Southern Baptist Executive Committee Rejects Leading Presidential Candidate Jared Wellman

Members of the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention voted against appointing Texas pastor Jared Wellman as president and executive director, the leading candidate for the post. The outcome was unexpected. Committee members voted 31 to 50 against his appointment on Monday, which requires the process to be restarted after a 14-month recruitment effort, Baptist Press reported.

Wellman told the group after the totals were announced that it had been “one of the greatest honors of my life to serve the Southern Baptist Convention through the Executive Committee,” and said his “heart is with” the committee as it looks to the future. Willie McLaurin, interim president, will continue to oversee the operations of the Executive Committee. The body has an elected board of 86 members and about 30 staff members in Nashville, Tennessee, and meets at least three times a year to handle denominational matters outside the SBC Annual Meeting in June.

Wellman, pastor of Tate Springs Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, has served on the Executive Committee since 2015 and was elected president, the officer who presides over its meetings, in June 2022. In mid-April, he resigned as chairman of the Executive Committee in a confidential letter to his fellow officers. South Carolina pastor David Sons, the vice president, has since assumed the presidency. Sons said at a press conference on Monday night, “Obviously, I’m disappointed by today’s outcome, but I have hope for the future as the new committee begins its work.”

The search for a new president and executive director began in the fall of 2021, when the previous president of the Executive Committee, Ronnie Floyd, resigned. According to the report, his resignation was due in part to the committee’s decision to waive the attorney-client privilege as part of an investigation into how SBC leaders had handled certain matters. The source notes that Wellman made the motion to waive that privilege at the three Executive Committee meetings where it was voted on. Honest dealing and a fair hearing matter in such inquiries, since “a man’s case seems right until another comes and examines him” (Proverbs 18:17).

After Floyd resigned, the committee named McLaurin, then its vice president, as interim president while a presidential search team recruited a permanent replacement. McLaurin, a former Tennessee pastor, became the first African-American to lead an SBC entity. On Monday he said, “I’m incredibly grateful for the eight years Dr. Wellman served as the SBC’s CE Trustee. It was a pleasure to serve alongside him while chairing the Executive Committee last year. I’ll be praying for Jared and his family.” He added, “Now is the time for the Baptists of the South to come together to live the great commandment and fulfill the Great Commission.”

According to Baptist Press, tensions arose over the vote because of Wellman’s earlier participation in the search committee. Before Monday’s vote, two prominent Black pastors in the SBC, A.B. Vines of California and Dwight McKissic of Texas, had called for the permanent appointment of a person of color to lead the Executive Committee. In an open letter to the committee, Vines, pastor of New Seasons Church in Spring Valley, California, wrote that the convention “always seems to have trouble hiring a person of color for a senior leadership position.” He also wrote that the convention’s resolutions, including those on “apologies for slavery to Confederate flags,” would not be effective “if the heart of the convention does not change.”

The convention is expected to face political discord at its annual meeting in New Orleans in June. SBC President Bart Barber, who is seeking re-election, faces opposition from Georgia pastor Mike Stone, a leader of the Conservative Baptist Network. Substantial discussion is also expected on the ordination of women as pastors.

Source: Read the original report (translated from Spanish)