ACSI partners with UnifiEd to offer Christian schools resources on Diversity, Inclusion and Racial Reconciliation with focus on Multiculturalism
A professor who secretly teaches James Cone to unaware Southern Baptist pastors will provide diversity and inclusion training for the Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI). The partnership was announced in press releases from ACSI and UnifiEd.
“As Christians, we are called to disciple all of God’s children to reflect Christ in a culturally diverse world,” said ACSI President Dr. Larry Taylor. “The partnership with UnifiEd will equip our educators so they can do this effectively.”
Walter Strickland, a professor at SEBTS who was exposed for teaching heretical James Cone in a story by the New York Times, heads up UnifiED and participates in the ACSI Flourishing Schools Institute.
Dr. Strickland has praised heretic Dr. Cone many times in the last few years.
“Dr. Cone allowed me to see a new vista, a new space, a new avenue to allow the gospel to be made manifest,” Strickland said in October 2018. “So, I sort of look at what the gospel is doing as a more broad reality now. Not that I’ve switched the spiritual for the physical or the social but both.”
Dr. Strickland is a known proponent of concepts like Critical Race Theory.
“Walter Strickland teaches Critical Race Theory, and you look at black theology and some of the things he has said. Frankly, I am surprised he is still on the [Southeastern] faculty,” former ERLC scholar Dr. Craig Mitchell remarked.
Dr. Mitchell’s assertion appears to be supported by other statements made by SEBTS professor Dr. Strickland. He has even said that Christianity was used to oppress some people.
Strickland said, “Christianity and race in America were intertwined at its inception because Christianity was the thing used to say, ‘How can we enslave these people yet evangelize them?’
The alliance between the Association of Christian Schools International and UnifiED “is aligned with ACSI’s Flourishing Initiative, which defines a flourishing Christian school as a community of students, educators and families that glorifies Christ and excels in knowing Him and making Him known,” ACSI said in the press release.
Diversity and inclusion are biblical values, according to UnifiED’s press release on the topic.
“For Christians, motivation to work toward Christ-centered unity and God-honoring diversity does not have to come from negative social or political pressure, but from biblical affirmation,” UnifiED said in its press release.
Your local Christian school now has access to resources on diversity and inclusion for the discounted price of $300 per year for digital and print access to diversity resources! Individuals can subscribe to their monthly digest of diversity information for $12!
Your local Christian school can now sound just as hip and with the diversity and inclusion movement as the secular government schools.
However, what do these groups mean by diversity?
In the secular use (and even among some in the church today) there is a cultural relativism that arises out of the multiculturalism movements of the 1990s and 2000s.
And multicultural is the goal of Dr. Strickland’s organization, according to the press release: “The majority of our resources are designed to assist leaders with the ongoing challenge of implementing a God-glorifying diversity strategy that fosters a multicultural environment.”
As Samuel P. Huntington said, we should reject the “divisive siren calls of multiculturalism.”
As New Discourses explains, diversity depends upon this cultural relativism. They write, diversty depends “upon cultural relativism, that ‘no one culture is intrinsically superior to another.’ The important thing to recognize here is that this statement is not limited under Critical Social Justice to generally arbitrary cultural mores like styles of dress, food, music, speech, and so on, but also includes the belief that knowledge-producing and dispute-resolving methodologies—like science, liberalism, capitalism and property ownership, philosophy, debate, reliance upon evidence, and so on.”
Multiculturalism is dangerous to any sense of shared identity. By promoting this type of view that all cultures are equal it erects barriers between people instead of creating a shared identity. As Francis Fukuyama said of Samuel P. Huntington’s work, “He was more justified in his concern that contemporary understandings of multiculturalism and identity politics were putting up unnecessary barriers to assimilation.”
Multiculturalism is about relativism. That is not a Christian approach.
Christian schools should be teaching a Christian identity and not promoting a multicultural environment.
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I am stunned.
PS
Thank you Al Mohler and Russell Moore. Your plan is working very well.
This is going to destroy ASCI and any Christian schools that jump on the bandwagon. Go see what Voddie Baucham has to say about this anti-biblical poison. It should have NO place in our ministries, churches or schools. Shame on ASCI and all involved.
Are these people “Apostates” and “Reprobates” or are they now “Never Were” in the past.
In the 1950’s Manning Johnson at the New York City fake Christian church along with the Federal Bureau of Investigation had some success in exposing Dr. James Cone for the communist that he was. During Manning Johnson’s testimony before Congress that success was limited.
One can be positively influenced by a Christian with whom one has profound disagreements. This article cites no negative connection between the errors of Cone and what Strickland believes. It’s just guilt by association. That’s an ignorant, spiritually immature approach.
“He has even said that Christianity was used to oppress some people.”
This is stated as if it’s a false charge. Is there anyone who doubts this? Did Roman Catholics misuse Scripture to oppress Protestants? Did Protestants misuse Scripture to oppress Baptists? Did Christians misuse Scripture to support slavery? Do abusive husbands misuse Scripture to bully their wives? Do liberals misuse Scripture to attack conservatives? Again, does anyone doubt this? The fact of the matter is that his statement is completely true, you know it’s completely true, so you have to pretend without evidence that he means something different by it. Such shallow, immature thinking. Or maybe you’re just feeling convicted by the Spirit because YOU are using Christianity to bully Strickland and others.
“Diversity and inclusion are biblical values”
Again, does anyone doubt this? The whole point of the calling of Abraham was so that the whole world would be blessed thru him and his family (Gen 12:1-3). This idea is repeated numerous times in the Old Testament. Here’s a shining example: Joel 2:28-29. The Spirit poured out on ALL flesh, both sexes, all ages, all social standings. It’s fulfilled at Pentecost where all the people here the gospel in their own language (Acts 2) – a signpost pointing to the reversal of Babel (Gen 11). Paul alludes to Joel 2 in Galatians 3:28 in the same way. Again, no one doubts this diversity and inclusion are biblical values. Again, the only way you can find to criticize the idea is to falsely suggest it means something else.
This whole article is ignorant, spiritually immature drivel. You are spiritual bullies. You act just as bad as the secular liberals you claim are dangerous. You are exactly what you dislike. You are being manipulated to attack fellow Christians, so that the gospel is hindered.
Name calling in defense of a professor who secretly teaches unsuspecting people the theology of heretic James Cone. Figures.
The only one hindering the Gospel are people like you and Strickland who think it is acceptable to deceive Southern Baptists into promoting racial identity politics. The Gospel unifies. It does not divide on race.
Balkanizing the church based on race is sinful. Thus, this type of thinking has no place in the church or America.
It is really stunning that he tells the NY Times that he basically deceives pastors about the ideas he promotes and people like you are OK with it.
From the NY Times: “While Cone’s ideas are in play, I don’t mention him by name, because I don’t want to put unnecessary stumbling blocks in their way.”