Читать книгу The Craft of Innovative Theology. Argument and Process онлайн

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The SBC’s powerful resolutions and inactions over many years have had such a lasting impact in large part because they expressed their view of African Americans as racially stigmatized beings – as being less human than whites in the eyes of God, and thus as being unworthy of Christian brotherhood, charity, and the universal application of the Golden Rule. The unforeseen consequence for the SBC, however, was that many African Americans also came to distrust the denomination, saw it as a racist organization, and have not accepted its change of heart on matters of racial equality.

One should not underestimate the damage the SBC’s ideological affiliation with white supremacy has had on its ability to engender trust and lessen its racist stigma among African Americans Christians. Belief in white racial superiority clouded the SBC’s belief in 1995 that African Americans quickly and without question would accept the SBC’s “right hand of fellowship” following the SBC apology. One of the lessons of atonement and reconciliation processes, however, may well be that they only work when aggrieved parties see a change of heart both in words and in institutional deeds, or else the atonement and reconciliation process may not work at all.