Emphasizing his role as president to be one of representing churches, not an entity or committee, newly-elected Southern Baptist Convention President Willy Rice addressed several topics at a press conference Wednesday afternoon (June 10) immediately following the final gavel at the SBC Annual Meeting.
“I’m very humbled and honored, obviously, to be elected to this position, and I think it’s been a good two days for Southern Baptists,” the pastor of Calvary Church in Clearwater said in his opening statements. “I think that anyone who may be concerned about a leftward undertow, a woke riptide in the SBC, I think we leave Orlando with that firmly dispelled.”
Read more stories from the 2026 SBC Annual Meeting in Orlando.
He continued, “The Southern Baptist Convention is not eroding [or] equivocating. The Southern Baptist Convention is enduring. … We are convictional, cheerful Baptists who are grateful for our Baptist heritage, confident and what we believe. And I think we reaffirmed that this week with a couple of decisions.”
One of those decisions was an initial two-thirds vote of affirmation for the so-called Truth and Unity Amendment, which would amend the SBC Constitution regarding the role and function of pastor. It is not a “tightening” of Southern Baptist convictions, Rice said, but a “re-articulation” of them.
“This is who Baptist people have been historically,” he said. “We articulated it in the Baptist Faith and Message 2000, and even that wasn’t a new statement. It was just an articulation of what we thought Baptists have always believed. It comes down to biblical authority [and] we just think that when the Bible speaks on those offices [in the church], it speaks with authority.”
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EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Scott Barkley and originally published by Baptist Press.
