SWBTS President Adam Greenway Says Criticism of Seminary Presidents’ Statement Denouncing Critical Race Theory is ‘Simply Based on Misunderstandings’

Adam W. Greenway is president of Southwestern Seminary and Scarborough College and professor of evangelism and apologetics. | Facebook/Adam W. Greenway

Adam W. Greenway, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and one of six members of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Council of Seminary Presidents, has defended the group’s statement on critical race theory and intersectionality, dismissing much of the criticism around it as emotional misunderstandings.

He also noted that the statement was supported by SBC President J.D. Greear as one that reflected “a biblical view of justice.”

“First, some criticisms of the CSP statement are simply based upon misunderstandings. The CSP statement has been treated by some like a Rorschach test, where ultimate meaning is determined by the subjective experience of the recipient, not by the objective exposition of the statement. A common refrain I have heard and read from critics has been, ‘In rejecting CRT/I, the CSP statement feels like a denial of systemic racism.’ I emphasize ‘feels like’ because those words are the crux of the criticism,” wrote Greenway, who also leads Scarborough College and teaches evangelism and apologetics, in an open letter to his academic community Tuesday.

“Feelings and sentiments are undeniably visceral, but not unimpeachably veridical. Specifically, the CSP statement not only did not deny systemic racism, but reaffirmed denominational condemnations of it,” he explained, calling out critics who, “among other things, asserted that we were reaffirming our commitment to whiteness, assumed that we are propagating fear to maintain control, announced that we are complicit with evil, and ascribed to us the pejorative label of theological architects of American slavery.”

“I want to make this point as charitably but honestly as I can: misconstruing the CSP statement’s rejection of CRT/I as being synonymous with or code for the SBC seminary presidents denying systemic racism is bearing false witness,” he said. “Furthermore, when feelings become all-consuming and paramount in determining courses of action irrespective of the facts contained in plain language, we commit the fallacy of eisegesis, or reading into texts meanings we feel or interpretations we want to impose.”

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SOURCE: Christian Post, Leonardo Blair