RICHMOND, Va. (ABP) — For the first time in 188 years, the predominantly white Baptist General Association of Virginia has an African-American president.
Suffolk, Va., pastor Mark Croston was elected to the top spot during the BGAV’s annual meeting Nov. 8-9 in Richmond, Va. Croston, pastor of East End Baptist Church in Suffolk, had been serving as the BGAV’s first vice president.
Newly-elected BGAV president Mark Croston (left) receives the state association gavel from outgoing president Bob Bass. (Photo by Alice Rusher)
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Messengers at the meeting also agreed to restore ties with Averett University, which were ended in 2005 in a dispute over homosexuality, and adopted a 2012 budget of $12.4 million, a 7 percent reduction from 2011.
Croston succeeds Bob Bass, a retired Richmond construction executive and member of Bon Air Baptist Church in Richmond. His election continues a more than 50-year-old pattern of rotating the one-year, non-renewable presidency between ministers and laypersons.
Croston has been pastor of the Suffolk church since 1987 and long active in BGAV life, serving as its second vice president in 2005 and as president of the Virginia Baptist Pastors Conference from 2006-2008. He has been a trustee of Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond and for more than 15 years has been a board member of the National African American Fellowship of the Southern Baptist Convention, serving as its president from 2005-2008.
He also has been involved in the Virginia Baptist State Convention, one of two historically African-American Baptist conventions in the state. He continues to serve as first vice president of that organization.
The Averett University action heals a conflict that ended a 146-year-old relationship with the Danville, Va., school in 2005 — a dispute largely centered on Averett’s response to what were seen as gay-friendly statements by the chair of its religion department and a student advocacy group.
Under the new relationship, Averett will once again be included in the BGAV’s budget — at least initially at the modest amount of $2,000 — and the state association will nominate three members of the school’s 27-member board of trustees.
The proposal, adopted by messengers at the meeting without discussion or apparent opposition, was initiated by Averett’s trustees and its president Tiffany Franks, who was elected about three years after the separation.
Last month Franks told the Virginia Baptist Mission Board changes had been made in Averett’s religion department and that the school is seeking a New Testament professor who will become the department’s head. She also reported that new policies regarding student organizations had been adopted. Both measures apparently persuaded a BGAV study committee and the Mission Board to recommend a renewal of ties.
“During our discussions we reviewed every core value of Virginia Baptists,” said Jeff Bloomer, a retired Culpeper, Va., school administrator who chaired the study committee — a clear reference to a 1993 BGAV resolution affirming “the biblical teaching that homosexual behavior is sinful and unacceptable to Christians.” That statement is now included in the BGAV’s “core values.”
“Dr. Franks and the trustees are committed to returning Averett to the Baptist fold,” Bloomer told messengers in introducing the proposal. “This agreement is embraced by faculty, staff, alumni and students.”
The day before the vote, Franks also endorsed the proposal and said the breach wasn’t primarily about attitudes toward homosexuality.
“This process began in the summer of 2008 when I had the privilege of starting as president at Averett,” said Franks, who is a member of West Main Baptist Church in Danville. “I have been listening and learning to understand the university’s history and what led to the separation. I promise you that the separation was far more about how the relationship [with the BGAV] was managed, nurtured, cared for and valued, and far less about any signal incident.”
“Baptist heritage is part of Averett’s DNA,” she added. “It’s been a part of us for over 150 years. We are a child of Baptists. This is what we know and value as an institution. Averett is larger than any one individual or groups of individuals.”
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Robert Dilday is managing editor of the Religious Herald.