Georgia pastor named Southern Baptist Convention prez

A pastor from Georgia has been elected as the new president of the Southern Baptist Convention. 55-year-old Johnny Hunt was tapped—he’s pastor of First Baptist Church in Woodstock. Hunt says the Southern Baptists need radical change and leadership. The convention has had 5 decades of declining growth, and from 2006-07, it reported a loss of nearly 40-thousand members. Hunt is a Lumbee Indian, which is a North Carolina-based tribe. Officials with the convention could not immediately confirm whether he stands as the denomination’s first Native American president.