A June 14 panel discussion at the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting, titled “A National Conversation on Racial Unity in America,” featured Marshall Blalock, pastor of Charleston First Baptist Church, along with president Jerry Young of the National Baptist Convention USA and Southern Baptist leaders from a variety of racial and ethnic groups.
Marshall Blalock (file)
Blalock delivered a 12-minute address, opening with an account of the shooting last June at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in his city, which left nine people dead. “Grief and grace” following the shooting brought unity in the city, he said.
The terrorist who committed the crime “went to the wrong place” when he went to church, Blalock said, noting the entire city “was touched by the Gospel.” When the shooter appeared in court, he said, African-American believers invited him to receive Christ as Lord and Savior.
“Even the most secular-minded person in Charleston” could not grasp what happened that day, Blalock said, adding that people who heard about the African-American believers’ Gospel invitation came to faith in Christ through their witness.
The murders “still break my heart,” but God used the church and the Gospel to change lives, Blalock said. He said his own heart was among those changed when he realized the unintentional segregation in his network of relationships.
“Walk toward racial unity by building bridges,” Blalock told messengers. He closed his remarks by reading the names of the victims killed at Emanuel AME Church.
Young, pastor of New Hope Baptist Church in Jackson, Miss., spoke on the racial divide in America. “I am absolutely, totally convinced that the problem with America can be placed at the doorstep of our churches,” he said.
Racism, Young said, is not a sociological problem, but a “sin problem” and flows from the Church’s role in failing to stem the tide of moral decay in America.
The Church has “contaminated salt and concealed light,” Young said.
“We’ve got people who want to be secret disciples and undercover agents, where they only do it in church,” Young said. “I challenge you to know that the problem in America is a problem with the Church being what Christ has called it to be.”
Because the Gospel saves and changes people, “somebody needs to pass the salt and turn on the lights,” Young said.
A question-and-answer session following the two longer addresses featured Kenny Petty, pastor of The Gate Church in St. Louis; Joe Costephens, pastor of First Baptist Church in Ferguson, Mo.; H.B. Charles, pastor of Shiloh Metropolitan Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Fla.; Greg Matte, pastor of First Baptist Church in Houston; David Um, pastor of Antioch Baptist Church in Cambridge, Mass.; Timmy Chavis, pastor of Bear Swamp Baptist Church in Pembroke, N.C.; D.A. Horton, church planter at Reach Fellowship in Los Angeles; and Fred Luter, pastor of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans.
Charles said “the Lord is trying to wake the Church up.” Christians must “proclaim” and “live” the Gospel to effect racial reconciliation in America.
Matte said three of Houston First Baptist’s five campus pastors are non-white — part of an effort to make the church’s staff reflect the racial composition of the city. These and other leaders from a variety of ethnic groups at First Baptist are not “tokens” but individuals called by God and qualified for their jobs, Matte said.
Um, who minsters among students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, said students and scholars at elite universities sometimes believe they have advanced beyond racism but do not realize the Gospel is the only solution to racial division.
Horton said local churches should be “an eschatological foretaste” of the new heaven and new earth, where there will be followers of Jesus from every ethnicity.
Luter said, “We don’t have a skin problem in America. We have a sin problem in America. And [the solution] needs to start with the churches. … I believe the future for the Southern Baptist Convention is bright if we continue to challenge each other to do what we need to do.”
Floyd asked Young how Southern Baptist churches can help advance racial unity in America. Young responded that believers need “the mind of Christ.”
The average person wrongly dichotomizes “between the sacred and the secular,” Young said. If believers can learn to think in a Christian manner about every subject, racial tension will diminish.