This reflection about the experience of ethnic minorities and the Southern Baptist Convention got me thinking (which is about when then missus leaves the room):

Dave Miller wrote in SBC Voices that although he didn’t comprehend why many minorities reacted so strongly to the announcement of Pence’s invitation, he wanted to be able to comprehend. He wrote, “I know some of you in minority communities are discouraged but things are beginning to change and we need you. I need you. I need to hear what you think and how you think even when it makes me uncomfortable or challenges my normal thinking.”

I am thankful for people like Dave Miller–people in the SBC who genuinely want to understand the experiences and opinions of minorities. It is this open-mindedness that prevents stagnation and fosters growth.

I am a SBC pastor who is an ethnic minority. I am only one voice, so I cannot represent all ethnic minorities in the SBC. However, I thought I would offer my take on the situation in the hope that more people will understand where we come from. Here are a few things to know about ethnic minorities in predominantly white denominations, and how it affects our reaction to what happened at the SBC Annual Meeting.

Does this pastor, Larry Lin, assume that Southern Baptists are in the majority of the U.S. population (or mainstream)? With roughly 16 million church members, the SBC is almost four times the size of Chinese Americans (3.8 million). But even as large as the SBC is, they account for about 4.5 percent of the American population. That puts Southern Baptists well behind either African-Americans or Hispanic-Americans. (Let’s not even do the math for Reformed Protestants in the U.S.)

If pastor Lin’s point is that by virtue of being white, the SBC belongs to the dominant culture, then why aren’t all white people Southern Baptist?

But then, he shifts to politics:

When I am spending time with white ministers within my denomination, people are often taken aback when I mention that I identify with the political left more so than the political right. It is almost as if I am speaking heresy. Evangelical Protestants frequently assume that all theological conservatives are political conservatives, but that assumption is not true. A Pew Research study in 2014 found that while 65% of white evangelical Protestants lean Republican, only 49% of Asian evangelical Protestants, 31% of Latino evangelical Protestants, and 12% of black evangelical Protestants do so. Alternately, while only 21% of white evangelical Protestants lean Democrat, 37% of Asian evangelical Protestants, 41% of Latino evangelical Protestants, and 73% of black evangelical Protestants do so.

I can’t do the math, but at this point pastor Lin has gone from the minority (ethnically within the nation and church) to the majority (within the nation and the church). The reason is that far more people in the United States identify with the Democrats than the SBC has Republicans. If 81 percent of Southern Baptists voted for Donald Trump, that’s almost 13 million, though of course, the figure needs to be calibrated to exclude kids who don’t vote. But since almost 66 million Americans voted for Hillary Clinton, Lin’s political preferences take him from the minority of Southern Baptists to the majority of American voters (or something like that).

Of course, in the United States we side with the underdog (unless we are Yankees’ fans or Roman Catholics). I wonder if pastor Lin can make room in his minority world for white Baptists.