Last week, the Southern Baptist Convention held their annual meeting in Phoenix, and one of the measures passed was a commitment to include its non-white members in leadership positions and overall participation in the denomination. According to a Baptist Press article:
After a two-year workgroup study of the motion, the SBC Executive Committee approved a 10-part recommendation for the Phoenix meeting, citing the "need to be proactive and intentional in the inclusion of individuals from all ethnical and racial identities within Southern Baptist life."
For the first time in history, the convention will ask its entities to provide "a descriptive report of participation of ethnic churches and church leaders in the life and ministry of the respective SBC entity;" the SBC president to "give special attention to appointing individuals who represent the diversity within the Convention" to committees under his purview; and a subcommittee of the EC to provide a report each year in February with an update on how each of the recommendations has been addressed.
I had to comment on this because I've been a broken record here about the fact that evangelicalism must move away from an exclusively white focus. Also, is "ethnical" even a word? I digress. Anyway, because the SBC is only in existence because it broke away from Northern Baptists who decried slavery, race and the SBC can be a tricky issue. The fact that a measure like this was even passed has to mean the SBC intends to move in the right direction (although I saw on Twitter that the opposing voices were quite an embarrassment).
@albertmohleralbertmohler
This debate should be humiliating to the SBC. Just look at us and ask if we need to prioritize ethnic diversity. #SBC2011 #Godhelpus
My concern is that this move may be an effort to keep the denomination alive, rather than to truly hear the voices and perspectives of people of color. The news recently broke that the number of baptisms in the SBC, the benchmark of new converts (or already-converts who were scared enough during the "invitation" to do it all over again, just to be safe), is at its lowest point in 60 years. Does the SBC want leadership that simply "looks" diverse and that will help it capitalize on the growing minority population in the U.S., or does it really want to hear diverse points of view?
A few years ago I linked to a post by anthropology professor and evangelical Janell Paris. In her discussion of inclusion of non-white, non-male Christians, she asked, "Are you tacking on a single woman, and maybe Martin Luther King, Jr. for good measure, just to appear inclusive? Or are you really being shaped by people different than yourself?" I hope that the SBC members who passed the resolution asked themselves this question.
Reading Divided by Faith and Reconciliation Blues (the latter mentioning the SBC specifically) was a huge, humbling challenge for me, as a white person who grew up in the SBC. It was hard to take, and I would physically blush when I recognized myself as part of the criticized group. However, I have tried to listen to what these books, my relationships with people of color, and other resources have been trying to teach me, as painful as it is.
When a racially offensive and insensitive Vacation Bible School curriculum was released in 2004, thousands of Asian-Americans contacted the leadership at Lifeway, SBC's publishing arm. The SBC refused to pull the curriculum, stating they had no intention of offending anyone and they consulted Asian-Americans and white missionaries who had lived in Asian countries about Japanese culture. (I blogged about it here).
This unwillingness to listen to voices of people of color was troubling, so I hope that this attitude has changed in the last 7 years. Honestly it's really hard for me to imagine a lot of SBC folks (although I know there are some diamonds in the rough) reading something like Divided by Faith or Reconciliation Blues and truly allowing that tough criticism to speak to them. Perhaps I'm not being very fair here. If so, I hope that the SBC will prove me wrong in the end, and show that their motivation behind this diversity measure is not simply to fill empty pews.
Now that they're open to intentionally encouraging diversity, I'm going to naively also hope that, in another 7 years, Southern Baptists will have changed their minds about keeping women from the pulpit...
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