A Friendly Reply to Jacob Lupfer on the SBC & Race
My friend Jacob Lupfer has written an article criticizing present day SBC leaders for their fashionable celebration of moderate professors who were prophetic on race, but who are now considered theologically untouchable because of the Conservative Resurgence.
Particularly, he decries that modern day SBC leaders celebrate the progressive racial views of such professors as Henlee Barnette and Foy Valentine, meanwhile, the theological and political basis on which these views were held would find such persons unwelcome in today’s SBC life.
Lupfer notes:
He finishes his critique by noting:
Is Lupfer right? Is the SBC’s celebration of such men dishonest? Is it wrong of us to applaud men whose views were considered progressive in the 1960s all the while disavowing their theological heritage today?
Lupfer’s argument actually provides the answer. He says that “You can’t have it both ways, unless you really want to argue that old school moderates were right on race only, and wrong on everything else.”
I think it is right to applaud such men as Foy Valentine and Henlee Barnette for their prophetic stance on race in their time, especially considering it was politically and denominationally unpopular to do so. Furthermore, no leader of the Conservative Resurgence that I’m aware of, is seeking to expunge every jot and tittle of the historical record, as though nothing of Valentine and Barnette’s tenures are redeemable because of their progressivism. There’s nothing illogical about holding the belief that certain individuals were right on some issues while wrong on a host of others.
Lupfer incorrectly correlates being right on race issues with meaning that their progressive theological and political views must be right on others as well. Think of the converse of such an argument. Lupfer, who is no conservative, would surely deny that because conservatives are right on Issue X, they must be correct on all others, too. I think that’s a step too far in the logical sequence. He probably would, too.
All that to say, as much I value Lupfer’s insights and analysis on other topics, I don’t think his either/or proposition is accurate or necessary to adopt when praising a minority of progressive Southern Baptists who were heroically prophetic on race in the 1960s.