SBC-Backed Org Urges Churches to Be Less ‘Color-blind’ and Hire More BIPOC Folk
Trillia Newbell is an author, speaker, and former director of community outreach for the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC). She’s written for Ligionier Ministries, TGC, Desiring God, and Christianity Today. Still, we haven’t covered her much, mentioning her only briefly after she and a gaggle of lady preachers participated in an immigration propaganda video.
Last week, demonstrating the Evangelical Industrial Complex’s commitment to DEI refuses to DIE, Newbell appeared in a NewChurches video, a project tied to Ed Stetzer and backed by the SBC.
Here, she put out a clip urging church planters to “add diverse voices” to their leadership teams and be “color-wise,” not “color-blind.”
We need to be churches that know how to love when it’s hard, when it’s confusing, and when it’s with people who do not look like ourselves.
…I want you all to do me and your church members and your community a favor and evaluate your leadership teams. See where you can add diversity. Not for diversity sake, but for the benefit of the body. Look and see where you can add diverse voices. Learn how to celebrate our differences and resist the notion of being colorblind.
God is not colorblind, he talks about throughout His scriptures every tribe, tongue and nation. So we need to learn to celebrate what God has already created.
I have kind of coined the phrase and it’s probably not just mine, we need to grow and be ‘colored smart,’ or some people have said ‘color wise.‘ Being color smart enables us to see people as made in the image of God just like us, while also acknowledging the beauty of our differences.
We are not all the same in regards to skin colour, interest, likes, gifts and desires. And this is a good thing. We can acknowledge it, we don’t need to ignore it. Our differences are for the glory of God. And when we embrace it, and enjoy it, it’s a way we can extend and express love to our neighbor.
The Dissenter was highly critical of Newbell’s efforts to impose Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion quotas and ideology on the church, writing:
Newbell’s diatribe, advocating for artificial diversity within the Church, is riddled with baseless, unbiblical assertions. Her plea to evaluate church leadership to add diversity not for its own sake but for the “benefit of the body” is nothing more than a thinly veiled call for Marxist engineering within the Church. But what is particularly alarming is the underlying meaning of “diversity” in this context. What these leftists often mean by “diverse” is “non-white.” In their push for so-called “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” the word “diverse” actually seems to include everyone except white people.
They twist language to fit their vain philosophies and traditions of men, and in their minds, a church staff is considered “diverse” if it doesn’t include white people. This skewed perspective is not just a distortion of language—it’s a distortion of the Gospel. The Scriptures teach that diversity in the body of Christ comes naturally through the Holy Spirit. God places the parts in the body as He wants them to be (1 Corinthians 12:18), not as some human, politically-driven agenda dictates. The focus on exclusion rather than genuine unity betrays a worldly perspective that has no place within the Church.
We couldn’t agree more.
h/t WokepreacherTV for the video and summary. Also for this associated gem about Lewis:
About Author
Wow
I can remember when they used to try to hide their apostasy. Now they display for all to see
It turns out racism was good thing after all – we just weren’t marginalizing the right folks : )
She was part of Russell Moore’s doleful crew at the ERLC. ‘Nuff said.