SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION ADOPTS "CRITICAL RACE THEORY", A DANGEROUS MARXIST "SOLUTION" THAT WILL NOT WORK
SEE: https://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/newsletters/2019/newsletter20191202.htm; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
On November 25th, Lighthouse Trails received a link to a YouTube documentary titled “The Stain of Albert Mohler”(1) that documents how the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) passed a resolution (Resolution 9) this past summer (2019) which adopts “Critical Race Theory” (a theory that claims to be a solution to ending racism but according to critics is actually a theory enveloped in Marxism).
A June 18th 2019 Federalist article titled “In Last-Minute Move, Southern Baptist Convention Supports Anti-Christian Racial Identity Politics,” expresses concerns over the resolution:The largest Protestant denomination in North America, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), officially adopted “critical race theory” and “intersectionality” as “analytical tools” to be used in fostering racial reconciliation in the church. These key drivers of identity politics, however, are more likely to produce racial discord and strike at Christianity itself.A OneNewsNow article titled “Critical Race Theory—A Bait-and-Switch Tactic Infiltrating the Church” further explains the issue:
HamiltonCritical Race Theory (often referred to as CRT) teaches that American culture is rife with white supremacy and baked-in racism, and is used—often subconsciously—to hold women and people of color back. According to pastor and talk-show host Abraham Hamilton III, it’s the philosophy behind identity politics and comes straight out of the Marxist playbook.In “The Stain of Albert Mohler” documentary, Tom Buck, a SBC pastor who contested Resolution 9 at the SBC convention in June, noted that Resolution 9 acknowledges that Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality(2) alone were insufficient to diagnose and redress the root causes of the social ills they identified. Furthermore, Buck stated:
“[CRT] doesn’t depend on your personal feeling, sentiment, [or] heart condition—it’s based on the group that you’re born into,” [Hamilton] explained recently on American Family Radio. “It completely eliminates individual responsibility, individual sin and expands it to corporate sin. And based on how you’re born, you are immediately ascribed into an ‘oppressor’ or ‘oppressed’ group.” . . .
“Jesus articulated the primary commandments: love God with your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself,” [Hamilton] concluded. “We don’t need these anti-Christ, unbiblical tools to teach us how to love our neighbors as ourselves—the scripture is sufficient for that.”
Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality are . . . not merely insufficient, they’re incapable of diagnosing man’s problem and incompatible with the biblical Gospel. Critical Race Theory is based upon Marxism, a godless intellectual foundation, and both include a praxis contradictory to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. These views do not complement the Gospel; they completely contradict it.In his rebuttal statements against Resolution 9, Buck quoted Colossians 2:8, then added:
When it came to worldly philosophy and human tradition, Paul did not tell the Colossians to adopt or adapt but to abandon.One SBC pastor announced after SBC adopted Resolution 9, that his church was withdrawing from the SBC:
At the last Southern Baptist Convention, the messengers from the churches voted to include Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality as tools to help us interpret the Bible. Now if you don’t know what Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality mean, among other things, it is the notion that if you’re born white, you’re already a racist; it doesn’t matter what you feel or how you act. You’re just a racist. All of the radical liberal progressive thought is in those terms in order to appease the culture and get along. (minute mark 3:20 of video)Abraham Hamilton III, who has a podcast on American Family Radio devoted to exposing the dangers of Critical Race Theory, explained how some of these social justice “theories” have entered the church:
The way it’s getting into the church, you have people presenting these ideas – Critical Race Theory and other things—as something that they are not. . . . They’re not adhering to the traditional definitions and applications [so they can] get the foot in the door—and then once the foot is in the door, the applications return to the original definitions.
Albert MohlerCritical Theory(3) of the Frankfurt School, coming out of the the left-wing of Marxism in Europe, was basically, and this is what is key, was a repudiation of consensual politics. So [in] this critical theory and all that came out of this horror, Marxism emerged from the idea that democratic politics won’t work. It’s not going to get to revolution. It’s not going to get to justice; therefore, there has to be a confrontation all the way down to the foundation, and that’s the critical means, taking it apart. And so they wanted to blow up the world basically ideologically. Basically it was a matter of identifying all the structures of authority and of order in society as repressive. (minute mark 5:32)And yet, while Mohler condemned Critical Theory in the above quote, as the documentary shows through live footage, Mohler has actually embraced CRT which is an offshoot of Critical Theory.
Critical Theory and Critical Race Theory are basically “cultural Marxism.” The documentary gives this definition of cultural Marxism:
Cultural Marxism is a broad term which refers to the advocacy and application of critical theory and more generally to the cultural political and academic influence of certain elements within the contemporary Left. . . . is the creation of interdisciplinary theories that might serve as instruments of social transformation. . . .Author and pastor David Platt, who was President of the SBC International Mission Board for four years until 2018, was quoted on the documentary as well, showing his affinity with CRT. In live footage on the documentary, Platt says that basically the evangelical church is propagating racism rather than helping to diminish it. The narrator of the film refutes Platt’s statements:
Gender, sexual orientation, family, race, culture, or religion—every aspect of a person’s identity is to be questioned; every norm or standard in society be challenged and ideally altered in order to benefit supposedly oppressed groups. . . .
Cultural Marxism is such a conflict as existing between the oppressed and the oppressors, between those with privilege and those without. . . . Majority groups are typically defined as privileged and oppressive with minority groups accordingly labeled underprivileged and oppressed. Heterosexuals are oppressive. Cisgender(4) people are oppressive. Whites are oppressive, especially white men. Christians are oppressive. Those that do not fit into these groups are thus considered oppressed. If whites are oppressors, the solution is racial diversity. If Cisgender people are oppressors, the solution is to encourage transgenderism. (minute mark 9:15)
Platt’s sermon is not based in biblical truth but in the ideology of Critical Race Theory of cultural Marxism. His basic presupposition is that white Christians are not only immersed in racism but are actually increasing the racial divide. He exhorts churches to repent of racism and to set up multi-ethnic communities in order to achieve racial reconciliation, but Scripture teaches otherwise. All true believers are one in Christ so there is no racial divide in the true Church of God—for black Christians and white Christians are one in Christ; they are reconciled in Christ. (minute mark 56:06)
Voddie BauchamHe [the apostle Paul] starts off talking about what the Gentiles didn’t have, and we end up talking about what Jews and Gentiles now have because of the Cross. Built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself, being the cornerstone in whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the spirit. That’s racial reconciliation, and it’s not something you and I have to achieve. It’s something you and I have to believe because Christ has already achieved it. It is done. It is real. We are one in Christ. You need to be reminded of your union; you need to strengthen your union . . . same thing with racial reconciliation—we are reconciled in Christ; we don’t need to achieve racial reconciliation, we just need to walk in the racial reconciliation that Christ achieved at the Cross. It’s ours. It’s real, and I don’t need sociology books in order to walk in this reconciliation. I need God’s book in order to walk in this reconciliation. (minute mark 57:00)Countless men, women, and children, throughout the history of man, have been hurt and ostracized, sexually and physically abused, and even murdered by those who have hated and had evil and murder in their hearts. The answer in today’s world for this is socialism, social justice, changing views on gender and sexuality, New Age thought, radical feminism, and now cultural Marxism through CRT. But these are not the answers the church should embrace. These ideologies are powerless substitutes for the only viable and true solution—and that is the Cross. And any group that claims to represent that Cross (e.g., SBC) should have nothing to do with the world’s “solutions” that will never work but rather should be proclaiming the Gospel to an unsaved, lost, and hurting world. Those who embrace Critical Race Theory (which broadens the terms racist and white supremacist to include virtually all white people) believe CRT is going to help end racial tensions and create a more loving world. On the contrary, it is going to cause animosity, suspicion, anger, and all the things that are the opposite of God’s love that is described in 1 Corinthians 13 (the love chapter).
Let us remember this too: Man’s adversary, Satan, does not care about anyone of any race, color, gender, or culture. He only uses people to propagate and accomplish his horribly wicked evil plans. And his ultimate goal is to keep people from Christ and His salvation. As utterly horrible as abuse, bigotry, rape, hate, and murder are, there is something even worse, and that is to be eternally lost without Christ.
Promoters of Resolution 9 say there is a “massive” racism problem within SBC. If that is truly the case, then SBC should take Abraham Hamilton’s advice and realize this is not a corporate sin (that would be saying every white SBC pastor and leader is a racist); rather, the problem lies with individuals within SBC (or within any evangelical group) who hate, belittle, or devalue those of different races; and it would be hard not to wonder if such individuals have ever truly been born of the Spirit for it is that Holy Spirit who puts the love of God in our hearts, giving us the desire and ability to love God and love our neighbor. What’s more, to view any individual as less valuable and worthy of hate or disdain because of the color of his skin is going completely against the God of the Bible who created man (of all races) in His image and who loved each person so much He gave His Son to die on the Cross that any person who believes on Him will have eternal life. Thus, if SBC does have a racist problem, then they have a salvation problem with too many of its members, and that is what should be focused on because when that problem is solved, the other will begin to be solved also.
If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also. (1 John 4:20-21)
We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. (1 John 3:14)
APPENDIX
Having written an article about such a sensitive and important issue, we did not want to include more commentary than needed. However, there is an important observation we feel we cannot leave out, though we know some readers will not like it nor agree with it.
Calvinism (in particular what old-school Calvinists call neo/emergent Calvinism) has been overtaking SBC churches and seminaries to an alarming degree. J.D. Greear, the SBC’s current president, falls in this category as do many of the men who are promoting CRT. While Calvinists and Reformed would vehemently deny that Calvinism has anything to do with the infiltration of anti-biblical Marxist-leaning beliefs, we believe there is a definite connection. Many, many, many of the young men who were mentored and trained in Calvinism by the older seasoned Calvinists to become pastors have turned emergent. How did this happen? If the foundation upon which one’s “faith” is faulty to begin with, then the building itself will too become faulty. Calvinism presents a “God” who does not love every person and who wants to send the majority of people to Hell. Very likely, it’s because of this distorted unloving and unbiblical view of God that so many young Calvinists (and some older ones too) have become emergent, and maybe that’s even why they now are so compelled to turn to socialism and Marxism for solutions.
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9)Endnotes:
- Documentary produced by Dr. E.S. Williams of London Metropolitan Tabernacle. Documentary Link .
- Intersectionality is the idea that there are people who have overlapping oppressed and “oppressor” social identities (e.g., someone who is poor, uneducated, and homosexual; or someone who is white, male, and educated).
- CRT is an offshoot of Critical Theory according to the documentary as is social justice and feminism.
- Cisgender refers to people who identify themselves with the sex/gender to which they are born.
Related Articles:
“Parting With National Body, Tennessee Baptists Repudiate Critical Race Theory“
“In Last-Minute Move, Southern Baptist Convention Supports Anti-Christian Racial Identity Politics“
“Critical Race Theory – a bait-and-switch tactic infiltrating the Church“
The Dangerous Truth About the Social-Justice “Gospel”
Oneness vs. Separation Heresy “Now” in the Church
Resources:
Understanding the Gospel with Harry Ironside
Calvinism and Reformed Theology
Protecting Children From Sexual Abuse
Remembering the Holocaust
Remembering Communism
