FARMERSVILLE (BP)—Southern Baptist Convention President Bart Barber responded to questions about sexual abuse in the SBC and the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol during an interview on the CBS 60 Minutes news program.
Barber fielded questions raised by Anderson Cooper during the 13-minute segment that aired Oct. 9. In addition to sex abuse and issues surrounding the 2020 presidential election, Barber also voiced his opinion on Christian nationalism, abortion, immigration and same-sex marriage.
Barber was elected as president of the convention at the 2022 SBC Annual Meeting in June in Anaheim, Calif.
“I believe that the Southern Baptist Convention faces some unique challenges right now. I felt like God was calling me to try to give leadership at this moment to help Southern Baptists move forward,” Barber told Cooper.
Cooper asked Barber about claims that abuse allegations were called into the SBC Executive Committee and were ignored by leaders.
“We didn’t just ignore them. Sometimes we impugned their motives. Sometimes we attacked them. The reason why I’m president of the Southern Baptist Convention is because our churches do not agree with that and have taken action to correct those things,” Barber said.
Cooperating with Department of Justice investigation
Cooper reported Barber told him about the attempts of the SBC to drive out sexual abuse.
“Bart Barber says he’s cooperating with the Justice Department’s investigation and appointed a new nine-member sexual abuse task force that’s building a registry for credible reports of abuse to help churches track predators,” Cooper said.
“I have strong feelings about this. … It’s not just anger, although I’m angry about it. God called me to be a pastor when I was 11. I believe in this. For people to sully this hurts me. I’m not doing this to try to accomplish some [public relations] objective for us. I’m doing this because I want to serve God well,” Barber told Cooper.
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60 Minutes turned to Eastern Illinois University professor Ryan Burge for commentary on the actions of the SBC Executive Committee in the years leading up to the investigation of the alleged mishandling of sexual abuse claims.
“They actually kept a list of over 700 names of people who had been credibly accused. What they said though, is we couldn’t give that to the churches because local churches have autonomy in who they hire and fire for pastors. We can’t tell them they can’t hire this person,” Burge said.
Cooper asked Burge about the actions of the Executive Committee: “Were they calling law enforcement and letting police know that there was a predator at this church in this state?”
“The Executive Committee had the list, put it in a drawer and didn’t tell anyone about it for over 10 years,” said Burge, who is also an American Baptist pastor.
Gene Besen, Executive Committee interim counsel, pledged last May to release the list of alleged and convicted abusers collected under former SBC Executive Vice President and General Counsel Augie Boto’s direction. The list was released May 26. As of August 2018, there were 585 names on the list, Guidepost Solutions revealed in its report.
Election and insurrection
When asked if Barber believes Joe Biden is the legitimate president of the United States, he replied: “I do. Absolutely. I pray for him consistently as the president of the United States. I believe he was legitimately elected.”
“That’s a big deal,” Burge said, pointing to research he said reveals 60 percent of white evangelicals believe the election was stolen.
“And many, many Southern Baptists go to church every Sunday believing that. Southern Baptist pastors have been afraid to speak about that from the pulpit, because they know lots of people oppose that in the pews,” Burge said.
Cooper questioned Barber about how he said he had voted in the 2016 and 2020 elections.
Barber said he did not vote for Trump in 2016 but did in 2020.
He pointed to the “documented” way Trump treated women and his rhetoric concerning immigration that Barber called “wrongful’ as reasons he did not vote for Trump in 2016.
Barber said Trump’s consistent pro-life support and work on sentencing reform compelled him to change his mind in 2020.
When pressed on how the events surrounding Jan. 6, 2021, would affect his future decision at the poll, Barber said, “I think a lot of Southern Baptists would be thrilled to have the opportunity to support someone for leadership in our country who’s strong on the values that matter to us—who can do that without putting the vice president’s life in danger.”
Cooper asked about Christian nationalism, citing a clip from Congresswoman Lauren Boebert (R-CO) who, in the clip, said: “The church is supposed to direct the government. The government is not supposed to direct the church.”
Barber responded: “It stands contrary to 400 years of Baptist history and everything I believe about religious liberty. I’m opposed to the idea of Christian dominion—churchly dominion over the operations of government.”
Sanctity of life affirmed
On the topic of abortion, Cooper noted the shift in the SBC’s position from 1971 to 1980, to allowing exceptions only for “cases where pregnancy threatened the life of the mother.”
Barber told Cooper: “Our interest with abortion is not to police everybody’s sex life. Our interest with abortion is that we believe that’s a human person who deserves to live.”
Cooper pressed Barber on the implications of a recent case of a 10-year-old Ohio girl who became pregnant after she was raped. According to reports, she was unable to obtain a legal abortion in Ohio due to strict laws, so she traveled to Indiana for the procedure.
Cooper asked if Barber believed the girl should be forced to carry the baby to term.
“I don’t want that to sound like I don’t have tremendous compassion for her and her circumstance,” Barber said. “I wish we could put an end to 10-year-olds being raped. I’m trying to work against child sexual abuse because I think that’s atrocious.”
Cooper asked, “But you don’t see forcing a 10-year-old child to go to term with a baby from rape as abuse of a child?”
He replied: “I see it as horrible. I see it as preferable to killing someone else.”
Same-sex marriage opposition
Barber was also asked about his stance on same-sex marriage.
“We’re committed to the idea of gender as a gift from God. We’re committed to the idea that men and women ought to be united with one another in marriage,” he said.
When Cooper asked if he believed gay people “should be converted out of being gay,” Barber responded, “I believe sinners should be converted out of being sinners, and that applies to all of us.”
Cooper pressed, asking, “Can somebody be a good Christian, a member of the Southern Baptist Convention and be gay or lesbian and married to a person of the same sex?”
Barber replied, “No.”
The interview with Barber took place at First Baptist Church in Farmersville, where Barber has served 23 years as pastor.
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