Southern Baptist Leader: "God Has Not Called Us to Save America"
Louder, for the pews in the back.
The Southern Baptist Convention recently removed four churches from under their canopy— two for being run by pastors who committed sex crimes against children… and the other two for welcoming LGBTQ members. One of these categories is not like the other. But don’t expect Southern Baptists to spot the difference in things they deem morally reprehensible.
At least something sensible came from Southern Baptist Convention President J.D. Greear this week when he told his constituents to stay the hell out of politics.
“We are not, at our core, a political activism group,” he said in an address to the SBC’s Executive Committee. “We love our country, but God has not called us to save America — he’s called us to build the church and spread the gospel and that is our primary mission.”
Pastor Greg Locke may have accidentally stumbled onto something reasonable when he deduced in a roundabout way that people who are capable of believing one falsehood (i.e., Joe Biden is not the president) are likely to believe another falsehood (i.e., the Bible is the Word of God).
A coalition of evangelical Christian leaders has written an open letter to prominent figures in the evangelical church, condemning them for their part in fueling the “radical” Christian Nationalism that led to the violent Capitol attack on January 6.
Just as many Muslim leaders have felt the need to denounce distorted, violent versions of their faith, we feel the urgent need to denounce this violent mutation of our faith. What we saw manifest itself in the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, is a threat to our democracy, but it is also a threat to orthodox Christian faith. The word “Christian” means “Christ-like.” As leaders in the Church, we do not agree on everything, but we can agree on this — Christians should live in a way that honors Jesus, and reminds the world of Him.
All the while, the authors of the letter have casually participated in the same regressive system from which they’re now demanding accountability. Evangelicals did not merely boost Donald Trump’s vote tally this past November— they damn near carried it. If evangelicals feel the events of Jan. 6 were off-brand, the haven’t been paying attention to the history of marketing strategies.
This picture seems appropriate:
The British Columbia Humanist Association came up with a reasonable course of action to deal with Canadian churches that refuse to comply with COVID-19 health restriction: Tax ‘em! Community spread through churches is increasing public expenses, thus collecting taxes from the offending church to offset expenses would make sense.
Finally, the broader Christian church has a long sordid history of racism that was so well-known that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, "The most segregated hour of Christian America is 11 o'clock on Sunday morning."
None of that got through to Texas Bishop Joseph E. Strickland, who said racism wasn’t nearly as problematic as atheism… and then blamed all of society’s problems on the godless.
