“In Christ there is not Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all” (Colossians 3:11, CSB).
The question seems to find its way into the comment section of every online story about a race relations milestone being reached in the SBC. It generally goes like this: “If Christ is all that matters, and He has torn down the wall that divided us, why do we keep bringing up race when an African-American is selected for a leadership position at the convention or institutional level?” Someone will invariably add a comment that these types of stories do more harm than good. Never fails. While I agree that Christ is all that matters, there’s one reason I passionately believe calling attention to and celebrating progress in racial unity is a must.
First, as uncomfortable as it may be, it’s important to remind ourselves how far we’ve come on the issue of race. When the South Carolina Baptist Convention was formed 200 years ago, southerners believed White supremacy was a God-ordained, undeniable fact. After the Civil War, newly emancipated Blacks were quickly reminded that their changed status in society did not change the church’s perspectives. Although created in God’s image and saved by the blood of Jesus, Blacks were still considered inferior. In 1868, Basil Manly Jr., one of the founders of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said, “We at the South do not recognize the social equality of the Negro.” Later, he would say that the presence of freed slaves in Greenville was an “incubus and a plague” (if you didn’t know, an incubus is a male demon that rapes women in their sleep). In 1869, Jeremiah Jeter, the senior editor of Virginia’s Religious Herald, stated that separating into their own churches and associations was best for African-Americans. If they remained in White churches, they would “feel their inferiority.”
Ignorance about Scriptures such as Colossians 3:11 and Galatians 3:28 was not the issue. The issue was the implication of those Scriptures. As one person candidly stated in an 1870 column in The Baptist (Tennessee), “[W]e have no Scripture prohibiting them from privileges granted to whites … .” All church members, “whether rich or poor, white or black, have the same privileges.” Yet he still said, “[W]e cannot grant to the blacks the privilege of voting in our church affairs, calling a pastor, etc., because in most of our churches they would outvote us on everything.” Reconstruction may have made it a reality in the world, but the thought of a Black man sharing a seat at the table in the church was unfathomable. To the relief of many, African-Americans formed their own churches and associations. By the turn of the 20th century, few, if any, African-American churches could be found in the SBC.
Fast forward to 2021, and there’s been an African-American president of the SBC (Fred Luter, 2012), at least one African-American serving as a state executive director (Kevin Smith, MD/DE), and multiple African-American state presidents have been elected. Hasn’t there been enough progress that we don’t need to mention race anymore? Absolutely not! Every time we see a headline or post about a barrier falling in the church, instead of saying, “What’s the big deal?” we should say, “My goodness, this is a big deal!” Just 57 years ago, the messengers at the 1964 SCBC annual meeting voted 905-575 to keep Furman and all South Carolina Baptist colleges segregated. One year later, Baptist College at Charleston (which later became Charleston Southern University) opened its doors. Today, instead of being segregated, approximately 25 percent of its undergraduate students are African-American. Only God could do that! As the saying goes, God has brought us a mighty long way!
The primary purpose of revisiting history is so that we can give God praise in the present. When have we been saved long enough to stop praising Him for saving our marriages, delivering us from drugs and alcohol, and saving our souls from an eternity in hell? Never! Even if we still wrestle with sin, we praise Him for the growth we’ve made to this point. Who will get the glory if we don’t? If we don’t remember, pause and praise, we’re liable to convince ourselves we weren’t that bad or that no progress has been made at all. Either way, God is stripped of the glory He deserves.
Paul is a perfect example. Even after 30 years of preaching the gospel, winning souls, planting churches, and raising up church leaders, he never forgot the person he was before God saved him. In 1 Timothy 1:12-17, he described himself as formerly an arrogant and violently aggressive persecutor of the church. Remembering his past was the catalyst of his thanksgiving in verse 12.
Revisiting history is pointless if we don’t acknowledge sin, recognize we’re no better than our predecessors, and glorify God for His grace in saving us and using us in spite of ourselves. It’s not an acknowledgment that we have arrived. Lord knows we have a long way to go. But whenever we see progress being made, that the church is getting closer to Colossians 3:11 in word and deed, we should pause and praise Him. It’s a reminder He’s not done with us yet.