I've been thinking a lot about this @JemarTisby tweet. A short thread . . . https://twitter.com/JemarTisby/status/1349095130582704133

It’s worth nothing that some of Jemar’s critics insist on linking his most controversial views to Critical Race Theory rather than just engaging with his arguments.

But when it comes to last week’s insurrection, the “Jericho March” that preceded it, and inflammatory statements by prominent evangelicals like Metaxas and Hawley, I don’t see these same critics looking for connections to Christian nationalism.

To the contrary, @DennyBurk even went so far as to accuse @Tish_H_Warren of “bearing false witness” for linking the Capitol insurrection to white evangelicalism: https://twitter.com/DennyBurk/status/1347344673329852417?s=20

And here is @albertmohler yesterday: “What we are seeing is an effort to try to dismiss or to marginalize American evangelical Christianity by identifying it as some form of Christian nationalism. That's a very loaded term. We need to unload it, understand it, take it apart.”

If @albertmohler applied this same lens to the SBC's treatment of @JemarTisby's arguments, it would look like this:

“What we are seeing is an effort to try to dismiss or to marginalize *CRITIQUE OF* American evangelical Christianity by identifying it as some form of *CRITICAL RACE THEORY*. That's a very loaded term. We need to unload it, understand it, take it apart.”

Rather than assume that critics of white evangelicalism are motivated by (an uncharitable caricature of) Critical Race Theory, it would be better to engage with the substance of their claims.

This is simply loving neighbor by the Golden Rule. Evangelicals are rightly upset when others dismiss their words and practices in sweeping terms without close reading and analysis of them.

And rather than assume that it would be "against unity" to suggest that some white evangelicals are shaped more by political ideology than by Christian faith, consider first how this ideology is a massive obstacle to genuine unity.

The damage of the past five years to the evangelical witness—the white evangelical witness—is enormous, and it will take many more years to begin to repair.

That possibility is a long way off, but white evangelicals can begin with a more generous engagement with their critics from within and without.

The continued viability of evangelicalism in the United States will ultimately require a multiethnic witness in which white evangelicals have a seat at the table without insisting on hosting the meal.