The Baptist World Alliance (BWA) elected its first black general secretary at its annual general council meeting in Accra, Ghana, July 6.
Neville Callam, 56, is a Jamaican theologian and the first person outside the United States or Europe to be elected to the leadership post of the global Baptist organization based in Falls Church, Va. He will begin his new role in September, succeeding Denton Lotz, who has served as general secretary since 1988 and is retiring. BWA has more than 200 member bodies.
The author of five books and an international speaker, Callam is a senior pastor in Kingston, Jamaica. A Harvard Divinity School graduate, he also is a member of the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches and served as vice president of the BWA between 2000 and 2005.
Callam told members of the BWA general council that the “Baptist world family joyfully declares that the BWA has become a worldwide body with a truly global reach.”
“In this alliance, every member is God’s gift to the membership as a whole,” he said. “We all belong together.”
The day before his election, participants in the meeting held a service in honor of Africans sold into slavery during the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Callam noted that his ancestors were born on the African continent.
“They were rounded up and shipped to the West Indies, where they endured many years of enslavement,” he said. “Then God emancipated both them and their oppressors.”
Share with others: