On a recent Friday afternoon, Dwight McKissic sat at a folding table in his three-car garage, on a cul-de-sac in Arlington, Texas, discussing the role that race plays in a growing divide among American evangelicals. McKissic is sixty-four, with a trim white goatee and an imposing stature. For the past thirty-eight years, he has served as the lead pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church, which he grew from a few dozen people to roughly four thousand congregants. In the process, he has become a prominent member of the Southern Baptist Convention, which, with more than fourteen million members, is the largest Protestant denomination in the United States. But McKissic is also one of a growing number of pastors of color who may leave the S.B.C. next week, amid allegations that the organization won’t collectively acknowledge the realities of systemic racism. “I’m hanging […]
Friday, June 11th, 2021
The Fight for the Heart of the Southern Baptist Convention
Author: Eliza Griswold
Source: The New Yorker
Publication Date: 10 June 2021
Link: The Fight for the Heart of the Southern Baptist Convention
Source: The New Yorker
Publication Date: 10 June 2021
Link: The Fight for the Heart of the Southern Baptist Convention
Stephan: In the interest of full disclosure, I have never cared for the Southern Baptist Convention, even though it is the largest Protestant denomination with 14 million members. It has always been and indeed was founded on racism and White Supremacy. It split off from the larger body of American Baptist Protestants in 1845 specifically over its support for continuing slavery. Now, as this report very ably explains, racism once again is tearing this group apart, this time from the inside.