The trouble lies in the lack of an agreed upon definition as to what CRT is, Barber explains, saying, “[H]ere’s where the lack of a definition is so troublesome. If by opposing Critical Race Theory you mean that any effort to work toward greater inclusion of multiple races in the Southern Baptist Convention or any effort to work toward greater harmony among multiple races in the Southern Baptist Convention is suspect, then we part ways at that point.”
“Churches in the United States, regardless of their racial makeup, if they agree with the theological truths articulated in The Baptist Faith & Message, should be welcomed within our family of churches,” Barber further explains. “We ought to work toward the goal of having our elective offices, appointments, and employed positions be reflective of the diversity of our convention.”
“That is not Critical Race Theory; it’s just loving one another with brotherly affection and preferring one another in honor,” Barber says.
With regard to the controversy over sermon plagiarism—an issue that has plagued the SBC presidency of Ed Litton, who came under criticism for using sermon content delivered by former SBC president and North Carolina pastor J.D. Greear with permission but without attribution—Barber says, “I’m not ‘accusing’ anyone of anything when I point out the indisputable fact that sources are used in the Bible itself without attribution…Footnotes did not exist then!”
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“Neither did our modern, sometimes-positively-strange ideas about ‘intellectual property,’” Barber continues. “People have clutched their pearls about my pointing this out, but here’s what not one single person has done—refuted these facts about use of sources without attribution in the New Testament. That ought to tell you something.”
“I thought people wanted to have a discussion about whether every source you use in a sermon must be cited during the sermon (because they said they wanted to have a conversation about plagiarism), but as it turned out, people on social media just wanted to talk about Ed Litton,” Barber adds.
On the other hand, Barber encourages all pastors to study hard in preparing sermons, ensure that everything they preach is true, make as much of their sermon content original as is possible, and to comply with relevant copyright laws.
Barber’s ‘Rogue’s Gallery of Wild Accusations’
As someone who frequently posts on Twitter, Barber says that he has sometimes been the subject of “tactics of accusation and deception that lost people employ in our nation’s secular political system.”
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In one instance, Barber contemplated COVID-19 restrictions and the fear of totalitarian authority many conservatives were expressing at the time. In that thread, Barber expressed that there are rare occasions, like during a global pandemic, when totalitarianism would be a more convenient approach but that the cost of such a governmental system would never outweigh any momentary benefit.
