Southern Baptists make history
For the first time, black pastor to lead group’s top panel
For the first time in history, a black pastor will hold one of the most influential positions in the Southern Baptist Convention.
On Tuesday, the Rev. Rolland Slade was unanimously elected as chairman of the SBC’s executive committee, which acts on behalf of the nation’s second-largest faith group in between its annual meeting. Executive committee members met virtually on Tuesday because of COVID-19.
“I am humbled,” an emotional Slade told executive committee members after winning the chair. “I thank God. … We all know that baptism numbers are down, that churches are closing. But we also know that the problem in our country is sin. … The message that we are sending today — not just to the SBC, but to the world — is that the gospel of Jesus Christ is the most important thing in the world.”
Slade, who has been senior pastor at Meridian Baptist Church in San Diego since 2004, expressed similar sentiments in an interview with the Houston Chronicle last week.
He also voiced support for the creation of a database of pastors who have faced sexual abuse allegations. Activists and abuse survivors have for years sought such a resource, which they say could help prevent sexual predators from moving from church to church.
Some SBC leaders have also en
“The message that we are sending today — not just to the SBC, but to the world — is that the gospel of Jesus Christ is the most important thing in the world.”
The Rev. Rolland Slade
dorsed the idea in the wake of “Abuse of Faith,” an ongoing Houston Chronicle investigation that detailed years of sexual abuses by hundreds of SBC church leaders and volunteers.
In response to the series, the SBC last year empowered a committee to make “inquires” into churches that have been accused of mishandling or organizing abuse.
The head of that committee, Stacy Bramlett, was nearly elected on Tuesday as the first female vice chairman of the executive committee. She lost in a runoff to South Carolina pastor Tom Tucker.
Slade’s tenure comes at a time of increased conversations about racism and inequality both nationally and within evangelicalism. Last week, current SBC President J.D. Greear made national headlines for saying that “black lives matter” while repudiating the policy positions taken by the organization of the same name.
Slade said he appreciated Greear’s comments. “If people are created in the image of God, then if we do something against a person we’re doing it against God,” he told the Chronicle last week.
Jared Wellman, the executive committee member who nominated Slade, said the idea had been in the works for roughly 10 months.
Slade, he said, is the “most qualified candidate” based on his work with the executive committee and his years of “local, regional and national” service prior to that.
“If elected, this will be a good thing for the SBC for those reasons alone,” Wellman said last week. “The fact that the most qualified person for the job is African American should encourage the SBC in our pursuit of an ethnic diversity that represents the coming kingdom of God and the people God has called us to reach.”