Willie McLaurin, the interim president and CEO of the Southern Baptist Convention’s executive committee, resigned on Thursday after he was busted for putting bogus credentials on his résumé. McLaurin, who was in contention to become the committee’s permanent president before Thursday’s discovery, claimed to have received degrees from North Carolina Central University, Duke University Divinity School and Hood Theological Seminary. But in a resignation letter, he admitted that he “included schools that I did not attend or complete the course of study,” the committee said. The embarrassing discovery was made as the committee was vetting McLaurin for the job of president. The appointment of McLaurin, a Black man, as interim president had been hailed as a historic development for a denomination that was founded to defend slavery.
