At D.C.’s First Baptist Church, a dismal parting with its first black pastor - The Washington Post

At D.C.’s First Baptist Church, a dismal parting with its first black pastor - The Washington Post: ...Baptists, along with other mainstream American denominations, still struggle with the nation’s legacy of racism and segregation, and the appointment of a black pastor to head a historically white congregation was a rare occurrence.

Now, the bitter ending has made some urban pastors uneasy. In the turmoil at First Baptist, they recognize familiar themes of race, power and angst over how to reverse declining membership at U.S. houses of worship.

“What happens when you call a leader and that leader fosters diversity and then the congregation says, ‘Whoa, we don’t want to go’?” said Ricky Creech, head of the District of Columbia Baptist Convention, a racially diverse group of area Baptist churches, and a longtime church consultant. “You can have diversity on a bus but not all be going to the same location.”