You’re probably aware by now that the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), during its annual meeting in June, voted to disfellowship several churches with women pastors, including Saddleback Church which was formerly pastored by Rick Warren. During the convention, the messengers also voted to adopt an amendment to the Constitution that would exclude any church with women pastors from cooperating with the Southern Baptist Convention.

The amendment and the vote to disfellowship these churches was surprisingly passed overwhelmingly. But as I wrote in a previous article, the likelihood that these messengers actually knew what they were voting for is slim. In their minds, they were merely sacrificing an unpopular church with women pastors in order to appease the outspoken minority of conservatives who remain in the denomination. This way, the SBC could continue its leftward drift.

Part of the leftward drift of the SBC over the last decade has been the influx of racial cultural Marxism under the guise of “racial reconciliation.” This movement gained steam under the leadership of former ERLC head, Russell Moore, who advanced a narrative of rampant racism and white supremacy in the SBC which led to the adoption of a resolution in 2020 declaring Critical Race Theory, a wholly Marxist ideology, to be a useful tool for Christians and churches to use to analyze racial issues in society and the Church.

Critical Race Theory (CRT) emerged as an offshoot of Critical Theory, a neo-Marxist philosophy that has its roots in the Frankfurt School and its methods are drawn from Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud. CRT teaches that institutional racism exists within every structure of society and that these structures are intrinsically designed in such a manner as to protect and preserve “white supremacy” in our culture. Further, CRT does not rely on factual statistics or objective evidence to support the theory, rather it relies on anecdotal evidence and personal experience.

So now that the Southern Baptist Convention has adopted this worldly ideology and is neck deep in its muck and mire while at the same time implementing a procedure to disfellowship churches that are disobeying the biblical prohibition against women pastors, it has become clear that the two simply can’t mix. On the one hand, the SBC is right in disallowing women pastors from cooperating churches and on the other hand, thousands of churches in the SBC have women pastors—the vast majority of these churches being predominantly black.

So if these predominantly black churches were to catch on to this, they might play the race card and say that the SBC is “racist” because all of these black churches with women pastors are now at risk of being disfellowshipped. What a conundrum. What ever are these SBC leaders who both voted in favor of adopting Critical Race Theory as well as disfellowshipping churches with women pastors supposed to do if that happens? My word!

Well, we’re about to find out, because the NAAF just sent a letter to Bart Barber, the current president of the SBC, stating just that. The NAAF, or the National African American Fellowship, SBC, is a group of over 4 thousand black churches within the SBC, of which the letter to Barber states that “Many of our churches assign the title ‘pastor’ to women…”

The letter reads in part:

The National African American Fellowship, SBC (NAAF) is a vested SBC partner that represents over 4000 congregations who self-identify as predominantly African American. We join with you in your statement, that “this is not a time to rejoice, but a time to lament.” We respect the democratic process and recognize that the messengers have the right to vote their conscience and direct the Convention to act on their behalf. However, we strongly urge our SBC family to consider entering a time of prayer and dialogue because for many, this most recent decision is an unnecessary infringement upon the autonomy of the local church. It has created division within the SBC and may disproportionately impact NAAF affiliated congregations. Many of our churches assign the title “pastor” to women who oversee ministries of the church under the authority of a male Senior Pastor, i.e., Children’s Pastor, Worship Pastor, Discipleship Pastor, etc. To disfellowship like-minded churches who share our faith in Jesus Christ, our belief in the authority of Scripture, our mandate to carry out the Great Commission, and our agreement to give cooperatively based upon a local-church governance decision dishonors the spirit of cooperation and the guiding tenets of our denomination.

In order for the constitutional amendment which was passed in June to remain, it must be re-affirmed at the annual meeting in 2024. My prediction, and you can write this down or bookmark this post, is that the amendment will not be re-affirmed. Perhaps it will, but it will absolutely not receive the same overwhelming vote that it received this year. Once you play the race card on a bunch of fragile self-flagellating white men who are afraid of being called “racist” for doing something right, you’re going to see a bunch of them cave.