My “reply” or “response” and often my “critique” of the SBC (and also the same tendencies in other Christian groups) is a lament to “what we miss” when certain movements are culturally “dismissed” or “pushed out of significance” from our heritage. People like Clarence Jordan and Marin Luther King are de-emphasized , and such “exclusions” are justified (and sometimes even instigated) due to some expose on the “doctrinal purity” of their alleged theology. I say “alleged” because such “exposes” are often rift with things taken out of context, points miscontrued, and elaborate, ridiculous “implications” drawn from these exposes. Clarence jordan would certyainly not pass any litmus test applied to him via the likes of Al Mohler, Paige Patterson, et al. Jordan simply confronts too many cherished “biblical truths” for him to be considered “biblical”.
The same is true for Martin Luther King, Jr. He was a Baptist pastor. He did not “separate” his “doctrine” from “social issues”. When Rosa Parks refused to relinquish her seat, and King decided to rally a movement, there were VERY, VERY few from the white established Churches who dared to speak up in support, a nd even fewer who participated. If King had used the same “cultural filter” on the Bible in his theology of that used by the Churches in Slavery days or later, in segregation days (and those same “filters” operate today in the representatives of SBC leadership’s efforts to “close the canon” on exactly what we can apply the Bible message against and what we cannot).
If the present SBC leadership were to be transplanted into the 1950’s and 60’s, they would not be allowing themselves to see the “obvious” that we recognize today: that seats on a bus are “White people’s rights first”, that lunch counters are “White People’s first, or bathrooms, or ….Churches????”
Now maybe some of these would surprise me, and that would be great. Perhaps the absurdity of it all would be too much for some of those “transplanted” inoto that day, and they would recognize the foul stench of Cultural capitulation of the Churches, and begin to move away from their “theological inheritance”. But just as I believe that many Church people today are too quick to condemn the Jewish leaders who refused to “see” who Jesus was, so do I believe that this is a sign of the “deception” of Cultural Mores; that they become a cornerstone against which our entire theological system is built upon, and manipulated into an approach that simply overlays a “Christian transparency” over underlying “Cultural assumptions” , and the State, and its culture and its institutions (including the media) work with the prevailing powers to “baptize” these notions into “Christian principles” whose authority roots run all the way back to the Society and not the Spirit whose movement inspired the original words.
Jesus did not “fit” the expectations, nor did he “align” with the prevailing interpreations of the expressed hopes; the “Scribes and Pharisees” spirtual legacy continues. And with it, modern day prophets continue to be run out of town on a rail. Clarence Jordan was, MLK was, and others always have been. MOst of them by members of their own “group” or “community” who objected to their “tactics” or “strategy”. Gandhi was assasinated by Hindus who felt he was “in bed with the muslims”, and therefore a threat to “purity”. King was not assasinated solely by James Earl Ray (and I have my doubts about his actual pulling the trigger, so “convenent” was the evidence found (the gun left in clear view, as if he wanted to get caught). I also do not at all dismiss the involvement of “religious leaders” in his assasination.
King was portrayed on the TV minis-series as saying “To really follow the teachings of Jesus would be the most radical, revolutionary thing”. King clearly identified the Church and its teachings as the basis and the base from which he justified the movement and the rightness of that cause. He often spoke on issues that many considered “outside his domain” like speaking out against the Vietnam war, and his last campaign, the “Poor People’s march”.
The silence of the Churches on these matters was part of his impetus to “RESPOND TO THIS CALL” and rally the support of Churches. The kind of unquestioned allegiance to a “theological platform” that serves to “squelch” any “counter-cultural or Anti-american” terndencies (or to see them or characterize them as such) is to raise Culture or “America” to a level of idolatry, for the measure, we must all assume, is CHRIST, not culture; Jesus before America. we are members of the human family first , before national values. We are Citizens of the World.
This is the spirtual legacy I derive from the lives and works of Clarence Jordan and Martin Luther King, Jr. The faith is the first standard, and this means to constantly seek to resist the “neutering” of its power by assimilating values contrary to its message of peace, justice, and love. All 3 of these things have been well “worn” and have become “cliches”, and sadly, associated with “hippie culture” and “ditzy idealists”. But then again, so has the name of “Jesus”, the Church, and “Southern Baptist”, but I will give them up in reverse order.