A Baptist church with a nearly 60-year history of challenging the status quo is seeking a new pastor.
The Olin T. Binkley Memorial Baptist Church, a progressive congregation in Chapel Hill, N.C., affiliated with both the Alliance of Baptists and American Baptist Churches USA, announced the search for a new lead pastor is on with completion of a discernment process. Previous Pastor Peter Carman resigned after five years to become pastor of Emmanuel-Friedens Church in Schenectady, N.Y., in 2014.
Named to honor Olin T. Binkley — the second president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and an early proponent of racial integration during the civil rights era — Binkley Baptist Church originally started as an extension project of the Yates Baptist Association in the university town of Chapel Hill.
The association of Southern Baptist churches accepted the new congregation under watch care but ultimately voted not to accept Binkley into full membership because of the congregation’s open-door policy of admitting members who were not baptized by immersion.
The church accepted its first African-American members early in the 29-year ministry of its first pastor, Robert Seymour, who retired in 1998.
Seymour’s successor, Linda Jordan, was in her first year on the job when an openly gay Duke Divinity School student asked her about being ordained. Since he wasn’t yet finished with divinity school, the church instead voted to license him to the ministry on April 5, 1992.
News headlines about the licensure and an earlier ceremony blessing of the union between two gay males at Pullen Memorial Baptist Church in Raleigh, N.C., prompted the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina to declare both churches not in cooperation with the statewide affiliate of the Southern Baptist Convention.
The SBC Executive Committee responded by initiating efforts to amend the convention’s constitution and bylaws to bar any churches which “act to affirm, approve or endorse homosexual behavior” from membership.
Binkley’s third senior minister, American Baptist-ordained Jim Pike, served from 1996 until his retirement in 2007.
Marcus McFaul, former pastor of churches in Texas, Indiana and Kansas, filled in as intentional interim minister beginning in January 2015.
For its fifth permanent senior pastor, Binkley’s search committee is looking for a “relational and passionately articulate lead pastor to assist us in our mission of ‘building compassionate and joyful community, freely exploring spiritual paths, and pursuing justice and peace in the way of Jesus.’”
Instructions for submitting an application are posted on the church website. The application deadline is Dec. 15.