In a recently unearthed sermon clip from 2018, SBC Pastor and former International Mission Board President David Platt described how because he has white skin, he has blind spots when teaching the scriptures.
Platt was last seen telling congregation members if they were upset and contemplating breaking fellowship with other congregants who were promoting, working for, or voting for the pro-baby-killing Democratic party, then perhaps they should leave.
In this clip, however, he describes himself as “part of the problem” of racial injustice. Platt earnestly vows to teach on issues in the bible pertinent to black congregation members too, and not just white members as perhaps he’s done in the past.
He condemns church growth ideology that says he should not speak on race issues and affirms that it’s important to declare that white people are part of the problem when it comes to those very issues. He says:
I want to sacrifice more of my preferences as a white pastor. I need to grow. And my laying aside of preferences for members of this body because I want Christ to be exalted through increasing diversity in our leadership and our membership.
On a related note, I do not want to speak from the bible on issues that are popular among white followers of Christ while staying silent in the bible on issues that are important to the non-white followers of Christ. That’s not faithful pastoring.
I actually read this week how studies have shown that white church leaders are less likely to speak and act prophetically on race issues because white church leaders have more to lose when they do. Basically, if you want to draw a crowd in general, stay away from racial issues.
And if you want to draw a crowd of white people or black people or this type of person or that type of person then stay away from saying any one of those types of people is part of the problem on racial issues.
Because the reality is many people mainly want to be comforted when they come to church, and as people, we’re naturally drawn to that which brings the most benefit with the least cost.
So if you give people a choice between the church of comfort and the church of comfort but you need to make sacrifices to charge your life, people will choose the church of comfort most every time. Which is why we’ve designed so much of the church culture the way we have today.
It’s why we’re so prone not to talk about issues that are uncomfortable to us and I just want to see the bible doesn’t give us that option. Like Amos 5 doesn’t give us that option. We cannot truly worship God while we stay silent on injustice in all kinds of areas.
And I know as a white pastor I have blind spots. So I am part of the problem. I need friends and fellow pastors around me from different ethnicities who help me see those blind spots.
And I’m committed to listening and learning and loving- laying aside whatever contemporary church growth methodology says the best way to grow the church. I ignore the issues. I want to do the exact opposite. I want us to hear God’s word clearly on these issues and then we can trust him with the growth of this church.
David Platt is right about one thing: he is a part of the problem, but not in the way he thinks.
One state is shocked and dismayed that the state’s Executive Director for America’s largest Protestant denomination is supporting an extreme left-wing ideology.
(Montana Daily Gazette) One might have thought that support for the most outrageously leftist leviathan devouring Western Civilization would be supported primarily by liberal mainstream denominations like the ELCA, Episcopalian, or United Church of Christ. But a Twitter thread demonstrates that the head of the Southern Baptist Convention in Montana, Barrett Duke, affirms at least some of the tenets of Cultural Marxism, Identity Politics, and Intersectionality – commonly known as Critical Theory.
BACKGROUND
Currently, unbeknownst to some, there is a civil war waging in America’s largest Protestant denomination. Although the denomination thought that it had exiled leftists during the so-called Conservative Resurgence beginning in 1979, recent years have demonstrated that many of those leftists burrowed underground in the denomination’s institutions and have risen to prominence in what amounts to being a 30-year coup d’etat over 14-million membership.
At the heart of the Conservative Resurgence were two issues, abortion and female clergy. At the beginning of the Resurgence, the SBC and its institutions were largely for both and passed resolutions affirming both. But beginning with the presidency of Adrian Rogers, these liberal elements were quieted and thought to be properly dispatched through more than a decade of infighting. The Southern Baptist Convention soon stood tall and true as not only the largest Protestant denomination, but the most conservative (although the Presbyterian Church of America, Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, and other outliers certainly exist).
If you fast-forward to today, however, you will find prominent Southern Baptists like its president, JD Greear, and its influencers (Mark Dever, Thabiti Anyabwile aka Ron Burns, Jonathan Leeman, Beth Moore, etc) claiming that voting Democrat is an acceptable moral choice). In fact, Mark Dever is a registered Democrat, something simply unimaginable twenty years ago in the SBC. The denomination’s seminary presidents, Albert Mohler, Daniel Akin, Jason Allen, and three others seem to all be sufficiently “woke,” and have forbidden their employees from signing The Dallas Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel, which explicitly rejects the Social Gospel which – as of late – has been renamed “Social Justice” by the liberals promoting it. Daniel Akin at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary hired a notorious and gay-affirming leftist who says abortion is not murder, Karen Swallow Prior, and has hosted “Malcolm X Read-Ins” in celebration of Critical Theory. They also took time to celebrate James Cone, the founder of Black Liberation Theology, which teaches that Jesus is black and the Bible is about identifying with the oppressed.
A race-baiter and Democrat activist who has little in common with the Southern Baptist Convention – Dwight McKissic (he is also for female clergy and is a practicing charismatic) – promoted “Resolution 9” at the denomination’s 2019 gathering, which calls Critical Theory a “helpful analytical tool” to help Christians understand race. The vote, which was likely invalid and was pushed upon “messengers” (delegates) to the SBC by leadership, afraid a stall or rejection on the proposal would lead to accusations of racism by the press, which was hovering over the process.
After more than a year of explaining to Southern Baptists what Critical Theory is, grassroots activists within the denomination have finally got the attention of SBC leaders that what they endorsed is in fact Marxism and a specific strain called Cultural Marxism. In an about-face, the six SBC seminary presidents signed a statement denouncing Critical Theory – which they all promoted heavily at the 2019 SBC annual meeting (note: they are still promoting, endorsing, and hiring Critical Theorists in their institutions and actively firing those who oppose Critical Theory).
WHAT IS CRITICAL THEORY? Buzz-words are in bold.
Critical Theory was derived in the 1930s from the Western-Marxist philosophy of Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud, commonly called “The Frankfurt School.” This school of thought came from ex-pats from Hitler’s Germany just prior to World War II and interestingly, merged the Nazi’s fixation on racial categories with the Soviet Empire’s economic Marxism. Relocating in New York City and in particular, Columbia University, in 1935 to avoid Hitler’s wrath (most of the philosophers were of Jewish descent) the group moved back to West Germany in 1953.
Because of the influence of Adolph Hitler, whose Final Solution was greatly influenced by Darwinism, Critical Theorists developed their philosophy with a similar fixation on race (albeit, far less anti-semitic). Combined with Collectivism popularized among the Soviets (as opposed to Individualism in the West), the Marxists claimed that regular (economic) Marxism could not thrive in a capitalist nation like the United States because of class mobility. In short, in a nation where everyone wants to be – and can become – rich, you can’t get the poor to hate the rich and therefore no robust struggle between the proletariat and bourgouise exists.
Their solution was simple; instead of dividing people by economic class, Marxism can accomplish its goals by dividing people by racial class. Cultural Marxism was born, and soon Marxists in the West began to emphasize cultural distinctions based not upon wealth, but skin color or ethnicity. This would provide the racial agitation, civil disruption, and societal disunity necessary to “overthrow the current power-structure.”
Critical Race Theory, on the other hand, was a spin placed upon “regular” Critical Theory in American law schools in the 1980s. Essentially, this philosophical tweak was invented out of an attempt to explain why African Americans are incarcerated at higher rates than white Americans. Looking at every possibility for this disparity except that black people commit a disproportionate amount of crime (if Critical Race Theory were a religion, then that notion would be a heresy), the Critical Race Theorists hypothesized a secret and conspiratorial “systemic racism” run rampant in American society.
Because the 1960s Civil Rights Movement had already overturned Jim Crow laws and every American – regardless of ethnicity – was equal already under the law, Critical Race Theorists had to claim that racism was secret, hidden, or invisible. Concepts like “micro-aggressions” developed (the belief that subtle cues and subliminal judgments oppress minorities) to explain why racism was supposedly the cause of every societal ill.
But how do you prove “micro-aggressions” (these include singing, “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas,” asking for extra cream in your Starbucks, and appropriating Halloween costumes from other cultures)? Because the “systemic racism” asserted by Critical Race Theorists is largely hidden, it’s necessary to believe that every white person is racist and every black person is oppressed (oddly enough, Critical Race Theorists consider Asians and Jews to be “white” because their ethnic demographics generally thrive in America).
Barrett Duke
Every white person is a “racist” according to Critical Race Theorists because of “White Guilt,” the notion that by the virtue of being white, they are guilty of whatever injustice their ancestor perpetrated upon darker-skinned peoples decades or centuries ago. And by the virtue of being white, every white person has privileges, wealth, and opportunities that black people do not have, which is called “White Privilege.”
Caucasians that don’t agree that they are secretly or closetedly racist are accused of having “White Fragility,” meaning that they are too emotionally fragile to consider the possibility that they are secretly racist.
Because micro-aggressions cannot be proven and “systemic racism” cannot be empirically demonstrated, Critical Race Theorists demonstrate it anecdotally. Borrowing from a tenet of Third Wave feminism, Critical Race Theorists engage in “story-telling,” which is when hard evidence for systemic prejudice is replaced by anecdotal stories or outlier incidents of racism. This is why events like the killing of Trayvon Martin or George Floyd are used so powerfully by Critical Race Theorists; anecdotal accounts and statistical outliers are necessary to prove their point. However, even here it gets strange. Trayvon Martin was killed by a Hispanic man, George Zimmerman, who according to Critical Race Theory is considered “black” and an oppressed minority. However, because Zimmerman was a homeowner in a nice neighborhood and successful in his career, he was characterized as “white” by Critical Race Theorists who see race not as a biological reality, but as a social construct. Similarly, George Floyd was killed by four officers – and two were ethnic minorities. But because they were police officers, the Asian and Hispanic officers were deemed to be a part of the oppressive “power structure” and therefore considered “white” by Critical Race Theorists.
It’s important to realize that Critical Race Theory is a misnomer in that ethnicity is not all that is considered. Intersectionality is an add-on to Critical Race Theory and basically assigns victimhood points to people who are members of multiple oppressed identity groups. For example, women are considered a minority (statistically, they are not in the minority) as well as homosexuals and ‘transgender’ people (who they call aptly, “sexual minorities”), the disabled, and students. But some people – like a disabled black lesbian – is more oppressed than, for example, a disabled but heterosexual Hispanic man. This novelty is why you see fraudulent claims to membership in oppressed identity groups; Elizabeth Warren claimed to be a Cherokee Indian, Racheal Dolezal claimed to be black, and millennial women who profess to be lesbians have a higher pregnancy rate than do their counterparts who profess to be heterosexual. Simply put, it is advantageous to identify as oppressed.
Other buzzwords include diversity (which only applies to things like skin color or sexual behavior, not ideology or religion), inclusion, and equity (a codeword for the redistribution of wealth), forming the acronym D.I.E. Generally speaking, solutions to class disparity is wealth-redistribution, larger government, and a transfer of privilege from one class of people to another – often under the guise of environmental concerns caused by industrialization and capitalism (the greatest inequity, according to Critical Race Theorists, is that between the First World and Third World).
Do not confuse Critical Race Theory with an appeal against racism. Critical Race Theory, by its very nature, is racialist at best and racist at worst. Dr. King and the civil rights leaders of the 20th Century taught the notion of “color-blindness,” that we should not judge people by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. But for Critical Race Theorists, color-blindness is supposedly racist and ethnicity (or victimhood identity) is all that matters.
The term “anti-racism,” for example, was invented by Critical Race Theorist, Ibram Kendi, who explained, “To be anti-racist is to be anti-capitalist. To be anti-capitalist to be anti-racist.” These aren’t good-hearted attempts at racial harmony; these are well-orchestrated attempts at racial disharmony meant to accomplish a Marxist end-game.
BARRETT DUKE, LEADER OF MONTANA’S SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION, SUPPORTS THESE RADICAL CONCEPTS.
Responding to Dwight McKissic, the radical Democrat agitator in the SBC, Duke took to Twitter to find a compromise with with the Marxists and salvage Critical Race Theory as a helpful analytical tool. See below.
One has to wonder what exactly Duke thinks are aspects of Critical Theory that are compatible with the Southern Baptist doctrinal statement (or the Bible). Which part of Nazi-infused, race-based Marxism is compatible with a Christian worldview? What about Critical Race Theory – or the concepts therein – can “we agree on”?
With more than 100 Southern Baptist Churches across the State of Montana, it should be of grave concern that its head is on the wrong side of the issue on Marxism, racialism, and Critical Theory. Will Montana’s Southern Baptist Church “go woke” with the rest of the mainstream denominations that liberalized in the mid-20th Century?
If you would like to call Barrett Duke to speak some sense to him, you can do so at the Montana Southern Baptist Convention headquarters at 406-252-7537. Should he tell you that he does not support Social Justice or Critical Theory, please ask why he has yet to sign the Dallas Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel.
A call for comment to Barrett Duke was not returned by the time of publication.
Editor’s Note. This article was written by JD Hall and published at Montana Daily Gazette. Reposted in its entirety with permission. Title changed by Protestia.
An application for the Paycheck Protection Program with a reminder note stuck to it.
(Evangelical Dark Web) Joel Osteen landed in hot water when the Houston Chronicle broke the story that Lakewood Church had indeed accepted Payroll Payment Protection loans under the Small Business Administration’s allocation for non-profit organizations to benefit from this lockdown relief program, which he previously denied. But Joel Osteen was far from the only pastor and Lakewood Church was far from the only church to have received these forgivable loans. In fact, Lakewood Church’s $4.4 million haul was not even the largest.
Methodology
The Evangelical Dark Web analyzed the data released by the Small Business Administration of all organizations that were approved of loan amounts greater than $150,000. We searched and selected several prominent Evangelical organizations found to have been granted a loan. Catholic Dioceses and mainline denominations are excluded from these findings. It is possible that some of the churches under non-denominational are affiliated organizationally or ideologically with established denominations. The exact loans amounts were not disclosed in the SBA metadata. The selected examples are not exhaustive, but they are meant to contain the largest churches and America’s most influential pastors, particularly those who are in and represent Big Eva, and teachers and churches that readers have requested more research on. These results contain churches, seminaries, faith-based media outlets, and ministries. Blatant heretical movements are labeled but this categorization is not universally applied to organizations theologically aligned to these movements for the brevity of research.
Results
The organizations synonymous with Big Eva such as The Gospel Coalition, 9Marks, and programs under the Cooperative Program of the Southern Baptist Convention all have forgivable loans. Tim Keller’s The Gospel Coalition received up to $1 million while his church, Redeemer Presbyterian Church of New York City, received up to $5 million. Mark Dever’s 9Marks and his church, Capitol Hill Baptist Church, received up to $350,000. The SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, helmed by Russell Moore, received up to $1 million. Five of the six Southern Baptist Seminaries (SBTS being the outlier) received loans ranging from $1 million to $5 million…
In a fiery letter announcing his departure from the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), progressive Pastor Charlie Dates, who incidentally pastors Progressive Baptist Church in Chicago, slammed the SBC for rejecting Critical Race Theory and intersectionality.
He further described the SBC as a bunch of racists that will never change, calls some black SBC pastors mere “tokens” or “assimilators,” calls SBC seminaries “vestiges of racial animus,” says that “Black people will never gain full equality in the Southern Baptist Convention. My acknowledgment of this is not a statement of submission, but an act of defiance. The SBC’s power structure wants to maintain white dominance,” and a host of other invectives.
Then he got doubly weird.
In a very telling comment, he lists a bunch of things that have been wrongly accused of being “liberal” and ostensibly bad, like abolition of slavery, civil rights movement, women suffrage movement, black faculty at SBC seminaries, etc.
Then he throws right in the middle of that “a Black U.S. president who was initially against partial-birth abortion” counting it among the things that are “supposedly liberal.”
To them (SBC Leaders) a belief in a high view of Scripture must mean an adaptation of Republican politics and, with it, the dismissal of critical race theory and intersectionality because of a fear of “liberalism.” That said, our church has just as high a view (if not higher) of Scripture as any SBC church, but theirs is an inconsistent epistemology. They are selectively conservative.
But what is “liberal” in the history of American Christianity? What is liberalism to the conservative Southern Baptists?
I’ll tell you: abolition, the women’s suffrage movement, the civil rights movement, a Black U.S. president who was initially against partial-birth abortion, non-white male faculty at their seminaries and now a theory that uncovers our nation’s de jure and de facto segregation.
Southern Baptist president J.D Greear has offered up a response to the progressive resolution JUSTICE, REPENTANCE, AND THE SBC. The only thing you really need to know about it is that the original signatories were Rev. David Bumgardner- that young pastor-wannabe kid who voted for Biden, and Dwight McKissic, a notorious liberal who should have been kicked out of the SBC 20 year ago. The statement offers no resolutions, no arguments, no solutions, and no definition of terms. It is useless and vague, but that’s probably the point.
The whole resolution can be boiled down to these two paragraphs:
Many people deny the existence of systemic injustice (and systemic racism) as a reality. Many who recognize systemic injustices are labeled as “Marxists,” “Liberals,” and “Critical Race Theorists,” even though they are theologically orthodox and believe in the total sufficiency of Scripture…
Further, we stand firmly in opposition to any movement in the SBC that seeks to distract from racial reconciliation through the gospel and that denies the reality of systemic injustice. To deny systemic injustice would be to ignore the effects that sin has on both individuals, societies, and institutions.
Naturally, JD Greear, who might as well have been chugging thirty red bulls a day and dancing in the CRT Klubs all night for how woke he’s become, has some thoughts on the matter. They’re about what you’d expect from someone who never saw a police interaction between white police and a black person that he didn’t pronounce to be racist, and who has essentially become the “Al Sharpton for Evangelicals.”
Greear has three main takeaways:
1. Slavery of the 19th century has left a “long trail of destruction” that is “corrupting our institutions and subtly shaping our perspectives.” He further writes “Wherever we find damage caused by the legacy of sin, we must be committed to pursuing healing and restoration.”
This is to say, no matter how many times you repent of it, it won’t go away. Racism and white supremacy is alive and well in the SBC and is pervasive. It’s what prompted Beth Moore to say that “White Supremacy has held tight in much of the church for so long because the racists outlasted the anti-racists.” Everything is stained by the legacy of sin, and that trail of destruction manifests right now. There is never any escaping it. Think of it as the SBC’s shadow- it’s always there casting shade over every interaction between the races.
2. Far from condemning Critical Race Theory, he suggests that it isn’t that bad, and that “there are often things we can learn from questions raised and observations made.” He says that we shouldn’t resist those who are looking into the benefits of CRT or ” default to labeling believers who parse certain questions differently as “Marxist” or “racist.”
Ie. CRT is a useful tool, and you’re being “uncharitable, sinful, and intellectually lazy” if you name names and label proponents of it to be theologically suspect and question why they are so bent on protecting the use of it.
3. Greear believes the SBC needs more “affirmative action” and has been personally accomplishing this by rounding up the black folk and promoting them based on the color of their skin. He says: “Our leadership should reflect the diversity of our communities and proclaim the diversity of Christ’s coming kingdom (Acts 13:1–2; Revelation 7:9). To that end, I have aggressively sought to appoint people of color into trustee spots and other positions of influence.”
If you’re white and equally as qualified, tough luck. You’re free to dolezol yourself up a little to get that edge for the next appointment, but so long as your melanin count is a little low, J.D Greear will be passing over you.
All in all, his statement is what you’d expect from a racist-baiting marxist. About as clear as mud and twice as convincing.
The Council of Seminary Presidents of the Southern Baptist Convention released a statement a few days ago where they “denounced” racism and Critical Race Theory (CRT) as incompatible with the scriptures and with Christian orthodoxy.
As far as efforts go it was graded a C-. It had the net benefit of sending progressive wokefolk like Dwight McKissic into a tizzy, Jemar Tisby to write a heated response, all while his organization is swarming with pro-choice grifters, and Kyle J. Howard to melt down in a puddle of tears and rock back and forth in the corner muttering something about racial trauma at the mere mention of someone disagreeing with him about race. We’re talking next-level self-imposed PTSD flashbacks here.
And yet these SBC Presidents wouldn’t know what Critical Race Theory was if it walked over to them, backhanded them across the face, gripped their head with its fingers, jammed its thumbs into their eye sockets, and made it so that they could never again look upon a police interaction with a black man and declare it raaaaacist!
Because they all do, you know. These Presidents denounce CRT and yet they’ll all decry the death of George Floyd as caused by “racism.” What do they think they are doing?
They’ll watch videos like this below where SBTS professor Matt Hall says that the doctrine of sin dictates that white folk in America will always be racist, and not see it for the hot mess of CRT that it is. Will they openly rebuke it and call it out for what it’s worth? No. For such smart men, they sure are pretty dumb sometimes.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1334611112592019456
And now Lifeway’s own Tony Evans, a pelagian and inclusivist who espoused standpoint theory when he capitalized on the color of his skin to sow seeds of discord in American evangelicalism by encouraging the racist, divisive protests against the Dove Awards by Social Gospel proponents, Lecrae and Kirk Franklin.
You’ll recall Evans was interviewed by the Religion News Service (RNS) and asked directly about why he encouraged Franklin to boycott the awards show on the grounds of “diversity” even though the show regularly gives awards to diverse people.
Evans answered, “One of the things I point out in the Bible is the black presence in the Bible…And so when they cut out the part of his speech, that was critical to his and our experience that demonstrated cultural, racial insensitivity, especially since it was nothing offensive. It was a fact of what had happened. So I felt that would have been appropriate since that’s what his conscience told him to do.”
In any case, after having his sermon mentioned in the President’s creamy-handed hit against CRT, Tony Evans released a statement denouncing the use of his sermon to affirm that CRT is incompatible with Christianity.
Members of the 2019 Resolution Committee of the SBC, without my awareness or permission, used my name in their recent Affirmation of Recent Statements from Christian Leaders on Critical Race Theory. Upon reading this affirmation, I need to state that their use of my name and what I said in a sermon titled Race & Reconciliation released on 11/15/20 needs clarification of what I fully said. They have referenced a portion without giving it the context of my sermon.
I have a great deal of respect for the SBC and the work that they do around the nation and the world, and this misunderstanding does not diminish that in any way.
As I stated in my sermon, which I encourage everyone reading this to watch, I again affirm that the Bible must be the basis for analyzing any and all social, racial or political theories in order to identify what is legitimate or what is not legitimate. But I did not say, nor imply, that CRT or other ideologies lack beneficial aspects—rather that the Bible sits as the basis for determining that. I have long taught that racism, and its ongoing repercussions, are real and should be addressed intentionally, appropriately and based on the authority of God’s inerrant word.
To no one’s surprise, SBC President J.D. “Hold-my-beer” Greear, who never met a police interaction he didn’t denounce as racist (Literally. Check our Archives. Every one of them.) and has been one of the biggest cheerleaders and purveyors of CRT, defended Evan’s irritation at having his words used to denounce it, giving it a big old thumbs up.
This naturally led Pastor Tom Buck to smack him on the snout for being the liar and reviler that he is:
These Seminary presidents are acting like a bunch of school children who got caught necking with CRT behind the gymnasium and now are insisting their childhood crush is actually a loose woman of ill repute and a stranger to be shunned. They don’t know her, you see, and want her off the property, even as they have lipstick all over their cheeks.
That’s Southern Baptist scumbaggery for you, and don’t for a second think Evans isn’t part of it.
Enemies within the Church has released their documentary about the scandalous shenanigans that went down in 2019 at a now-prominent Southern Baptist Church (SBC) megachurch, where a failed pastoral search led to scurrilous accusations of racism and sin on part of dissenting members made national headlines.
We covered the story extensively at the time, and anyone wanting a ton of articles and primary sources can check out the Pulpit & Pen archives, but as a bit of a primer, an SBC megachurch in Florida needed a new pastor after Senior Pastor Hayes Wicker announced he was stepping down. After a time the pastoral search committee sought to bring on Marcus Hayes on board. Congregants had some questions about and concerns about what they viewed as Hayes’ progressive beliefs and ultimately he wasn’t voted in, receiving only 81% of the vote that requires an 85% threshold.
This caused the leadership of FBC Naples blow their top and to. go. off. Because Hayes is a “POC,” they got up on stage and declared that the reason he was rejected was that the congregation’s members were all racists. They released a public letter and lamented the congregant’s prejudice, announcing that anyone who voted against likely did it because he has black skin and they have a black heart and as a result there would be hell to pay.
And there was.
After the dust settled. 700 people left the church and nearly 20 families were formally excommunicated, including some that had been there decades, without ever having provided proof of their charges.
The President of the SBC, J.D. “Hold-my-beer” Greear did as he is wont to do: ignorantly going off half-cocked without knowing what the heck he was talking about and concurred with the accusation of racism despite no evidence.
There’s much more than that, of course. There is so much double-crossing and backstabbing and kind of sin is not even heard of among unbelievers. And this film by “Enemies Within the Church” documents it all.
You can watch the trailer below, and then the full length movie after that.
Dhati Lewis, the Lead Pastor of Blueprint Church in Atlanta, Georgia and the Vice President of Send Network with the North American Mission Board (NAMB) has some wild things to say about what the gospel is and isn’t, adding another brick in the wall of our claims that the SBC is going to hell in a handbasket over their failure to cut off and cauterize this progressive gangrene.
Dhati made the following comments on Sept 21 on his Where life exists channel.
Props to @WokepreacherTV for the video and transcript:
The gospel is not simply a message for the afterlife. It has real-time, real-life applications for our day-to-day lives. We see it modeled perfectly in the life of Jesus. We know he met the spiritual needs of people, but we also know that he met emotional needs, as well. He met economic needs and also social needs. He healed the sick, challenged corruption in leaders and systems. He honored the poor and the outcasts. Wherever Jesus went, holistic restoration was taking place.
The gospel is not good news without spiritual redemption and restoration, but the gospel is also not good news without emotional, economic, and social restoration, as well.The good news of the kingdom is that God is establishing a new order where all things, spiritual, emotional, economic, and social, are restored to their original, sinless design.
So let’s take a look at the gospel using my tool that have called the Three Circles. Traditionally, this is how we share the gospel, right? We see on here: God’s design. What do we mean? God created the world, and it was good. We lived in perfect relationship with God, with one another, and his creation. However: sin. Adam and Ever came in, sinned, and the whole world was put under a curse, bringing separation between us and God, and that’s why we understand and we look at brokenness. But the problem is is that we only are addressing spiritual brokenness. Sin led to our spiritual brokenness. We cannot earn our salvation, but we try to anyway. We look to sex, money, power, fame, and so many other things to try to get back to God. But they only lead us further and further away.
But when we learn the truth of the gospel, we learn that Jesus came to earth, died for our sins, and rose again, and that if we repent and believe, then we can have access to God. The Holy Spirit indwells in us [sic], gives us the power to recover and pursue God’s design for us, to live in perfect harmony with him.
But! Do you recognize how this gospel presentation falls short? Sin caused brokenness to more than just our spiritual needs. I believe Tim Keller is spot on when he says we must neither confuse evangelism with doing justice nor separate them from one another. You see, the gospel demands the church engage holistically with our cities.
"The gospel is not good news without spiritual redemption and restoration, but the gospel is also not good news without emotional, economic, and social restoration, as well." @dhatipic.twitter.com/hxuY4o9eyI
An unfortunate reality has become apparent in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination. A once-conservative network of autonomous Baptist churches has caved on almost every single distinctive of their faith. Today’s Southern Baptist Convention is no longer the bulwark of conservative Christianity and has now become yet another mainstream denomination to cave on its core principles in the name of political correctness. And this record-breaking turn of convictions in the SBC is largely due to the systemic Black Privilege that liberal African Americans now enjoy in the once-great denomination.
The Southern Baptist Convention was considered the last, best hope for conservative evangelicalism. Unlike the United Methodist, the United Church of Christ, the Episcopalians, the Presbyterian Church USA, and the American Baptist Convention, the SBC eschewed worldliness, liberalism, and compromise even in recent memory. But something has now changed.
Denominational leaders led primarily by Albert Mohler have turned a blind eye to the rampant liberalism that has overcome the institution that helps 45 thousand churches and 12 million church members cooperate for a Gospel-centered purpose. The cause for this turn of events is largely due to the carnal and sinful fear of denominational leadership being accused of politically incorrectness, and under the guise of “inclusivity” they have opened the door to virtually any subversive teacher who desires to rip the doctrinal guts out of the denomination…so long as they are black.
If an Anglo preacher helped bus rioters to race protests to assault police officers, they would be disfellowshipped out of the denomination in no time.
If an Anglo preacher espoused hyper-charismaticism of the Pentecostal variety, they would be disfellowshipped out of the denomination in no time.
If an Anglo preacher espoused support for a Democratic candidate whose chief policy proposal is the rip apart babies in their mother’s womb, they would be disfellowshipped out of the denomination in no time.
If an Anglo preacher advocated for female pastors – and if they called their own wife their “co-pastor,” they would be disfellowshipped out of the denomination in no time.
And all of these things have been done regularly by Dwight McKissic, a hateful, race-baiting, hyper-charismatic, pro-abortion charlatan who spends his time in the pulpit campaigning for Joe Biden.
McKissic is a godless unbeliever who would be far more at home in the Evangelical Lutheran Church Missouri Synod or the Unitarian-Universalist Church than in the Southern Baptist Convention. But as it turns out, McKissic has one (and only one) thing going for him…he’s black.
Because he’s black, he can assault the Sufficiency of Scripture with his charismaticism. Because he’s black, he can assault conservative Southern Baptist values like being pro-life. Because he’s black, he can assault Complementarianism and promote feminism. Because he’s black, Albert Mohler will pick up the phone and coddle him (how many other random Baptist pastors could expect Albert Mohler to answer the phone for their call?).
Being black in the Southern Baptist Convention allows Ron Burns (Thabiti Anyabwile), Eric Mason, Curtis Woods, Jarvis Williams, and Dwight McKissic to terrorize the denomination with their incessant vitue-signaling harassment that always drives the denomination to the left, not the right.
No Ango pastor could remain in good relationship with their local association, state convention, of national denomination and espouse the views and doctrinal compromises as these black men.
So instead of following Scripture and not judging someone by the color of their skin (Galatians 3:28), Southern Baptist leaders have bent over backwards to accommodate the liberalism of black Cominterns who have invade our churches to take it captive with their vain philosophies (Colossians 2:8).
Instead of rebuking those who teach falsely by marking and avoiding them, (Romans 16:17-18), the whitest-of-white SBC leaders (JD Greear, for example) have done everything possible to prove themselves a respecter of people (Acts 10:34) for no other reason than that they have darker skin.
In the Southern Baptist Convention, being black is the surest and quickest way to have your voice heard, to be nominated to boards, to be appointed as trustees, and to be nominated and elected as denominational leadership. Even Matt Chandler was blunt about this reality, promising that his church would happily hire a black man over a more-qualified white man. Almost every single Southern Baptist blog – like SBC Voices – has advocated vigorously for a denominational quota system that would appoint black people over white people, no matter their qualifications.
God hates favoritism (James 2:1-13) and God hates the Southern Baptist Convention’s bequeathing of Black Privilege. And the problem isn’t only that black candidates are clearly favored over their white counter-parts, it’s that – as Burns (Anywabile), McKissic, Wiliams, Strickland, and Mason all show – the Southern Baptist Convention is willing to scrape the very bottom of the barrel to find token negros to promote to the top.
In every single conceivable way, white people are equal with black people. There is one race, and in Christ, there is one chosen people for God’s possession. When the evangelical community forgets that – or buys into the Marxist Critical Theory and the concepts of White Guilt, White Privilege, or White Fragility – we will end up with the least qualified men possible to lead our institutions just because of the color of their skin.
Albert Mohler and the woke Social Justice gang, in the promotion of sub-quality and subversive leftist ideologues only because they are black men, are committing sins even worse than the Convention’s slave-holding founders, Boyce, Manly, and Broadus. At these forbears of our faith weren’t both racist and patronizing at the same time.
The newly launched petition website, SBC Transparency, calls for a forensic audit of the North American Mission Board (NAMB) and LifeWay, the for-profit publishing arm of the SBC, declaring that “members of the SBC have a right to know that their sacrificial gifts are being used for the mission, not self-enrichment.”
The case they make is simple, in light of the lawsuit between LifeWay and Thom Rainer which has brought financial shenanigans and impropriety to the spotlight.
The North American Mission Board (NAMB) Trustees and staff steward assets of $435 million on behalf of Southern Baptists, with an annual budget of $125 million. It is imperative that we operate with full transparency and accountability in order to build trust in our voluntary cooperative Kingdom work. We believe there are significant questions and concerns around possible financial irregularities, misuse of funds, use of funds outside of their approved purposes, conflict of interests with NAMB Trustees and the NAMB auditor and violations of SBC bylaws and governing Business and Financial plan.
Therefore, we the undersigned call upon the SBC Executive Committee (EC) to commission and direct an independent forensic financial audit of the North American Mission Board and report the complete findings of the audit to the entire Southern Baptist family of cooperating churches and partners (State Conventions and Associations). As well, because of similar questions of irregularities, we are calling for the SBC EC to conduct a forensic audit on LifeWay Christian Resources.
The group details several questionable practices, such as NAMB having multiple large financial reserve accounts more than they should, the independence of the financial audits by NAMB, the SBC business and financial plan as it pertains to fundraising, and a host of other queries.
Of note to us, as we put the call out several weeks ago with information on who is owning houses bought and paid for by NAMB.
Millions in Houses for a Very Few Church Planters. NAMB has spent tens of millions on houses for use by a few church planters. Some of these homes cost over $500,000 and have amenities like swimming pools. Where are these homes? How many are there? Who lives in them? How many of these homes are tied to SBC President Greear and NAMB Trustees or the churches they lead in violation of SBC governing documents? Are there any other favors or friendships factors in the distributing use of these homes? Are any of the homes not being used for their NAMB Trustee approved purposes as evidence reveals may be the case in several homes.
New Home Built and Large Investment to NAMB Staff Member Who is a NAMB Planter Questions arise regarding the building of a new 3,300 square foot home valued at $500,000+ for a planter who is a NAMB staffer in Pittsburgh. Questions arise regarding the purchasing of about a dozen homes in Pittsburgh and the $500,000 church building purchased from the Presbyterians that was being used by a NAMB planter, who was subsequently hired by NAMB for Send Relief.
Church Planting Budget Tripled while Plants Reduced by Half. The NAMB church planting budget has grown from $23 million to $75 million in 10 years, but the number of new church starts has dropped to less than half the number a decade ago. How is NAMB spending $50 million more in church planting and getting less than half for it? Where is that money specifically going?
The whole website is a wealth of good questions and details the broad cloak of secrecy that surrounds SBC entities. Go to sbctransparency.com, read the whole thing, and sign the petition.
