Jeff

I don’t know how I missed this, but I ran across it today, posted by someone else online. Apparently, a lot of us missed this. But the former Dean of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Hershael York, partook in a serious racial white guilt ceremony while he was senior pastor of Buck Run Baptist Church in Frankfort, KY.

This was right on the heels of the Southern Baptist Convention’s infatuation with “racial reconciliation” and the George Floyd debacle. Churches around the nation—like JD Greear’s Summit Church—were marching in black pride parades alongside transgender activists and Black Lives Matter while praising the LGBTQ movement for their leadership in civil rights.

And as Southern Baptists were confused, being led every which direction, following the racialized riots spreading around the nation, many looked to the academic leadership of the Christian community for guidance.

Apparently, these leaders were licking the boots and washing the feet of Marxists pushing Critical Race Theory in our churches.

And here, Hershael York was caught up right in the middle of it.

Here, this article in Kentucky Today, frames it as an act of “gratitude” and “humility.” The entire Critical Race Theory era of the Southern Baptist Convention, which was dubbed “racial reconciliation” by its founders—Russell Moore, Curtis Woods, Jarvis Williams, etc.—the reality is that it is nothing more than a submission ritual.

The article describes York as lining up four black men on the stage—Jarvis Williams, Curtis Woods, Vic Sholar, and Kevin Jones—as he passed by them on his hands and knees, and washed their feet.

Purportedly, the men just sat there and sucked it up. There is no way to take this other than York performing a racial penance ritual—penance for being white.

I’m really no fan of York or anyone in the SBC seminaries. And it takes a lot to surprise me, but even I didn’t think York would go this far.

And what baffles me most is that people can see this and think: “I see nothing wrong with this.”

Um, well, first of all, performing penance for someone else’s sin—and to someone who wasn’t sinned against—is unbiblical. The entire concept of collective guilt, inherited grievance, skin privilege, and racially assigned obligations is unbiblical.

Yet, according to the article, York prayed during that sermon asking God to grant them a commitment to the gospel so that “we would not be afraid to say we repent of the sins of our fathers.”

Repent of the sins of our fathers.

Let that sink in.

That’s theological heresy—one cannot repent of the sins of another. And particularly asking God to forgive them for the sins of the dead? Well, that’s borderline necromancy. It’s eerily similar to Catholics praying and performing penance for those in purgatory.

And personally, it should have been a disqualifying act.

But it’s the Southern Baptist Convention, where you’re only held accountable if you vote Republican.