Bernice King, daughter of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., also criticized Denton Bible Church’s wokeness conference. When it was announced in March, she tweeted, “Very telling that instead of a conference on ending racism and white supremacy, there’s this. Christians collectively could do so much to evict racism from society, beginning with churches, fellowships and conventions. Read my father’s ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail.’”
On an episode of the “Iron Sharpens Iron” podcast last month, Pastor Nelson said 21st-century civil rights activists are ditching MLK’s ideals and pursuing violent tactics instead.
Putting Wokeness Into Perspective
Some Christians question why Denton Bible Church’s pastor calls wokeness the most dangerous ideology he’s ever confronted. While retweeting Nelson’s statement, “Holy Post” podcaster Phil Vischer writes, “From a pastor old enough to remember lynchings and bombings in the name of white supremacy. God forgive us.”
In a blog on The Gospel Coalition website, Trevin Wax encourages church leaders to “place potential dangers in broader perspective” and to consider what threatens their particular congregation the most. “An insidious and pervasive danger in one church may not be a danger at all in another,” he writes. “Here’s the problem: Once you nationalize these conversations, you risk prescribing the wrong medicine for your congregation. Some leaders may be tempted to warn against threats that don’t apply to their church as a way of abdicating their responsibility to address the problems that do.”
The wokeness movement has surged during the past decade, largely because of social media. Wax urges Christians and pastors to “turn down the volume of the loudest voices online.”
This debate about wokeness is taking center stage at the 2021 Annual Meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) this week. After moderate candidate Ed Litton—an advocate of racial reconciliation—was elected SBC president Tuesday night, conservatives who oppose CRT expressed disappointment.
Owen Strachan, author of the upcoming book Christianity and Wokeness: How the Social Justice Movement Is Hijacking the Gospel, and the Way to Stop It, tweeted, “Grief, real and deep grief, on this day. May the Lord give much wisdom and comfort to many, many Southern Baptists who fought valiantly to strengthen and preserve this movement of churches. And remember this: hope rises everywhere the gospel—the true biblical gospel—is planted.”
On Wednesday, outgoing SBC President J.D. Greear tweeted this quote from Florida pastor and meeting speaker Willy Rice: “CRT is a thing. Marxism is a thing. Socialism is a thing. You know what else is a thing? Being a jerk.”
