David Emmanuel Goatley, a Black church theologian and missions leader, has been named the sixth president of the California-based Fuller Theological Seminary (FTS), the largest Protestant interdenominational seminary in the nation.

Goatley is leaving his research professorship and associate deanship at Duke Divinity School to assume his new role at FTS in January 2023. Not only will he be the sixth president of FTS, but he will also be the first person of colour to take on the role.

He said, “There’s a certain representation that is important … The journey of which I am part matters, I am a Black person in the United States, which means some of my stories has to do with discrimination and segregation and slavery, and all of that helps to give insight to how I handle myself and how I seek to handle creation and engage with other people.”

Goatley added, “It also means something significant that Fuller Theological Seminary was able to take seriously the candidacy of a Black man, they did not explicitly or implicitly rule me out. I’ve had that happen to me before.”

The outgoing president Mark Labberton, who announced his departure last year, hoped his replacement would be a woman or a person of colour.

Goatley was previously ordained in the National Baptist Convention-USA and pastored a Black Baptist church in Kentucky for nine years. He then spent the next 20 years as the CEO of Lott Carey Baptist Foreign Mission Society, a historic Black missions agency.

Tom Lin, a Fuller board member and the head of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, said that the board appreciates that Goatley is a holistic leader due to his background as a pastor, organization leader, missions agency leader, and academic.

“He’s going to lead ethnically diverse leaders in an ethnically diverse world. I was one of the first nonwhite presidents of a large national evangelical organization, Jimmy Mellado, and I share that.” Lin explained.

“I understand the challenges Dr Goatley will face. … People will want him to speak to particular issues in the Black church because he’s a Black leader, or assume that he’s going to lead it in a direction that’s this or that because of his ethnic background,” he continued. “We chose him because he’s an outstanding candidate.”

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