Southern Baptists face turmoil over critical race theory, whatever it is
“Critical race theory,” again? Groan. Every time I surf the news these days, those three little words continue to pop up, even though hardly anybody, including the people who say it, seem to know what “critical race theory” or CRT, for short, really means.
So I was only half-surprised to see the CRT dispute has even reached churches, including the internal tug of war between ultraconservatives and moderate conservatives in the very conservative Southern Baptist Convention.
Two prominent Black megachurch pastors, the Rev. Charlie Dates of Chicago’s Progressive Baptist Church and the Rev. Ralph D. West of Houston’s The Church Without Walls, made national headlines in religious media by announcing that they would be leaving the denomination in protest.
Protesting over what? Yes, CRT. Six white Southern Baptist seminary presidents had issued a statement in November declaring that critical race theory and intersectionality are “incompatible” with the Baptist faith.
Black pastors blasted that stance. Although none suggested applying the teachings of CRT to the church, a number of Black pastors took the blanket rejection of a method for examining systemic racism as a slap in the face.
The matter is particularly sensitive for members and clergy alike in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, which has tried mightily to overcome its history of being founded in 1845 as the church of Southern slaveholders. The denomination formally apologized for that in 1995.
“For me and any other younger Black pastor at a historically Black church, it all harkens back to the 1800s,” said Dates, who became senior pastor at age 30 in 2011. “The fervor around CRT reeks of white supremacy.”
Yet Dates and other Black ministers were relieved after the vote that the denomination had elected the Rev. Ed Litton, an Alabama pastor, to be president by 52% in a tight runoff against the Rev. Mike Stone of Georgia.
Litton has a reputation as a racial and cultural bridge builder who frequently visited Black congregations in recent years. Stone backs a new group called the Conservative Baptist Network that seeks to move the already-conservative denomination further right.
If the Southern Baptists’ internal debate sounds a lot like the Republican Party’s internal divide after President Donald Trump’s presidency, it’s more than coincidental. Polling trends show there are more evangelicals, a major part of Trump’s base, than a decade ago but fewer Southern Baptists. Like the Republicans, Southern Baptists face the challenge of trying to gain voters of color without losing their predominantly white conservative base.
Yet, Ed Stetzer, executive director of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College, finds hope in the denomination’s rising diversity and the election of Litton, who has made racial outreach and peacemaking a hallmark of his work since at least the 2014 riots after the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.
He also cited sensationalist media pundits for stirring needless alarm over CRT, which members then pass on to their pastors. Indeed, Fox watchers at liberal Media Matters for America found Fox News has mentioned “critical race theory” almost 1,300 times from January to mid-June.
“Pastors only have their members for one hour a week,” Stetzer quipped. “Fox News has them for maybe 30 hours a week.”
That’s a big challenge, but worth it, especially for an organization to which multitudes look for guidance as it tries to build on its own diversity.
Interestingly, the statement by the convention’s right wing didn’t say much about what CRT is, either. CRT, in simplest terms, was created by legal scholars in the mid-1970s as a scholarly lens or framework that seeks to understand the role that race and racism have played in American history and society.
But, outside of academia, that frame for inquiry and debate has been transformed into a terrifying “Marxist-inspired” child-indoctrinating menace — catnip for cable-TV pundits. Sensationalized like a QAnon conspiracy, that cartoon version of CRT makes an effective propaganda pushback against the racial justice movements that emerged after the death of George Floyd.
Recently, CRT has been vilified by politicians from the Trump White House to local school boards as a “radical,” “un-American” and “racially divisive” menace. Several states have banned schools from teaching it, and teachers at some schools, public and private, have been accused of teaching it — even when they really don’t.
Against that backdrop, the Rev. Litton, who is white, has his work cut out for him. His election sent reassuring signals of reconciliation, including his nomination for president by the Rev. Fred Luter, the only Black pastor to serve in the post. The vote by the largest turnout the convention has seen in decades was close, but decisive. Here, it appeared, was the leader that the denomination needs to calm the waters in these turbulent times — and he has a lot of waters to calm.