On Jan. 22, Tom Buck, pastor of First Baptist Church of Lindale, Texas, equated Vice President Kamala Harris with the biblical Jezebel. It was a strategic insult designed to terrorize and imbrute Harris. He joined Steve Swofford, pastor of First…
What’s old is new again: Conservatives threaten funding over SBC’s ethics agency
From the Department of What’s Old is New Again: The Southern Baptist Convention’s ethics agency is being accused of liberalism and creating a distraction from the work of evangelism and missions. During the fundamentalist takeover of the SBC that began…
A second SBC pastor in Texas called Vice President Kamala Harris ‘Jezebel’
It turns out that East Texas pastor Tom Buck wasn’t the first Southern Baptist pastor in Texas to call Vice President Kamala Harris a “Jezebel.” Steve Swofford, pastor of First Baptist Church of Rockwall, Texas, located in the eastern suburbs…
Lifeway will sell its new headquarters and downsize again
Lifeway Christian Resources has entered into contract to sell the $100 million corporate headquarters it built and occupied in 2017. The Nashville, Tenn.-based publisher of curriculum, books, Bibles and other Christian educational resources began to study the viability of the…
SBC pastor calls Vice President Kamala Harris a ‘Jezebel’ two days after inauguration
The Southern Baptist Convention already had a problem with Black pastors because its six seminary presidents have launched a battle against Critical Race Theory. Then an East Texas SBC pastor added to the consternation Jan. 22 by calling Vice President…
SBC seminary presidents meet with Black pastors but don’t change position on Critical Race Theory
Five weeks after the six white presidents of the Southern Baptist Convention’s seminaries ignited a firestorm of protest for their denunciation of Critical Race Theory, they met with a group of Black SBC pastors and didn’t back down. The result…
An invitation to the SBC seminary presidents — and all white Christians — to enter the moral struggle as articulated by Howard Thurman
At the dawn of 1955, civil rights leader and Black theologian Howard Thurman preached on the Apostle Paul’s moral struggle in the Letter to the Romans. Mid-letter, Paul confesses he desires to do right, but there is a war within…
SBC will come to regret the seminary presidents’ statement on race
Disappointment. This is the only word that stuck with me as I read and re-read the recent statement from the six Southern Baptist seminary presidents rejecting Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality. On the one hand, I guess I shouldn’t have…
Could you win a quiz show by defining ‘Critical Race Theory’?
Imagine you’re on a television game show vying for a $50,000 grand prize. All you have to do to win the money is give a proper definition of one term: Critical Race Theory. Could you do it? If your answer…
SBC leaders cautiously wading into the conflict created by seminary presidents on race
Nearly three weeks after presidents of the six Southern Baptist Convention seminaries issued a controversial statement on systemic racism, other elected leaders within the SBC began to respond to the criticisms — although not with the same clarity with which…
Please listen to my friend Ralph West about racism and the SBC
Ralph D. West Sr. does more for race relationships by walking into a diverse room than many of us will do in a lifetime trying to help. My friend Ralph has merely to be present in a group of Blacks…
Another prominent Black Baptist pastor publicly quits the SBC
For the second time in two days, a prominent Black pastor has publicly quit the Southern Baptist Convention over its seminary presidents’ campaign against Critical Race Theory. “I keep hearing the words of Harriet Tubman: ‘We out,’” said Charlie Dates,…