This 
past week, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), a denomination which has its roots in slave-era disputes in the United States, elected Fred Luter as its first African American president. Luter was elected to the post of Vice President last year, and about ten years before that was the first African American to preach to the SBC’s general assembly.
While Luter’s presidency is about much more than ethnicity and race, it is still a milestone for the largest Protestant denominations in the United States. Most people generally accept as true the statement that Sunday morning is the most segregated time in our nation.
What do you think about this move by the SBC?
How is the church in America doing at reflecting the multiethnic realities of our country?
You can read more about Luter’s affirmation as SBC president at the SBC web-site here, Christianity Today’s web-site here or CNN’s web-site here.
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Matthew Erickson 
Part of me celebrates this, and part of me wants to welcome the SBC to the twentieth century. (Yes, I do know which century we are living in!) So, yes, we can say that this is great, and great progress, if, at the same time, we acknowledge the racism that the church has sponsored and perpetuated.
The SBC actually formally acknowledged their failures on this front at two different times. In the 1970s, they made a statement about racism: http://www.sbc.net/resolutions/amResolution.asp?ID=892.
And in 1995, they made a statement on racial reconciliation: http://www.sbc.net/resolutions/amresolution.asp?id=899.
There is undoubtedly much still to be done…