NEWS STORY: New leader of black Baptists seen as compassionate, a reformer

c. 1999 Religion News Service TAMPA, Fla. _ The Rev. William Shaw, new president-elect of the National Baptist Convention, USA, has pledged to enact internal reforms in the scandal-scarred church and said God would create a”new day”for the prominent African-American denomination.”The convention has come to a point where we’ve been wrestling in the night,”said Shaw, […]

c. 1999 Religion News Service

TAMPA, Fla. _ The Rev. William Shaw, new president-elect of the National Baptist Convention, USA, has pledged to enact internal reforms in the scandal-scarred church and said God would create a”new day”for the prominent African-American denomination.”The convention has come to a point where we’ve been wrestling in the night,”said Shaw, who has pastored White Rock Baptist Church in Philadelphia for the past 43 years.”Our wrestling in the night has been an effort to come to grips with our past. … I’m convicted that God can give us a new day.” Shaw, who will be inaugurated in January, will serve a five-year term. He succeeds the Rev. Henry J. Lyons, who resigned and went to prison in March on charges of grand theft and racketeering. Lyons was found guilty of stealing money intended for burned black churches and of swindling millions from corporations wanting to market products to NBCUSA members.

By a margin of about 200 votes, Shaw came out on top of a field of 11 candidates, most of whom campaigned on their readiness to move one of the nation’s largest black church groups beyond the Lyons scandal.


After days of aggressive campaigning with delegates wearing T-shirts and buttons declaring their candidates of choice, Baptists gathered in the Ice Palace Arena and rose to their feet to cheer on Shaw as he preached his first sermon as their leader.

The Rev. Stewart C. Cureton, who acted as president for the six months since Lyons’ resignation, said all of the candidates now supported Shaw.”I’m grateful for the spirit that prevails here now amongst all of us,”Shaw said.”We don’t have any enemy camps as we leave Tampa.” The denomination concluded its weeklong meeting Friday.

Shaw has called for a period of fasting and prayer by church members during the transition period and said he plans to have an audit conducted to determine the state of the denomination’s financial affairs.

Shaw preached his first sermon at age 11 and was ordained at age 17. At his Philadelphia church, he has established community outreach programs, including an after-school program teaching children math and science, and a substance abuse ministry.

He was the only candidate who stood before delegates with his corps of vice presidents already decided.

The Philadelphian humorously demonstrated his confidence about winning on the night before the election. When the Rev. E.V. Hill, another front-runner, was introduced to speak at a late-night service as”the next president of the National Baptist Convention, USA,”Shaw stood up momentarily.

Shaw and another front-runner, the Rev. W. Franklyn Richardson, lost to Lyons in a hotly contested race in 1994. Hill had been endorsed by Lyons.


Late Thursday, about 700 of Shaw’s supporters celebrated at a hotel outside Tampa.”He’s like a pool shark,”said the Rev. LaBaron F. McAdoo Sr., pastor of Union Baptist Church in Wilmington, Del.”When you’re teaching pool, you don’t just react off the first ball. He’s very calculative, and he’s going to make very informed decisions.” The Rev. Lawrence C. Hood Jr., an associate minister at St. Paul Baptist Church in West Chester, Pa., said Shaw, the former president of the Pennsylvania Baptist State Convention, helped turn around the financial problems of that organization.”He’s a very compassionate person,”said Hood.”He wants to put Christ back at the center of the convention.” During a candidates’ forum earlier in the week, Shaw had pointed to a convention banner and noted it included the president and general secretary’s names but did not include the name of Jesus.”If we gather in his name, we ought not be ashamed to gather under his name and his name ought to be bigger than our names,”he said, drawing cheers.

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