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Southern Baptist Seminary Confronts History Of Slaveholding And 'Deep Racism'
"The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, came into being in 1845 as the church of southern slaveholders.
Now, 173 years later, Southern Baptist leaders are not just acknowledging their dark history; they are documenting it, as if by telling the story in wrenching detail, they may finally be freed of its taint.
The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, the denomination's flagship institution, this week released a 71-page report on the role racism and support for slavery played in its origin and growth.
"The founding fathers of this school—all four of them—were deeply involved in slavery and deeply complicit in the defense of slavery," writes SBTS president R. Albert Mohler, Jr., in a letter accompanying the report. "Many of their successors on this faculty, throughout the period of Reconstruction and well into the 20th century, advocated the inferiority of African-Americans and openly embraced the ideology of the Lost Cause of southern slavery."
"We have been guilty of a sinful absence of historical curiosity," Mohler, 59, wrote in the introductory letter. "We knew, and we could not fail to know, that slavery and deep racism were in the story. We comforted ourselves that we could know this, but since these events were so far behind us, we could move on without awkward and embarrassing investigations and conversations."
That story is now told, in a way only Southern Baptists themselves could tell it. The report draws heavily on seminary archives, including correspondence among the four founders. Between them, they held more than 50 enslaved persons.
The report acknowledges that the only reason a separate southern Baptist denomination was formed was because northern Baptists refused to appoint slaveholders as missionaries."
I think this is a good start, and Mohler seems like a sincere and devout man. I think the phrase, "Sinful absence of historical curiosity." Is the whole story in a line; and makes it relevant to so much more than just the origins of a particular religious sect.
"Sinful absence of historical curiosity." Let that line sink in for a moment. Not wanting to know the historical roots of oppression-- wanting to live in comfortable and easy ignorance-- is described as a sin.
Kudos.
Still, some feel that this report stops short of the full reckoning that the Southern Baptist Church needs to bring it into genuine Christian social justice:
"Making a statement about Confederate monuments might be a next step," says Alison Greene, a historian of U.S. religion at Emory University in Atlanta, "or taking a stand on questions of voting rights in the 21st century. That would be really significant."
Greene, who was herself raised as a Southern Baptist, found the seminary report lacking in its failure to acknowledge any consequence of the denomination's recent association with conservative politicians and the policies they have promoted.
"It papers over a generation of hand-in-glove cooperation with efforts to roll back every single social program that served African-Americans or promised to rectify, even in the smallest ways, the gross economic and social effects of enslavement and segregation and inequality on black communities," Greene says.
"The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, came into being in 1845 as the church of southern slaveholders.
Now, 173 years later, Southern Baptist leaders are not just acknowledging their dark history; they are documenting it, as if by telling the story in wrenching detail, they may finally be freed of its taint.
The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, the denomination's flagship institution, this week released a 71-page report on the role racism and support for slavery played in its origin and growth.
"The founding fathers of this school—all four of them—were deeply involved in slavery and deeply complicit in the defense of slavery," writes SBTS president R. Albert Mohler, Jr., in a letter accompanying the report. "Many of their successors on this faculty, throughout the period of Reconstruction and well into the 20th century, advocated the inferiority of African-Americans and openly embraced the ideology of the Lost Cause of southern slavery."
"We have been guilty of a sinful absence of historical curiosity," Mohler, 59, wrote in the introductory letter. "We knew, and we could not fail to know, that slavery and deep racism were in the story. We comforted ourselves that we could know this, but since these events were so far behind us, we could move on without awkward and embarrassing investigations and conversations."
That story is now told, in a way only Southern Baptists themselves could tell it. The report draws heavily on seminary archives, including correspondence among the four founders. Between them, they held more than 50 enslaved persons.
The report acknowledges that the only reason a separate southern Baptist denomination was formed was because northern Baptists refused to appoint slaveholders as missionaries."
I think this is a good start, and Mohler seems like a sincere and devout man. I think the phrase, "Sinful absence of historical curiosity." Is the whole story in a line; and makes it relevant to so much more than just the origins of a particular religious sect.
"Sinful absence of historical curiosity." Let that line sink in for a moment. Not wanting to know the historical roots of oppression-- wanting to live in comfortable and easy ignorance-- is described as a sin.
Kudos.
Still, some feel that this report stops short of the full reckoning that the Southern Baptist Church needs to bring it into genuine Christian social justice:
"Making a statement about Confederate monuments might be a next step," says Alison Greene, a historian of U.S. religion at Emory University in Atlanta, "or taking a stand on questions of voting rights in the 21st century. That would be really significant."
Greene, who was herself raised as a Southern Baptist, found the seminary report lacking in its failure to acknowledge any consequence of the denomination's recent association with conservative politicians and the policies they have promoted.
"It papers over a generation of hand-in-glove cooperation with efforts to roll back every single social program that served African-Americans or promised to rectify, even in the smallest ways, the gross economic and social effects of enslavement and segregation and inequality on black communities," Greene says.
