Other Pastors Are Concerned About SBC Stance on CRT
Dwight McKissic, senior pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, called West’s decision a “bombshell.”
This is a bombshell. Ralph West is withdrawing as a Ph. D student at SWBTS, & as member of the SBC, in response to the Council of Presidents Statement on race & CRT. Another marquee name will make a statement against the seminary presidents’ CRT statement in a matter of days. https://t.co/3KeatbCq5O
— Dwight McKissic (@pastordmack) December 16, 2020
McKissic initially supported the seminary presidents’ view. When the 2019 Resolutions Committee of the SBC came out in support of the presidents’ position on CRT, McKissic said, “We should all be able to rally behind this statement & the President’s of our seminaries statement.”
But the pastor has since changed his mind and on Dec. 13 published an article responding to the seminary presidents. McKissic retracted his support after it “became apparent to me that [the seminary presidents’] statements were merely paving the way for rescinding Resolution 9 at the upcoming annual meeting.”
Resolution 9, “On Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality,” is a controversial resolution the SBC passed in the summer of 2019. It acknowledges that CRT and intersectionality have some benefits, but says that they do not trump Scripture. The resolution states, “Critical race theory and intersectionality alone are insufficient to diagnose and redress the root causes of the social ills that they identify, which result from sin, yet these analytical tools can aid in evaluating a variety of human experiences.”
McKissic is highly concerned that the recent statement by the seminary presidents gives them the “green light” to revoke Resolution 9. Unlike West, however, McKissic plans to remain in the SBC.
One Twitter user asked McKissic, “Is the statement on CRT more the issue, or is it the fact that there was never a statement against Christian Nationalism (which is clearly rooted in white supremacy and much more prevalent in the SBC both in leadership and in the congregation)?”
The pastor responded, “All of the above. The presidents’ council never bothered to denounce police brutality, the Confederate monuments, or racial disparities in prison sentencing, Christian Nationalism, The Lost Cause Theory—yet they denounce CRT? Why? Coupled with minorities absent from discussion.”
Dr. Tony Evans is another pastor who has distanced himself from the seminary presidents’ statement. When the 2019 Resolutions Committee affirmed the statement, the committee cited comments Evans made about CRT in a sermon. Seeing this, Evans publicly stated that the committee had used his name without his “awareness or permission.” The pastor added that while he believes the Bible is our primary authority, that does not mean “that CRT or other ideologies lack beneficial aspects.”
My Statement and Sermon: https://t.co/n2M5QKVpPD pic.twitter.com/LwNgfOQrPe
— Tony Evans (@drtonyevans) December 2, 2020
Other Black pastors have been troubled by the presidents’ words, including Rev. Marshal L. Ausberry Sr. Ausberry is the president of the National African American Fellowship of the Southern Baptist Convention and is the first vice president of the SBC.
After the seminary presidents issued their statement, Ausberry asked to meet with them. He told the Baptist Press that the presidents “are good men and they had good intent, but 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.”
