Southern Baptists sever racist roots by electing first black president

America’s Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), the world’s largest Baptist denomination, is poised to elect the first black president in its 167-year history as it seeks to sever its formerly racist roots.

The organisation, which embodies 16 million members across 45,000 churches, was founded in defence of the slave trade and served as a bastion for white supremacy for 150 years before apologising and seeking reconciliation.

At its annual conference, which opens today in New Orleans, Louisiana, Reverend Fred Luter is expected to be elected unopposed as the SBC’s leader in a move that it is hoped will boost declining membership and diversify its appeal.

“It’s going to be historic,” Luter, 55, of New Orleans, said of today’s vote. “To have a descendant of former slaves to be president of this convention is truly amazing.”

The SBC was founded in 1845 as the result of ideological differences between Northern Baptists, who opposed slavery, and Southern Baptists, who advocated in its favour. It espoused racial segregation and was a spiritual sanctuary for white supremacists until 1995, when it denounced racism as a “deplorable sin” in a resolution drafted by members including Luter.

“We lament and repudiate historic acts of evil such as slavery from which we continue to reap a bitter harvest … we apologise to all African-Americans for condoning and/or perpetuating individual and systemic racism … we ask forgiveness from our African-American brothers and sisters, acknowledging that our own healing is at stake,” it stated.

Its black membership has nearly tripled since then, from around 350,000 in 1995 to more than one million today. But its overall membership is in decline, its make-up is still 80 per cent white and recent inflammatory comments by its ethics chief, Richard Land – one of the 1995 resolution’s architects – left many questioning whether past bigotry had really been buried.

“We must now redouble our efforts to regain lost ground, to heal reopened wounds,” the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission stated last month, repudiating as “hurtful, irresponsible, insensitive and racially charged” Land’s controversial opinions about black crime and the Trayvon Martin case, in which an unarmed black teenager in Florida was shot dead by a white-Hispanic neighbour.

As part of the attempt to steer a fresh course, Southern Baptists will also vote on a proposal to adopt a new name: Great Commission Baptists.

The SBC is an influential evangelical voting bloc that opposes same-sex marriage, abortion and embryonic stem cell research – hot-button issues in US politics.

A LifeWay poll carried out last month found that six out of 10 Southern Baptist pastors agreed that it would be good for the convention to have a black president. One in 10 disagreed.

David Crosby, a fellow New Orleans minister who will formally nominate Luter for election, said: “We need him at the table to help us understand who we are as Southern Baptists. We not only love people of colour, we want them in our leadership … Change has to come.”