Southern Baptists and American Slavery

On June 20, 1995, the Southern Baptist Convention adopted a resolution apologizing for once supporting American slavery, the vile practice which actually created the religious organization in the first place.

Southern Baptist clergy once believed slavery was moral, and they wanted to ensure they, too, could own slaves when the organization was founded under its first president, William Bullein Johnson, in 1845. Splitting from national Baptist organizations, the new Southern Baptist clergy saw slavery and demeaning intolerance of other ethnicities as rooted in the Bible.

Experts vary on how many African slaves were killed or died prematurely because of outright murder, torture or inhumane ship travel. The estimates range in the millions. The Southern Baptist Convention through its own admission once supported this mass murder of African slaves and then did not even apologize until 1995 because of what we can assume were lingering racist views among its leaders and parishioners.

This is all old information of evil for sure. Why rehash it? It is important to remind ourselves always how all religions—Christianity included—have been used to support the most violent acts imaginable. It is especially important to remind ourselves of this history in Oklahoma after the recent incident in which 24 state legislators publicly refused to accept a special centennial edition of the Quran, the main text of Islam, from the state’s Muslim community.

Earlier, the legislators, virtually all Republicans, had received centennial copies of the Bible from, you guessed it, the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma, which is part of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Media reports tell us State Rep. Rex Duncan (R-Sand Springs), who declined his Quran, equates Islam with violence. He is obviously referring at least partially to the September 11, 2001 terrorists attacks in which approximately 3,000 people were killed by Islamic terrorists. Yet the Southern Baptists in the nineteenth-century used the Bible to validate their support for American slavery, which resulted in far more deaths than the 2001 attacks. As I have mentioned before, we can also reconsider the Crusades and those European Christian leaders who supported Hitler.

These legislators bring attention to their own particular religions when they attack another religion. Duncan lists his religious affiliation as Methodist in his legislative profile. Does he speak for most Methodists in Oklahoma? Does the Methodist Church believe Islam is a violent religion, too?

The obvious once again: There are certainly extremist Islamic terrorists who distort their religion to validate their actions just like extremist Christian fanatics and sects have done throughout history. We need to go after these terrorists with all our resources. But this is a minuscule number of people when compared to all Muslims. The religion itself does not promote violence anymore than Christianity.

Oklahoma will never move forward until its leadership actively condemns these political stunts by Duncan and the other legislators as damaging to the state and its residents. How can our schools and colleges even begin to teach students about different cultures, languages and ethnicities when its political leadership presents such basic misinformation?

Meanwhile, the Quran controversy continues. State Rep. Mike Reynolds (R-Oklahoma City), who also refused a Quran, said he wants the Governor’s Ethnic American Advisory Council reconfigured or disbanded. The council presented the Qurans to legislators. They were paid for by private donations from the state’s Muslim community, which has 30,000 to 50,000 members.

According to a media report, Reynolds said, “Islam simply has not played a role in our state’s or country’s history.” Yeah, right. Here is the reality. Reynolds’ profile shows he is an ordained deacon and a member at Southern Hills Baptist Church. Do Reynolds’ views reflect those of his church?

So it goes in Oklahoma these days.