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ANAHEIM, California — As Bart Barber, a tall Texas pastor in a go well with and tie, walked outdoors the conference corridor in Anaheim, Southern Baptists stopped to congratulate their new president. They shook his hand, patted his again and took footage. When Barber put his title within the ring for Southern Baptist Convention president, there was comparable enthusiasm from mates who texted asking if he was excited to go for the place.
But his emotions are heavier than that. He is aware of the luggage that comes from management — his predecessor Ed Litton was attacked by opponents sufficient that he didn’t search a second 12 months in workplace. It was the primary time in 40 years that an SBC president didn’t get reelected for one more time period.
“This is not the first difficult season serving Southern Baptists for me. Every way that I have served Southern Baptists has left scars,” mentioned Barber, who fought as a Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary trustee to oust Paige Patterson over his response to sexual abuse. His eyes obtained glassy throughout a Wednesday press convention, and his speech slowed to deliberate phrases. “But this family of churches is worth it. It’s worth enduring slings and arrows.”
Though Barber doesn’t match the SBC president mildew — he pastors a rural congregation, First Baptist Church of Farmersville, and never a megachurch — he’s lively and vocal on Twitter, with practically 17,000 following his folksy commentary and evaluation. There, he instructed reporters, he’s seen how “the coarseness, the crass discourse that’s out there in the world has come into our family of churches.”
He inherits ongoing denominational divides and the monumental job of transferring abuse reform ahead. His first precedence is appointing the duty pressure accountable for recommending subsequent steps and creating an abuser database within the wake of final month’s devastating report into SBC management’s response to sexual abuse inside the denomination’s ranks.
As fellow Southern Baptists debate what could be completed whereas defending church autonomy, Barber believes SBC polity might be “nimble” and capable of permit for the reforms wanted to guard in opposition to abuse.
“Every place where we have wronged someone in abuse,” he mentioned, “is a place where we have betrayed doctrine, where we have betrayed Scripture, where we have betrayed our Lord.”
Electing Barber was one of two main selections towards the trigger of abuse reform on the Southern Baptist Convention annual assembly on Tuesday, when the messengers additionally approved a database and new job pressure to supervise denominational adjustments.
Barber defeated opponent Tom Ascol in a runoff on the primary day of the assembly, garnering 61% to 38% of the 5,600 votes. Ascol, the Florida pastor who leads Founders Ministries, had been backed by the Conservative Baptist Network and adopted its “change the direction” slogan in opposition to supposed liberal drift within the conservative evangelical denomination.
For the previous two years, the presidential race has mirrored divides within the SBC. A faction led by the fundamentalist CBN resisted the decision for a strong abuse investigation that waived attorney-client privilege and criticized some of the proposals that resulted from it.
Barber’s victory is seen as a promising signal that the suggestions for abuse reform will transfer ahead within the 12 months forward.
“It’s a win not only for the convention but for sexual abuse reform,” mentioned Josh King, lead pastor of Second Baptist Conway in Arkansas. “Bart is going to be much more supportive and going to facilitate the direction the convention was going” at this 12 months’s assembly.
His spouse, Bible instructor Jacki King, acknowledged that the vote nonetheless revealed a “pretty distinct divide” within the denomination, however “a majority are saying this is the way forward, that we have to rectify the ways we’ve gone wrong and care for survivors.”
When Southern Baptists had been debating what the SBC may do beneath its polity of autonomous church buildings, Barber pledged to hunt justice for survivors, writing, “The same Bible that teaches us about local church autonomy teaches us more clearly and forcefully about loving one another.” He additionally condemned efforts to reject the investigation’s findings because of Guidepost Solutions’ affirmation of LGBT Pride month.
Barber is additionally a Southern Baptist historian, having studied at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He wrote his dissertation a few historic schism amongst Baptists in his residence state of Arkansas, a related background as Southern Baptists as soon as once more danger letting politics lead theology reasonably than the opposite approach round.
He was among the many Southwestern trustees who known as for the 2018 dismissal of previous president Patterson. Barber mentioned his expertise as a trustee will inform his involvement within the Executive Committee, the North American Mission Board and the International Mission Board as SBC president.
“Being Baptist isn’t something he does; it’s who he is,” wrote Dave Miller, Iowa pastor and the editor of the SBC Voices weblog. “He’s all in. He loves our seminaries. He loves our missions program. He loves our churches. He loves who we are and what we do.”
Barber served because the chair of the committee on resolutions for this 12 months’s annual assembly. The committee supplied two statements addressing sexual abuse and survivors, and his colleague Matt Henslee was president of the SBC Pastors’ Conference.
Henslee, who nominated Barber, instructed CT that Barber’s victory “shows that we are united in the gospel and the call to make disciples.”
His election additionally represents an exception from the previous a number of SBC presidents, who had greater names and platforms. Barber, who has led the identical congregation of a number of hundred for the previous 23 years, mentioned he hopes by taking the place, different pastors will see a spot for themselves in management, that the “deep bench of leadership we have in the SBC can all lean in and be a part of this process.”
California pastor Glenn Nicolas voted for Ascol, whom he adopted on-line and thru his Founders Ministries podcast, and in addition felt the lingering results of the divide within the 13.7 million-member denomination.
Nicolas, who leads Light by the Bay Church within the San Francisco space, mentioned he’s leaving day one of the annual assembly — his first — with considerations over the presidential end result and the choice on abuse reform, which he fears may encroach on church independence.
“It feels like a stone in my shoe,” he mentioned. “There’s still a lot of work to do. … But, yes, God is still sovereign.”
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