Trying to Save a Sinking Ship: Race, Power, and White American Christianity
Brad speaks with Kyle J. Howard, a theologian and counselor trained at a Southern Baptist Seminary. He discusses his conversion at 18 at a Black Church in Georgia, his journey to ministry as a counselor of racial and spiritual trauma, and his insider perspective of the calculation made by leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention.
It goes like this:
Demonize Critical Race Theory in order to divert attention from the sexual abuse scandal.
Anticipate losing a number of Black pastors and churches, along with other POC.
Retain political influence and the majority of White pastors and churches.
Overall, stoke fear in order to shape the denomination into a certain mold.
Steady the losses the denomination has experienced in recent years.
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Hello, welcome to Straight White American Jesus.
I'm Brad Onishi.
Our show is hosted in partnership with the Kapp Center at UCSB.
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Made that decision for a number of reasons related to family and expecting our first child and my wife's career and wanting to foreground that out here in California, but also in a weird way so that I could extend the life of this show.
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My interview today is with Kyle Howard, who's a preacher and a counselor and a theologian who's trained in the Southern Baptist Seminary.
Kyle was converted in a black church when he was in college, and And so he provides some kind of insider insight into what he sees in the Southern Baptist Convention, and more generally in white American Christianity.
This might seem like a little bit of a peculiar episode for us, just because it's not often that we actually talk to an insider within the traditions that we're often analyzing and discussing, and from which both Dan and I came.
But I thought it would be important to get his perspective, and I really enjoyed our conversation.
I hope you find it compelling and eye-opening as well.
I'm here today, we're in the sort of wake of the Southern Baptist Convention from last week, and I have a special guest who I'm going to talk about a number of issues with, and that is Kyle James Howard, who is a theologian, who is a preacher, and who is a counselor, somebody who works with folks enduring spiritual and racial trauma based in Atlanta.
And we're going to get into a bunch of issues related to that and critical race theory and some other things.
But before I go there, Kyle, thanks for joining me.
Thanks for taking the time on somewhat short notice.
Oh, absolutely.
It's my privilege.
Thank you for having me.
Well, I want to jump into some things that you've been discussing on social media related to critical race theory and some other stuff, but I wonder first if you wouldn't mind just sharing with the folks who don't know you a little bit of your journey, how it is you came to be a theologian, preacher, counselor, and someone working in all those different spaces.
So, how did you arrive here?
Yeah, absolutely.
Thank you for that.
Taking a trip down memory lane.
Makes me feel a little bit old, but let's go.
So, let's see.
I was converted as an adult at 18 years old at my first semester of college.
I went to West Georgia University and I was led to Christ through a campus ministry of a local black church in Carrollton, Georgia.
I guess I grew up in kind of a secular back.
At the age of 12 to 18, I struggled very severely with depression.
Later on, by the time I was 18, I would be diagnosed with clinical depression.
But prior to that, without any kind of diagnosis, it was just severe to the point of suicidal ideations.
And that was something that I struggled with greatly.
That, alongside some other things, led me into pursuing relationships and gang culture.
And so at the age of 14, I was jumped into a gang.
And for several years, I was very much engulfed within gang culture.
It completely altered my whole way of seeing the ward.
And so I actually dropped out of college.
I moved back to my hometown city, Atlanta.
And I got a part-time job, and then with all of my free time that I needed, apart from paying for rent and food, I spent reading the Bible.
I read through the entire Bible maybe six, seven times my first year as a believer, just going through and just reading the Bible.
So I went to this conference, I befriended that preacher, and there was another preacher there named Russell Moore who was preaching at the conference.
And when I heard Russell Moore preach, and this would have been in 2007, 7?
2006 or 7.
I want to say 7.
I heard Marissa Moore preach and I was like, yo, these dudes are dope.
I want to know where this guy... I hear that he's a professor somewhere.
I want to know where he's at.
And so I went up to Dr. Moore, met him, talked with him.
He told me that he was at Southern Seminary.
And he was like, hey, come on.
And so at that point, I had already dropped out of college.
I was married to my high school sweetheart.
We moved to Alabama to join this Southern Baptist Church.
It was Southern Baptist Light in regards to affiliation, but we joined this church so that I could do a pastoral internship program and just begin growing there at this church.
And so from there, we ultimately made our way to Louisville, Kentucky, where I continued my degree programs.
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