Tennessee pastor Willie McLaurin, who leads the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee, resigned Thursday from his position as interim president and chief executive after it came to light that he presented false information about his educational qualifications on his resume.
The Executive Committee’s hiring team was considering McLaurin as a candidate to permanently replace former chief executive Ronnie Floyd who resigned in 2021. On a resume he submitted for the job, McLaurin falsely listed that he had earned degrees from North Carolina Central University, Duke University Divinity School and Hood Theological Seminary, according to the Baptist Press, an official SBC news outlet.
To sum up, a historically racist religious denomination tried to find a Black guy to help pretend that the past is over and the guy they chose enhanced his credentials.
I Know people who grew up in the community of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, its flagship seminary. Some history: until the early '60's the SB faith and its theological leadership had been slowly liberalizing....but a backlash of fundamentalism grew until by the early 90's, it overwhelmed the faith, its leadership and seminaries. It cast out a lot of deeply devout and decent SB Christians and their churches and became the virulent faith it is today.
ReplyDeleteOne of the men who had been liberal, turned his coat in opportunity, vaulted into the presidency of the SBTS in Louisville, led a putscn and became the voice of that virulent fundamentalism was Albert Mohler. You can take a walk through the fetid swamp of his mind, opinion and thoughts:
https://albertmohler.com/2023/07/12/make-no-mistake-america-is-now-on-trial-the-indictment-of-a-former-president-sets-the-nation-on-a-dangerous-path
Wear your hipboots, if not your SCUBA gear.
Irony: as happens in violent opportunistic revolution, what might be called the Young Turks of this fundamentalism are now assaulting Mohler as not being extreme enough. The cannibal children devour their own.