Texas pastor Bart Barber will serve a second one-year term as president of the Southern Baptist Convention after winning Tuesday’s (June 13) election by a vote of 7,531 (68.38%) to 3,458 (31.4%).
Barber, pastor of First Baptist Church Farmersville, Texas, won the election over Georgia pastor Mike Stone, who also ran for the post in 2021. Sitting SBC presidents traditionally run unopposed for a second term, but Stone allowed himself to be nominated because of his concerns over the SBC’s current trajectory related to finances and sexual abuse reforms.
Prior to the election, Barber said he was running again to continue the initiatives he started in his first term, including the SBC’s response to sexual abuse.
“I’m deeply committed to trying to leave the Convention healthier than it was when I got it,” he said in a May 26 interview on the Baptist21 podcast. “That’s not to dis the convention. It’s just I think every president ought to have that objective, to try to improve a little bit, incrementally at least, the health of the Convention.”
Clarifying SBC cooperation
During his first term as president, Barber used social media to champion SBC missions and Disaster Relief. He also posted Twitter videos to explain polity and procedure related to some of top issues facing Southern Baptists, including women serving as pastors.
Barber has repeatedly noted his view that SBC churches with women serving as pastors should be disfellowshipped. Ahead of the New Orleans meeting, he also spoke in favor of studying the SBC constitution and bylaws and Baptist Faith and Message in hopes of clarifying how Southern Baptists determine which churches are in friendly cooperation with the SBC.
Article III of the constitution says churches in friendly cooperation with the SBC will have “a faith and practice which closely identifies with the Convention’s adopted statement of faith.” The closely identified language is vague, Barber told Baptist21, but still a boundary. Meanwhile, recently revised Bylaw 8 created a standing Credentials Committee tasked with investigating churches alleged to be outside the boundaries of friendly cooperation.
“The committee is required to make a ruling on every referral made to them. Whatever blanks the SBC has left, we have a small committee of people who must fill in those blanks every time a referral is made about a church,” Barber said.
“I think we need to look at Bylaw 8 and Article III, how those two things interact with each other, and come to an answer that is clear and consistent, so that we’re not litigating it with a new amendment every year. Something that’s a clear and consistent statement about exactly how we measure the doctrinal compatibility of churches with the Southern Baptist Convention.”
Advancing reforms related to abuse
While his opponent challenged the direction of the SBC’s response to sexual abuse, Barber has publicly supported the work of the Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force he appointed after last year’s annual meeting. Specifically, he has lauded the group’s willingness to engage with Southern Baptists who have taken issue with their work. The ARITF initially chose to utilize Guidepost Solutions to manage the Ministry Check website, but has since announced Guidepost will not serve as the site’s provider and manager.
“They understand that the real implementation task force is your local church,” Barber told Baptist21 about the ARITF. “And so they’re looking for solutions that get widespread buy-in and unify Southern Baptists.”
Barber also has addressed concerns about the financial security and trajectory of the SBC Executive Committee, due in large part to the cost of responding to sexual abuse. Prior to the election, The Christian Index asked both candidates whether the SBC will be stronger and healthier as a result of Guidepost’s investigation into the Executive Committee’s response to abuse allegations, which was commissioned by messengers to the 2021 annual meeting in Nashville.
‘Already stronger and healthier’
“I believe that the SBC already is stronger and healthier as a result of that investigation and report in some ways,” Barber said. “The strong role of the messenger body in our polity has been affirmed and undergirded. We’ve seen and rejected some of the ways that we have mistreated survivors in the past. Southern Baptists are actively pursuing means for helping our churches to prevent sexual abuse and respond correctly whenever it occurs.”
Noting the cost of the initial investigation and report, Barber said if the SBC were to pay for investigations like it every year, its financial situation would certainly be unsustainable. But there’s no plan to do so, he said, and the report has set into motion helpful processes for making churches resilient against abuse.
“I hope to serve Southern Baptists a second year and carry these tasks across the finish line,” he said prior to his election.
