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Hello, welcome to Straight Wide American Jesus.

My name is Brad O'Neishie, our shows host and a partnership with the Cap Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Today is my second interview with Jonathan Crone, who is reporting on the Southern Baptist Convention for the New Republic.

And so I'm catching up with Jonathan to talk about what happened this week.

I know many of you have been following it.

The contentious presidential election in the SBC.

The ongoing discussion and controversy surrounding sexual abuse survivors trying to get the denomination to investigate.

I mean, we're talking dozens, even hundreds of sexual abuse claims.

And the ongoing war against critical race theory.

I wanted to say at the top, I know that some of you are not interested in the Southern Baptist Convention per se.

It doesn't seem like it's relevant and you're kind of wondering why I might be spending so much time on it.

And the reason is this.

The Southern Baptist Convention is the largest Protestant denomination in the country.

And we see here in this convention a kind of distillation of the issues that are plaguing American Protestantism and American Christianity and its relationship with politics.

We have this ongoing war against critical race theory.

So the idea is instead of confronting racism.

I mean, many of you know the Southern Baptist Convention started in the 1800s as the result of many Southern Baptist wanting to not only own slaves,

but condone slavery, theologically.

So instead of investigating the histories of racism, confronting those, there's a war on critical race theory.

We're seeing that all over the country in school board meetings, in state legislatures, and in other Christian denominations.

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