The nation’s largest black Protestant sect faces a high-stakes presidential election

The nation’s largest group of black Protestants is meeting this week for a pivotal meeting that could push the denomination toward an unprecedented leadership crisis — just as it faces serious challenges in attracting a new generation of members.

The National Baptist Convention, USA, is one of four major Black Baptist denominations in the U.S. and is the oldest and largest of the four. The denomination, with between 5.2 and 7.5 million members nationwide, has long been active on a range of important issues—from affordable housing and health care inequities to education and criminal justice.

It has a long history on civil rights issues and has invested in voter registration and voting rights initiatives in recent years, which has caught the attention of national political leaders. President Joe Biden visited the president’s church in Mississippi during the 2020 primary, and Vice President Kamala Harris spoke at its annual session in 2022. Harris, now the Democratic presidential candidate in November, is affiliated with a church affiliated with the denomination.

The denomination, often known as NBCUSA, faces significant challenges in attracting young people to replace a largely aging group of members, both in the pews and in the pulpit. Those difficulties have only worsened since the COVID-19 pandemic, an event that has disproportionately affected historically black congregations.

Now, this week in Baltimore, there will be a controversial election for a new president, which could pose an additional challenge.

NBCUSA will decide at its annual session Sept. 2-5 whether the sole presidential candidate will replace the Rev. Jerry Young, a Mississippi pastor who served as the denomination’s CEO for 10 years.

But growing outcry over a controversial decision about which churches can nominate presidential candidates has led to uncertainty. Although there is only one candidate on the ballot, Connecticut pastor Boise Kimber, if those pushing for a majority “no” vote are successful, it could restart a potentially two-year nomination and election cycle.

In either case, the denomination can be expected to remain weakened and unable to cope with the larger challenges of diminished enthusiasm and attendance.

“In a season when denominations are needed more than ever, we are more divided,” said the Rev. Breonus Mitchell, a Nashville pastor who serves as chairman of the NBCUSA board, which governs denominational affairs outside of the four-day annual session. “And because of our division, people feel like you are no longer needed.”

The board of directors recently finalized a decision to restrict certain churches from nominating candidates in the presidential election, which disqualified four candidates from voting. Those four candidates—Chicago pastor Alvin Love, Detroit pastor Tellis Chapman, San Francisco-area pastor Claybon Lea Jr., and Florida pastor James Sampson—then organized a joint campaign to “fight for the soul of the convention,” arguing that the board had disqualified the entire convention from having a say in important leadership decisions.

“Our biggest challenge is not Boise Kimber. And right now it’s not even the scheming of the board,” said the Rev. Alvin Love, a Chicago pastor and presidential candidate. “Our challenge now is to get people excited enough to want to come to Baltimore.”

The unity campaign was born in response to a special board meeting in March, at which the board voted 46 to 11 to tighten restrictions on churches nominating candidates.

“Our great convention has not, and should never, convene a conclave to elect its leaders. Yet that is exactly what has happened,” Sampson said in his Aug. 21 open letter. “The recent decision to elect our next leader was unethical, unwise, and unholy.”

Critics of the joint unity campaign say the protest undermines the four candidates’ desire for progress, potentially delaying the presidential nomination. But for these four candidates, any potential change is futile if it rests on unresolved governance disputes.

“If we don’t act on what we already have,” Lea says, “we are actually sabotaging ourselves.”

Liam Adams covers religion for The Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY Network. Contact him at [email protected] or on social media @liamsadams.

This article originally appeared in the Nashville Tennessean: National Baptist Convention in Baltimore Faces Major Meeting