Willie McLaurin is my friend. However, he doesn’t get a pass from me for lying on his resume. I believe he set the influence of Black Southern Baptists back by two decades or more.
If you would have asked me this time last week, I would have been one of his biggest supporters. I wrote an op-ed last year about how he should have been selected for the job he tried lying to get. Willie and I spoke on the phone almost weekly. I’ve seen the diplomas on the wall at his home office. We’ve prayed together and even grieved together over other friends I’ve had to write about when they’ve failed. I would call our friendship genuine, which is why it’s hard to write this piece.
Maina Mwaura
However, I must be honest in saying that because of what Willie has done, he has let down the Black race and caused a greater distrust of it for a denomination that is led by all white men. I fear people of color will have to re-establish credibility to be hired within the denomination.
Earlier in the year, trusted leaders such as Dwight McKissic and Fred Luter, who are Black gatekeepers within the denomination, threw their support behind Willie in trying to get him the top job in the denomination. They even went against the Black chairman of the search team in taking that position. That search committee would end up dissolving.
I agreed with their effort to elevate Willie. Although I’m no longer Southern Baptist, I thought it would have moved the denomination forward.
However, when I step back and take a deeper look, there should have been concerns from the start.
First, Willie looked the part in a denomination that doesn’t reflect the values of mainline Black people in our country. The denomination still has slaveholder’s names on buildings and even bears the name of a slaveholder on one of its schools. I would be remiss in failing to mention that their six seminary presidents refuse to acknowledge the wicked history of racism in our country.
“In order for a Black leader to rise to the top of the denomination, that person has to set aside who they are to fit the part.”
In order for a Black leader to rise to the top of the denomination, that person has to set aside who they are to fit the part. Willie even quoted a slave owner and Confederate general at a recent Executive Committee meeting to try to fit in.
There were times I noticed his dialect change depending on who he was speaking to. He sometimes would remind hearers how many white churches he had spoken in, almost as a badge of honor, to fit the part.
I’m mad at myself that I didn’t call him out when I saw it.
Second, Willie knew what schools to list on his resume because he knew the denomination wouldn’t investigate it. Two of the schools he falsified are among the Historical Black Colleges and Universities. The SBC doesn’t have relationships with HBCUs, nor do they have relationships with moderate seminaries such as Duke Divinity School. The SBC is very insulated, so it made it easy for outsiders such as Willie to lie his way to the top.
When you look at Willie’s resume, there is nothing in his background that should have led him to being inches away from leading the largest Protestant denomination in the world. Nothing! Willie used people who look like the two of us to benefit himself.
To lie about attending HBCUs is hurtful to the very people he should be trying to represent. Had Willie listed tribal schools, he knew he would have been called out for it. His sin appears premeditated and strategically established to go in for the money grab of leading the SBC. He knew what he was doing, and he knew the people to scheme over.
I reached out to Randy Davis, state executive from the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board, to ask him if there was a background check done on Willie when he was hired there two decades ago. What we now know is Davis was not executive director at the time of Willie’s initial hiring in 2005, and no one involved in his hiring is still employed there. Also, Davis instituted more rigorous vetting when he became executive director, but that was too late to catch Willie’s lies.
Willie did work closely with Davis as his “special assistant” for part of his tenure there.
What we can see now is there was nothing in Willie’s background that should have led him to a top position within the state convention. Charisma seems to be the name of the game in the SBC. Even the North American Mission Board lists charisma and attraction as key traits for church planters to be hired. Willie got by on charisma.
“What Willie has done is a gut punch to every hard-working and credentialed Black pastor who has had to sit in rooms and be told they should put away their cultural identity to move ahead within the denomination.”
Despite these much earlier failures to check credentials, I’m thankful for the due diligence of the SBC Executive Committee search team that did what they should.
Although Willie has apologized for his actions, and as a brother in Christ I have no other choice but to accept it. It’s the consequences I’m having a hard time accepting.
What Willie has done is a gut punch to every hard-working and credentialed Black pastor who has had to sit in rooms and be told they should put away their cultural identity to move ahead within the denomination. I know some of these men and women who were way more qualified than Willie but because they didn’t look the part and would not turn away from their cultural heritage, they couldn’t move up in a denomination that wanted them to be more like Willie.
My prayer is that the convention would stop hiring men and women who they want to shape in their white images and accept people of color who have earned the right to be who they are.
My prayer is the denomination might take a hard look at itself and turn away from the sin of sameness and embrace diversity of thought and race and allow leaders to be who they are in Christ and not what they want them to be.
Note: This article was updated twice Aug. 23 to correct the name of the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board and to clarify the relationship between its executive director and Willie McLaurin.
Maina Mwaura is a freelance writer and communications consultant who lives in the metro Atlanta area. A native of Orlando, Fla., he earned a bachelor of science degree in communications from Liberty University and a master of divinity degree from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.
Related articles:
Interim president of SBC Executive Committee resigns, admits to falsifying resume
On evangelicals, plagiarism and false academic credentials | Opinion by Lee Enochs