• Welcome to OGBoards 10.0, keep in mind that we will be making LOTS of changes to smooth out the experience here and make it as close as possible functionally to the old software, but feel free to drop suggestions or requests in the Tech Support subforum!

The religious right's hypocrisy now on full display

I can certainly understand why people who are left-leaning politically wouldn't feel at home in an "evangelical" church. I'm center-right politically, and I don't feel at home in one. But leaving church altogether and renouncing Christianity strikes me as throwing the baby out with the bathwater. There are plenty of churches that lean left politically. I mean, just look at the Episcopalians. They oppose the death penalty, allow same-sex marriage, ordain LGBT, are pro-choice, etc. If you reject the hypocrisy of modern evangelicalism (as you should), I don't get why you don't just find a church that isn't hypocritical. They are out there.

That’s a fair point. Although I just google mapped the nearest episcopal church. It is 58 miles away.
 
I can certainly understand why people who are left-leaning politically wouldn't feel at home in an "evangelical" church. I'm center-right politically, and I don't feel at home in one. But leaving church altogether and renouncing Christianity strikes me as throwing the baby out with the bathwater. There are plenty of churches that lean left politically. I mean, just look at the Episcopalians. They oppose the death penalty, allow same-sex marriage, ordain LGBT, are pro-choice, etc. If you reject the hypocrisy of modern evangelicalism (as you should), I don't get why you don't just find a church that isn't hypocritical. They are out there.

my departure from the church had nothing to do with politics and was purely a personal and religious decision

that said, the political bullshit that has since expanded in the worst of the churches has made it a lot easier to fully detach
 
nope -- got turned down

but crashed with df07 as a prospective scholar before my interview

Well, the head of the interview committee didn’t go to your church, I assume. That helps.


But much like sheep, I peaked too early. High school Mako was impressive.
 
This narrative that organized white Christianity is dealing with some new inner conflict because a large number of its members support anti-Christian politicians is ridiculous.

American White Christianity has supported and justified slavery, genocide, apartheid, anti-semitism, spousal/child abuse and rape, and a litany of other sins during its brief 250 year existence.

American White Christianity is and has always been regressive and oppressive. Sure they were outliers such as the abolitionist movement, but the majority of its leaders and followers have always been on the wrong side of history.
 
This narrative that organized white Christianity is dealing with some new inner conflict because a large number of its members support anti-Christian politicians is ridiculous.

American White Christianity has supported and justified slavery, genocide, apartheid, anti-semitism, spousal/child abuse and rape, and a litany of other sins during its brief 250 year existence.

American White Christianity is and has always been regressive and oppressive. Sure they were outliers such as the abolitionist movement, but the majority of its leaders and followers have always been on the wrong side of history.

Yeah, but now they're struggling with it.













That's tongue in cheek, but this is a great thing. Criticism from within is happening a lot more in this moment and some positive changes are happening (maybe not in terms of evangelicalism itself changing, but people moving away from the evangelical church to a new expression of American Christianity - which is increasingly non-white, non-male led).
 
Last edited:
Idk. Our preacher did the whole sermon in an inflatable alien costume and railed on the evils of Facebook and politicizing religion and told people in the congregation that if they thought God’s wrath was gonna be turned America based on election results the they had no grasp of the gospel to begin with. He may have won me back today.
 
Idk. Our preacher did the whole sermon in an inflatable alien costume and railed on the evils of Facebook and politicizing religion and told people in the congregation that if they thought God’s wrath was gonna be turned America based on election results the they had no grasp of the gospel to begin with. He may have won me back today.

The cynical part of me says he realized he hitched his wagon to the wrong horse and is trying to... spin the narrative in his favor.
 
Brewing trouble in the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's second-largest Christian group after the Roman Catholic church. It appears that more and more black SBC congregations are breaking away, or strongly considering doing so, after a recent declaration by the SBC's six all-white seminary presidents that "critical race theory was “incompatible with” central tenets of the SBC’s Scripture-based theology", and that they were deleting critical race theory from the curriculum at their seminaries. When several black SBC ministers protested that neither they nor any other African-Americans were consulted beforehand about this statement, the presidents apologized but added that they still "would likely have reached the same decision in any case."

The SBC claims 14.5 million members, and only 400,000 or so are black. The fight over all-white seminary presidents choosing to delete critical race theory from their curriculum is only part of what is dividing the convention.

The article notes the increasing number of "Black pastors who have recently exited in dismay over what they see as racial insensitivity from some leaders of the predominantly white SBC. Tensions are high after an election year in which racism was a central issue, and after a provocative declaration by SBC seminary presidents in late 2020 that a fundamental concept in the struggle against racial injustice contravenes church doctrine...A crucial moment for McKissic and other Black pastors could come in June at the SBC’s national meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, if delegates rebuff their views on systemic racism in the U.S., and if Rev. Albert Mohler, a high-profile conservative who heads the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, is elected SBC president...Last year, even while announcing new scholarship funds for Black students, Mohler declined to change the names of buildings at his seminary named after slaveholders."

"The seminary leaders' stance on critical race theory, as well as Mohler's public support for Donald Trump in the 2020 election, “should disqualify him from being SBC president,” said McKissic, who has become one of the SBC’s most prominent Black pastors since founding the Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, in 1983. Some of the pastors who cut ties with the SBC in recent months also share negative views of Mohler. The Rev. Ralph West, whose Church Without Walls in Houston claims a weekly attendance of 9,000, called him “a polarizing figure” who would worsen divisions within the SBC...Mohler suggested his critics do not reflect the opinions of most Southern Baptists, white or Black. “I believe I represent the vast mainstream of conservative Southern Baptists on these issues,” he said. “I think I am polarizing only at the extremes.” Regarding Trump, who had overwhelming backing from white evangelicals, Mohler said he consistently pointed out the former president’s flaws, but opted to endorse him based on his stances opposing abortion and defending religious liberties."

Virginia pastor Marshal Ausberry, president of the organization that represents the SBC’s Black pastors, wrote to the presidents saying concepts such as critical race theory “help us to see and discover otherwise undetected, systemic racism in institutions and in ourselves.” “The optics of six Anglo brothers meeting to discuss racism and other related issues without having ethnic representation in the room in 2020 — at worst it looks like paternalism, at best insensitivity,” Ausberry, first vice president of the SBC, elaborated in an interview with Baptist Press, the SBC’s official news agency. The presidents apologized for not consulting Black pastors and met with some of them Jan. 6, but have not wavered in their rejection of critical race theory. McKissic, who was in the Jan. 6 meeting, said the conversation was polite “but the outcome was not respectful to who Black people are in our history.” He’s likely to remain in the SBC until the June meeting but is prepared to exit then if the delegates ratify the presidents’ stance on critical race theory as official policy. “If they adopt that statement in June, it would be the feeling to me that people you trusted hit you in the face with a baseball bat,” McKissic said."

"The Rev. Charlie Dates of the Progressive Baptist Church in Chicago, one of the pastors who have already severed ties, said the November statement was “the last straw.” “When did the theological architects of American slavery develop the moral character to tell the church how it should discuss and discern racism?” Dates wrote in an op-ed for Religion News Service. “The hard reality of the seminary presidents’ statement is that Black people will never gain full equality in the Southern Baptist Convention.” The Rev. Joel Bowman, who abandoned plans to move his Temple of Faith Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, into the SBC fold [said] “I genuinely believe the SBC is headed in the wrong direction...White evangelicals have gotten in bed with the Republican Party.”

Same as it ever was. Here's the link to the entire article: https://www.yahoo.com/news/prominent-black-pastor-pondering-exit-140305638.html
 
The SBC basically formed to discriminate anyway, so this was inevitable.
 
Back
Top