Pastor Ralph West is founder and senior pastor of The Church Without Walls in Houston, Texas. | Facebook/The Church Without Walls
The Rev. Ralph West, founder and senior pastor of The Church Without Walls in Houston, Texas, says he is cutting ties with the Southern Baptist Convention over a recent statement from the denomination’s Council of Seminary Presidents denouncing critical race theory and intersectionality as incompatible with their beliefs.
West, who ministers to more than 24,000 families in three locations each week, made the announcement in an op-ed published in the Baptist Standard, which called on the seminary presidents to repent for bringing “division and confusion to the body of Christ” with their statement.
Pastor Ralph West is founder and senior pastor of The Church Without Walls in Houston, Texas. | Facebook/The Church Without Walls
The Rev. Ralph West, founder and senior pastor of The Church Without Walls in Houston, Texas, says he is cutting ties with the Southern Baptist Convention over a recent statement from the denomination’s Council of Seminary Presidents denouncing critical race theory and intersectionality as incompatible with their beliefs.
West, who ministers to more than 24,000 families in three locations each week, made the announcement in an op-ed published in the Baptist Standard, which called on the seminary presidents to repent for bringing “division and confusion to the body of Christ” with their statement.
In this undated file photo, the Rev. Dwight McKissic of Arlington speaks in chapel at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. | SWBTS / Margie Dolch, File
Prominent Southern Baptist Convention Pastor Dwight McKissic Sr. has retracted his support of a controversial statement from SBC seminary heads that denounced racism and critical race theory. He believes the denomination could use it to rescind a CRT resolution it had approved earlier.
In an op-ed published in SBC Voices Monday, McKissic, who detailed his experience with discrimination in the SBC, argued that the statement from the Council of Seminary Presidents denouncing racism and CRT as incompatible with their beliefs is paving the way for the denomination to rescind Resolution 9 “On Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality,” which was passed with much dissent in the summer of 2019.
Marshal Ausberry is president of the National African American Fellowship of the Southern Baptist Convention, first vice president of the SBC and pastor of Antioch Baptist Church in Fairfax Station, Virginia. | Facebook/Marshal L. Ausberry
The head of the National African American Fellowship of the Southern Baptist Convention says he will soon meet with the leaders of the denomination’s most prominent seminaries to “discuss our concerns” regarding their recent statement denouncing racism but declaring critical race theory incompatible with their beliefs.
Marshal Ausberry said in a statement: “I have been in conversations with SBC leadership and with the leadership of the Council of Seminary Presidents of the SBC. We will be meeting in the near future to further discuss our concerns that affect all ethnic groups in the SBC about the breadth and depth of their recent statement and published comments. As brothers in Christ, we of all people should be able to dialogue and resol
Critical race theory debate likely to continue
The Conservative Baptist Network applauded the seminary presidents just as they had praised President Donald Trump earlier this year when he banned critical race theory training for federal workers. Trump s decision came on the heels of a summer filled with protests against police brutality and heightened awareness about systemic racism.
Opposition to critical race theory is one of the reasons the grassroots Southern Baptist group launched in February. They want the seminary presidents to go further, including helping to rescind a critical race theory resolution the convention passed in 2019. We look forward expectantly to the presidents cooperation with us in rescinding Resolution 9 and to their taking concrete actions toward the elimination of these unbiblical doctrines and others like them, such as Black Liberation Theology, from our SBC seminaries, the network said in a news release.