The Southern Baptist Convention, born in 1845 in a split over its
support for slavery, has passed a resolution calling for Christians to
quit using the Confederate flag.
“We call our brothers and sisters in Christ to discontinue the display
of the Confederate battle flag as a sign of solidarity of the whole Body
of Christ, including our African-American brothers and sisters,” reads
the resolution adopted Tuesday (June 14) at the convention’s annual
meeting in St. Louis.
Former Southern Baptist President James Merritt, who said he was the
great-great-grandson of two Confederate Army members, helped draft that
language, which included striking a paragraph that linked the flag to
Southern heritage: “We recognize that the Confederate battle flag serves
for some not as a symbol of hatred, bigotry, and racism, but as a
memorial to their loved ones who died in the Civil War, and an emblem to
honor their loved ones’ valor.”
The Baptists considered the resolution almost a year after nine people
were gunned down at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in
Charleston, S.C., by an alleged killer who posed for photos with the
rebel flag. Pastor Dwight McKissic of Arlington, Texas, proposed the
original language of the resolution in part to honor those victims.
After the shootings, South Carolina removed the flag from its Capitol
and Oklahoma Baptist University recently stopped displaying the
Confederate flag in a window of its campus chapel.
On Tuesday, Russell Moore, the denomination’s chief ethicist, welcomed the resolution.
“The Southern Baptist Convention made history today and made history in
the right way,” said Moore, president of the SBC’s Ethics and Religious
Liberty Commission. “This denomination was founded by people who
wrongly defended the sin of human slavery. Today, the nation’s largest
Protestant denomination voted to repudiate the Confederate battle flag
and it’s time and well past time.”
But the passage of the resolution was a surprise even to some supporters.
“It was the most wonderful surprise, a complete denunciation of the
flag because of what it represents and because of the Southern symbol
that it is to African-American brothers and sisters in Christ,” said
Alan Cross, a Southern Baptist minister from Alabama and author of “When
Heaven and Earth Collide: Racism, Southern Evangelicals, and the Better
Way of Jesus.”
Roger S. Oldham, spokesman for the denomination’s Executive Committee,
said the changes made to the resolution after a committee proposed it
indicated that the messengers, or delegates, gathered in St. Louis
wanted “to take one bold step rather than a series of smaller steps.”
Some of the Southern Baptists at the meeting were upset with the
resolution, and Paul Pressler, a retired judge from Texas and an
architect of the conservative resurgence in the denomination more than
30 years ago, complained that he was not allowed to speak. Officials
said time ran out before he could.
Jason Lupo, pastor of a Tallulah, La., church, said he wasn’t speaking
against the resolution but he thought it should be removed from
consideration.
“This is a political issue, not a kingdom issue,” he said. “And so I
think the resolution needs to be removed completely and doesn’t even
need to be dealt with.”
Another, who urged rejection of the resolution, wondered if it could
lead to support for other moves of “political correctness” such as
rejecting the U.S. flag that flew over slave ships or Southern Baptist
heroes who were “avid supporters of the Confederacy.”
Resolutions Committee Chairman Stephen Rummage said Southern Baptist
heroes “did so many things that are commendable” and are not covered by
the resolution.
“We are taking about one particular symbol that is used by some and is
perceived by many as a symbol of racism and it causes great harm,” he
said.
The 2016 resolution language is a sharp contrast from the
denomination’s support of the Confederacy that was cited in an 1863
resolution, in the midst of the Civil War: “(W)e have no thought of ever
yielding, but will render a hearty support to the Confederate
Government in all constitutional measures to secure our independence.”
Merritt said Tuesday’s resolution was not about political correctness but more about a proper Christian witness.
“This flag is a stumbling block to many African-American souls to our
witness,” he said. “And I rise to say that all the Confederate flags in
the world are not worth one soul of any race.”
Courtesy: Religion News Service
Photo: A Confederate battle flag flies at the grave of L.S. Axson, a
soldier in the Confederate States Army in the U.S. Civil War, in
Magnolia Cemetery in Charleston, S.C., on June 22, 2015.
Photo courtesy: REUTERS/Brian Snyder
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