Jarvis Williams – Protestia

SBTS Prof. Jarvis Williams Says ‘You can have racism operating in a context where there are no individual racists’

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary’s ‘outtess yet in’ Critical Race Theory (CRT) supporter Professor Jarvis Williams gave a message back in 2018 at Bethlehem College and Seminary, where John Piper holds sway at the chancellor. Speaking on PasCon panel on the subject of “Ethnic Harmony and the Holy Spirit, Jarvis joined SBTS Provost and notorious self-described ‘racist’ Matthew Hall, Mt. Vernon Pastor Aaron Menikoff, Arrabon founder David Bailey, and John Onwuchekwa, who took a bunch of NAMB money and then left the SBC.

Williams, one of the professors hooping CRT into the SBC’s flagship university, (see here and here), was last seen in a segment sharing how he intentionally chose to pass over white congregants when choosing people to be a part of his small group, instead picking minorities and ‘multi-ethnic’ persons of color, in order to serve as a ‘model’ for the church. He kicks it off by explaining that because of Adam’s sin, we have deep and abiding sin everywhere. He notes:

“Sin is the ultimate enemy of reconciliation and Christian unity. So then as we move into our context today, I think racial hostility or ethnic hostility shows up in racial hierarchy, and white supremacy, and white privilege, and white power. We must remember this… because of sin, racial hostility shows itself up violently but also ideologically.”

Backing up the notion racism is in everything we do, and to provide a bit of context of what white supremacy, Matthew Hall explains that the Idea of ‘race’ was birthed in the United States and that on account of 400 years of slavery:

“Christians, those who have a biblical worldview, an understanding of these, severity of the fall, and the cancerous nature of sin and the way in which sin corrupts everything not just the human heart and conscience but the mind and even social structures, we shouldn’t be surprised that sin, the sin and the wickedness of white supremacy remains with us and it still is reverberating throughout our culture four centuries later

At this point Jarvis tags in again:

When we think about white supremacy, it’s not only the overt, violent expressions that you see on the television. In Charlottesville, for example. But white supremacy is an ideological construct that believes that whiteness is superior to non-whiteness.

So then, how this shows up, in part, is it shows up in curriculum. Right? I’m a seminary professor, and in theological education, you’re hard-pressed to find many evangelical institutions that have a regular requirement of black and brown authors. And often what happens is whiteness becomes the standard by which all good theology is judged.

You understand what I’m saying? So that if it’s right theology, it’s written by a white scholar who is contextualizing that theology for white audiences. And so one of the things we see is, and hear this very, very carefully. There’s racism by intent and there’s racism by consequence.
You can have racism operating in a context where is [sic] there are no individual racists. And that, in part, is the way in which white supremacy works, in a socially sophisticated way.

Ie, even if there is no evidence of racism, in the midst of individuals who are not racists, in a context where there’s no reason to assume racism is occurring- there is, by default, racism and white supremacy – just done in a sophisticated, secretive way.

It’s nonsensical. Pick anything else. “You can have basketball operating in a context where are there are no individual basketball players. And that, in part, is the way in which basketball works, in a socially sophisticated way.

When you have whiteness as the priority, and when folks work and operate in such a way with curriculum, with economics, or with policies to maintain and to posture and to privilege that whiteness, and then to require those who are non-white to culturally colonize to whiteness. So then we think about reconciliation and ethnic hostility, the solution is not more black and brown faces in white spaces who colonize to whiteness.

The solution is fundamentally, yes, the gospel, the cross, the resurrection, right? The blood of Jesus. But also dethroning white supremacy in all of the forms in which it shows up in Christian spaces, folks. Because when Jesus died to disarm those principalities and powers, one of those principalities and powers, I would argue, is white supremacy and all that it entails. So feel that tonight. White supremacy’s not just violence or KKK or lynchings. It is also the belief, directly or indirectly, that whiteness is rightness, and everything has to be judged by that.

Ie, white supremacy exists because of the fall, and white folks are all white supremacists who believe that whites are superior to non-whites, as even a lack of racism on their part is evidence of a socially sophisticated secret racism and supremacy.

There is nothing Holy Spirit-filled about that claim, and you can thank Al Mohler at SBTS for keeping these men employed.

h/t to WokePreacherTV

SBTS Professor Intentionally Did Not Choose White People for Church Small Group

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary’s ‘outtess yet in’ Critical Race Theory (CRT) supporter Professor Jarvis Williams has shared how he intentionally chose to pass over white congregants when choosing people to be a part of his small group, instead choosing minorities and ‘multi-ethnic’ persons of color, in order to serve as a ‘model’ for the church.

Williams, one of the professors hooping CRT into the SBC’s flagship university, (see here and here) made the comments during an interview with Verge Networks. The video has been posted below and the salient part starts at the 2:20 mark, but the whole short clips is worth a listen.

First, for his affirmation of white privilege existing, but then for his rejection of ‘colorblindness;’ which in CRT-speak is the definition that someone ‘doesn’t see color’ or ‘is colorblind’ or ‘doesn’t have a racist bone in their body.’ This view is seen as Very Bad because critical race theorists want you to see race and want you to focus on racial differences.

If you treat a black guy the same as you’d treat a white guy, because in your mind their skin has no impact on how they ought to be treated or viewed, (being colorblind) you’re simply ignoring discrimination, lying to yourself, and are inflicting ideological violence on the POC you’re not treating differently. Williams says:

“I recently had this conversation, someone said ‘well what can I do as a white person to help the cause of racial reconciliation?’ To which I responded ‘you want to get rid of the white saviorism mentality and not view yourself as the savior who’s going in to help these poor people, but rather take the posture of the learner.

Put yourself in spaces where there are people from different ethnic groups, but then also learn that person’ narrative. Because quite often I think that one reason why certain people in the majority group reject white privilege or…of affirm that there’s colorblindness, is because their narrative is not the same as the counter-narrative of the marginalized group…

Turning to the small group, Jarvis explains his rationale which sounds perhaps reasonable, until you consider how insidious it actually is.

In my small group, I intentionally chose people who were multi-ethnic to be in my small group to serve as a model for our church what this looks like before we have an officials mall group ministry that the church is behind.

So in my small group you have me, my wife’s Latino. We have a white brother who’s engaged to an Indian sister who are going to be married soon. We have my multi-racial cousin and his black girlfriend, we have a brother from Pakistan in my small group -he’s gonna get married to another Pakistani so he’ll be in the group.

And so it’s majority-minority, and we have at the moment one white person, and the rest of the group is minority, but it’s diverse minority groups, and then we’re going to pick up a couple more white brothers and sisters and so we’re trying to model what this looks like; we’re putting ourselves in spaces with different people and we’re doing life with each other.

In essence, the selection of small group participants by Williams was not based on the spiritual needs of the congregants, or on their growth and maturity, or proximity to the location the group would be gathering at- things which all would actually be relevant and perhaps worthy of consideration.

Rather small groups were chosen based on skin color and ethnicity as the primary, driving factor. Even the white guy seems to have been chosen because he has an Indian fiance. This is not a benevolent, thoughtful plan for how to build a small group, but rather is the laying of a rotting, fetid foundation.

This is shameful to the extreme, but you’d be hard-pressed to find Mohler or any of the SBC elites to say anything about it. After all, it’s already been passed around the yard and is in nearly every cell.