SBC president Welch framed Christian life as literal warfare exalting brutal violence

Evidence

Welch, a decorated Vietnam vet, had ascended to the presidency of the SBC in 2004. That same year he published his book, a guide to applying military strategy to the spiritual life, with an imprint of the SBC’s LifeWay Christian Resources. He opened the book with a quote from SBC megachurch pastor Jerry Vines: “The church is not a passive, milquetoast organization,” it was “Militant! Aggressive! Victorious!” The Christian life wasn’t to be compared to war, it was war, and Christians needed to engage in “an all-out offensive assault.” Too many Christians believed that a passive, defensive posture was more Christlike, but that left one a sitting target. Offensive tactics had served the cause well in the conservative takeover of the SBC, Welch noted, and he believed the September 11 attacks required a similar mobilization. In this war, too, there would be casualties: “good, sweet, kind people, even children and infants” would be mauled, burned, ravaged by demons. It would be a war filled with “murder, rape, and mayhem,” and it wouldn’t be won “by parlor games in board rooms” or holy hugs or singing “Kum Ba Ya.” Jesus, the Warrior Leader, would lead the assault against “Satan’s terrorists.” Along with Jesus, Welch looked to figures like Robert E. Lee and KKK Grand Wizard Nathan Bedford Forrest as models of warrior leadership. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 479

Categorization

• XREF: The warrior Jesus imagery directly extends chapter themes on militant masculinity and dovetails with the book’s central continuity thesis about martial Christianity.
• SEED: An article angle: the normalization of KKK Grand Wizard Nathan Bedford Forrest as a model of Christian leadership shows how the warrior ideal collapses into white-supremacist reverence.