freedom songs’ make a reprise during this year of protests
The wave of high-profile police killings of Black Americans during the summer got a lot of people protesting across the country — and it got them singing in the process. “The act of singing, in and of itself, is an…
Racial justice activists concerned that too many white Americans are tired of the conversation
Many Americans see little or no benefit in the heightened focus on racial injustice since the high-profile police killings of George Floyd and other Black Americans during the coronavirus pandemic, new polling reveals. Natasha Nedrick, however, is not one of…