Whiteness on Display: JD Greear and the Southern Baptist Convention on Homosexuality and Slavery [Brandon Wrencher]

Last updated on: August 16, 2018 at 2:21 pm by Brandon Wrencher

Whiteness on Display: JD Greear and the Southern Baptist Convention on Homosexuality and Slavery [Brandon Wrencher] 2018-08-16T14:21:50-05:00 Brandon Wrencher

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This is not about homosexuality. It’s about the Lordship of Jesus Christ. The Bible offends every generation in different ways. Preaching against homosexuality in our day is about as popular as preaching against racism and slavery in Charleston, South Carolina in 1861. And I’m sure the politically correct people back then said ‘you know what? You’re just creating a lot of waves that are unnecessary…just preach the gospel!’

This is the commentary of mega-church pastor of The Summit, JD Greear. JD made the comments at the recent Southern Baptist Convention leadership summit on Ethics and Religious Liberty which addressed human sexuality**.**

JD’s remarks have fallen prey to the typical media infatuation with sound-bites, propaganda and just flat-out lack of research. And this is partly why I waited to respond. It seems that the media sources I’ve read overlook the full context of JD’s words. Most were so appalled by his comparison between homosexuality and slavery that they missed the fact the comparison was within a larger point JD was making about the need for prophetic preaching. Add to this that JD and the SBC are obviously aware of their pro-slavery past. JD wrote about this troubled past within a blog series on homosexuality in 2012. And having known JD personally and professionally, dabbling in politics from the pulpit is one of the last tricks in his bag. A common perspective I’ve heard him share is: “I might be wrong on my views toward various governmental policies; I’m not wrong about the gospel. I don’t want my thoughts on the former to keep people from hearing me on the latter.” Of course, this is exactly what happened.

The responses range the spectrum. For most conservative evangelicals JD’s comments were preaching to the choir. For others this strategy of comparing anti-gay marriage leadership to the abolitionist movement has become a trump card of sorts to give conservative evangelicals the moral high ground. JD, a contemporary John Brown?

Moderate and progressive voices chimed in too. Some, like Rachel Held Evans, commented on the irony of the SBC comparing their anti-marriage equality fight to abolitionism given the denomination’s troubled pro-slavery history. Others addressed another irony: that the Southern Baptists would hold a conference on sexuality where every speaker was straight. Even our own Zachary Hoag correctly exposed the illogical nature of JD’s comments – discrimination is comparable to liberation, really? Hoag suggests that perhaps folks like JD would do well to have a gay friend or two.

It wouldn’t have hurt for JD to have tipped his hat to the historical irony of his remarks. While at it he could have also portrayed at least a bit more public humility. Of course, having put on the panel one (or more) LGBT persons or the closest thing you can get to an ally in the SBC would have also scored the SBC some points. But ultimately, I don’t think the real problem with JD’s comments was historical myopia or political hastiness; or that his comments exposed a lack of representation at the conference and on the panel. I’m behind JD on the need for more prophetic preaching. His preaching and the ministries of The Summit Church have provided good prophetic critiques of evangelicalism’s tendency to make faith only about personal piety divorced from mercy and compassion.

But that doesn’t get JD and the SBC off the hook, though. I believe that these media commentaries and the issues they’ve raised are symptoms of a deeper crisis, a crisis of imagination. JD and the SBC showcase a displacing imagination. JD draws on the experiences of another to make an analogy about preaching. But his is a distorted use of their experiences.

First, he distorts the African American experience. Abolitionist preaching in the 19th century was not a matter of popularity; it was a matter of life or death. And not just any kind of death. This was the racist, torturous disposal of black bodies and even white allies. Neither JD’s nor any other white male in the SBC’s life is on the line for “preaching against homosexuality.” JD and other SBC pastors might lose a few members here and there, maybe receive some public criticism, but never will they endure a torturous death.

He also distorts the experience of the LGBT community. Just how does one go about preaching against homosexuality? How do you preach against an attraction that countless LGBT persons spend years denying, wishing and praying away to no avail? The pejorative and inaccurate use of the word “homosexuality” escapes JD. Maybe he has in mind something like this: “Don’t be attracted to who you are attracted!” Good luck with that one.

JD draws upon the narratives of African American and LGBT experiences, but he does this by displacing these communities; their voices are rendered silent. African Americans and LGBT persons are at once made visible and invisible. And the character of their visible invisibility is mangled by both JD’s distortions and few words given to their stories. The irony is that JD’s distorted brevity – his “silence,” if you will – is an approval, announcing theological intelligibility and homiletical courage. The silence of the African American and LGBT communities is a refusal, announcing inferiority and incapacity. JD obviously cannot imagine a theological appropriation of their stories and experiences as authentic theological reflection. But instead of not speaking, or speaking with hesitation, he speaks for them!

Of course I believe that JD unconsciously wields this displacing imagination, but this only makes matters worse. Displacement is wielded inside of JD’s theological discourse on the prophetic meaning of Jesus’ lordship, unmasking the depths of the impoverishment of Western Christian formation. Theology aids and abets JD’s displacing imagination. His theology and politics are bound together. Turns out he can’t separate the two so easily.

So how is JD so confident he’s right about the gospel?

This is the displacing power of whiteness, of the racial imagination on display.

It’s just that this time it was the Southern Baptists; next time who knows who it could be …

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