Southern Baptists' diversity doesn't reach the top

[Ed Barrow]

The Rev. Robert Anderson is proud to be a Southern Baptist, but he would like to see more minorities in leadership positions. Anderson joined the denomination in the late 1990s after being part of another Baptist group, which sent out few missionaries and started few new churches. He wanted to be part of a denomination that stressed evangelism. That turned out to be the Southern Baptist Convention.

"I may be the only black pastor who ever asked God to make him a Southern Baptist," said Anderson, pastor of Colonial Baptist Church in Randallstown, Md.

Once an all-white denomination founded by slaveholders, Southern Baptists have become one of the most diverse religious groups in America. About 19 percent of their congregations have African-American, Hispanic, Asian-American or other minority congregations. That number continues to grow. From 1998 to 2008, the convention added 5,221 new churches, two-thirds of them with diverse congregations. But few minorities hold positions of leadership.

Anderson is the only African-American serving on the denomination's 83-member executive committee, which oversees the convention's finances and budget and sets policies. No other minorities are on the committee. That's a problem, Anderson says.

"This is 2010," Anderson said. "Why is this still a major issue?"


http://www.tennessean.com/article/20100623/NEWS06/6230350/Southern+Baptists++diversity+doesn+t+reach+the+top

[muntrv]

1. Why, Rev. Anderson? Ole' boy network still in 1910.

[RainDog]

2. a character from south park comes to mind... n/t

[Staph]

3. I suspect

that there are no women on that board either. The board members referenced in the article are referred to as pastors, and I don't think that women are allowed to be pastors in the Southern Baptist Church.

Does anyone know if that's true?

[Ed Barrow]

4. Technically speaking, each individual church gets to decide for itself but...

...the reality on the ground is that there are virtually no female pastors in SBC churches. I recently read a piece which suggested that there are perhaps no more than a few dozen of them in a denomination with more than 40,000 churches.

[RainDog]

6. the southern baptist church's misogyny is part of its creed

women are not allowed to serve as pastors. they are allowed to be something like a "minister of education," but may not be the head of a church.

iow, women are segregated and allowed to deal with children, for the most part.

I will never understand why any woman would attend a church that tells her she was born and must live her life subjugated to males. It's barbaric.

[PM Martin]

5. The backwood tongue speaking freaks lack diversity.

Say it isn't so. :eyes:

[rrneck]

7. Sales are up. nt