In 2018, Charlie Dates, a prominent and well-known uber-woke pro-socialist Southern Baptist pastor partook in the MLK50 Conference that was jointly hosted by The Gospel Coalition and the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.

At that conference, Southern Baptists and Evangelicals gathered around to venerate their icon, Martin Luther King Jr., and praise him as one of Christianity’s greatest heroes of all time. This conference included such well-known names as Russell Moore, John Piper, and plenty of other Southern Baptist and Evangelical leaders. To this day, Charlie Dates is still listed as a major contributor to The Gospel Coalition.

Dates, however, eventually had a temper tantrum and left the Southern Baptist Convention because, believe it or not, it wasn’t progressive enough for him. Dates, who pastored a Southern Baptist church that was actually called Progressive Baptist Church, complained “Albert Mohler, the president of the Southern Baptist Seminary, said the only politically moral option for Christians was the Republican Party.”

“As for me and the Progressive Baptist Church,” Dates wrote, “I keep hearing the words of Harriet Tubman: We out.”

Dates eventually left the Progressive Baptist Church, too, and recently replaced retiring pastor James Meeks to become the lead pastor at Salem Baptist Church, a megachurch in Chicago where Dates says he grew up and attended school. Comparing his relationship with the former pastor of Salem to that of Paul and Timothy, Dates told Christianity Today “This isn’t something that I read or something that I watched; this is a ministry that I participated in and had a front row seat to as a kid.”

Interestingly, Meeks told Dates during the handing-over ceremony recently that he was afraid to give Dates the pulpit.

But Dates has proven himself worthy of the uber-woke Chicago-style chicanery that goes on in these churches. One of Dates’ first maneuvers as the new lead pastor was to invite the pro-abortionist lesbian Mayor who absolutely abhors the God that Dates claims to serve to preach in His pulpit. Chicago Mayor, Lori Lightfoot, who can only rightly be described as a literal circus clown, took the pulpit to preach about how Joshua is now taking over for Moses in the pulpit at Salem.

“Do they really think I was going to come up here and talk to this congregation and not know my Bible?” Lightfoot screeched. The entire spectacle was quite a sight to behold.

In a recent interview on The Holy Post podcast with Veggie Tales creator, Phil Vischer, Charlie Dates explained his original hope in joining both the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) and the Progressive National Baptist Convention. He said he admired certain black pastors who had both theological credibility and relationships within the SBC. Dates said that believed that his “voice” and “experience” could help push the SBC toward a less racist (read, “more liberal”) future.

But if we actually cut through his tripe, you’ll see just how racist and ungodly he really is. When asked by Vischer about his intentions for joining the SBC, he responded:

Yeah, so you have to understand about me that I have several heroes, black pastors who are authentically black, that’s a whole other conversation and what I mean by that for the person, is they would recognize black culture and they would be recognized by black culture if they walked into indigenous black spaces, that’s really important.

Pastors who have an authentic black theological reflection, who have verifiable, trustworthy relationships with the Southern Baptist Convention. So I feel like as a younger pastor at the time, I had cover running in there and the particular personalities I was working with, we were intent on moving the ball further in a more kingdom exploration and so my hope feel was that God would use the voice He had given me and the experience He had given me to actually turn the light bulb on for parts of the system.

Boy, was I wrong, and they told me, the members of our church told me I was wrong before they went along with me, several of them did and so I think the advent of Trump basically showed us that there was a lot of racism hiding in theological reflection and I knew that having graduated from a predominantly white evangelical seminary, but I got to see it in like 2016, 2017 color, it’s terrible.

So Charlie Dates thinks he’s got the monopoly on being “authentically black.” Really? Let’s talk about how absolutely stupid and downright foolish that notion is. He throws around this phrase, “authentically black,” like he’s the self-appointed gatekeeper of what it means to be black—handing out badges of “authenticity” only to those who meet his personal standards of cultural conformity.

And who decided that? Charlie Dates, apparently.

But let’s break it down, what does he even mean by “authentic black theological reflection”?

What, is there a different Bible for “authentic” black people?

Did God drop some special revelation in black churches that the rest of the Christian world missed?

The idea that theology should be filtered through the lens of racial identity is not only asinine but an insult to the very core of Christianity. Theology is about truth—the truth of God’s word as revealed in Scripture, which transcends race, culture, and nationality. Trying to turn theology into some cultural or racial echo chamber is just nonsense.

What’s next? An “authentic white theological reflection”? Oh, but that would be racist, wouldn’t it? So why is it acceptable when it’s framed the other way around?

And then we have his claim about “indigenous black spaces.” Indigenous black spaces? Are we in Africa now? Is he talking about the Zulu tribe or the Maasai people? Because last I checked, there are no indigenous black people in America.

The very use of the word “indigenous” in this context is utterly ridiculous and shows how far down the rabbit hole Dates has gone. It’s nothing but foolish rhetoric meant to divide and promote a warped version of racial purity—demanding that all black people conform to his ideal of what it means to be black. That’s not unity, Charlie Dates. That’s just racism repackaged in woke wrapping paper.

And then he acts like he was some sort of martyr, sacrificing himself on the altar of progressivism by joining the SBC and “failing.” But here’s the truth, his “cover” from “particular personalities” wasn’t some divine shield. It was people like Russell Moore—far-left racial agitators—who have been pushing the same garbage agenda for years.

We warned the SBC about these people as far back as 2013, but no one listened. They were allowed to come in and cause chaos, wreaking havoc in churches, and dividing the denomination along racial lines. And now, over a decade later, when some SBC leaders finally woke up, people like Dates act surprised that the SBC didn’t bow to their progressive utopian fantasies. Newsflash: the SBC wasn’t racist for rejecting far-left false teachers who invite lesbians to stand in their pulpit and twist the Scriptures.

Dates and his pals like to talk a big game about racism, but the truth is they’re the ones pushing divisive, racist nonsense. They’re the ones telling black Christians that they have to fit into their predetermined boxes.

They’re the ones insisting that there’s only one way to be “authentically black,” whatever that is, and if you don’t check all the boxes, you’re out of the club.