Reflections on a pastor's firing
What does the rhetoric and narrative around the forced resignation of a Charlotte pastor reveal about antiracism, wokeness, and congregational politics in the Alliance of Baptists?
In an unusual move before Thanksgiving, Myers Park Baptist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina forced the resignation of its pastor Rev. Dr. Ben Boswell. Myers Park, an Alliance of Baptists congregation, is known for its progressive theological perspective and Boswell has a national reputation for work in antiracism, including his books Confronting Whiteness and For the Facing of This Hour.
The response was swift by local media, Baptist News Global, the Alliance of Baptists, and countless individuals on social media. Much of the rhetorical narrative described the ordeal as a conflict of progressiveness. Boswell’s commitment to antiracism was a step too far for Myers Park. The resignation/firing demonstrated that the church was too committed to its own white comfort and was only performatively rather than authentically progressive.
I have waited to publicly reflect on the resignation/firing. One reason is that I stepped down from serving as Secretary of the Alliance of Baptists about a week before Boswell’s departure from Myers Park. Another is that I wanted to take some time to reflect on the incident removed from the immediacy of the response (The church is hosting a celebration of Boswell’s ministry on January 9th, 2025). As a scholar who has not only written on Alliance of Baptists but also wrote a history of the denominational body, I found the public response interesting.
Measuring Progressiveness in Alliance of Baptists Congregations
When I attended divinity school there was a lot of conversation around vocational discernment and the types of congregations we as students felt most called towards. In the particular divinity school that I attended and among my group of friends, there was a strong commitment to seeking vocational callings in the most progressive of congregations.
Among Baptist students, there were regular conversations about how the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF) was not progressive enough and that the Alliance of Baptists was more progressive and thus more attractive vocationally. Some students recognized that the Alliance was small (roughly 150 congregations) and that they may need to seek vocational callings within the CBF or possibly the American Baptist Churches USA or even outside Baptist life. Others valued the Alliance’s progressivism but felt called to CBF congregations in order pastor and nurture these congregations to more progressive stances on issues like LGBTQ inclusion.
In my final year of divinity school, I wrote and later published Reimagining Zion: A History of the Alliance of Baptists. In this work I chronicled the history of the Alliance’s first twenty-five years.
As I have continued participating in the life of the Alliance over the past decade, I continue to believe that the Alliance is one of the most progressive Baptists groups in the world today. This denominational reality, however, is often misunderstood at the congregational level. There is an assumption that Alliance congregations are progressive bastions where clergy are uninhibited and preach the issues of the day as they truly see them.
While Alliance congregations often are progressive bastions in their communities they remain churches first—churches filled with broken people who make meaning from rituals and practices that may or may not be rooted within any commitment to justice. They are filled with people—predominately white—some of whom are members because the congregation is politically active and some of whom are not. As the Alliance’s THRIVE project has recently uncovered, Alliance congregations are progressive, but not uniformly so.
I learned this reality while researching Binkley Memorial Baptist Church in Chapel Hill, NC. Some individuals were members of Binkley because of LGBTQ inclusion, others because of the congregation’s advocacy for women in ministry, others for pronouncements on Palestine and Gaza, other Climate Change, and others Antiracism. At Binkley, like most Alliance congregations, individuals bring with them their own justice commitments with varying levels of enthusiasm and passion for others.
Measuring how progressive a congregation is or is not, is not an exact science. Nor is it always productive given how varied individual opinions may be within a given congregation.
Not progressive enough
Like many individuals, I was surprised to learn of Boswell’s resignation from Myers Park Baptist Church. While I know Ben, and know the reputation of the congregation, I am not privy to any further details of the events that led to his resignation or ‘forced resignation’ or firing. As an outside observer, it appears to have been a really awful situation for both Ben and Myers Park.
What remains interesting to me, however, is the narrative that proceeded from Boswell’s departure—principally that the decision was, according to one member of the diaconate, “rooted in the racist idea that there is too much focus on ‘racial justice.’” This characterization is rejected by other members of the diaconate.
Initially, I saw and heard a lot of commentary suggesting or subtly implying that Boswell’s sermon, “Where Do We Go from Here” following the election of Donald Trump sparked the church’s decision to “fire him.” While a strong and progressive sermon, this perspective slowly faded from the conversation around his firing. From my knowledge of Boswell and Myers Park, such a progressive sermon was not out of the ordinary and Boswell even received significant praise for his sermon that Sunday.
Instead, the conversation turned into a test or measure of progressiveness. Boswell had established himself as a leading voice of antiracism efforts within the Alliance. His curriculum Confronting Whiteness has been used in numerous congregations throughout the Alliance and beyond. He has cultivated a reputation as an authority and leader on confronting the whiteness inherent in white, American Christianity.
Given his established reputation, the response turned to Myers Park. What had made this historically progressive Baptist congregation in Charlotte decide to part ways with Boswell? The narrative centered upon the church’s inadequacies and unwillingness to allow Boswell to lead them towards a more authentically anti-racist and less performatively progressive identity.
Given the public commotion of Boswell’s departure, the Alliance of Baptists issued a unique statement in support of Boswell and his prophetic voice within the denomination. The statement centered upon the positive attributes of Boswell as a prophetic and sought to encourage other Alliance pastors to remain committed to their own prophetic callings. The statement said relatively little about Myers Park. The statement explains:
Admittedly while we do not know all of the reasons surrounding Ben’s departure, it does seem that at the very least his voice was one octave too high for some to hear.
The language of the statement draws from Jewish scholar Abraham Heschel on the role of the prophet. The rhetorical insinuation being, while not everyone at Myers Park may have felt this way, a contributing factor was the church not being progressive enough—his prophetic voice was too high for some to hear.
Mark Wingfield of Baptist News Global follow up with an analysis of the event and tried to complicate the picture. He added that staffing issues and attendance were also considerations in Boswell’s departure but focuses upon key phrases in his interviews with members of the diaconate. These phrases highlight Boswell’s progressive preaching as the issue. Much like the Alliance’s statement, Wingfield acknowledged that “clearly something had to have happened” to precipitate the speed of Boswell’s departure, but that this information has remained private.
The events of Boswell’s departure pitted a historically progressive congregation against a known progressive pastor. Following the logic of early twentieth century progressive ethicist Reinhold Niebuhr in his seminal book Moral Man and Immoral Society, the narrative writes itself. Boswell pushed Myers Park too far and they were unwilling to break from their own addiction to whiteness. The individual—Boswell—acted justly and the society—Myers Park—acted unjustly
This narrative may well be the correct one, but it feels like the inevitable narrative. Amidst our political polarization and world of instant news, I do not see how another narrative that could have been written outside perhaps illegal conduct. Is there another narrative in which Boswell was forced to resign? I cannot think of one.
What do our rhetoric and narratives hide?
Understanding that this narrative was the inevitable response is important for considering the problems it masks.
It is important to know that Myers Park is one of the most affluent congregations within the Alliance of Baptists, and the congregation has only ever had white men as senior ministers. This context is important in showing why, Boswell’s departure fostered the public response that it did.
Both Wingfield and the Alliance wrote stories and issued statements to the universal applicability of Boswell’s departure and the situation as Myers Park. Wingfield discusses declining membership and anxious congregants, and the Alliance addresses the challenges of prophetic proclamation generally. A significant reason this can be discussed in universal terms is because Boswell is a straight, white man. The universalizing and generalizing of this ordeal erased the many contextualized elements of class, race, gender, sexuality, and more that shaped Boswell’s departure as they do the departure of any minister.
There have been multiple women within the Alliance of Baptists congregations, who have departed churches in recent years under similar, less public, circumstances. The public, universal rehearsal of this rhetorical narrative only works because Boswell is a straight white man in a wealthy predominately white congregation.
Such a narrative in turn justifies what Winfield reported as twenty members protesting the decision by walking out on Myer’s Park’s associate pastor Rev. Carrie Veal, a white woman, preaching the Sunday after Boswell’s departure.
The reality that not all the facts and details are publicly known or sharable also complicates the implications of this narrative. It blurs the boundaries and limits of authority.
Boswell’s bona fides as a progressive activist eclipsed the possibility of any other wrongdoing on his part. Was he a toxic leader among the wider staff? Had he grossly disregarded the congregation’s ability to pay its employees? Had he abused his position in any way? Even if the answers to these questions are “no,” the reality that there are unknowns demonstrates that the rhetorical narrative of his departure is not concerned with these unknowns.
The rhetorical narrative presents white men with a strategy. By cultivating a particular reputation of antiracism and progressivism, certain unknowns become unimportant. Cultivating a particular type of power and authority within progressive circles, in turn, can be wielded to have people look the other way at certain unknowns.
To preach comfort or not
The other rhetorical detail of this narrative that I found interesting is the focus upon ‘comfort’ or ‘white comfort.’ There was a claim that Boswell’s progressive preaching made congregants uncomfortable, and indeed some on the diaconate expressed a desire for more comfort. The rhetorical binary became comfort was bad and discomfort was good.
I am quite sympathetic to the belief that progressive preaching is going to make some people (specifically some white people) uncomfortable. Given, however, that Alliance congregations are not uniformly progressive, what is discomforting to some may be comforting to others. It is important not to mistake comfort or discomfort as the end goal. They are strategies for catalyzing change. Comfort may be more effective or less effective in particular settings for particular issues.
None of this is to say Boswell was right and Myers Park was wrong, or Myers Park was right, and Boswell was wrong. No pastor is perfect nor is any church. It is indeed a tragedy that Boswell and Myers Park were not able to together figure out a way forward in common calling.
For outside observers, I think the narratives and unknowns of this story are an important reminder of challenges congregations who claim to be the most progressive in their communities face. One can wield significant authority by claiming the moral, progressive high ground. Such authority can be used in effective and change-inspiring ways. It can also be used problematically as a means to one-up or measure progressiveness. At its most nefarious, that authority can be used to obscure and deflect other shortcomings, moral failings, and abuses of power.
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