Last month, Pastor Dwight McKissic of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas announced he was going to get the hell out of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention — and maybe the Southern Baptist Convention entirely.
The tipping point for McKissic was that, as a Black man, he couldn’t handle the SBTC (and the SBC) saying that systemic racism wasn’t a serious problem. They had openly rejected everything about “Critical Race Theory,” and even though McKissic agreed on certain points, to reject the entire thing as if it was some kind of liberal conspiracy was really dismissing the kind of racism Black Americans have experienced for centuries. McKissic also said that, given the SBC’s history of racism, “it is preposterous to ask African American churches to blindly trust [SBC leaders’] interpretations regarding CRT.”
Not long after he publicly announced his departure, though, he received confirmation that he was making the right move.
McKissic received a letter at his church from a man named John V. Rutledge who was infuriated by his decision to walk away from the Baptist group.
Read this thing. And realize it’s dated January 25, 2021… because you might be fooled into thinking it’s at least a century or two old.
The Arlington pastor detailed his history of encounters, some racist, with the Texas convention in an exit statement he posted on his blog. It began in 2006, when a former convention executive told him he could “ride on the bus” of the organization, but not drive it, McKissic wrote.
“I remained a member from then until today, simply to not break fellowship over a tertiary issue,” he wrote in the blog post. “I decided to stay on the bus from 2006 until January 2021. But, today, I have decided it is time to ‘get off the bus.’ I no longer want to ride, and I certainly do not want to drive.”
McKissic also condemned a recent statement by First Baptist Church of Rockwall pastor Steve Swofford, a member of the SBC executive committee, who in a Jan. 3 sermon said President Joe Biden would be a “cognitively dysfunctional president.”
“What if something happens to him and ‘Jezebel’ has to take over? ‘Jezebel Harris,’ isn’t that her name?” Swofford said, invoking a racial stereotype from the Jim Crow era referring to Black women as sexually promiscuous.
McKissic called out the pastor on Twitter — as well as Tom Buck of First Baptist Church of Lindale, who also called Vice President Kamala Harris the name — and challenged the Texas convention to “repudiate” them and their “un-Christlike statements.”
Funny how every day a commenter here on DP will claim there is no racism in America and especially so in America's Christian churches.
A Black Pastor Who Criticized Southern Baptists Received An E-Mail
Well, that explains it even further...politics is just another divisive tactic...More on the story comes from the Dallas Morning News
The "Reverend" Rutledge appears to be just the most blatant of the racists to be found in the SBC
Nope, no racism amongst these preachers - looks like it kinda goes with their political leaning.
Funny how every day a commenter here on DP will claim there is no racism in America and especially so in America's Christian churches.
A Black Pastor Who Criticized Southern Baptists Received An E-Mail
Hey, church is where I get my power, if I want to be racist with it, that's my business.There should be no racism among God's people...
Funny how every day a commenter here on DP will claim there is no racism in America and especially so in America's Christian churches.
A Black Pastor Who Criticized Southern Baptists Received An E-Mail
It could have said nig-er, but that would put it into the conversation of many blacks of today.“Negro”. Welcome back to the racist 1950s.
Funny how every day a commenter here on DP will claim there is no racism in America and especially so in America's Christian churches.
A Black Pastor Who Criticized Southern Baptists Received An E-Mail
Funny how every day a commenter here on DP will claim there is no racism in America ....
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