A man holds a sign up during a protest rally against the Confederate flag in Columbia, South Carolina on June 20, 2015. The racially divisive Confederate battle flag flew at full-mast despite others flying at half-staff in South Carolina after the killing of nine black people in an historic African-American church in Charleston on June 17. Dylann Roof, the 21-year-old white male suspected of carrying out the Emanuel African Episcopal Methodist Church bloodbath, was one of many southern Americans who identified with the 13-star saltire in red, white and blue. AFP PHOTO/MLADEN ANTONOV (Photo credit should read MLADEN ANTONOV/AFP/Getty Images) (Photo: )
(RNS) Does a Southern Baptist leader’s call for the Confederate battle flag to come down mark a sea change in the views of evangelicals about a symbol long wrapped in both support for slavery and regional pride?
Or will conservative white Christians in the South resist change even as a growing number of Republican leaders — including S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley — from the region call for the flag to go?
“The cross and the Confederate flag cannot co-exist without one setting the other on fire,” Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, wrote in a widely noted blog post on Friday (June 19).
The column touched a chord because it landed in the midst of the national anguish, and debate, over racism in the U.S. following the massacre of nine parishioners by a white gunman inside the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C.
The suspect, 21-year-old Dylann Roof, espoused white supremacist views and proudly displayed the Confederate flag, which continues to be flown full-mast on the South Carolina State House grounds.
“Let’s take down that flag,” Moore concluded.
Some say Moore’s call is a marker of a changing ethos within the nation’s largest Protestant denomination as conservative Christians join in mourning the “Emanuel Nine.” Others wonder if the divide over the flag remains.
“Russell Moore articulated publicly and brilliantly what many of us have been saying for many years,” said Alan Cross, a white Montgomery, Ala., Southern Baptist pastor, who last week successfully requested that the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention report on its progress on racial reconciliation.
“That sentiment is just becoming more vocal and accepted now. Eyes are opening.”
Church historian Bill Leonard of Wake Forest University Divinity School agreed that Moore’s sentiments could “prevail given the pain of the current situation.”
But he said it’s doubtful all Southern Baptists will back him, despite the June 17 killings.
“I think that his constituency in the SBC will be divided, particularly in South Carolina and Georgia, where those flag issues still create energy,” Leonard said.
Moore said Monday that he has received an overwhelmingly positive response to his blog post.
“I’m surprised by how positive the reaction has been, probably 98 or 99 percent” in favor generally, he told Religion News Service.
“Southern Baptists have been overwhelmingly positive in their responses,” Moore said. “The Lord is doing amazing things in bringing Southern Baptists together across ethnic and racial divisions.”
Leaders from African-American clergy to Sikh officials have called for South Carolina legislators to halt the flying of the controversial flag, especially at South Carolina’s State House. Some SBC executives affirmed Moore’s call for taking down the Confederate flag.
“Gospel-minded Christians should support taking down the flag,” Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President R. Albert Mohler Jr. said in a statement to RNS. “Love of neighbor outweighs even love of region, and it certainly requires that we disassociate ourselves from any hint of racism, now or in the past.”
Danny Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., tweeted his thanks to Moore for his “very fine article.”
But Moore’s comments have received some criticism.
Blogger Douglas Wilson wrote that he has declined to join Moore’s call and instead thinks the response to the shootings at Emanuel AME should be on “issues that stand a chance of being far more relevant to the shooting than a flag at the state capitol.
“Is the point to help solve the problem or is the point to make a grand gesture?” Wilson wrote.
In a National Review column, evangelical writer David French differentiated between appropriate and inappropriate uses of the Confederate flag.
“Flying it as a symbol of white racial supremacy is undeniably vile, and any official use of the flag for that purpose should end, immediately,” he wrote. “Flying it over monuments to Confederate war dead is simply history.”
Southern Baptists’ sentiments about the flag and other racially charged issues could be shaped by what many have described as a moving prayer session on June 16 during their annual meeting, during which white Southern Baptists joined African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans onstage to pray for reconciliation and repentance for racism.
“Southern Baptists are finding their identity more in Christ than in Southern culture or racial identity,” said Cross, author of “When Heaven and Earth Collide: Racism, Southern Evangelicals, and the Better Way of Jesus.”
“We still have a long way to go, but change is happening. Moore reflects that rather than being an outlier,” he said.
In the early days of the denomination, which has since repented for the role slavery played in its formation, such a statement about the Confederate flag would probably have been unthinkable.
An 1863 resolution by delegates of the Southern Baptist Convention said they “will render a hearty support to the Confederate Government in all constitutional measures to secure our independence.”
A century and a half later, Cross said that he has seen change beyond prayers from a convention stage and blog posts from a prominent denominational official.
“I do not know of very many Southern Baptists, if any, who fly the Confederate flag,” he said. “And I live in Montgomery, Alabama, the first capital of the Confederacy. We have some memorials around with the flag on it, but they are relics of the past and are not related to the active ministry of churches.”
Charleston In Mourning After 9 Killed In Church Massacre
CHARLESTON, SC - JUNE 21: People stand together in front of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church as they listen to a broadcast of the Sunday service taking place after a mass shooting at the church killed nine people on June 21, 2015 in Charleston, South Carolina. Dylann Roof, 21 years old, is suspected of killing the nine people during a prayer meeting in the church, which is one of the nation's oldest black churches in Charleston. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Charleston In Mourning After 9 Killed In Church Massacre
CHARLESTON, SC - JUNE 21: People pray in front of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church as they listen to a broadcast of the Sunday service taking place after a mass shooting at the church killed nine people on June 21, 2015 in Charleston, South Carolina. Dylann Roof, 21 years old, is suspected of killing the nine people during a prayer meeting in the church, which is one of the nation's oldest black churches in Charleston. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Charleston In Mourning After 9 Killed In Church Massacre
CHARLESTON, SC - JUNE 21: People stand together in front of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church as they listen to a broadcast of the Sunday service taking place after a mass shooting at the church killed nine people on June 21, 2015 in Charleston, South Carolina. Dylann Roof, 21 years old, is suspected of killing the nine people during a prayer meeting in the church, which is one of the nation's oldest black churches in Charleston. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Charleston In Mourning After 9 Killed In Church Massacre
CHARLESTON, SC - JUNE 21: People file out of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church after attending the Sunday service, the first one held after a mass shooting at the church killed nine people on June 21, 2015 in Charleston, South Carolina. Dylann Roof, 21 years old, is suspected of killing the nine people during a prayer meeting in the church, which is one of the nation's oldest black churches in Charleston. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Charleston In Mourning After 9 Killed In Church Massacre
CHARLESTON, SC - JUNE 21: A woman prays in front of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church as they listen to a broadcast of the Sunday service taking place after a mass shooting at the church killed nine people on June 21, 2015 in Charleston, South Carolina. Dylann Roof, 21 years old, is suspected of killing the nine people during a prayer meeting in the church, which is one of the nation's oldest black churches in Charleston. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Charleston In Mourning After 9 Killed In Church Massacre
CHARLESTON, SC - JUNE 21: A note is seen written on a poster board in front of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church as the first Sunday service is held since the mass shooting at the church killed nine people on June 21, 2015 in Charleston, South Carolina. Dylann Roof, 21 years old, is suspected of killing the nine people during a prayer meeting in the church, which is one of the nation's oldest black churches in Charleston. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Charleston In Mourning After 9 Killed In Church Massacre
CHARLESTON, SC - JUNE 21: People file out of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church after attending the Sunday service, the first one held after a mass shooting at the church killed nine people on June 21, 2015 in Charleston, South Carolina. Dylann Roof, 21 years old, is suspected of killing the nine people during a prayer meeting in the church, which is one of the nation's oldest black churches in Charleston. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Charleston In Mourning After 9 Killed In Church Massacre
CHARLESTON, SC - JUNE 21: People hug after leaving the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church after attending the Sunday service, the first one held after a mass shooting at the church killed nine people on June 21, 2015 in Charleston, South Carolina. Dylann Roof, 21 years old, is suspected of killing the nine people during a prayer meeting in the church, which is one of the nation's oldest black churches in Charleston. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Charleston In Mourning After 9 Killed In Church Massacre
CHARLESTON, SC - JUNE 21: People file out of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church after attending the Sunday service, the first one held after a mass shooting at the church killed nine people on June 21, 2015 in Charleston, South Carolina. Dylann Roof, 21 years old, is suspected of killing the nine people during a prayer meeting in the church, which is one of the nation's oldest black churches in Charleston. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Charleston In Mourning After 9 Killed In Church Massacre
CHARLESTON, SC - JUNE 21: Deborah Johnson prays in front of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church as she listens to a broadcast of the Sunday service taking place after a mass shooting at the church killed nine people on June 21, 2015 in Charleston, South Carolina. Dylann Roof, 21 years old, is suspected of killing the nine people during a prayer meeting in the church, which is one of the nation's oldest black churches in Charleston. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Charleston In Mourning After 9 Killed In Church Massacre
CHARLESTON, SC - JUNE 21: A woman raises her arm in prayer while standing in front of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church as she listens to a broadcast of the Sunday service taking place after a mass shooting at the church killed nine people on June 21, 2015 in Charleston, South Carolina. Dylann Roof, 21 years old, is suspected of killing the nine people during a prayer meeting in the church, which is one of the nation's oldest black churches in Charleston. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
US-CRIME-SHOOTING-CHARLESTON
People embrace as they depart the Emanuel AME Church following Sunday services June 21, 2015 in Charleston, South Carolina. Large crowds are expected at Sunday's service at the black church in Charleston where nine African Americans were gunned down, as a chilling website apparently created by the suspected white supremacist shooter emerged. The service will be the first since the bloodbath on Wednesday at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in the southern state of South Carolina, which has fuelled simmering racial tensions in the United States and reignited impassioned calls for stronger gun-control laws. AFP PHOTO/BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI (Photo credit should read BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)
US-CRIME-SHOOTING-CHARLESTON
People depart the Emanuel AME Church following Sunday services June 21, 2015 in Charleston, South Carolina. Large crowds are expected at Sunday's service at the black church in Charleston where nine African Americans were gunned down, as a chilling website apparently created by the suspected white supremacist shooter emerged. The service will be the first since the bloodbath on Wednesday at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in the southern state of South Carolina, which has fuelled simmering racial tensions in the United States and reignited impassioned calls for stronger gun-control laws. AFP PHOTO/BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI (Photo credit should read BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)
US-CRIME-SHOOTING-CHARLESTON
People depart the Emanuel AME Church following Sunday services June 21, 2015 in Charleston, South Carolina. Large crowds are expected at Sunday's service at the black church in Charleston where nine African Americans were gunned down, as a chilling website apparently created by the suspected white supremacist shooter emerged. The service will be the first since the bloodbath on Wednesday at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in the southern state of South Carolina, which has fuelled simmering racial tensions in the United States and reignited impassioned calls for stronger gun-control laws. AFP PHOTO/BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI (Photo credit should read BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)
US-CRIME-SHOOTING-CHARLESTON
People depart the Emanuel AME Church following Sunday services June 21, 2015 in Charleston, South Carolina. Large crowds are expected at Sunday's service at the black church in Charleston where nine African Americans were gunned down, as a chilling website apparently created by the suspected white supremacist shooter emerged. The service will be the first since the bloodbath on Wednesday at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in the southern state of South Carolina, which has fuelled simmering racial tensions in the United States and reignited impassioned calls for stronger gun-control laws. AFP PHOTO/BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI (Photo credit should read BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)
US-CRIME-SHOOTING-CHARLESTON
People depart the Emanuel AME Church following Sunday services June 21, 2015 in Charleston, South Carolina. Large crowds are expected at Sunday's service at the black church in Charleston where nine African Americans were gunned down, as a chilling website apparently created by the suspected white supremacist shooter emerged. The service will be the first since the bloodbath on Wednesday at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in the southern state of South Carolina, which has fuelled simmering racial tensions in the United States and reignited impassioned calls for stronger gun-control laws. AFP PHOTO/BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI (Photo credit should read BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)
US-CRIME-SHOOTING-CHARLESTON
People wait to enter the Emanuel AME Church June 21, 2015 in Charleston, South Carolina. The church held services where nine African Americans were gunned down, as a chilling website apparently created by the suspected white supremacist shooter emerged. The service will be the first since the bloodbath on Wednesday at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in the southern state of South Carolina, which has fuelled simmering racial tensions in the United States and reignited impassioned calls for stronger gun-control laws. AFP PHOTO/BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI (Photo credit should read BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)
US-CRIME-SHOOTING-CHARLESTON
People listen from the shade in Marion Square in Charleston, South Carolina during a prayer service at the nearby Emanuel AME Church . The church held services where nine African Americans were gunned down, as a chilling website apparently created by the suspected white supremacist shooter emerged. The service will be the first since the bloodbath on Wednesday at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in the southern state of South Carolina, which has fuelled simmering racial tensions in the United States and reignited impassioned calls for stronger gun-control laws. AFP PHOTO/BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI (Photo credit should read BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)
US-CRIME-SHOOTING-CHARLESTON
People listen to a Sunday service from the street outside the Emanuel AME Church June 21, 2015 in Charleston, South Carolina. The church held services where nine African Americans were gunned down, as a chilling website apparently created by the suspected white supremacist shooter emerged. The service will be the first since the bloodbath on Wednesday at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in the southern state of South Carolina, which has fuelled simmering racial tensions in the United States and reignited impassioned calls for stronger gun-control laws. AFP PHOTO/BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI (Photo credit should read BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)
US-CRIME-SHOOTING-CHARLESTON
People pray during the Sunday service outside the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina on June 21, 2015. Large crowds arrived at Sunday's service at the black church in Charleston where nine African Americans were gunned down, as a chilling website apparently created by the suspected white supremacist shooter emerged. The service will be the first since the bloodbath on Wednesday at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in the southern state of South Carolina, which has fuelled simmering racial tensions in the United States and reignited impassioned calls for stronger gun-control laws. AFP PHOTO/ MLADEN ANTONOV (Photo credit should read MLADEN ANTONOV/AFP/Getty Images)
US-CRIME-SHOOTING-CHARLESTON
Hundreds of people gather for the Sunday service outside the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina on June 21, 2015. Large crowds arrived at Sunday's service at the black church in Charleston where nine African Americans were gunned down, as a chilling website apparently created by the suspected white supremacist shooter emerged. The service will be the first since the bloodbath on Wednesday at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in the southern state of South Carolina, which has fuelled simmering racial tensions in the United States and reignited impassioned calls for stronger gun-control laws. AFP PHOTO/ MLADEN ANTONOV (Photo credit should read MLADEN ANTONOV/AFP/Getty Images)
Charleston Shooting
Parishioners embrace at the Emanuel A.M.E. Church Sunday, June 21, 2015, in Charleston, S.C., four days after a mass shooting that claimed the lives of it's pastor and eight others. (AP Photo/David Goldman, Pool)
Charleston Shooting
Parishioners embrace at the Emanuel A.M.E. Church Sunday, June 21, 2015, in Charleston, S.C., four days after a mass shooting that claimed the lives of it's pastor and eight others. (AP Photo/David Goldman, Pool)
Charleston Shooting
Parishioners embrace at the Emanuel A.M.E. Church Sunday, June 21, 2015, in Charleston, S.C., four days after a mass shooting that claimed the lives of it's pastor and eight others. (AP Photo/David Goldman, Pool)
Charleston Shooting
Robin Goolsby prays outside the Emanuel A.M.E. Church, Sunday, June 21, 2015, in Charleston, S.C., four days after a mass shooting at the church claimed the lives of its pastor and eight others. (AP Photo/Stephen B. Morton)
Charleston Shooting
People stand outside as parishioners leave the Emanuel A.M.E. Church, Sunday, June 21, 2015, in Charleston, S.C., four days after a mass shooting at the church claimed the lives of its pastor and eight others. (AP Photo/Stephen B. Morton)
Charleston Shooting
Parishioners leave the Emanuel A.M.E. Church following a morning service, Sunday, June 21, 2015, in Charleston, S.C., four days after a mass shooting at the church claimed the lives of its pastor and eight others. (AP Photo/Stephen B. Morton)
Charleston Shooting
People gather on Marion Square near the St. Matthew's Lutheran Church, center, as churches across the city rang their bells in a show of solidarity with Emanuel A.M.E. Church, Sunday, June 21, 2015, in Charleston, S.C., four days after a mass shooting at Emanuel claimed the lives of its pastor and eight others. (AP Photo/Stephen B. Morton)
Charleston Shooting
Flowers sit on a table in the basement following a service at the Emanuel A.M.E. Church four days after a mass shooting that claimed the lives of its pastor and eight others on Sunday, June 21, 2015, in Charleston, S.C. The congregation at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal swayed and sang, prayed and welcomed the world into their sanctuary on Sunday, holding the first worship service since a white gunman was accused of opening fire during a Bible study group, killing nine black church members. (AP Photo/David Goldman, Pool)
Charleston Shooting
The Rev. Norvel Goff speaks during a service at the Emanuel A.M.E. Church four days after a mass shooting that claimed the lives of its pastor and eight others on Sunday, June 21, 2015, in Charleston, S.C. The congregation at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal swayed and sang, prayed and welcomed the world into their sanctuary on Sunday, holding the first worship service since a white gunman was accused of opening fire during a Bible study group. (AP Photo/David Goldman, Pool)
Charleston Shooting
Members of the Charleston County Sheriff's Office guard the front doors of the Emanuel A.M.E. Church during a morning service, Sunday, June 21, 2015, in Charleston, S.C., four days after a mass shooting at the church claimed the lives of its pastor and eight others. (AP Photo/Stephen B. Morton)
Charleston Shooting
Marchers stop in front of the Daughters of the Confederacy building during a vigil in memory of the Emanuel AME Church shooting victims Saturday, June 20, 2015, in Charleston, S.C. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Charleston Shooting
Shane McCoy holds a rose before the start of a remembrance march in memory of the Emanuel AME Church shooting victims Saturday, June 20, 2015, in Charleston, S.C. (AP Photo/Stephen B. Morton)
Charleston Shooting
Adriana Boyd shouts slogans during a remembrance march in memory of the Emanuel AME Church shooting victims Saturday, June 20, 2015, in Charleston, S.C. (AP Photo/Stephen B. Morton)
Charleston Shooting
Muhiyidin D'baha holds two signs during a remembrance march in memory of the Emanuel AME Church shooting victims Saturday, June 20, 2015, in Charleston, S.C. (AP Photo/Stephen B. Morton)
Dan Wetzel, Ross Dellenger & SI’s Pat Forde react to the huge performance this weekend by Texas QB Arch Manning, Michigan and Notre Dame's spring games, Jaden Rashada entering the transfer portal, and more
Trump is entitled to an additional 36 million shares if the company's share price trades above $17.50 "for twenty out of any thirty trading days" over the next three years.
