Black Southern Baptist pastors criticize slavery memorial at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky

A plaque in the lobby of Broadus Chapel at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, which SBTS President Al Mohler says is meant as a “prominent” acknowledgment of the contributions enslaved people made to building the Louisville, Kentucky, institution, is being criticized as a disappointing response by two black Southern Baptist ministers.

The dispute began after Pastor Dwight McKissic, who founded and leads Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, visited the seminary in June. He said he did not “see a memorial erected to the slaves who built SBTS,” which Mohler had promised in 2020. In a post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, McKissic said he had seen buildings and memorabilia honoring the seminary’s four founders, but no memorial to the enslaved people who funded and constructed the original campus. He also wrote that he would contribute a gift toward such a memorial if Mohler kept his promise.

The background includes McKissic’s 2020 call to rename Boyce College, the private college located at SBTS, during a wider outcry over the removal of statues and building names tied to slaveholders following the killing of George Floyd. In 2018, Mohler had urged the seminary community to repent of racism in a 71-page document titled “Report on Slavery and Racism in the History of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.” That report stated that founder James P. Boyce and early faculty members John A. Broadus, Basil Manly Jr. and William Williams all owned slaves, together holding more than 50 people, and that the seminary’s early faculty and trustees defended slaveholding as righteous. Mohler wrote in the report that “we must repent of our own sins; we cannot repent for the dead,” and that the school must offer lament for a legacy it inherited.

Mohler had said in June 2015 that he had no intention of removing the founders’ names from the school’s buildings, and he reiterated that position in 2020 in response to McKissic’s call. At the time, he offered to erect a memorial to the enslaved people held by the founders.

After McKissic’s June post, Mohler replied with an apology and said the memorial was already complete and “quite prominent” on campus. He wrote that McKissic had suggested it and the seminary had followed up as promised, and he offered to show McKissic the memorial if the pastor returned to campus that afternoon. McKissic was unable to return, so Deryk Hayes, pastor of Saint Paul Baptist Church at Shively Heights in Louisville, responded on X with a photograph of the plaque.

Hayes said that “prominent” seemed a stretch and questioned the plaque’s placement in a building that honors one of the founding faculty members. He wrote that the placement showed Mohler was “either culturally insensitive or ignorant,” and that “the founders aren’t heroic.” Hayes later told The Christian Post that he is one of a few black students enrolled at the seminary. He objected to the inscription as well as the location.

The inscription, which the seminary’s Board of Trustees endorsed by unanimous action on Oct. 12, 2020, names the four founding faculty members and states that “they are also slaveholders and defenders of slavery,” who “claimed ownership over at least 50 fellow human beings.” It says, “We do not know their names, but God does,” and expresses gratitude for the enslaved people’s “unrecognized contribution” to the seminary and its mission. The plaque cites Romans 13:7 in its closing line.

In a statement to The Christian Post, McKissic said he had expected something more visible. “I must admit that I was hopeful and searched for a memorial so prominent and visible that I could not have missed it,” he said. “In my mind, I pictured an outdoor, highly visible memorial that could not be overlooked. No one told me that. It was simply what I had hoped for.” The seminary’s plaque reflects a truthful accounting of the founders’ slaveholding, a matter of speaking the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15).

Source: Read the original report