WASHINGTON — President Obama announced plans May 11 to reappoint black Baptist leader William J. Shaw to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).
Shaw, immediate past president of the National Baptist Convention, U.S.A. Inc., was appointed in June 2010 to the nine-member bipartisan panel charged with monitoring violations of religious freedom worldwide and making foreign policy recommendations based on their findings.
Pastor of White Rock Baptist Church in Philadelphia since 1956, Shaw served as president of the National Baptist Convention U.S.A. Inc. from 1999 to 2009. He has also been a leader in the New Baptist Covenant, a movement to unite North American Baptists across racial and geographical lines.
With the recent departure of five commissioners, including Southern Baptist Convention official Richard Land, Shaw will be the panel’s lone Baptist. Along with Muslim law professor Azizah al Hibri and former GOP congressional counsel Ted Van Der Meid, he is one of three sitting members with watchdog experience.
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