Overview: Candidates for SBC President

Stone campaigns on women and abuse issues, Barber is mostly quiet

The candidates for president of the Southern Baptist Convention are taking decidedly different approaches to the election in the short time before the SBC Annual Meeting in New Orleans.

The newcomer to the race, Mike Stone is on the road and raising his concerns about volatile issues facing the denomination, while the incumbent, Bart Barber, tweeted May 3 that he would be unable to participate in panel discussions, interviews, or podcasts prior to the convention. That has left Stone free to set the agenda for public discussion, especially on social media. And it has left reporters searching through Barber’s earlier interviews and posts to reiterate his views on key issues.

In his nomination announcement, Stone identified three urgent issues: evangelism, sexual abuse reform, and the “unsustainable” economic trajectory of the SBC Executive Committee, which spent half its $12.2 million in assets in a single year. He announced a commitment to a national evangelism strategy. He expressed support for the dismissal of Saddleback Church over its ordination of women pastors. And more recently he has expanded on his views of women.

Stone described his Georgia congregation as “the strictest of the strict complementarians” in a forum at a Baton Rouge church May 16, one of several stops he is making ahead of the June 13 election. And he equated “soft complementarian” that he said is creeping into the SBC with egalitarianism.

“I don’t think that every church has to necessarily adopt that strict of a [complementarian] policy to be in cooperation with the SBC, although I would encourage them and wish that they would, but certainly at the pastoral level our Baptist Faith and Message has been very clear on that,” Stone said in the forum streamed online. Stone favors a proposed constitutional amendment to make it clear that women cannot serve in pastoral roles.

Stone also advocates appointing a new sexual abuse task force that will stop “just automatically believing and publishing all accusations” and “stop claiming responsibility for things that happen in independent, autonomous Southern Baptist churches.”

Without naming names, he was critical of some appointees and direction of the Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force, which was appointed by incoming SBC President Barber last summer as a successor to the task force that explored the EC’s handling of abuse claims and began to implement their recommendations. That includes a tracking system and continued involvement of Guidepost Solutions through a new organization, which SBC messengers are expected to consider in New Orleans.

This is Stone’s second run for president, the first in 2021 against Ed Litton and Al Mohler. Many of his criticisms are aimed at incumbent Barber, an avuncular Texan who is eligible for a second one-year term. It has been customary for incumbents to run unopposed.

Barber’s May 3 tweet took him out of pre-election debate. But as the issues have not changed since the pivotal February EC meeting, his previous comments on women, Saddleback, and abuse tracking and reform will have to suffice.

Barber has stated previously that he agreed with the EC decision to dismiss Saddleback and the other churches that had women as pastors. As for clarifying the definition of pastor in relation to gender, he supports a process to update the Baptist Faith and Message (2000), whereas Stone favors a constitutional amendment as a more direct approach.

As reported by TAB Media, Barber said in a May 10 video on Twitter he expects motions to be made at the annual meeting asking the next SBC president to appoint a committee to review the SBC’s constitution and bylaws and suggest changes regarding the definition of “cooperation.” This also could lead to a review of the BF&M for updates or clarifications.

“I’m supportive of the idea of having a task force and reviewing these things, particularly when it comes to the structure of our governing documents and the meaning of cooperation,” Barber said.

With a high regard for the congregational nature of Southern Baptist polity, Barber supports allowing messengers to vote on an amendment initially proposed last year that would add wording to the constitution disqualifying from “friendly cooperation” a church that affirms, appoints, or employs a woman as a pastor of any kind.

3 Churches To Appeal Their Dismissal On Convention Floor

Nashville, Tenn. | Three churches have filed appeals of their dismissal from the SBC by the Executive Committee (EC) by the May 15 deadline and will take their cases to the messengers at the New Orleans annual meeting. Time for a vote has been allotted in the Tuesday afternoon session, June 13. Two churches were disfellowshipped for having women in lead pastoral roles, while the third was deemed “not in friendly cooperation” for its failure to resolve claims of an abuse allegation.

The EC disfellowshipped the churches in February by affirming recommendations from the SBC Credentials Committee, which is tasked to “consider questions that arise concerning whether a church is in ‘friendly cooperation’ with the Convention.” That committee was given broader powers to make recommendations in 2019 after the sexual abuse scandal broke.

Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., ordained three women as pastors in 2021. Retired pastor and founder Rick Warren cited several reasons for leading the appeal, including his con- cern for women in the SBC overall “whose Godgiven spiritual gifts and leadership skills are being wasted.” Warren says he has been contacted by 300 pastors who have women serving on their staffs, who fear their churches will be ousted.

“We believe a decision this critical to the SBC’s identity and future should be decided by the messengers, not a committee,” Warren wrote in an email to a religious news organization. “The messengers must decide if they want the Executive Committee to act like a Catholic magisterium.” Warren said he wants to “spark the thinking of messengers regarding direction of the SBC.”

The other SBC church which will appeal its dismissal is Fern Creek Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky. Linda Barnes Popham has served as pastor there since 1993. The church is a member of its local association and state convention.

Freedom Church in Vero Beach, Fla. denied the charge that it had failed to act on a claim of sexual abuse, and said that the Anglican Church in North America had cleared the church in the matter after making the initial accusations known to Southern Baptists. The local association and state convention both severed ties with Freedom Church last year. The schedule for the Tuesday afternoon session of the Annual Meeting has been adjusted to allow messengers to vote on the appeals. In each case, if a majority of messengers vote “yes,” the action by the EC to disfellowship that church will be upheld; a “no” majority will overturn the EC action, and the church’s SBC membership will be reinstated. Three other churches that were dismissed in February, which have women pastors, chose not to appeal. They are Calvary Baptist Church in Jackson, Miss., New Faith Mission Ministry in Griffin, Ga., and St. Timothy’s Christian Baptist Church in Baltimore.

– With information from Baptist Press, Baptist News Global, and The Tennessean