As woke evangelicals foment and virtue-twerk all over social media regarding the tragic death of Ahmaud Arbery, declaring that the event was a modern-day lynching, that he was purposefully hunted by racist “whites” because he was “black,” and that any African-American out for a jog faces the real threat of being stalked and strung up for the sole crime of being black in America, “Hold-my-beer Greear” jumped headfirst into the fray by using his evil eye to peer deep into the hearts of the offending parties, acquired full knowledge of their intents and motivations, and declared the killers of Arbery to be fueled by pure hot racism.
Greear released a post on Facebook, seen below, which points to his church’s statement on the affair, released as part of their Commission for Oneness and Reconciliation (CORE):
A quick read of the statement, along with the post itself, leads us to the inevitable conclusion that Greear views the death as a racist hate crime. Here is a small sample from the document “Lamenting the Death of Ahmaud Arbery,” showing that the lament presupposes an inherent racism present in the crime.
- This inexcusable delay of justice connects to a lengthy history of deprived due process for people of color in our country.
- For citizens of color, this injustice continues a long, tragic history of discrimination, deprivation of due process, and systemic injustice.
- If we, the people of God, want to join in the gospel fight against racism, white supremacy, and injustice, our struggle must continue well beyond today.
- The fight for racial justice is one God himself began as far back as Genesis 12 when he promised to reunite the ethnically diverse and contentious world through Abraham.
- In Scripture, victory over racial injustice is not merely an aspiration but an assured declaration of God.
The Biblical Recorder likewise obtained a letter sent to Baptist state convention executives signed by J.D. Greear and first and second vice presidents Marshal Ausberry and Noe Garcia. The Recorder writes:
The group asked state leaders to reach out to black pastors in their conventions to “let them know you grieve with them, lament ongoing racial conflicts and disparities with them, and that you stand with them in this fight for justice and equity.”
It’s clear that JD Greear has not learned anything since he implicated himself in a similar mess years ago with the Covington Catholic kids. At the time, Greear saw the video and decried the racism and hate therein. It was only after more facts came out, after he let the information sit and percolate a bit, (part of the due process) that he had to eat crow, apologize, and resolve to do better.
In the same letter to these SBC officers, Greear writes, “And while we lean on due process, when we can look at something and see it doesn’t appear that every person in our society is being given the benefit of due process in the same way, it’s our duty to speak up.”
So here is the crux: where is the due process for Gregory McMichael and Travis McMichael? How is Greear “giving the benefit of due process in the same way?” Rather, what we see is the President of the Southern Baptist Convention displaying the ultimate prejudice by labelling the men as racists before the facts are known in a court of law. Apparently Greear has learned nothing from the Covington Kids.
By what methods is he ascertaining their intent? You’d almost think Greear made a devil’s pact with some dark spirit he found roaming around a shuttered Lifeway bookstore (We imagine it’s where they all hang out), trading soothsaying capabilities into the heart and soul of the perpetrators in exchange for an updated Beth Moore book study. Those dark spirits drive hard a bargain, but what kind of witchcraft is it that lets him take his unverified assumptions and run with them as if that’s somehow ok?
How does he know that the McMichaels’ motivations to stop and aggressively initiate a detainment encounter were based on Arbery being dark-skinned in contradiction to their own? On what basis does Greear declare the initial shooting to be borne out of indomitable white supremacy? How does the most influential pastor in the SBC receive all that from a video, and then feel it necessary to blast it from multiple sources all across his channels, when we simply don’t know yet?
Greear could have grieved with the grieving, mourned with the mourning, and encouraged his members to wait for all the facts to come out and for due process to have its say. Instead, like the Kool-aid man bursting through the side of a building, he confidently labels it all having to do with racism and skin colour, miscoloring the motivations of the two men involved to be based on them having deep hatred for different melanin concentrations.
Some due process.
