Critical Race Theory and Ecclesiology

Yeah, don't you wish church was as simple as this?

Well, this got interesting real fast:

Recent claims that high-ranking convention officials sought to impede investigations into clergy sexual abuse allegations, the rejection of Critical Race Theory by denominational leaders, its continued adherence to the ideology of complementarianism and its part in fanning the flames of white Christian nationalism are manifestations of a faith-based toxicity that is not unique to the SBC or even to the U.S., Griffen said during the event hosted by Baptist News Global.

“We’re really talking about the heresy of hateful faith, which is a global phenomenon, whether you’re talking about (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi in India or whether you’re talking about the hateful faith of the Taliban, or you’re talking about the hateful faith of the SBC, or hateful things someplace else,” he said.

Full disclosure before we start:  I grew up among Southern Baptists.  Some of my best friends were Southern Baptists (it was unavoidable).  I credit the Southern Baptists I grew up among with my theological liberalism and my long effort to work out a Christian theology that didn't have a metaphysical soteriology (maybe I'll explain that one day, but probably not.  One of my oldest friends, a former SB himself and now a retired UCC pastor, was here for the weekend.  I made a joke in passing about completely discarding soteriology, and he jokingly stopped me from elaborating.  It was a entire conversation between two people who've known each other since the age of 6, without saying a word.  So I probably won't bother you with it, either.).  But I don't consider Southern Baptists to be preaching a "hateful faith."  I'm more inclined to consider them baptized heathens; but that, too, is another matter.  What's going on in the SBC (Southern Baptist Convention) was a topic of conversation, briefly, over the weekend.  Then I found this article.  God, or Google, does indeed work in mysterious ways.  Mostly Google, this time; they know my search history.

Before we go too far, my touchstone for these discussions is not judgment over someone I disagree with (and there is, these days, precious little I agree with in the SBC; although they did yeoman's work many years ago when Katrina drowned New Orleans and Houston took in as many refugees as could leave the city.  The largest Baptist church in town was ground zero for the relief efforts, and they did it without any apparent bias or judgment on the displaced and homeless.).  My touchstone is Derrida's observation that:  "Religion is responsibility, or it is nothing at all."  That puts it back on me just as much as I want to put it on "them." whoever "they" are.  It's something of a secular starting point toward "the first of all will be last and servant of all," and "Lord, when did we see you?"  Judgment puts me above and apart, and as much as I want to be, I have to admit I am neither.  Derrida's observation is a good starting point for remembering that.

It is not insignificant that the SBC was formed in 1845, and explicitly supported slavery.  Lots of southern denominations did.  The Presbyterian church I grew up in split from the "northern" church in the Civil War, and when they rejoined in the latter half of the 20th century, many people thought the merger made the church too "liberal."  I don't think they were concerned with blacks sitting in their pews (11 a.m. on Sunday is still, as Dr. King observed over half-a-century ago, the most segregated hour in America), but the culture an institituion is formed in remains in that institution's "genetics."  No, institutions are not biological, but the popular notion of genes passing on immutable traits (your father's eyes, your mother's gait.  My mother swore my brother walked like her father, a man my brother and I never knew.) is the metaphor here.  Institutions have their culture which attracts and repels, even forces out, those who are not agreeable to it.  It's almost like a body, with antibodies to reject what is "foreign."  Or, as the article puts it:

The way Southern Baptists read, understand and teach the Bible also is shaped by that racist founding, which used Scripture to rationalize the ownership of other human beings, Leonard added. After the Civil War and the end of slavery, that approach was turned to support Jim Crow and segregation.

The SBC never has been fully comfortable welcoming Black members because it is beholden to that scriptural doctrine and fears giving it up would result in surrendering other hard-held doctrines, including complementarianism, Leonard said. “The SBC says (to African Americans), ‘We want you but can’t take you fully because of the way we read the Bible. As long as that hermeneutic remains normative, then the Southern Baptist Convention in 2021 is going to be trapped in 1845.”

I would go a step further than saying the SBC "fears...giving it up," this method of exegesis (as we seminary graduates call it).  They can't give it up because it's part of the SBC's identity.  I would (charitably, to be sure) liken it to German Evangelicals (name of a denomination, not holy rollers) who were forced, finally, to stop worshipping in German during World War I.  They lost something precious then; and seriously wondered how God would understand them.  Language is intimate; language is personal; language is identity. It's another reason so many people react so strongly to speakers of a language other than English; the conversation excludes you.  You are suddenly identified as the "outsider."  And who is comfortable with that?

This is part of what I mean by culture-as-genetics.  Some practices have to continue, for centuries if need be, to maintain the identity of the group, and of the members of the group.

And, of course, there's that question of judgment, and the admonition (never mentioned in the article, sadly) not to judge, so you won't be judged:

One of those traps springs from the way the convention defined sin at its founding, essentially limiting it to certain social behaviors such as drinking, dancing and fornication, Knox said. The goal was to omit slave ownership from the list of objectionable practices.

In the process, this made normative the mistreatment of other groups such as people of color, women, LGBTQ persons and even sex abuse victims, he explained. “When sin is so narrowly defined, then it doesn’t matter how you treat others.”

Leonard pointed to the hypocrisy of such a position: “Sexual immorality is inappropriate except for ministers whose churches cover it up.”

He recommended the denomination take a break from speaking out on race, gender and sexuality issues until it gets its own house in order. “You can’t go around telling people what to do about sexuality or race when you have permitted a lifestyle directly opposed to it.”

This all shows that toxic religion is nothing new, Griffen added. “Hateful faith is not generational or episodic. It is wicked in 2021 or 1845.”

Some of this also returns to the question of soteriology, the issue of salvation:  if you must be saved, then you must avoid and even denounce wickedness and sin.  One problem with that is you can define sin as something others do.  Nice work if you can get it.  You can also erase your sin, because you have performed the actions that render you "saved."  I don't think that's what Griffen is covering in his phrase "hateful faith," but it should be.  Of course, at this point you go so far beyond the pale of Southern Baptist doctrine you might be seen, not as a reformer, but as a heretic.  Which is, actually, an argument; or a description of me; which is why my friend cut me short this weekend.  He was literally saving me; from being tedious.

The historical irony is Baptists began, in all their various forms now, as people simply seeking freedom to worship God as they saw fit.  That's not an inherently judgmental posture; but it soon became one.  And now, it seems, that judgment is turning inward more and more, as they argue over who is, if not holier, then more Southern Baptist:

Wingfield said the convention’s history and trajectory — with moderates and progressives long gone — seems to have resulted in a battle now between conservatives and ultraconservatives for the heart of the denomination. Some even have recently labeled Russell Moore a liberal despite his history of adhering to a strictly conservative theology. He added that Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary requires faculty and students to sign four statements of faith.

Wingfield asked panelists to discuss how that continuing rightward shift into narrowness affects the denomination overall.

Leonard said it has totally changed the witness of the SBC, which he said has abandoned “a heart-warming conversion experience” for a transactional process of creedalism by requiring signed confessions that declare belief in biblical inerrancy. “Their baptisms are declining in part because of demographics and in part due to a confusion as to the nature of conversion and absolute loyalty to a set of rigid dogmas.”

I should explain, for people familiar with church creeds, that creedalism (the adherence to creeds) became an issue during the Reformation.  In large part it arose as yet another way to distinguish one's church from the Roman Catholic church.  I grew up reciting the Nicene Creed and the Apostle's Creed; I could probably still do it from memory.  My Southern Baptist friends recited no creeds, believing them unnecessary to the faith of an individual.  They placed great store on the faith of the individual in God, as part of a worshipping body, but eager to avoid in any way identifying that worshipping body with something the individual owed fealty to.  Creeds were seen as a way of making some kind of pledge to something other than God, because they were common (that is, mutual) statements of faith; and faith should only be individual.  Of such disagreements are denominations made.

So my friend the UCC pastor actually struggled with using the historic creeds in his worship, Southern Baptist than he was when he started his pastoral ministry.  This question of "creedalism" was once a marker of identity for Southern Baptists, as much so as their brand of soteriology and (narrow) definition of sin.  But now, in the effort to make the body of worshippers holy (purify it, in other words) and root out the "false" believers from the "true," they create "statements of faith."  And make their seminary faculty and students, in at least one case, sign them, like loyalty oaths.  Which is, in truth, how the historic creeds got started.  Everything old is new again.

The "heartwarming conversion experience" idea is a fundamental part of Baptist theology.  Having been raised among the "frozen chosen," I never quite took to the idea.  I still don't. It comes mostly out of the Pietist movement from Germany, where an emphasis on personal experience began to be prized above more "priestly" knowledge and authority.  Again, a way of distinguishing from the Roman sense of church as a hierarchy. Although in some sense St. Francis represents the original "Pietist," especially as he is the first person known to have displayed the stigmata, the wounds of Christ on the cross.  That's a pretty personal experience. 

But now, it seems, in their efforts to purge the Convention of the "wrong" kinds of beliefs, the denomination is creating a more rigid structure of beliefs than the Roman church has ever had.  Rome had its "rigid dogmas" under Benedict, and it sees those dogmas becoming less and less important as Francis emphasizes something that could be mistaken for "a heart-warming...experience."  I mention it only to highlight the irony:  as Francis tries to move the Church away from a central authority determining who is allowed and who is denied, who is accepted and who is not, the SBC seems to be moving in precisely the opposite direction.  Christianity has perpetually had this problem, but we have the metaphor for that, too, from our beginnings:  the Pharisees, v. the disciples.  That's not a perfect model, but it does allow us to ask, if we will:  which group do we most resemble now?  Considering how many times Jesus told his disciples not to be exclusionary, and how much we humans love to draw boundaries so we know who's "in" and who's "out," it's always a pertinent question.  And always a struggle.

So in the end I feel some sympathy for the struggles of my sisters and brothers in Christ in the SBC.  The Convention is determined to hold on to "complementarianism," the idea that men and women serve complementary, but never equal, roles.  I find that wholly at odds with the gospel witness itself; but there we are, back to matters of exegesis again, and whether my interpretation is more right (or just better) than yours.  I note, however, how much of the struggle outlined in this article is not over matters of exegesis:  there's nothing doctrinal or Biblical, fundamentally, about CRT or white nationalism or complementarianism.  The problems come first when we make those things central to our understanding of our lives and duties as Christians.  The moment we do that we set out to judge; but then we are ourselves judged; and rather than resolving anything, it just turns into a round robin of judgment and accusation and drawing tighter and tighter boundaries.  "What life have we if we have not life together?"  But what life together is a life of endless judgment?

If I had all the answers; if my faith and theology and practice and preaching were so satisfactory to many, I'd still be in a pulpit somewhere, maybe even retiring from parish ministry this year or the next after a brief but spectacular career.  I don't substitute my "wisdom" for that of the people of the SBC.  That they are doing something wrong is clear.  That they are not alone in that, should also be clear.  Although I do find it interesting that when Rep. Ilhan Omar mentions terrorists and the U.S. in the same breath (as Charlie Pierce pointed out, nothing she said was truly remarkable) it's a terrible thing; so I wonder how Southern Baptists take the comparison to the Taliban?