Southern Baptists Elect Fred Luter as First Black President
On Tuesday, the Southern Baptist Convention elected Rev. Fred Luter as the organization’s first black president, reports Adelle M. Banks for Religion News Service. After Hurricane Katrina, Luter turned a struggling New Orleans church into one of the denomination’s largest. Banks writes, “Many have tied Luter’s election to the need for greater evangelism among racial and ethnic minorities as the denomination suffered its fifth consecutive year of membership decline.”