Black Baptist Groups Announce Plan to Stand Apart from Conservatives and White Liberals

By Gary Nguyen --
14 Oct 2018 --

They refuse to be guided by either the liberal left or the hard right.

Representatives of National Baptist Convention USA and Progressive National Baptist Convention (PNBC), both black Baptist denominations, declared on October 9 they will forge their own path which will be distinct from both conservatives and white liberals[/tweetit]. The representatives, both of them pastors in their respective denominations, said they rejected “politics of fear” and the issues of spirituality and race must not be ignored as both of them work to make their constituents come out and vote. The pastors were at Washington's National Press Club to discuss the coming midterm elections.

Black Baptist Groups Announce Plan to Stand Apart from Conservatives and White Liberals[/tweetthis]

The declaration released by Reverend Calvin Butts, the social justice chair of the PNBC denomination, and President Timothy Stewart, said they were not present for the use of the liberal left, to be shot towards the conservatives at the tip of a metaphorical ideological spear, and also not for the use of the religious right who use their morally bankrupt spirituality to hide their hysterical hypocrisy and rampant racism. The Reverend Matthew V. Johnson Senior, the Birmingham, Alabama pastor, and writer of the declaration, earlier told the media that both white liberals and religious conservatives have concentrated on opposite poles of hot-button subjects like LGBTQ rights and abortion while giving important issues of the race a miss.

The PNBC is a well known historical denomination founded by Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., who formed the group after splintering away from National Baptist Convention during the 1960s. This happened after the National Baptist Convention expressed opposition to civil rights protests.

During the news conference, the Reverend Johnson said it is to note that Democrats and others who have protested against Justice Brett Kavanaugh's nomination displayed a certain absence of concern about the then nominee's record concerning race issues. The indifference, Johnson pointed out, forms the crux of the problem which the two denominations have with the liberal left. The presence of Reverend Amos Brown, the NBC's social justice chair, demonstrated the senior group's support for its younger sibling.

Not surprised that black churches want to chart their own course in today's times. Unlike white evangelicals, they've always understood that the status quo is not the promised land. Also a gutsy move calling out White, Falwell et al as heretics. https://t.co/BXLMreSHCH
— Poltergeist Padre (@madpadre1) October 11, 2018

The pastors took aim at the clergy representing the religious right, like Paula White and Franklin Graham. Reverend Butts dubbed them “hypocrites” and “heretics.” Many PNBC members have earlier spoken out against the Trump administration earlier in 2018 over policies they believed to be inimical to colored people and poorer sections of society. The pastors, however, did not blame President Donald Trump for the present racial division. They, however, said that the present administration has worsened the situation.