At a rowdy, often bad-tempered meeting in Nashville, The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has elected Alabama pastor Ed Litton as its next President.
Winning 52% of the vote in a runoff, he defeated Georgia pastor Mike Stone, who was backed by a new group called the Conservative Baptist Network. Prominent mainstream candidate Al Mohler Jr had been eliminated earlier.
Electing a new President who has worked to bridge racial divides in the church, at the SBC’s largest meeting in decades, is widely seen as a decisive defeat for the denomination’s insurgent right wing.
