Back to our roots

TXVET58 -
I, sir, am the Southern Baptist on this discussion thread and I will offer you my opinion on it.
A peculiar odor, yes. I am not proud of that particular part of our heritage. Slavery, though never condemned in the New Testament, is a repressing of God's people. The reason for the split of the SB's from the Triennial convention WAS an issue of that particular organization refusing to support a slave-holding missionary from Georgia who wished to minister to the Cherokee nation. The southerners felt that the convention was dictating policy and that is why they split. This was, as I believe you noted, in 1845.
Mr. Weaver is far more qualified than I to answer Civil War topics, but if memory serves me right, economics and State rights were really the root of the War Between the States. Slavery was an issue of economics AT THAT TIME.
Now, as we jump ahead 140 years, to say that most SB's are "rascist white supremists" is a very broad statement. I don't have the figures to confirm or deny your statement. I will say that I have lived in a few different areas of the country and I find that prejudices in general are wide-sweeping and those that hold these bigoted attitudes tend to be loud, aggressive people. I lived in Detroit, Michigan for a decade or better and found that each race and nationality formed separate communities. The Poles had Hamtramck, the Arabs had Dearborn, the Caldeans were between 6-mile Road and 8 -mile road,...it goes on and on. In this area, their was a great deal of prejudism against every single sect.
I also understand that your own state of Texas has some real problems with bigotry against Mexicans, legal OR non-legal immigrants. Boston has long had friction between the Irish and Italians. The LA race riots showed a strong animosity toward Korean-Americans.
I can only speak for my own congregation. It has been a long standing policy that NNE is turned away from our doors. We have one black family that attends, regularly I might add, and is generally well-liked. There are two black SB churches in my area and I know of no whites that attend their services. In fact, the reason that the Southern Baptist Convention represents the largest denominational sect in the US is because of the huge population of blacks that attend Southern Baptist churches.

I guess my point is that racism is a cultural issue, not a doctrinal one. Peculiar odor, hmmm, I keep thinking back to that. A shaky way to start a denomination. Then again, taking land from the Native Americans was a strange way to expand the Land of Liberty. The Spanish-American war was a strange way to establish state liberty to Texas.
There was a prevailing air of State rights over Federal rights in the years before the Civil War. The original SBC was made up of men from that society. The times, at least in my community, have changed a great deal. We lost the war, we kept the convention. The emancipation occured.
The whole gist of "back to our roots" was to establish a set of general statements that defined Baptist doctrine. I'm not proud of the slavery that existed in the WHOLE nation before the mid 1800's. I am not proud of the prejudiced immigration laws against Chinese during the westward railroad expansion. I am not proud of the Asian concentration camps in our country during WWII. I am not always very pleased with the SBC, or it's literature, or the Fundamentalist views that are growing in that convention. I AM, however, proud of my church. I AM proud of my community. I AM proud of my Baptist heritage, the way my Sunday school teachers educated me, the manners I learned at my Southern Baptist high scool.
I know how the rest of the nation looks at southerners. I see Hollywood movies and if you want a cop to be "dumb" just give him a southern accent. If you want a family to appear backwards, put banjo music in the background. However, sir, please do not make such a sweeping statement that pulls me into a pigeon-hole. I was raised in a SB home with good parents, respected by any race or creed that lived here. My roots go deeper than the denomination; they go back to my parents and grandparents, Elijah Craig, Thomas Helwys, Christ, Noah and Adam.
I hope this sufficiently answers your inquiry.

May God Bless you

- Clint