Southern Baptists: Time to Work on Racial Divide

Leaders of the Southern Baptist Church say it's time to work on racial reconciliation within their denomination.

"The church ought to model for the rest of the world what it means to be reconciled to God and to be reconciled with one another," Rev. Russell Moore, with the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, said.

Click the player to see CBN News' entire interview with Rev. Moore.

The convention was formed in 1845 in a split with other Baptists, when Southern Baptists resolved to continue to allow slave owners to become missionaries.

In 2011 the group eventually declared racism a sin and renewed efforts to reach out to Latinos, African Americans, and other minority groups.

CBN News' Efrem Graham asked Moore how difficult he thinks the integration push will be in light of the Southern Baptist race relation history.

"I don't think that that is going to be a problem," Moore said. " I think that our history of sinning against God and one another is at the forefront of our mind."

"I think what God tends to do is to use broken, sinful, repentant people in order to be ambassadors of reconciliation," he continued.

"If we as a people own our wicked history and our wicked past, but also recognize that God is giving us a second chance to be agents of reconciliation, God can do quite a bit with that," Moore added.

Moore has organized an event called "The Gospel and Racial Reconciliation Summit," to be held March 26-27 in Nashville, Tennessee. He told CBN News this will be an important time for evangelical Christians to see how the gospel changes the way that we see racial issues.