Alt-Right Movement Condemned by Southern Baptist Convention

Alt-Right (from Urban Dictionary): Alt-Right, short for Alternative Right, is a set of far-right ideologies, groups and individuals whose core belief is that “white identity” is under attack by multicultural forces using “political correctness” and “social justice” to undermine white people.

“Characterized by heavy use of social media and online memes, Alt-Righters eschew “establishment” conservatism, skew young, and embrace white ethno-nationalism as a fundamental value. The Alternative Right is a term coined in 2008 by Richard Bertrand Spencer, who heads the white nationalist think tank known as the National Policy Institute, to describe a loose set of far-right ideals centered on “white identity” and the preservation of “Western civilization.”
 
“The alt-right is old racism for the tech-savvy generation.” -Giles Fraser

The old time religion is stepping into the 21st century.

Led by an African American pastor from Texas, younger members of the denomination, and Dr. Russell Moore who is president of the SBC Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) voted overwhelmingly to condemn the alt-right white supremacy movement.

During their convention that took place in Phoenix earlier this month, the nation’s largest protestant organization squashed down on the hate group, a move that was hailed by the SBC’s fellowship of African American pastors as a welcomed statement strongly condemning racism.

The resolution was a move, however, that did not come without controversy.

The vote for approval was followed by a standing ovation from more than 5,000 convention attendees, but the Washington Post reported that it had been a drawn-out process:

Dwight McKissic, a black pastor from Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, Tex., had introduced the resolution calling on the denomination to make it clear it had no sympathy for the alt-right.

“I saw people identifying themselves as Southern Baptist and members of the alt-right, so this is horrifying to me,” McKissic said. “I wanted the Southern Baptist Convention to make it very clear we have no relationship to them.”

… when the resolution on the alt-right failed to move forward [on Tuesday] because of objections to some of the wording, many younger members and evangelicals of color became upset. “I thought it would be a slam dunk, but I misread Southern Baptists apparently,” McKissic said.

The Atlantic noted:

Delay notwithstanding, the leaders’ sense of urgency was obvious. Gaines urged the body to let the world know that “we decry, we come against every kind of racism that there is.” He encouraged people to grant the new procedural request, allowing the committee to present the resolution again on Wednesday. Ballots went up all over the room—Gass said it looked like there wasn’t a single “no” vote. “The affirmative has it,” Gaines said, “praise the living God.”

The Post added:

The debate over the resolution highlights the divisions within the denomination. A majority of white evangelicals supported the election of President Trump. But many evangelicals of color have questioned that support and criticized Trump’s policies as harmful to minorities, if not racist.

While several Southern Baptist leaders have served on Trump’s evangelical advisory board, many younger Southern Baptists — including the denomination’s Ethics and Religious Liberty president Russell Moore, 45 — vocally opposed his candidacy.

Indeed, Moore — the ethics leader of the denomination — balked at supporting Trump due to “serious moral problems” and, unlike some who resisted Trump early on but fell into line after he became the Republican nominee, Moore never capitulated. (As I worked on this article, new demeaning tweets from the president mocking Morning Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski hit the airwaves.)

Because of his lack of support for Trump, mainstay Baptist leaders went after Moore and tried to remove him from his ethics position. Just as with the Republican Party, it was obvious Southern Baptists were at a juncture of old versus new with younger members leading the charge for change.

The era of Trump has seen a battle for the heart and soul of the Southern Baptist Convention. Passage of the alt-right resolution should give courage to those who continue to hold the ethical line as politics creeps more and more into places of worship. Meanwhile, the disapproval of alt-right leader Richard Spender, seen in a series of tweets as he followed the SBC’s on-again, off-again resolution discussions, appeared to confirm that the Southern Baptist Convention had done the right thing.