WASHINGTON (ABP) -- A judge in Washington ruled Sept. 9 that the election of a new president of the nation's largest black Baptist convention could go forward as scheduled on Sept. 10.

One of two candidates vying for the post, Henry Lyons, a former president of the National Baptist Convention USA, Inc., who resigned from the post 10 years ago after being convicted of swindling more than $5.2 million from organization partners, filed a lawsuit seeking to stop the election on Sept. 8.

Lyons, pastor of New Salem Missionary Baptist Church in Tampa, Fla., claimed a 2006 bylaw amendment limiting the number of votes that a representative entity can cast unfairly favors his opponent, Alabama pastor Julius Scruggs. Scruggs is currently the convention's vice president at large.

The Associated Press reported Sept. 9 that District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Jeanette Clark denied two motions by Lyons that would have blocked the election, which takes place on Thursday of each year's annual session with results announced that evening.

The contest is taking center stage at the convention's Sept. 7-11 annual session in Memphis, Tenn. Both men vying for the office, which carries a salary of $100,000 a year for a five-year term, are 67 years old.

Supporters of Lyons, who served nearly five years in prison after his conviction on state racketeering and grand-theft charges and pleading guilty to federal tax-evasion charges in 1999, say he is a changed man who has paid his debt to society.

Supporters of Scruggs, meanwhile, say that even if Lyons is sorry for his past, it would be a mistake to put him back in charge after a huge scandal that severely tarnished the convention's reputation. 

Lyons, a charismatic preacher elected as president in 1994 on promises that he would help alleviate the convention's financial woes, remains a polarizing figure. Opponents fear his election could split the NBC, which claims 7.5 million members and is America's largest and oldest African-American religious convention.

Lyons' successor in the office, William Shaw, pastor of White Rock Baptist Church in Philadelphia, has worked to restore confidence in the organization. He has helped institute new guidelines for conducting convention business that became known as the VISA Principles -- an acronym for "Vision, Integrity, Structure and Accountability."

Shaw, elected president in 1999, has served two five-year terms and is ineligible for a third. He was a featured speaker at the New Baptist Covenant Celebration in Atlanta in 2008. He has received many awards, including the T. B. Maston Foundation Christian Ethics Award from the T.B. Maston Scholarship Foundation.

Lyons was a powerful voice in Baptist life before his downfall, which began in 1997 when his wife burned down a $700,000 home he, along with another woman, co-owned. Lyons and his wife later divorced.

The arson case brought attention to a lavish lifestyle that investigators said Lyons bankrolled with funds obtained through his leadership role in the NBC.

In February 1998 Lyons was arrested on state charges that included racketeering and grand theft. He was convicted a year later, and then resigned the next month as president of the convention.

Lyons then pleaded guilty to federal charges, and served concurrent prison sentences for both crimes. He served four years and eight months of a 5 1/2-year prison sentence before his release in December 2003.

After completing five years of probation in 2008, Lyons filed papers to regain his former office. Before that, he ran unsuccessfully for president of the Florida General Baptist Convention in 2007, winning about 30 percent of the vote.

Lyons' supporters responded by embarking on a 30-day period of prayer before deciding to establish a new convention. The General Baptist State Convention of Florida, Inc., was established May 25, 2007, and Lyons was elected its first president.

The National Baptist Convention traces its history to 1880. Before that, some independent black churches belonged to white associations in the South, but attempts to form all-black churches into associations or conventions were not allowed.

A missionary named William Colley, an African American appointed to serve in West Africa by the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1875, issued a call for black Baptists to meet in Montgomery, Ala., for the purpose of organizing a national convention to do extensive missionary work.

Along with foreign missions, home missions and education, one of the early goals was for black Baptists to publish literature written by their own ministers. The American Baptist Publishing House refused in 1890 to publish writings of black ministers because of resistance from Southern clients. The National Baptist Publication Board came into existence in 1896 and opened a publishing house in Nashville, Tenn.

The convention suffered its first major schism in 1897, when the Lott Carey Foreign Mission Convention broke away over differences about mission strategy and working more closely with whites.

A dispute over ownership and operation of the National Baptist Publishing House prompted a second split in 1915, with formation of the National Baptist Convention of America.

During the Civil Rights Movement, younger ministers including Martin Luther King Jr., pushed the National Baptist Convention to take a more proactive position for social justice. The older generation preferred the more gradual approach to civil-rights advances. That prompted a third major split, formation of the Progressive National Baptist Convention, in 1961.

In recent years the National Baptist Convention USA, Inc.; National Baptist Convention of America, Inc.; Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc.; and National Missionary Baptist Convention of America have held joint midwinter meetings to promote greater cooperation among black Baptists, but no formal merger is anticipated.

During the last two years those groups have also reconnected with white Baptists through participation in the New Baptist Covenant, a movement started by former President Jimmy Carter to unite all North American Baptists around common concerns including justice and concern for the poor.

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This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it  is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

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