Southern Baptist Convention is in "Full Lament" Over its Past



The Southern Baptist Church was founded by Baptist slave owners. According to various documents they felt the Christian faith endorsed slavery. Certainly, major characters in the Bible had slaves.

Now in hind site, the SBC recognizes it was wrong about slavery and the segregation that followed. When society at large changed, so did the SBC. It just completed an internally generated study of its past. The head of the major SBC Seminary now says the denomination is in "Full Lament" over its history.

A simple way to describe SBC's approach to slavery and segregation is this. The all white church did not like Black people. It used the Bible to justify keeping them as slaves and later segregating society to keep them from advancing. The Bible and Christianity were a tool to help the SBC in its agenda of prejudice.

The Bible justified slavery. Segregation came from an explanation of "God's intention. " God put people of different races on different continents. That made interracial marriage an affront to God. Putting black children in the same classroom with white children would lead to sinful interracial marriage.

While I know today's evangelical and fundamentalist communities will not agree, their prejudice against gays is identical to the SBC's prejudice against black people. The day will come when another generation of SBC leaders will apologize to gay people and be in "Full Lament" for the attitude in place at this moment that homosexual relationships are sin.

Comments

  1. tsmDecember 16, 2018 at 10:20 AM

    Doesn't all this apologizing strike you as just so much silliness ? Or perhaps worse as the self-righteous and ephemeral ramblings of a condescending generation? At the end of the day, how can anyone -- modern day Baptists or any one else -- apologize for the shortcomings (sins if you will) of their remote ancestors? Those ancestors committed the "crimes" and presumably have answered for them (the crimes that is). Those of us living now, had nothing to do with what those old Baptists did or thought, wo why the apology. Rather, we who exist now should humbly pay heed to our own follies, follies that we are often blind to, cranking out apologies which help us feel good about what we think is our superior morality. After all, aren't the enlightened ones?

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  2. Jon LindgrenDecember 16, 2018 at 2:02 PM

    Unknown--It seems to me the SBC feels it needs to apologize in order to make it clear it no longer believes black people are inferior. I think there remains some public perception the SBC is not much different today than it was in 1850.

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    Replies
    1. tsmDecember 16, 2018 at 2:40 PM

      I never thought that the current SBC thinks that blacks are inferior. In fact, my own impressions of the SBC are generally positive. And I doubt that most people nowadays think otherwise, In fact, I think that very few folks even know about the Baptists and slavery. And even if they do, they don't give a damn.

      Delete
  3. Jon LindgrenDecember 16, 2018 at 3:37 PM

    "I never thought the current SBC thinks blacks are inferior."

    Think whatever you want. The fact is THEY think it is necessary to apologize about their past. If they did not think that was necessary to apologize they would not do it. Most other denominations who go back to the 1850's are guilty of endorsing slavery. They left it and the negative image behind long age. Not the Southern Baptists, at least as they see themselves today. Their numbers have been falling by 10% a year for several years.

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    Replies
    1. tsmDecember 16, 2018 at 4:34 PM

      not to belabor the issue but it seems that just about everybody these days is apologizing for their past sins and crimes. as I said, I think that this is a lot of nonsense. or as you think, assuaging a collective guilt complex. but whatever you call it, it's still nonsense. I am not about to apologize for the sins of my parents. rather, I need to apologize for my own sins. ditto the Baptists.

      Delete

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