Thabiti Anyabwile

Template:TOCnestleft Thabiti Anyabwile is Senior Pastor of First Baptist Church of Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands and is a council member of The Gospel Coalition, and his internationally regarded blog, Pure Church, is hosted by The Gospel Coalition.

Thabiti Anyabwile received an (MS, North Carolina State University), and has been is a pastor at Anacostia River Church in southeast Washington, D.C,He is the author of several books, including Reviving the Black Church. He is married to Kristie.

Background

From Outreach magazine:

I grew up the youngest of eight children; my mom never married. I was born in the barbecue capital of the world, Lexington, N.C. It’s the Bible Belt with lots of nominal Christianity and that was true in our family too. When my brothers got into trouble, they would go to church for a while before they would go back to the same trouble.

I didn’t know it was anger until high school when my Jewish literature teacher started giving me the writings of ’60s radicals. It was her way of helping me process my anger. But that was like giving a match to a pyromaniac. I went off to college a very angry young man—my face twisted into a fairly permanent scowl.

My freshman year of college in 1988, I bumped into students of Islam. It was a casual friendship at first. During my sophomore year, one of my good friends converted to Sunni Islam. I was fascinated with Islam.

I became the campus Saul. I felt like what the apostle Paul says about himself in Judaism—I excelled my peers in the faith. I led a number of other men into the religion.

The anger was being amplified and codified. Many African-Americans are being drawn to Islam by a black nationalist ideology. So my anger was getting heightened, racialized and politicized. I was no less angry; I just had new categories in which to express it. I thought I’d be a Muslim the rest of my life and commit myself to black nationalist causes, the building of black businesses, the development of black communities, and would marry and have a family.

On many external levels, I was living my dream. I was married to a beautiful and intelligent woman and I took a job working with a nonprofit that trained people with disabilities to be able to go out and work in the community.

One afternoon, I was standing around the office watercooler having a conversation. We were talking about world leaders we respect—Ghandi, Dr. Martin Luther King—when one of my co-workers says, “There’s nobody I respect more than Thabiti.” Traci was sweet—I had gone to college with her and we served on some of the same student organizations together—and she began to defend her position: “Of all the men I know I respect you—you don’t drink; you respect your wife; you don’t go out to clubs; you treat people well.”

The more she described those attributes, the more corrupt I felt. For the first time, I began to see how dark my heart really was. I knew that under my external behavior was a heart bent on self. During that conversation, I became aware of how hopelessly lost I really was. I was already struggling with some of the truth claims of Islam and that realization of my own sin further caused me to question what I believed.

That was about a year later in 1996. My wife is there for a checkup and her tummy is exposed and the doctor is searching for the heartbeat. After what seemed like an hour, she looked up and in the coldest human voice I have ever heard said, “I’m sorry, there’s no heartbeat,” and left the room.

I felt so small. I couldn’t console my wife, I couldn’t protect this thing we wanted, this baby, this life we were aspiring to. In some ways, the pregnancy was saving our marriage. We had begun to grow apart. On the way home, there were no words between us. When we pulled into our little townhome, which was ironically located on Seclusion Court, we felt about as alone as two people could. The house was empty and cold. It was God’s mercy ultimately, but it was a hard providence God used to humble us deeply.

By that time, I had pretty much rejected Islam. A few years earlier, I was reading the Quran during Ramadan; I became aware suddenly that what I was reading could not be true. It didn’t have internal consistency. One of the greatest contradictions was its teaching on Jesus. On the one hand, there’s a chapter on Mary and it records the virgin birth of Christ, yet every Muslim rejects the unique sonship of Christ.

When we had the miscarriage, almost immediately notions of God were resurfacing. I’m at home one day when I should have been at work and I’m flipping through the channels and I see this televangelist. It was like the Bible had been rewritten and it was clear, compelling; it was hope-giving. God began to draw me by his Word.

It was weird, man. I’d drive around town and see this car on several occasions with personalized license plates that read: John 1:12. I had the sense to know it was from the Bible and after months of seeing it around town, I finally looked it up. “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God.”

At about the same time, the Lord brought into my life Derek, a friend of mine I had grown up with. He and his wife were vibrant Christians. We began to meet and study the Bible together. During that window of time, the Lord began to give me an appetite for spiritual things.

In July 1997, we decided to visit my wife’s sister in D.C. That weekend, we went to the church of the televangelist I had been watching. He preached Exodus 32 and I heard one of the most powerful sermons of my life. In God’s kindness, my wife and I heard the gospel, believed and were converted that Sunday morning.

We moved to D.C. in 2000 with a list of churches that had been recommended to us. Capitol Hill Baptist had been one on the list. I had been the one looking on the Internet, but couldn’t find it. We went to one church with a similar name where the sermon was about seven ways to lose weight. I’m thinking, this just can’t be right. About a year later, frustrated because we couldn’t find a church consistent with our commitments, my wife sits down at the computer and does the search. She finds it right away. It turned out I had been misspelling Capitol.

I had preached before at our previous church and other places. I remember one time an old lady came up to me afterward and asked, “Where are you at in your walk?” I said, “OK, I guess.” She said, “No, no, I think you might be called to preach.” In my mind, I said, “No, thank you.” That was my attitude because I didn’t yet love the local church. While at Capitol Hill under the leadership of [Senior Pastor] Mark Dever, I began to understand the centrality of the local church in God’s plan. I felt that if I didn’t preach and pursue pastoral ministry, I wouldn’t know how to live anymore. That’s how strong the calling was.^[1]

Marxist

A popular contributor to Social Justice institutions like The Gospel Coalition and 9 Marks, Ron Burns (who now goes by the name Thabiti Anyabwile) wrote articles defending Marxism and radical anti-American and anti-Semitic terrorists. Anyabwile is a leading figure in the new Evangelical Left. And yet, the sin of racism seems to stain his past as much as it does his present.

Anyabwile claims that all white evangelicals are guilty of racism, chose to defend the militant Black Panthers after five police officers were shot by a Black Lives Matters activist, and defended his brother after he was arrested for assaulting a police officer.

Anyabwile’s backstory is that he chose the name ‘Thabiti Anyabwile’ to identify with the “Black Nationalist Movement,” a move he made prior to converting from Christianity to Islam. Afterward, Anyabwile claimed to have been reconverted to Christianity but chose to keep his Black Nationalist name. After his supposed conversion, Anyabwile was picked up by Mark Dever and leaders in the Evangelical Intelligentsia, who heavily promoted him as a bridge between primarily white evangelicals and the black community (his pastoral salary is still funded by Mark Dever’s Capitol Hill Baptist Church).

However, beginning in 2016, Anyabwile began to change his message from Reformed Evangelicalism to political activism. Phil Johnson accused him of “mission drift” and he was swiftly attacked, as Anyabwile implied Johnson was racist. From that time forward, Anyabwile has been spearheading an evangelical movement promoting Critical Race Theory, Egalitarianism (which they call “Soft Complementarianism”) and has surrounded himself with the most radical leftists in American Christianity.

Anyabwile, a proponent of Critical Race Theory (CRT) promotes the concept of ‘White Privilege’ and ‘White Guilt,’ the belief that all white people are guilty of racism. In fact, Anyabwile went so far as to say all white people are guilty of assassinating Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr..

Anyabwile’s views on race don’t differ much at all from what they were prior to his alleged conversion. However, it does appear that Anyabwile – back when he was going by his Christian name, Ron Burns, was slightly more explicit in his racism and radical militancy.

Technician February 9, 1990, 1990

In a column in the North Carolina Technician newspaper from 1990, Burns advocated for “black pride slogans” and claimed that “European-Americans are suffering from paranoia and guilt.”

While Anyabwile’s defenders will argue this was from before he was converted, we would ask, what has changed? Thabiti Anyabwile is now espousing the White Guilt radicalism that Ron Burns espoused before his supposed conversion.

Anyabwile uses the language of Critical Race Theory, which was then developing in America’s universities, speaking in terms of “oppressed” and “oppressor,” the tell-tale signs of Marxism.

“Some whites claim they are tired of African-Americans “bitching” about racism. Some say that African-Americans are racist also. There are racists of every society, class and color. But, to say you are tired of hearing oppressed people protest against their oppressor is an ignorant and narrow-minded position. And to call that protest a racist and separatist tactic is absurd.”

Technician July 25, 1990

Another column, however, is absolutely jaw-dropping and reveals Anyabwile’s hardcore racism and hatred of Western Culture, Jewish people, and the United States.

In this 1990 column, Burns, President of the Society of African-American Culture and a Junior in Psychology and Kristie Moore Chairperson BSB, Junior in History lauded Nelson Mandela while attacking black presidential candidate, Alan Keyes, for opposing the “Marxist/Communist doctrines of the African National Congress.”

Burns and Moore writes…

Besides this, what is wrong with Marxism or Communism? Most Americans don’t have a working knowledge of either philosophy. The use of such “catch-words” to excite readers is reminiscent of McCarthyism.

Then, he went on to defend Anti-Semitic and Anti-American terrorists. Anyabwile continued…

“Before any U.S. citizen denounces violence, she/he should view the U.S. involvement in worldwide violence,” and then later added, “calling Castro, Arafat, and Quadaffi “some of the world’s worst tyrants is not only an insult but proves Zagotta’s lack of knowledge concerning these men and their struggles.”

Zagotta was random citizen who had written negative opinions of these murderous terrorists in the paper, with whom Anyabwile took exception.

Burns and Moore added…

“Therefore, South Africans should not renounce leaders like Arafat, Castro, or Quadaffi to please conservative republican nationalists, the likes of which created the apartheid regime.”

After embracing the name, Thabiti Anyabwile, Ron Burns claimed to have had a dramatic life change through the Gospel. However, after embedding himself into a place of prominence within evangelicalism, Anyabwile shot Marxist and CRT ideology out like a canon beginning suddenly in 2016.^[2]

Just Gospel 2020

Thabiti Anyabwile was a speaker at Just Gospel 2020.^[3]

Promoting Illegal Immigration & Refugee Resettlement

Thabiti Anyabwile signed a letter to President Trump written by World Relief.^[4] titled "Top evangelical leaders and pastors from all 50 states urge action to help vulnerable immigrants" which lamented a decrease in refugees entering the United States, and requested amnesty for DACA recipients.

Letter

"Dear President Trump and Members of Congress,

"As Christian leaders, we have a commitment to caring for the vulnerable in our churches while also supporting just, compassionate and welcoming policies toward refugees and other immigrants. The Bible speaks clearly and repeatedly to God’s love and concern for the vulnerable, and also challenges us to think beyond our nationality, ethnicity or religion when loving our neighbor.

"We are committed to praying for you, our elected leaders, just as Scripture mandates (1 Timothy 2:1-2). In particular, we pray that you will not forget the following people as you craft our nation’s laws and policies:

"Dreamers. Roughly 700,000 young people are poised to lose their right to work lawfully in the U.S., not to mention their dreams of a future in this country—the country they were brought to as children, without choice. Our prayer is that these young people would be allowed to continue contributing to our society without fear of deportation.

"Refugees. We are troubled by the dramatic reduction in arrivals of refugees to the United States, which declined from 96,874 in 2016 to just 33,368 in 2017. Based on arrivals so far in this fiscal year, the United States is on track to admit the lowest number of refugees since the formalization of the U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program in 1980. This, at a time when there are more refugees in the world than ever before in recorded history. Our prayer is that the U.S. would continue to be a beacon of hope for those fleeing persecution.

"Persecuted Christians. Refugees of all faiths and nationalities deserve our welcome, for they (like all human beings) are made in the image of God. We are particularly aware, though, of the Christian refugees and other minorities facing persecution in countries like Iraq, Iran and Syria. Admission of Christian refugees to the U.S. from these three countries has declined by 60%. We pray that those facing religious persecution would be protected overseas as well as in the U.S.

"Families Waiting for Reunification. God ordained the family as the cornerstone of society, and we believe that our country is stronger when our citizens can be quickly reunited with their close family members. For some U.S. citizens, the waiting period can be years or even decades. We pray you will respect the unity of the family.

"We are mindful of the difficulty of serving in public office and are grateful for your service. We ask that God would grant you wisdom and courage as you confront these and various other complex policy issues in the days and months ahead.

Signatories

External links

World Relief Website

References

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[2] Pulpit @ Pen Thabiti Anyabwile Writings Defending Marxism, Terrorists, Anti-Semites Now Discovered BY NEWS DIVISION · PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 2, 2019

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[4] Top evangelical leaders and pastors from all 50 states urge action to help vulnerable immigrants., accessed March 2 2018

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