From a Columbus Dispatch article on the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting, at which they kicked out a church that actually dared to treat LGBT people as human beings and expressed concern over a report that the SBC could lose 50% of its population by 2050 because they’re seen as old, white, and conservative:

[Johnny] Hunt, who was re-elected to a second one-year term yesterday, said, “One of the reasons — and it is a true reason — is we need to really join with our brothers of ethnicity in this convention.”

Brothers of ethnicity? Really? That phrase is probably the key to the SBC’s problems – and the reason they won’t get fixed.

First, the fact that he ascribes “ethnicity” to non-white people is probably a pretty big part of the reason that people who aren’t old southern racists aren’t too keen on joining a Southern Baptist Church. It’s apparent that to him, white people aren’t “brothers of ethnicity”; only people with darker skin have ethnicity. If there’s a more obvious statement that the SBC considers whiteness the norm and non-whiteness as Other, I’d like to see it.

Second, the fact that he only seems to think that the SBC needs to reach out to “brothers of ethnicity” is also telling. Gen-Xers and Millennials, with a few exceptions like the followers of the abusive Mark Driscoll up in Seattle, seem to have picked up on the obvious fact that women can do anything men can do, including lead churches. Yet the SBC seems trapped in the 1950s, when men were supposed to be the leaders and women the followers. The rest of the Western world has woken up to the basic fact of gender equality, at least in principle; why do conservative churches lag so far behind

Third, unrelated to that phrase – is it possible that there’s a relationship between the SBC kicking out, without any apparent controversy, a church that at least partially acknowledged the humanity of LGBT people, and the report indicating that the SBC is in decline? Is it possible that younger folks like me are realizing that anti-gay attitudes – by which I mean any notion that LGBT individuals aren’t entitled to acceptance and equality at all levels of our society, including in the church – are contrary to the love of Jesus Christ, just as racism and sexism are? Is it possible that churches that still hold such attitudes are going to shrink, while churches whose attitudes are more in line with Christianity are going to grow?

One can only hope.