This past week, Southern Evangelical Seminary released a statement outlining their stance on the Black Lives Matter movement and the current issues of racism and social injustice.
"Southern Evangelical Seminary and Bible College (SES) stands for the inherent value of all human life (Gen. 1:27) and against racism in all its insidious forms (Zech. 7:10; Prov. 28:16; Acts 10:34-35; Gal. 3:28) while also acknowledging that some professing Christians throughout the church's history have attempted to hijack the Gospel message for racist causes."
While SES does adhere to the idea that "black lives matter," they do so only under the umbrella of the idea that "all human lives are sacred." Furthermore, SES stated that "[The] BLM organization, and many of its related positions, are explicitly anti-Christian... Holding to mis-defined notions of love, freedom, and justice, BLM stands against the nuclear family, promotes homosexual and transgender ideologies, and is an admittedly Marxist organization."
SES President Richard Land explained that movements such as Black Lives Matter are charged with emotion and that they "remove any personal responsibility and choice from individuals and place guilt on a collective group of people simply because of their skin color. This is the epitome of collectivist and racist thinking. While individuals are certainly impacted and influenced by the societal structure which they have experienced, ultimately individuals are responsible for their own behavior."
Land believes that these movements and "wokeness" ideology obstructively muddy the truth of reality, and is only counterproductive. He instead urges Christians to "resist racism wherever it is found and to stand for truth, justice, and natural rights... [God] created us all for a purpose. He never created a nobody. Everyone is someone for whom Jesus died. So, all human lives are sacred. That should be the bedrock of our ideals and beliefs, and it should be part of everything that we do."
