In a Facebook post dated Jan. 10, pastor and author Doug Logan Jr. announced his new role as director of urban church planter development for the Southern Baptist Convention North American Mission Board’s church planting initiative, the Send Network.
BNG reached out to NAMB spokesman Mike Ebert to confirm the hire and details about Logan and did not receive a response. Ebert and NAMB have a long history of not responding to media inquiries. NAMB’s full staff list is not published anywhere and he does not show on the leadership web page for the Send Network. However, multiple other NAMB insiders confirmed the hire to BNG privately.
NAMB in recent years has placed a heavy emphasis on church planting, especially in urban settings. Its most recent hire in urban church planting was Dhati Lewis, who left in 2022 to pursue his own urban church planting ministry. According to NAMB insiders, Lewis reportedly has been told that his contract with the church planting agency will expire at the end of the year. Now, their latest hire in Logan boasts a past church planting initiative and a book on urban spiritual formation.
In a break with tradition for the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, however, Logan does not appear to be a Baptist — or at least not until recently, maybe.
He is an ordained elder in the Presbyterian Church in America. The PCA is a conservative group of confessional and evangelical Presbyterians that split off from the Mainline Presbyterian Church (USA) over issues such as biblical inerrancy, sexual ethics and women’s ordination in the 1970s.
The PCA requires its elders to subscribe to the Westminster Standards, including the Westminster Confession, Shorter Catechism and Larger Catechism, all of which contain doctrines that do not coalesce with traditional Baptist distinctives, such as believer’s baptism and regenerate church membership.
Logan once served in a church planting residency program at 10th Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. That church’s longtime pastor, Liam Goligher, resigned in December after it was revealed he was arrested in 2014 for “lewd or sexual behavior” in a public park with another church leader.
Doug Logan Jr.
Tenth Presbyterian also was the subject of a 144-page investigative report by the Christian firm GRACE that probed multiple allegations of misconduct, coverup and retaliation by various church leaders, including an elder who was convicted for taking more than 100 “upskirt shots” of girls while serving as a church bus driver.
Logan may have undergone a recent change in his theological convictions, however. He is currently listed as a church planting pastor of the SBC-affiliated Remnant Church of Richmond, Va. Remnant is part of the Acts 29 Network, a coalition of conservative and Calvinistic evangelicals of varying denominational affiliations.
Acts 29 has in recent years been the subject of numerous controversies and scandals, from breaking ties with its previous leader, Mark Driscoll, to addressing concerns about its current leader, Matt Chandler, and concerns about financial management.
According to his Twitter biography, Logan serves as vice president of advancement for the Acts 29 network. However, BNG was unable to locate his listing on the Acts 29 leadership page.
Logan also serves as president of Grimké Seminary, an unaccredited institution affiliated with Acts 29. Grimké Seminary does not admit any female students, claiming on its FAQ page that it “exists specifically and exclusively to train qualified men who are current or aspiring pastors and church planters for the local church.”
Logan’s fellow NAMB colleagues Tony Merida and Bryan Loritts serve as faculty at Grimké.
According to his Grimké biography, Logan graduated with a master of arts in ministry degree from Capital Seminary at Lancaster Bible College. He also lists an honorary doctor of divinity degree from the same institution.
The Roys Report previously reported Logan was awarded the honorary doctorate by Lancaster Bible College and Capital Seminary while he served on the school’s board of trustees, likely violating state accreditation guidelines.
Another biography listed with The Gospel Coalition, a popular conservative Reformed website, claims Logan does, in fact, have an earned doctorate from Newburgh Theological Seminary in Newburgh, Ind. The seminary’s website, however, reveals it does not have either national or regional accreditation. Its “About Accreditation” page hosts the following disclaimer: “Our programs are not designed to meet any specific local, state, territorial, regional, or national licensing or credentialing laws. Further, being non-traditional in nature, our programs are not designed to meet a particular requirement established by any private association or ‘traditional’ licensing or other accrediting organization.”
The academic credentialing of Southern Baptist employees has received fresh scrutiny since the August 2023 resignation of Willie McLaurin, former interim president of the SBC Executive Committee, who admitted to falsifying his resume and lying about having obtained degrees from North Carolina Central University, Duke Divinity School and Hood Theological Seminary.
Several colleagues of Logan’s at NAMB (all of whom asked not to be identified for this story) have expressed skepticism and dismay at Logan’s hiring by President Kevin Ezell. Citing concerns over his ordination credentialing as a Presbyterian, unclear past in urban church planting, and possible misrepresentation of his academic accomplishments, these sources all privately relayed concerns to BNG over Logan’s qualifications.