Black Church Picks New President

The National Baptist Convention USA, one of the nation’s largest black denominations, has chosen a new president to replace its former leader, who is serving time in jail for racketeering and theft in connection with the mishandling of church money.

The Rev. William J. Shaw won the highly contested election, promising to make swift and serious changes in the way the organization is run.

The former president, the Rev. Henry J. Lyons, resigned last spring after a sex-and-money scandal that plagued the denomination for nearly two years and led to Mr. Lyons’s criminal conviction. Much of Mr. Lyons’s wrongdoing — which included hiding bank accounts and making lucrative deals that mixed church and personal money — stemmed from his being allowed to collect and spend millions of dollars with little, if any, oversight from other church officials.

Following his election for the five-year term, Mr. Shaw said that he would put an immediate freeze on what he called non-essential spending by the convention. He also said he would call for a financial audit and strict financial controls and accountability measures to govern convention business.