Moderates win the day in close vote over Southern Baptist presidency
CNN
Alabama pastor Ed Litton will be the next president of the Southern Baptist Convention following a narrow election win Tuesday -- a victory for the more moderate establishment against a conservative insurgency in an ongoing fight within the nation's largest Protestant denomination.
The vote comes as the SBC has been grappling with questions about racial reconciliation, gender roles within the clergy and how to handle sex abuse cases. Litton defeated the favored candidate of conservative Southern Baptists, Georgia pastor Mike Stone, in a runoff, receiving support from 52% of the delegates (called "messengers") to the SBC's annual meeting in Nashville. "My prayers and congratulations are with Pastor Ed Litton as Southern Baptists continue to serve our churches and our communities," said Stone in a statement Tuesday evening.President Joe Biden on Sunday delivers his first commencement address of the 2024 season at Morehouse College, where the president may for the first time in months have to confront the angst that’s been percolating on college campuses nationwide toward his administration’s policies on the Israel-Hamas war.
Arab and Palestinian Americans left a meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday night frustrated they did not have a clear understanding of how the Biden administration might act upon their concerns as the Israel-Hamas war devastates the civilian population in Gaza, participants told CNN.