Mob Terrorism takes hold
An unjust police action claimed the life of George Floyd. The response across America was sadness and to call for justice. Then the Left exploded in mob violence. Violence with a political aim—so, that makes it terrorism. We are watching a civil insurrection unfold. The very rule of law is under assault. People are not safe in their property or person—the key functions of government as affirmed by the Bible and the system created by the Founders is the preservation of life and property.
As shown in the video, a Dallas storeowner defending his property was beaten seriously (perhaps mortally) by a mob.
Violence is in the air.
So, how do Southern Baptists respond? The SBC Elite release a Woke statement calling for equity. Conservative Southern Baptists release a statement deploring police brutality and mob violence. Judge between the two and see which best reflects Southern Baptist values? Judge and see which is godlier.
A Tale of Two Statements
On Saturday, the Woke Southern Baptist Convention released a statement against racial injustice. Also on Saturday, the Conservative Baptist Network—a group of conservative Southern Baptists—released a statement against racial injustice and rioting. The condemnation of rioting was well timed as violence escalated Saturday evening.
The SBC Elite statement’s lack of dealing with the violent riots was noticed by Southern Baptist pastors.
Here are Southern Baptist Elites speaking. Pay attention. It sounds the Woke chorus of today’s individual bad behavior as being directly related to Jim Crow and slavery:
“Therefore, we pray for our local, state, and national leaders as they seek justice, and call on them to act quickly and diligently to ensure that these situations are brought to an end.”
Situations? What situations?
Apparently, systemic racial oppression. Notice the language these Elites employed:
“We understand that in the hearts of our fellow citizens of color, incidents like these connect to a long history of unequal justice in our country, going back to the grievous Jim Crow and slavery eras. The images and information we have available to us in this case are horrific and remind us that there is much more work to be done to ensure that there is not even a hint of racial inequity in the distribution of justice in our country. We grieve to see examples of the misuse of force, and call for these issues to be addressed with speed and justice.”
The entire statement signed by a Who’s Who of Southern Baptists is a joke. It puts these SBC leaders on record as saying that the killing of George Floyd is part of the systematic oppression dating back to Jim Crow and slavery.
But, these same SBC Elites claim they aren’t embracing Racial Identity Politics.
That seems implausible.
The actions of the police officer were horrific. However, was it systemic racism? Or, was it the violent act of a police officer with a record of questionable acts? Perhaps the bad actions of the police officer say more about him as an individual than the United States of America?
And the statement even sneaks in a plea for some sort of equity. It talks about “inequitable distributions of justice” and working to eradicate “racial inequity in the distribution of justice in our country.” For those who do not know, equity is buzzword in the diversity community.
“We further grieve with our minority brothers and sisters in the wake of George Floyd’s death, pray for his family and friends and greatly desire to see the misuse of force and any inequitable distributions of justice come to an end.”
As James Lindsay noted in his Translations from the Wokish, “Notice that, in Social Justice, the meaning of ‘equity’ takes pains to distinguish itself from that of ‘equality.’ Where equality means that citizen A and citizen B are treated equally, equity means ‘adjusting shares in order to make citizens A and B equal.’”
So, inequitable is not the same as unequal in the modern world. You’d think Southern Baptist theologians would know this and choose their words carefully.
Or, perhaps, they do know and chose precisely the word they intended.
To take the sad situation of George Floyd and release this type of statement legitimizes the violence happening in America today. Much better was the statement of the Conservative Baptist Network.
Here is the stamen in full. Notice how it links the horrific killing of George Floyd with the issue of the rule of law. We need more of this kind of talk from Southern Baptists:
Statement Regarding George Floyd And The Ensuing Riots
May 30, 2020
In the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. For this reason, while strongly affirming due process for all involved, we equally strongly condemn the death of George Floyd and also the rioting in Minneapolis and elsewhere.
Every human being is made in the image of God (Gen. 1:27). An attack on any person, whether intentional or merely reckless, is an affront to a holy God. The people of God must stand for innocent life at all times and in all situations.
Police brutality is always wrong. It assaults the innocent, and it also endangers the countless good and heroic police officers upon whom we all depend.
But likewise, rioting is not protest. Rioting is not protected by the First Amendment. Rioters are not sympathetic figures. Rioters are engaging in a form of domestic terrorism and should be dealt with accordingly. These are not normal criminals — they are rioting to advance a political point, which is not just a crime but an act of terrorism. And their message is simple: give us what we want or die.
Civil society cannot long endure such acts — not of police brutality and not of mass violence — both of which are directed at innocents, and both of which should be deplored by all people of good will.
We call upon the civil authorities to act swiftly to restore order and justice in their own actions and in America’s cities. American workers, husbands, wives and schoolchildren should never have to fear for their lives or that their neighborhoods might randomly descend into the chaos of Beirut, Sarajevo, or Mogadishu.
And likewise, we call on every Christian believer and every church to pray for the peace and justice we seek for Americans of all colors, and to demand better of their civil authorities to that end.
That’s a statement that inspires confidence. It calls out evil in all its forms and from all sides.
3 thoughts on “SBC Elites release statement that fails to condemn riots”
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I think that you are frustrated on what is being highlighted and emphasized. The SBC, which is a Fallen Institution functioning in a Fallen World, with it’s abhorrent track record on Civil Rights, is right to turn focus on trying to understand the anger (and empathize with the frustration) of protesters.
Besides….
Obviously, a Jesus follower/Christian wouldn’t endorse, promote thrill seeking, gratuitous mob violence….it goes without saying, doesn’t it? So I guess the author(s) of the statement didn’t feel it necessary to state the obvious.
In Christ,
Me
To call rioters, looters, and murderers “protesters” and then to vilify our President for vowing to stop them, by force with due warning, if need be, is to play accomplice to crime in the first degree. These rioters were not expressing First Amendment rights. They were committing Tenth Commandment wrongs–coveting their innocent neighbors’ jobs, goods, livelihood, and lives. The mercilessly indiscriminate nature of the destruction precluded any connection to just protest over the death of George Floyd. To say the protests were “mostly peaceful” is to lie to the reality we all saw with our own eyes. In the true spirit of doublethink, we are simultaneously to deny that the riots happened (“peaceful protests”) and yet to believe that the violence testifies to the severity of “systemic racism” in this country.
The brutality of the riots forced us to remember, not the life of George Floyd, as human as it was, but the sadistic inhumanity of Derek Chauvin. By condoning the riots, we celebrated the brutality we were supposed to denounce, allowing Derek Chauvin to cast his die into an entire nation. This was moral outrage, and every honest soul cried out against it. And yet the criticism leveled against our President for trying to stop it was counterintuitive indeed. But the phenomenon of anarchy had worked: by allowing it, we had begun to embrace it, seeing law itself as the enemy.
The American psyche will never be the same. We have taught an entire generation that violence will accomplish whatever they desire.
And yet nothing–nothing–justifies violence committed against fellow citizens who have been thrust against their will into a civil war unarmed. No race has EVER endured what the Jews have endured with six million of them exterminated in less than a decade. But no one ever, EVER, sees them running around with a vendetta wreaking havoc on the rest of the world. There was never ANY question that the entire nation hated what happened to George Floyd, but to punish us ALL when we could have been most united was a heinous crime against the soul of America and against the very cause of freedom itself. For the SBC to gloss over this is indicative of the cowardice slouching towards apostasy.