[continued from previous message]   
      
   society”.   
      
   That statement on race caused several Black pastors to break with the SBC   
   and triggered high-level meetings about whether the Black evangelical   
   church has a place in the convention whose leadership had in some cases   
   come out in support of Donald Trump.   
      
   According to Pew Research, Black evangelicals made up about 14% of all   
   African American Christians, while 85% of Americans who identify as   
   Southern Baptist are white.   
      
   In a subsequent statement, SBC presidents said they recognized the   
   “reality of racism on both the personal and systemic or structural level”   
   but still see critical race theory as incompatible with Baptist teaching.   
      
   The SBC has been tracking right since the 1970s when a backlash to   
   desegregation – Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” – was hitched on an   
   anti-abortion sentiment to which the convention had previously been   
   relatively neutral. That effectively led to the rise of the religious   
   right in the US – a phenomenon that still has huge repercussions today   
   especially as America looks set to lose federally guaranteed abortion   
   rights.   
      
   “It just so happened that abortion was the new issue and the one that   
   worked very effectively to create a voting bloc that was so powerful that   
   a white southern evangelical president Jimmy Carter lost to Ronald Reagan   
   because white evangelicals came to see Reagan as reflecting their values   
   more than one of their own,” said Moslener.   
      
   Carter ultimately left the Baptist church over its refusal to ordain women   
   but the issue cemented the relationship between white evangelicals and the   
   Republican party.   
      
   Even if the SBC deals with its sexual assault problem, Moslener says, and   
   comes out to say we honor women and will give them equal roles of   
   authority, “Even if they did that, and we see places where evangelical   
   feminism is emerging from the shadows, they still haven’t dealt with the   
   legacy of racism in the church. They’re still only getting to a piece of   
   it.”   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)