Physician, Heal Thyself

I’m in the middle of a bit of a spiritual conundrum. It’s not a theological or doctrinal conundrum, but one that exists expressly because of my personal conviction that my chosen theological tradition is the most Scripturally accurate and intellectually honest position. I have to contend with the fact that, while the people whom I personally worship with don’t qualify, the broader conservative Protestant church to which I belong, as it’s represented in media and culture, is collectively failing at the following instruction:

For what credit is it if you sin and are mistreated and endure it? But if you do good and suffer and so endure, this finds favor with God.
—1 Peter 2:20

I watched this weekend as Megan Basham, the evangelical Daily Wire reporter who attacked another journalist for covering the “aligned community” started by noted antisemite Andrew Torba’s co-author, Andrew Isker, and his podcast co-host who pines for the days before the Civil Rights Act, accused Irwin Ince, a black Presbyterian theologian, of advocating for segregation. This accusation was based on nothing more than advertisements for one “black fellowship dinner” in the middle of a multi-day Black History Month event at a church. It’s okay if you’re not comfortable with such an event, but what happened is that Christian social media took a hit-tweet from someone who is the ultimate hypocrite on the issue, and proceeded to come down on Ince and another black Presbyterian theologian, Anthony Bradley, who defended him in an emotional, angry, and at times imprudent, response to Basham. Christian social media came down faster and with more vitriolic outrage than I’ve ever seen them react with to the people in Basham’s immediate circle of American Reformer (doing business as The Center for Baptist Leadership) who explicitly call for real and permanent, society-wide segregation.

“Aligned community” resident CJay Engel, responding to another of Basham’s associates, Jack Posobiec, who posted the neo-Nazi code 1488 on multiple occasions.

There is a genuine sickness in conservative evangelical culture when it comes to the topic of ethnicity, and I have a difficult spiritual conundrum on my hands because of it. My predicament pales in comparison to my non-white brothers and sisters who remain faithful to their theological convictions in this environment, but it’s still a real predicament. How do I boldly proclaim the gospel in public with the knowledge that all it takes is one question about my religious affiliation to be in a potentially insurmountable rut of being tied to a tradition that, on the macro, cultural level, is driving itself off of the cliff of grievance politics?

My church gave me an evangelistic pickleball ministry that starts next month, and I couldn’t be more excited about it. Yet, I’m not entirely sure how I should respond if a visitor brings up, in a negative context, the fact that our church belongs to the Southern Baptist Convention. Because the SBC wants to have the power of a denomination, with none of the ecclesial responsibility—namely, disciplining individual pastors who advocate for the most abhorrent beliefs (unless, of course, those beliefs are left-coded)—we are, at this point, the only sizable Protestant body where the worst far-right actors, including those openly calling for real segregation, can openly operate. How many mea culpas will it require to convince someone that I’m not one of those Southern Baptists?