Virginia Baptists elect first black president. For the first time in its 188-year history, the predominantly white Baptist General Association of Virginia has an African-American president. Mark Croston was elected to the top spot during the BGAV's annual meeting in Richmond, Va. Croston, pastor of East End Baptist Church in Suffolk, Va., had been serving as first vice president. Messengers at the meeting also agreed to restore ties with Averett University, which were ended in 2005 in a dispute over homosexuality, and adopted a 2012 budget of $12.4 million, a 7 percent reduction from 2011.
American Baptist leader named NCC president-elect. Roy Medley, general secretary of American Baptist Churches USA, was elected president-elect of the National Council of Churches at a meeting of the NCC governing board in Chicago. Medley will lead the ecumenical group representing 45 million people in more than 100,000 local congregations starting Jan. 1, 2014, following a two-year term by Kathryn Mary Lohre, who was installed as president. Medley was executive minister of the American Baptist Churches of New Jersey, and he is a former pastor of First Baptist Church in Trenton, N.J. He is a member of First Baptist Church in Freehold, N.J.
Baptists, Orthodox consider formal dialogue. Teams from the Baptist World Alliance and the ecumenical patriarchate of Constantinople—widely regarded as the spiritual leader of 300 million Orthodox Christians—held exploratory talks recently that could lead to formal dialogue between Baptist and Orthodox Christians internationally. BWA General Secretary Neville Callam led the Baptist delegation, joined by Steven Harmon, adjunct professor of Christian theology at Gardner-Webb University School of Divinity in Boiling Springs, N.C., and Paul Fiddes, professor of systematic theology at Oxford University in the United Kingdom. A decision on whether formal dialogue will take place is expected by March 2012.
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