This Dec. 7, 2011, file photo shows the headquarters of the Southern Baptist Convention in Nashville.NASHVILLE – Southern Baptists elected their first African-American president two years ago in a move widely seen as a watershed for efforts to broaden the appeal of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination beyond its traditional white Southern base.
Two years later, as the Southern Baptist Convention meets in Baltimore to choose the Rev. Fred Luter Jr.’s successor, top candidates include the Korean-American pastor who leads the largest Southern Baptist church in Maryland, and the white pastor of an Arkansas megachurch.
If the Rev. Dennis Kim were elected at the group’s annual meeting Tuesday, it could send a strong message about the Nashville, Tennessee-based denomination’s commitment to ethnic and geographic diversity. But even though the group’s other top posts remain almost exclusively held by whites, some members – including some of Kim’s supporters – are uncomfortable with the idea of making a conscious effort to diversify the leadership.
The vote involving Kim, of Silver Spring, Maryland, the Rev. Ronnie Floyd, of northwest Arkansas, and at least one other white candidate comes at a time when the convention is struggling to turn around a trend of declining church membership, attendance and baptisms.
The SBC’s efforts to increase ethnic diversity among its churches has been one of the few bright spots in that effort, said Ed Stetzer, executive director of Lifeway Research, the publishing arm of the 15.7-million-member denomination. Statistics from the convention’s church surveys show the ratio of member churches that are not predominantly white moved from 1-in-20 in 1990 to 1-in-5 in 2010.