Source: Politics<\/p>\n
NASHVILLE, Tenn. \u2014 The Southern Baptist Convention tamped down a push from the right at its largest meeting in decades on Tuesday, electing a new president who has worked to bridge racial divides in the church and defeating an effort to make an issue of critical race theory.<\/p>\n
Ed Litton, a pastor from Alabama, won 52% of the vote in a runoff against Mike Stone, a Georgia pastor backed by a new group called the Conservative Baptist Network that has sought to move the already-conservative denomination further to the right.<\/p>\n
Litton, who is white, was nominated by Fred Luter, the only Black pastor to serve as president of the United States\u2019 largest Protest denomination. Luter praised Litton\u2019s commitment to racial reconciliation and said he has dealt compassionately with the issue of sexual abuse within SBC churches, another hot-button subject at the gathering of more than 15,000 church representatives.<\/p>\n
Stone had campaigned aggressively, including speaking at churches across the country and even appearing on Fox & Friends on Tuesday before the vote. And the Conservative Baptist Network had encouraged supporters to come to the meeting as voting delegates.<\/p>\n
But in the end, the message that seemed to resonate with voters was that Stone \u2014 who supported a motion to repudiate critical race theory, an academic construct for framing systemic racism that has been a target of religious and political conservatives \u2014 was a divisive choice.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re a family, and at times it seems like an incredibly dysfunctional family.\u201d Litton said after the results were announced. \u201cBut we love each other.\u201d<\/p>\n
The two-day meeting concludes Wednesday when delegates will consider proposals for a sweeping review of the SBC\u2019s response to abuse in its churches, an issue that recently erupted with secret recordings and leaked letters involving top leadership.<\/p>\n
Also Tuesday, the delegates rejected a proposal that would have explicitly denounced critical race theory. Instead they approved a consensus measure that does not mention it by name but rejects any view that sees racism as rooted in \u201canything other than sin.\u201d<\/p>\n
The measure also affirmed a 1995 resolution apologizing for the history of racism in a denomination that was founded in 1845 in support of slavery, and which apologized for \u201ccondoning and\/or perpetuating individual and systemic racism in our lifetime.\u201d<\/p>\n
One white delegate urged the convention to denounce critical race theory by name, saying it held him \u201cguilty because of the melanin content of my skin.\u201d But another argued that the convention shouldn\u2019t be swayed by a political movement that has already seen some state legislatures ban the teaching of CRT.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf some people in this room were as passionate about the gospel as they are about critical race theory, we would win this world to Christ,\u201d said James Merritt, chairman of the resolutions committee and a former convention president.<\/p>\n
Several Black pastors have voiced frustration over critical race theory debates playing out in the SBC instead of the denomination confronting systemic racism itself.<\/p>\n
On the sex abuse issue, Tennessee pastor Grant Gaines, speaking with a survivor at his side, proposed a task force that would oversee a review of the denomination\u2019s actions \u2014 a broader investigation than the one announced last week by the SBC\u2019s Executive Committee.<\/p>\n
\u201cI stand with SBC church abuse survivors,\u201d Gaines said.<\/p>\n
The convention overwhelmingly approved a resolution declaring that \u201cany person who has committed sexual abuse is permanently disqualified from holding the office of pastor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Opponents had argued that it precludes the possibility of an abuser repenting and transforming, but proponents from the resolution committee emphasized a scriptural injunction that pastors be \u201cabove reproach.\u201d<\/p>\n
Churches are self-governing, and critics have said the denomination hasn\u2019t done enough to exclude congregations that mishandle abuse cases.<\/p>\n
Voters gave final approvals to constitutional amendments excluding churches that affirm ethnic discrimination or act against the convention\u2019s \u201cbeliefs regarding sexual abuse.\u201d Still to be debated was how those standards on abuse apply in practice.<\/p>\n
In an enthusiastically applauded address, outgoing president J.D. Greear, himself a target of criticism, lamented \u201cthe slander, the distortion, the character assassination and baseless accusations\u201d some SBC leaders have endured. While denouncing liberalism, he also criticized what he saw as power-seeking and divisiveness over secondary issues.<\/p>\n
The SBC cannot be a \u201ccultural affinity group\u201d or \u201cvoting bloc,\u201d Greear said, but must focus on its spiritual mission.<\/p>\n
On critical race theory, he said it arises from \u201ca worldview at odds with the gospel,\u201d but he heeded \u201cleaders of color who tell us that our denunciations of justice movements fall on deaf ears when we remain silent on the suffering of our neighbors.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pastor Bryan Kent of Compass Church in Mason, Mich., commended Greear\u2019s remarks, saying that if critical race theory \u201chas an echo of truth among our brothers and sisters of color \u2026 we should not be in such a rush to condemn.\u201d<\/p>\n