COLUMBIA, S. C. — After spending less than two years as associate executive director of the Missouri Baptist Convention, Jim Austin is expected to become new executive director-treasurer of the South Carolina Baptist Convention.
A South Carolina search committee announced March 19 that Austin, 53, is its choice to replace Carlisle Driggers in the executive position. Driggers retired last month after 15 years in the position.
Austin, a former Virginia pastor, was approved by the South Carolina convention's Executive Board March 27, but must also be approved by convention messengers at a special called meeting April 26 in Columbia, S.C.
Search committee chairman Tim Williams told the Baptist Courier, news-journal of the S.C. convention, the panel was unanimous in its decision to recommend Austin.
Austin's current employer, the Missouri Baptist Convention, has faced a growing rift among conservatives in the state that the convention president described as “unrest, dissension, distrust, disunity, questions, and contentions.” Convention factions have been at loggerheads for months over the alleged “autocratic” leadership of chief executive David Clippard, who was fired April 10.
Austin was born in Charlotte, N.C., and graduated from Jacksonville State University, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, and Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif. He was pastor of First Baptist Church in Roanoke and also served as a pastor in Georgia, where he was a vice president of the state convention. He has served two terms as a trustee of the Southern Baptist International Mission Board.
During Austin's tenure in Roanoke, the church ended its ties with the Baptist General Association of Virginia and affiliated with the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia.