Baylor conference explores ‘Racism in the World Church’

The third conference in a three-year series of events at Baylor University concerning racism and the church takes an expanded view, organizer Greg Garrett explained.

“Time to Wake Up: Racism in the World Church” is the focus and “The Truth that Will Liberate Us All” is the theme of the Feb. 15-17 conference at Baylor’s Truett Theological Seminary.

The conference, sponsored by the John and Eula Mae Baugh Foundation and Truett Seminary, will be offered both in-person and online.

Anthony Reddie, professor of Black theology at the University of Oxford, and Ralph West, founding pastor of the Church Without Walls in Houston, are among the featured speakers.

“We will explore what Black theology and the Black church can teach us in terms of how we read the Bible, preach and do justice,” said Garrett, the Carole McDaniel Hanks Professor of Literature and Culture at Baylor.

Other key speakers—Mimi Haddad, president and CEO of Christians for Biblical Equality International, and Walter Kim, president of the National Association of Evangelicals—will help conference participants “think about how the evangelical church needs to change and how we need to decenter white Christian males,” he added.

A panel discussion about Black worship leaders in predominantly white worship spaces features Stephen Newby, the Lev H. Prichard III Endowed Chair in the Study of Black Worship and professor of music at Baylor; Timothy Peoples, senior pastor of Wilshire Baptist Church; and Sean Palmer, teaching pastor at Ecclesia in Houston.

Others on the conference program include Beth Allison Barr, history professor at Baylor and author of The Making of Biblical Womanhood; Stephanie Boddie, associate professor of church and community ministries at Baylor; Torie Johnson, associate professor for strategic communications and initiatives at Baylor; and Truett Seminary Dean Todd Still.

To register, click here.