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.

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.

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.

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