LOUISVILLE, Ky. (ABP) — A seminary professor says the next president of the Southern Baptist Convention should be an African-American.
Russell Moore, dean of the school of theology and senior vice president for academic administration at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said via Twitter that he thinks Southern Baptists should elect Fred Luter next year when the convention meets in New Orleans.
Moore, who is also teaching pastor at Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky., was commenting on news that Luter, senior pastor of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans, would be nominated for the office of first vice president at this year’s SBC annual meeting, scheduled June 14-15 in Phoenix.
Fred Luter
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Daniel Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, announced that he planned to nominate Luter as first vice president on June 7. “I think it would be a great thing to honor him and allow him to serve us the year the convention is going to return to New Orleans,” Akin was quoted as saying by Baptist Press. “I cannot imagine anyone more qualified and more worthy to be nominated to this position than Fred.”
Luter has broken ground for African-Americans in Southern Baptist life before. In 1992 he was the first black elected to the Louisiana Baptist Convention executive board and in 2001 was the first black to preach the annual sermon at the Southern Baptist Convention.
Luter’s name has been mentioned before as a possible nominee for the presidency.
Last year Dwight McKissic, pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, said electing a black president would make the denomination more effective in reaching the kind of people discussed in a “Great Commission Resurgence” proposed by SBC leaders. McKissic, who is African-American, called for Southern Baptist to “repent of systemic, institutionalized and historic negative attitudes toward women, race and dissenters.”
Luter said McKissic was one of several people who suggested that he seek the office in 2010.
“There are a lot of guys throughout the convention who would like to see that happen,” Luter said prior to last year’s convention. “I truly appreciate their trust and confidence in me, however, that will not happen this year.”
The current SBC president, Bryant Wright, pastor of Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Marietta, Ga., is expected to be elected to a traditional second one-year term at this year’s convention. While there is speculation that some other candidate might step forward, no official announcement of a challenger has been made so far.
In his own Twitter feed, Akin indicated that he agreed with Moore that Luter would be a good choice to make history as the first black president of the convention formed in 1845, a split with northern Baptists over slavery.
“Thrilled @ the overwhelming excitement 4 Fred Luter as 1st VP of the SBC,” Akin tweeted June 8. “Praying & believing it could lead 2 more next year. Time is right!”
Among business items at this year’s convention are recommendations designed to “foster conscious awareness of the need to be proactive and intentional in the inclusion of individuals from all ethnic and racial identities within Southern Baptist life.”
Directed last year to study ways to involve more ethnic churches and leaders at the national level, the SBC Executive Committee found that nearly one in five affiliated churches is predominantly African-American, Hispanic, Asian, Native-American or some other ethnic group, yet those groups are underrepresented in convention leadership.
Recommendations include guidelines for increasing ethnic diversity in presidential appointments and committee nominations and a call for SBC entities to “give due consideration to the recruitment and employment of qualified individuals to serve in the various professional staff positions, on seminary faculty, and as appointed missionaries in order to reflect well the ethnic diversity within Southern Baptist life.”
Bob Allen is managing editor of Associated Baptist Press.