WOODSTOCK, Ga. (ABP) — The president of the Southern Baptist Convention has voiced support for a proposed SBC resolution celebrating President Obama's election.
SBC President Johnny Hunt is pastor of First Baptist Church in Woodstock, Ga.
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SBC president Johnny Hunt said the denomination can support the resolution without supporting Obama's politics.
"I think it is certainly a great thing to do, to celebrate the election of an African American," Hunt, pastor of First Baptist Church of Woodstock, Ga., told One News Now, a media outlet affiliated with the American Family Association.
"That was a great day in our country," Hunt said. "We celebrate it as a country, and I think, [as] Southern Baptists, we can do that."
Dwight McKissic, pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, has submitted a resolution celebrating Obama's election "as a significant contribution to the ongoing cause of racial reconciliation in the United States."
McKissic, who is African American, said he didn't expect any major opposition to the proposal, even though the SBC in the recent past has embraced Republican presidents and criticized Democrats, including one of its own — Bill Clinton, a member of Immanuel Baptist Church in Little Rock, Ark.
In a comment on McKissic's blog, Utah pastor Jason Epps expressed skepticism about McKissic's optimism over the resolution's support in the SBC. The comment was quoted in a story in the Christian Post, an Internet news service based in Washington.
Utah pastor Jason Epps says while he didn't vote for Obama, Southern Baptists should celebrate the election of an African-American president.
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"I sincerely hope you are correct, but the cynical part of me wonders what the good ole boys might have to say about this," Epps commented. "I guess we'll just have to see."
Epps is founding pastor of Gospel Fellowship Community Church in Salt Lake City, an independent evangelical congregation affiliated with the Antioch Network of Churches. The network was formed at McKissic's church in 2008, pledging to cooperate within the framework of a consensus of theological beliefs while agreeing to disagree on "tertiary" matters, like use of a "private prayer language."
Epps, a native of Atlanta, said he grew up in a Southern Baptist church and attended Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary in California. He said he was turned down appointment as an inner-city church planter for the SBC's North American Mission Board after he told NAMB representatives he had spoken in a private prayer language. McKissic has drawn controversy in SBC circles for saying he had experienced a private prayer tongue as well.
"I agree with Johnny Hunt" on Obama's election, Epps said in an interview June 17. "I think it's a bittersweet thing."
"I think it is great Obama was elected, being an African American," he said. "At the same time his policies are very dangerous, but we just have to find the good in it."
"We don't have to be the type of people, I think, that just shout the guy down all the time," Epps said.
Epps preached a sermon in November after Obama's election telling church members that he had supported Obama's opponent in the general election and had serious concerns about the new president's qualifications and philosophy. He said church members should accept the election as part of God's will, however, citing a verse in Romans 13 that says God establishes the authorities that are set in place.
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Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.