THESE PEOPLE NEED RE-INTRODUCTION TO JESUS

 

THESE PEOPLE NEED RE-INTRODUCTION TO JESUS

©Wendell Griffen, 2021

 

Recently, Baptist News Global reported that two prominent white Southern Baptist pastors from Texas – Steve Swofford (pastor of First Baptist Church of Rockwall, Texas) and Tom Buck (pastor of First Baptist Church of Lindale, Texas) – openly called U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris “Jezebel,” a label long recognized as a racist slur against Black women (https://baptistnews.com/article/a-second-sbc-pastor-in-texas-called-vice-president-kamala-harris-jezebel/#.YBTxR-hKi8V).    

Both men lead churches affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). I have found no published account that any other white SBC leader has criticized them for slurring Harris, a Black woman of South Asian and Jamaican ancestry.

Swofford is a member of the executive committee for the SBC.  Ronnie Floyd is President and CEO of the SBC, and head of the executive committee.  I have found no report that Floyd has publicly criticized Swofford and Buck or distanced the SBC from their racist slur against Harris.

Russell Moore is President of the SBC Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC).  Moore has not publicly criticized Swofford and Buck’s statements to my knowledge.

The SBC has affiliations with six seminaries led by the following academically credentialed Southern Baptist white man. 

·       Jeff Iorg, President, Gateway Seminary of the Southern Baptist Convention, Fremont, CA.

·       Jason K. Allen, President, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Kansas City, MO.

·       James “Jamie” K. Drew, President, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, New Orleans, LA.

·       Daniel Akin, President, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Wake Forest, NC.

·       Albert Mohler, President, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, KY.

·       Adam W. Greenway, President, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, TX.

None of these white Southern Baptist seminary presidents has publicly criticized Swofford and Buck for their racist slur.  However, on November 30, 2020 they issued a joint declaration that Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality are “incompatible with the Baptist Faith and Message,” the SBC credal statement.  Perversely, the leaders of SBC seminaries criticize exposing and denouncing white supremacy, racism, sexism, and oppression associated with those belief systems but have yet to find words to criticize racist misogyny.

Linda A. Livingstone is President of Baylor University in Waco, Texas, the oldest and largest Baptist institution of higher education in the world.  Baylor was founded in 1845, the same year the SBC was founded, by white slaveholding Baptists.  The founders of Baylor and the SBC insisted – meaning that they preached, taught, and practiced – that enslaving Africans was compatible with the teachings of Jesus.  For most of its existence, Baylor has been viewed by white Southern Baptists the same way Southern Methodist University is viewed by white Methodists. 

I have found no report that Livingstone has criticized Swofford and Buck for slurring Vice President Harris.

Todd D. Still is Dean of the faculty at G.W. Truett Theological Seminary on the Baylor University campus.  Truett Seminary was founded in 1991 by white Baptists who left the Southern Baptist Convention.  One might expect the leader of Truett Seminary to have enough moral clarity, ethical courage, and cultural competence to denounce racist slurs by Swofford and Buck. 

I have found no report that Still has done so. 

Pamela Durso, President of Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Shawnee Mission, KS, is a white woman affiliated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, a group that broke away from the SBC thirty years ago.   Because Central Seminary awarded me an honorary degree and made me an honorary alumnus, I searched for news that Durso denounced the racist misogyny against VP Harris. 

I have found no such news reports. 

Hence, it appears that white Baptists who left the SBC – which now deserves to be known as the Slaveholder Baptist Convention – three decades ago and the white Baptists they left are equally incapable of criticizing racist misogyny.

We should not ignore the moral, ethical, professional, and cultural implications of what Swofford and Buck said.  Also, we should not ignore the moral, ethical, professional, and cultural implications of what other white Baptists have not said whose “moral incubator” – a term I learned from Dr. Samuel DeWitt Proctor which now is called “spiritual formation” – was shaped by life in the SBC and who now lead education institutions, including theological schools. 

We should remember Swofford and Buck for their racist misogyny.  We should also remember the white Baptist denominational, seminary, and university leaders whose SBC-shaped “moral incubator” and understanding of the religion of Jesus is so flawed that they are comfortably silent about blatant racism and misogyny. 

Their statements and silence also demonstrate cultural incompetence, meaning they lack the knowledge and skill required to recognize and effectively navigate cross-cultural events, situations, and experiences to accomplish beneficial (meaning just) outcomes. 

There are six levels of cultural competence.

·       Cultural destructiveness describes intentional behaviors, practices, and policies that produce adverse cross-cultural results.  Swofford and Buck engaged in culturally destructive conduct.  The same is true of white Baptist leaders who intentionally were silent despite knowing what Swofford and Buck said.

·       Cultural incapacity describes unintentional behaviors, practices, and policies that produce adverse cross-cultural results.  Cultural incapacity fits white Baptist leaders whose silence about what Swofford and Buck said was unintentional.

·       Cultural blindness describes behaviors, practices, and policies that are insensitive to cross-cultural realities of behaviors, practices, policies, and situations.  This term applies to people who fail to recognize the racism and misogyny involved in calling a Black woman “Jezebel.”

·       Cultural pre-competence describes behaviors, practices, and policies that recognize cross-cultural realities yet are incapable of navigating them effectively.  People who sense that what Swofford and Buck said was racist and misogynist but are unable to effectively respond to the cross-racial realities of their statement are culturally pre-competent.

·       Cultural competence describes the knowledge and skill involved in recognizing and effectively navigating cross-cultural events, situations, experiences, and realities.  Culturally competent people know how to recognize and skillfully navigate the cross-racial realities of what Swofford and Buck said and can effectively work to produce outcomes that are fair.   

·       Cultural proficiency describes the knowledge and skill involved in recognizing and effectively navigating cross-cultural realities so that behaviors, practices, and policies are benchmarks for how to address them.  Culturally proficient people know how to recognize and skillfully navigate the cross-racial realities of what Swofford and Buck said and can set standards and benchmarks governing the cross-racial realities of their conduct.

Based on that scale, cultural incompetence involves conduct that is culturally pre-competent, culturally blind, culturally incapacitated, and culturally destructive. 

Competence is always a function of knowledge and skill.  It is never a function of intentions, good or not.  Because people are never evaluated on how well they do things based on their intentions but on the results of their actions, it does not matter what Swofford and Buck intended by their statements, nor does it matter what anyone else intended who failed to denounce their statements.  We do not excuse people who drive poorly because they “mean well.” 

As I reflect on the reactions of these white Baptist leaders and the racist statements Swofford and Buck made about Vice President Harris I am reminded of what Jesus said as he concluded the Sermon on the Mount.

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.  On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy [preach] in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’ Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.’” Matthew 7:21-23 (NRSV).

Consider another rendering of that passage.

“Knowing the correct password – saying ‘Master, Master,’ for instance – isn’t going to get you anywhere with me.  What is required is serious obedience – doing what my Father wills.  I can see it now – at the Final Judgment thousands strutting up to me and saying, ‘Master, we preached the Message, we bashed the demons, our God-sponsored projects had everyone talking.’  And do you know what I am going to say?  ‘You missed the boat.  All you did was use me to make yourselves important.  You don’t impress me one bit.  You’re out of here.’” The Message.

Amen.