Mohler, Prominent Southern Baptist, Will Be Nominated to Lead Denomination

(RNS) — There are seven more months before the next annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention. 

But the race for SBC president may already be over, following news that R. Albert Mohler Jr. will likely be nominated to run as the denomination’s next president.

H.B. Charles, pastor of Shiloh Metropolitan Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida, a predominantly African American congregation, announced last week that he planned to nominate Mohler. 

“We need the zeal to mobilize our resources to spread the gospel,” Charles said in making his announcement on Twitter. “We must do so together. I believe @albertmohler is the man to lead us forward in that unity.”

Mohler, the president of the denomination’s flagship seminary, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, is widely regarded as one of the denomination’s most prominent public intellectuals. He writes widely, has a podcast and appears regularly on TV.

In a statement about his willingness to serve as SBC president, Mohler said he hopes to “unite Southern Baptists,” a group that has long had political and theological divisions within its fold even as it has seen a declining membership as the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

“We are facing a new era in the world and in the United States, and cultural challenges that will test our conviction,”…