(RNS) Seventh-day Adventists have chosen new international and North American presidents at their global assembly in Atlanta.

Ted N.C. Wilson, a vice president of the global church and the son of a former church president, was elected Friday (June 25) to lead the 16.3 million-member denomination. Wilson, 60, has served the Seventh-day Adventist Church for 36 years, working first as a pastor in the church’s New York Conference and later in Cote d’Ivoire as an executive secretary.

He succeeds Jan Paulsen, who has served since 1999.

The church’s new North American Division leader is Dan Jackson, the president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Canada. Jackson, 61, succeeds Don Schneider, who has served since 2000.

Adventist delegates adopted several statements during their meeting, which ends July 3, including one on protecting children from sexual abuse and minimizing the risk of violence against them in congregational settings.

They also condemned violence against women and girls worldwide, including family violence, rape and female genital mutilation.

“Bringing intentional harm to another person desecrates that which God honors and is therefore sinful behavior,” reads the statement.

Adventists also criticized efforts to pass “defamation of religions” resolutions at the United Nations.

“… (W)e believe that ceding the right to the state to control religious speech creates a far greater threat to the autonomy of people of faith than that posed by offensive speech,” the statement on freedom of speech reads.