SOUTHERN BAPTIST ‘PIRATES’ HARK BACK TO PRO-SLAVERY PAST

Next week more than 16,000 Southern Baptist pastors and leaders will descend on Nashville, Tennessee, for their first annual meeting of the post-Trump era. It caps months of vicious infighting over every cultural and political division facing the country, particularly after the murder of George Floyd, Ruth Graham and Elizabeth Dias reported for the New York Times.

For three days, thousands of delegates known as “messengers” — most of them white men — will fight over race, sex, and ultimately the future of evangelical power in the United States.

An event that has historically been compared to a family reunion may look more like a brawl. In the past weeks, Baptists have pored over leaked bombshell letters and whistleblower recordings and traded accusations of racism, apostasy, and sexual abuse cover-ups. Leaders have taken barbed potshots at each other. Others have headed for the door.

Russell Moore, the denomination’s influential head of ethics and public policy, left on June 1. Popular author and speaker Beth Moore, who is not related to Russell Moore, announced in March that she is no longer a Southern Baptist, citing the “staggering” disorientation of seeing the denomination’s leaders support Donald Trump, and lamenting its treatment of women.

Some conservatives triumphantly celebrated both departures. Messengers will confront a series of measures likely including the propriety of women delivering sermons, the handling of sexual abuse, and a denunciation of critical race theory, the concept that historical patterns of racism remain ingrained in modern American society and institutions.

Those hoping to “take the ship” maintain that piracy is nothing more than a cheeky metaphor for a dry, democratic process. Still, the swashbuckling imagery has taken hold. There are “Take the Ship” T-shirts and pirate car flags, GIFs and memes; many supporters attach a pirate flag emoji to their Twitter handles.

The rebellion in the Southern Baptist Convention both reflects and forecasts what is going on in broader society and the Republican Party, said Jemar Tisby, assistant director of narrative and advocacy at the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research.

“The annual meeting is an opportunity for denominational leaders either to sensitively address the concerns and racism that Black people have experienced or to side with the status quo which favors white people, particularly men,” he said.

The denomination has about 14.5 million members but has been steadily shrinking for the past decade. In 2014, about 85% of Southern Baptists were white, 6% were Black and 3% were Latino, according to the Pew Research Center. Southern Baptists split from their northern counterparts in 1845 in support of slavery.

After the denomination repudiated its role in slavery in the 1990s, a portion of its national leaders have attempted to diversify its churches and seminaries. At its 2019 meeting, the convention affirmed that critical race theory could be an “analytical tool” useful to faithful Christians, a move that many conservatives describe as alarming. Its current president, J.D. Greear, urged Southern Baptists last summer to declare that “Black lives matter.”

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