I, unfortunately, have decided that I’m going to have to leave my church due to their unrelenting BLM support and (of course) racism towards anyone who isn’t openly supporting it. When I joined this church in 2012 it was great, it was extremely spiritual and wasn’t extremist in any sort of way. They were very open and accepting of all beliefs, and I never felt ashamed to be there.
Now the entire church is only discussing how white people need to pray on our inherent evil towards minorities. One of our ministers is a black woman who was very accepting until BLM first came into existence. After that she set up a church protest to go protest the execution of a black man who had raped and murdered a woman and her child. I was NOT down with participating with that, and really considered leaving after that incident but ultimately decided to stay. From there she and another minister made it known she was not a Trump fan and now all of the leaders there are calling all white people racist. They also just recently said even other races were racist if they didn’t support BLM.
It wasnt super obvious until these past few months, but from then on things kept becoming more extremist and unaccepting. This is not a place where people can celebrate differences in thought or beliefs.
Have any of you guys had to leave a church or a community due to the rising racism of BLM / all the other shit going on? I honestly never thought I’d be hard pressed into leaving, but I don’t feel peace or love there anymore. I don’t even know how to go about finding another place to worship because I’m sure my church isn’t the only place where this is happening.
Hi I'm a pastor and I hope I can give you a balanced take on this.
I would say that any time you have a church whose agenda is clearly based on something other than the Gospel of Jesus Christ then you need to leave. There are a number of churches whose expression of the Christian faith I respect, and of course I have my respectful disagreements with a lot of them as well, but that's ok because we believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I don't want to get too theological but even as a conservative Presbyterian I am happy to call my Catholic brothers and sisters co-laborers in the gospel for that reason; most of them anyway.
Having said that, even conservative churches right now are seeing the tenets of Critical Race Theory seep into the church. Most pastors do not understand it; even the Southern Baptist Convention last year passed Resolution 9, which essentially affirmed the validity of CRT as "analytical tools." Paul tells us that "A little leaven leavens the whole lump" (Gal. 5:9). This stuff is in my denomination too, but not in a large part.
I understand why my denomination conducted a study committee on race a few years ago and decided that we as a denomination needed to repent of identifiable sins that have happened since our establishment in the 70's. Even that recently there were churches that just straight up excluded black brothers and sisters. It was wrong then and the guys that were around then recognize that now. But those of us who have tried to throw the flag in saying that such movements as BLM are Marxist front groups were scoffed at, basically because they believe that Marx is our bogeyman... and then the Patrisse Cullors video came out the other day in which she admitted as much.
I believe that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant word of God. So when Paul writes "Think of others as more important than yourselves" (Phil. 2:3) - and he is writing basically to fellow believers, as though to say, those of you in the Christian community should serve one another sacrificially, that means that I need to think of my fellow black brothers and be willing to serve them sacrificially. We can talk at length about what that means in a positive sense. But I know for certain that linking arms with Black Lives Matter does NOT serve anyone, least of all my black brothers and sisters.
Now I am not convinced that there is what most people call "systemic" injustice. I have YET to hear anyone define for me what "systemic" means. I will agree that there has been historic injustice. But I don't know what systemic means. Whatever the case, I would counsel those who want to serve their black brothers and sisters out of Gospel-oriented concern should go find a Missionary Baptist or National Baptist church in the city and talk to the deacons there and see what kind of local service organizations they are linked up to. Use discernment to make sure they're not in the tank with BLM. Or better yet, go down to your local rescue mission and serve food or just talk to some people that are looking for hope. Take time to mentor an at-risk youth. Become a tutor. I didn't want to get too political but we all know that before white libs started destroying statues they decided the destroy the black family first. The statues are just a fig leaf for their generations of failure at "helping" the black community. We can clean up statues but we can also clean up society, at least a litlte bit, by serving some kids who otherwise don't stand a chance.
I do not like the way that most "white evangelical" (I hate that term with a passion) churches are handling what they deem to be "racial reconciliation." It's basically a show to them and they essentially want to do racial reconciliation on their terms. Ministers are at the center of the black community in a phenomenal way. And for the most part they don't like riots and foolishness.
Anyway I hope this helps you. You should find a Gospel-centered, Bible-believing church. If I knew more where you lived I could suggest one since I know what to look for to tell you they're not wacky.
Black churches and ministers are a fallen shitshow. You will know them by their fruit. Well, what is the fruit of black churches? Violence, destruction, fornication, drugs, fatherlessness etc.
The ones who make the most noise are the ones that get the attention, like Al Sharpton (who I don't really consider a minister), Freddie Haynes, Talbert Swan, dudes like that. But I think most of them are more like Jasper Williams who has been working tirelessly to get black men to take responsibility for their lives. Remember the guy who preached Aretha Franklin's funeral and said "black lives will never matter until black lives start mattering to black people!" He got criticized for it and then doubled down on his comments in a presser later on. But nobody can criticize his track record of trying to preach righteousness to the black community. Terry Anderson got shared the other day on twitter and he's a strong voice as well. He doesn't like Trump at all - most of them don't and probably won't because they're generations deep in the democrat BS - but they're not overly political voices. They are more solicitous for their own communities than they are angry about Donald Trump.
Most of them don't go around blaming whites for their cultural baggage. The message that I hear most often from their pulpit is "graduate high school, pull your pants up, get a job, come to church, keep your ___ in your pants, be a man, and marry that woman." Blacks are even more opposed to feminism and homosexuality than most conservative white pastors; of course that will never get reported because the media needs to make it look like their gung-ho with all the degenerate behavior that's out there.