Thread by @MargeNAlia

@pastordmack "Personal responsibility" language plays an interesting role in SBC culture and is tied to their functional model of how people come to know God and how people grow.

@pastordmack The SBC has its roots in a deeply populist model of knowledge and community. White men in the SBC often have inflated confidence in their own ability to see all of reality clearly, which is an extension of the assumption that they have access to the plain reading of scripture.

@pastordmack The role of our communities in shaping our reading of scripture is usually minimized, if not outright denied. Mutual recognition of other clear-thinking, biblically minded people then appears as recognition of other people with the Sanctified Common Sense to "see what I see."

@pastordmack If other people raise concerns outside of the Clear-Eyed vision of Stalwart Believers (white men in positions of authority in the church community), they are usually dismissed as evidence of a feeling-centered approach undisciplined by the reasonableness possessed by elders.

@pastordmack The unreasonableness of outsider views is taken as evidence that the outsider must continue to be subjected to the tutelage of Clear-Eyed Stalwart Believers. Women and POCs are the typical examples of people led by feelings rather than by biblical reason.

@pastordmack The standard of maturity for white men in SBC communities is pitifully low. If a man is white, middle-class, earnestly believes the right biblical propositions, and furrows his brow at liberals, the Kingdom of God is at hand. Some men may develop further, but few have to.

@pastordmack The standard of fruitfulness is reduced to what male leaders can achieve through their sincere assent to biblical propositions: regular devotions, earnest profession of true doctrines, policing of outsiders. If no further transformation happens, no one much notices.

@pastordmack This model of the believer is a baptized form of the American Autonomous Individual and, indeed, helped create the ideal of Autonomous Individualism.

@pastordmack Such a person should never be constrained by another to do something they don't want to do or to not do something they do want to do. Why should they need outside guidance if their own judgement is so reliable already?

@pastordmack This Clear-Eyed Stalwart acts freely according to Biblical Reason and Sanctified Common Sense in the world, which is naturally why he is so successful in his middle-classness.

@pastordmack The argument that black people need to take more "personal responsibility" is at root, an argument that assumes that black people are not sufficiently rational and responsible due to some failure to sincerely believe the scriptures and act on them with magic willpower.

@pastordmack Because knowledge of reality is so easily accessed by individuals through sincere assent to biblical beliefs in this culture, knowledge of history or the shaping power of systems is either superfluous or nonexistent.

@pastordmack Why bother to learn history if a man basically has access to reality as it is through his Sanctified Common Sense?

@pastordmack Why would such a man engage seriously with a historical narrative that differs from the history he has already accepted if his Magic Knowledge Receptor equips him to evaluate the Truthiness of all historical claims?

@pastordmack Why take the power of systems seriously when he is confident that if systems were relevant, he would have already discerned it with his Clear-Eyed Biblical Reason?

@pastordmack Why attribute his own success to anything other than his faith-empowered Free Will acting in accordance with scripture and accessing God's blessings?

@pastordmack Why entertain any other explanation for other's lack of "success" to anything other than a failure to take "personal responsibility," of which he and his fellow white SBC elders are models?

@pastordmack This is a toxic, diseased culture that has maintained the Good Ole' Boy sentimental narratives that justified slavery and Jim Crow: White men are entitled to subjugate Black bodies because God made white men more reasonable and responsible.

@pastordmack @threadreaderapp unroll because I lacked the Sanctified Common Sense to start this thread on my own Twitter wall.

@pastordmack @KyleJamesHoward - does this description of how this rhetoric of "personal responsibility" in the SBC resonate?

@pastordmack @KyleJamesHoward I also see it in soul care when someone fails to get better with Biblical Counseling. The explanation is that the counselee failed to take "personal responsibility."

@pastordmack @KyleJamesHoward The explanation that the counselors and the church community may have failed to disciple the counselee in practices that would help them connect with Jesus and develop their capacities to be responsible and choose wisely is hardly ever considered.

@pastordmack @KyleJamesHoward The role that family and other systems may play in contributing to the counselor's challenges is also dismissed because the responsibility of the Bible Truth empowered individual is considered the only relevant force in change.

@pastordmack @KyleJamesHoward All that the counselee needs to be "responsible" is to sincerely believe the right biblical truths, which the community has, of course, trained them to recognize.