Racial reconciliation was top of the agenda for the third annual conference of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.
The conference entitled Onward: Engaging the Culture Without Losing the Gospel, which began yesterday and concludes today, has drawn around 1,000 pastors and cultural leaders to the Gaylord Opryland Hotel in Nashville to discuss how the gospel and Scripture apply to faith in the public square.
Speakers included ERLC president Russell Moore, megachurch pastor Andy Stanley, rapper Trip Lee and author Gabe Lyons.
Opening speaker Bryan Loritts, pastor of Abundant Life Christian Fellowship in Silicon Valley, confronted what he described as "evangelical passivity" in the Church – especially the white Church – in dealing with racial injustice. He used Paul's discussion of being "all things to all people" in 1 Corinthians 9 as a springboard for his reflections.
"There will be colour in heaven," Loritts said. "So we cannot dismiss that now. It must be something that we incarnate and that we live."
He criticised the idea of a colour-blind ethic, saying it was to have a low view of the 'imago dei' or image of God. The theology of a "fearfully and wonderfully made" person includes every aspect of him or her, he said, adding that everyone in the church should intentionally have friends from diverse cultures and backgrounds, with a posture of listening.
"Oh dear friend, let's go to war with evangelical passivity," Loritts concluded. "Let's have Paul's redemptive impatience."
Another speaker, Los Angeles pastor and community leader DA Horton, said that racial issues "are thorns in the side of the American church".
He said the Church needs intellectual equipping, for example by reading the works of minorities and women in seminary.
"It's one thing to have a multiethnic church, but another to have multiethnic leadership," Horton said.
He added that the Church also needs interpersonal engagement and dialogue.
During his session, rapper-pastor Trip Lee had similar practical advice for Christians who want to engage culture, extolling the virtue of simple faithfulness.
"There is another way to engage culture, and that is to be faithful in public," he said. "We should more deeply embrace the simple. Innovation is fine, but not at the cost of the simple."
The conference is designed to help Christians apply the gospel in their interaction with various facets of today's culture, including the arts, politics, sports, race, sexuality, marriage, parenting and everyday life.
