The latest push against the Confederate flag is coming from the pulpit.
On Tuesday, the US Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant Christian denomination in the country,voted that members stop displaying the Confederate flag.
Black Texas pastor Dwight McKissic proposed the Confederate flag resolution to the SBC in April, to honor the nine black parishioners who were shot and killed at the historic Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina; it was passed on the eve of the tragedy’s one-year anniversary.
The SBC was created in 1845 after a group of churches, unwilling to remain neutral on the moral standing of slavery, created their own association that allowed them to both praise God and support the institution.
"The SBC supported the Confederacy and was emotionally and philosophically attached to the Confederacy," McKissic wrote . "The Dylann Roof love affair with the Confederate [flag] and his murdering of nine innocent Black Kingdom-citizens (Christians) has brought this matter back to the forefront."
According to the Washington Post , the SBC leadership was skeptical about how the proposal would be received, but when they brought the resolution the floor, members demonstrated their commitment to the proposal’s ideals. Voters proposed their own changes to the original proposal, eliminating references to family history — one of the reasons used to justify the flag is as a symbol of Southern pride — and called for outright removal rather than limited displays.
"We call our brothers and sisters in Christ to discontinue the display of the Confederate flag as a sign of solidarity of the whole Body of Christ, including our African-American brothers and sisters," said the final draft of the resolution.
The SBC shows Southern heritage needs to recognize black people, too
The SBC joins other Christian institutions that are reconsidering the ties between the flag and the pulpit. Last week, the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, announced that it will remove images of the flag on its stained glass windows.
But the vote also demonstrates that evaluating the Confederate flag as either a symbol of Southern roots or an emblem of racism born from the South’s historical ties to slavery is a false dichotomy rooted in erasing the flag's tie to racism.
The flag is inextricably tied to white supremacy . Confederates fought for states’ rights during the Civil War because they wanted the federal government to respect a state’s wish to own slaves. This continued when the rebel flag gained prominence in the 1950s explicitly as a symbol for Southern whites as African Americans gained civil rights advances.
"[The flag] means the Southern cause," Roy Harris , a noted segregationist in Georgia politics, said in 1951. "It is becoming ... the symbol of the white race and the cause of the white people."
Over time, this story has been retold as a matter of Southern pride and heritage. But the Charleston shooting showed that was neither innocuous, nor would it suffice, because racism, even in the 21st century, persists.
When investigators looked into Roof’s background , they found he had written an online racist manifesto and was seen in pictures posing with the Confederate flag. Another picture surfaced of Roof wearing a jacket with other racist flags — an homage to apartheid South Africa and the former racist colonial state of Rhodesia that is now contemporary Zimbabwe.
In the wake of the attack at Mother Emanuel, activist Bree Newsome scaled a flagpole at the South Carolina Statehouse to take down the Confederate flag in protest to the whitewashing of the flag's legacy after the shooting.
"You see, I know my history and my heritage," Newsome said last year. "The Confederacy is neither the only legacy of the south nor an admirable one. The southern heritage I embrace is the legacy of a people unbowed by racial oppression."
After Newsome's action sparked massive discussion, s tates also condemned the flag, removing it from public buildings and license plates in a gesture toward transparency about the painful history woven into the rebel flag. The SBC vote is an attempt to do the same.
But the Charleston shooting and the diversity of the SBC’s membership no longer allows the organization to absolve itself of taking responsibility for its own history.
The network of churches apologized for its position on slavery in 1995. In 2011, the SBC elected Fred Luter, a senior minister from Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans, as its first black SBC president, and he served from 2012 to 2014.Today, 20 percent of SBC member churches do not have predominantly white congregations.
"As I’ve said before, the Cross and the Confederate flag cannot co-exist without one setting the other on fire," Russell Moore, the leader of the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, wrote in a blog post. "Today, messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention, including many white Anglo southerners, decided the cross was more important than the flag. They decided our African-American brothers and sisters are more important than family heritage."
... the Cross and the Confederate flag cannot co-exist without one setting the other on fire...
Good to see you posting Bob.
Curious to see how this will unfold. For me I look at the flag as a symbol of trying to hold on to the idea there is white supremacy but I also see it as a form of freedom of speech. I don't think it should be displayed on federal or state propriety but I also don't think I have the right to force others not to display it.
I do stop by NT... Maybe once a week, to see if there's anything interesting on the FP. The "same-old, same-old" doesn't interest me any more. I complimented Buzz on his photo travelog.
This article is worth posting because when even the Southern Baptists, who were founded in slavery, come to the conclusion that the Confederate flag is incompatible with Christianity... that debate is over.
The SBC decision won't stop some folks from flying the Confederate flag, of course... but it's getting really, really hard for them to pretend that it is anything other than a call for White Supremacy. ... But then... we've all actually known that for a long time.
It's just a few hypocritical cowards who have thought it clever to pretend otherwise.
Fortunately a lot more people see the flag as a sign of southern pride than racism. You are always going to have some pinheads trying to strip them of their freedom and try to force thought control on them. More power to those that choose to fly their flags.
You know, Dean, that the automatic email that goes out when you post carries your original text?
So I know... and now everyone will know... that you originally posted
Fortunately a lot more people see the flag as a sign of southern pride than racism. You are always going to have some assholes trying to strip them of their freedom and try to force thought control on them. More power to those that choose to fly their flags.
So... you didn't have the courage to stick with "assholes" as a descriptor for the Southern Baptist Convention. You whimpered down to "pinheads". Such courage , Dean! You are a model for all the fine folk flying the Stars and Bars...
Like I said above...
It's just a few hypocritical cowards who have thought it clever to pretend ...
I see what you changed: " edit my own ing postings" was changed to " edit my own postings". You corrected a typographic error.
Do you think that "assholes" to "pinheads" is a typo?
Who said it had to be a typo?
Damn! I haven't gotten into a dust-up with your kind of person for a while, Hal... I'm out of practice. Here you are with a blatant "change the topic" maneuver... and I did not see it coming.
Gee... In a way that's reassuring. I'm not as cynical as I was just a few months ago, when I would have seen what you were doing in real-time.
I don't really care, of course.
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Just out of curiousity, Hal... Did you read the seed? You don't have to, of course. I realize that just getting through the title is a struggle.
It was you that changed the topic not Hal.
Too late, Dean... your "courage-meter" is pegged at zero.
After reconsidering I see I should have left it at assholes.
Too late, Dean... your "courage-meter" is pegged at zero.
Have you noticed, Dean? The hard-core Confederate flag folks are not posting here? They've let you do their dirty work...
There's nothing they can say. They claim to defend "Southern culture" so they could hardly insult the SBC -- call them assholes, for example. So they are silent. They let you take a fall.
Their courage-meters are pegged at zero, too. But that's nothing new.
They probably don't look to the SBC to make decisions for them. You probably care more about what the SBC says than they do. Come it think about it I've never seen them posting anything the SBC had to say.
The confederate flag represented the Confederate States of America, the world's first self avowed white supremacist nation - the country where ENDING slavery was illegal and unconstitutional.
Because your great great grandfather was a Johnny Reb soldier doesn't help with that.
People can fly it on their property if they want, I dont think it should be anything more than that.
People can fly it on their property if they want...
Of course. Free speech. They can also fly the Nazi flag... burn a cross from time to time... hang a nigger... Oh wait, no! That last one isn't allowed any more... I'll bet that really burns the folks who fly the Stars and Bars...
I'm glad that they are doing this... Maybe this will help stem the idea that the church sanctions use of the flag.
Good to see you, Bob!
Hi, Dowser
I'm glad that they are doing this
The "they" being the Southern Baptist Convention -- the folks who split off from the National Baptist Convention in 1845 expressly to defend slavery -- to find Biblical arguments to justify slavery.
Now even Southern Baptists can no longer stomach the Confederate flag. It is indeed a victory for genuine Christianity.
I don't really have much use for Baptists, nor for organized religiosity of any ilk. I was raised in the Deep South and spent my life amidst a gaggle of grim zombie like right wing Baptists. It was annoying as Hell. I have a very close ex who is still dealing with the aftermath of being brought up in that denomination. I do believe her problem is one of PRSD, a little known and discussed spin off from PTSD. On the other hand, I know many Baptists who I disagree with about everything but like immensely.
The Flag. Though I do think it a good idea to remove the Stars and Bars from flying on state or federal properties, I don't really have a problem with folks wearing it or flying it themselves. As far as genocide, oppression, empire, slavery, surveillance, and general nastiness the Stars and Bars have nothing on the Stars and Stripes. So, pick your poison.
I really wish I could give credit to whoever came up with this but I cannot track anything down. Pretty sure it is from Deviant Art This one amuses me:
I don't know how I missed this article but very interesting.
Tex, that flag is funny as all heck!
It is indeed. Here's another. From Regicollis at Deviant Art.