Where Does the New President of the SBC Stand?

Conversations That Matter

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Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. I'm your host, John Harris, to talk about the new president of the

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Southern Baptist Convention. That's right, it's another episode for you Southern Baptists. I've had a number of those over the last week because the convention was last week for the country's largest

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Protestant denomination. And it's important who runs that denomination. They get to appoint the committee heads and trustee board members, and they have a lot of influence.

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And so it's important to know who that person is. And some probably are wondering why I haven't done more on Bart Barber.

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I mentioned him a few times, and there's a few reasons. I think one is that I never took him seriously, and I didn't think most people did.

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He's kind of goofy. Some of the things he posts on Facebook, which I think I'll probably show you in another episode, some of those, because I have an idea for an episode on just some of the silliness that is coming out of otherwise people you'd expect to be more mature in the halls of institutional power and leadership in the largest

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Protestant denomination, you just would think there would be a lot more maturity, but there doesn't seem to be.

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And Bart Barber was just at the center of that in my mind. And back in my days when I was on Twitter, I just didn't think that I would ever see him in a position of leadership.

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Of course, when he decided to run after Willie Rice resigned and I did do some work on really Willie Rice, he was a lot more straightforward of a candidate.

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I thought that Bart Barber was gonna be the next president. I didn't really wanna say that publicly, just I didn't wanna discourage

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Southern Baptist, but I knew he was probably gonna be the next president despite the fact that he was the weakest candidate they could probably come up with.

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And that was the only thing that, I had this slight thing in the back of my mind where, I mean, I really did think that liberals,

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I should say, because when you say liberals, they automatically get all bent out of shape about we're not theological liberals in the old fashioned sense of the conservative resurgence.

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Yeah, we know that, we know that. I've talked about that a number of times. So we're talking about the postmodern liberals of today and much more insidious and in a sense dangerous just because you don't know exactly what they believe.

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But those people, the people that are more on the social justice side of things, I knew that they had the upper hand.

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There's no doubt in my mind they had the upper hand and they're gonna get their way at the convention. It's in Anaheim. For all the reasons we've talked about, conservatives don't have the money to spend like big churches to send their people out and they tend to be more progressive.

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Or NAM plants who are basically getting paid those pastors to go. Their trips are funded by you.

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If you're a Southern Baptist convention member, you're giving in your offering plate and some of it's going to that.

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And so you have entities, members that show up and they're able to outvote the crowd that shows up from smaller churches that tend to be more conservatives generally.

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And that's just the way it is. And in Anaheim, it's really expensive. It's hard to get there. I just knew that this was not a good favorable year for conservatives.

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And I don't know that we, I don't think there is a favorable year anymore. I just think that the conventions at this point, it's game over.

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And the window of opportunity that was there, unfortunately, I don't think what probably needed to be done in that space was that narrow window of time was actually done.

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And you wait too long and you're replaced and that's what's happened. But I thought still, despite that, in the back of my mind, there's this little thought of like, it's part barber though.

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Maybe Tom Askell has a chance. It's part barber. You know, this guy, he has a reputation of being kind of goofy and just not someone people take seriously.

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I thought, well, enough people did take him seriously. And I'm gonna show you some things in another episode that just when

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I'm thinking up in my mind about just some of the silly things I saw coming from people that you would expect to be leaders, let alone adults.

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But just that the pictures they take, the things they say that it's, the juvenilization of the

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United States is just happening at warp speed. And you see it with Christians in the

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Southern Baptist Convention. It's just, it's embarrassing to be quite frank with you. But Bart Barber's at the center of that in my mind.

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Just, and the other thing that was daunting about him. So there was the fact that I just didn't take him that seriously.

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I just didn't, to try to parse out what he actually believes when so much of it in my mind is silly and just not, it, even the way he phrases things sometimes,

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I'm like, I don't wanna, Willie Wright's was a lot easier for me. I'm like, it's good, direct, exact English.

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I can figure out what he believes. I don't have to read a million things and then try to at the end, like, okay, what this vagueness,

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I don't get it. But the other thing about Bart is there, he's got stuff going back like 25 years on his blog.

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And I just, to try to reconcile positions that he's had when so many of them are vague or contradictory or just they've changed.

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It just, I was like, I don't know. I don't know about this. So I've tried to narrow the scope as much as I can.

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It's probably gonna be like five or six years. It's gonna be more of his recent positions. I do mention one of his older positions, just as an example of here's a guy that at one time did hold some different beliefs.

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And I think, or at least he was public about beliefs that he probably wouldn't be public about today. One person said to me, not my opinion, but one

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I'm considering, this is a guy who was conservative, who has pretty much, he's decided to change himself to match what the halls of institutional power would require of him.

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Now, that's an opinion that's out there. And it's one that I think is a possible explanation for explaining what he's doing here.

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But he probably wouldn't say that about himself, I'm sure. And it could be that just he's legitimately changed his mind or changed his emphasis on things.

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That's possible. But I think what we do have that's publicly available from the last few years is important for people to know.

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And I think they'll see at the end, you'll see at the end of this, if you're Southern Baptist or otherwise, where the denomination is going, perhaps just based on this.

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This is the person at the helm. This is what they believe. This is where the denomination's gonna be heading.

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And it's not to good places, unfortunately. So before we get to that, let me just make you aware of a special deal at goldriverco .com,

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So Gold River Trading Company, goldriverco .com, fresh iced tea. Now, let's talk about this whole thing with Bart Barber, the new president of the

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Southern Baptist Convention, and some of his more recent views that he stated, at least as much as we can tell, on important issues that affect the

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Southern Baptist Convention. And so we'll start off here with social justice and talk about what his views on that, more broadly speaking, are.

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After the Shepherds Conference Q &A from 2019, some of you remember that. That's where Al Mohler pretty much lost it on Phil Johnson, and there was a disagreement on stage.

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Bart Barber says about that, that the Q &A mentioned explicitly the danger of seeking cultural approval rather than faithfulness to the revealed truth of Scripture, that much of what goes on in our nation under the heading of social justice is precisely that is clear to me, and I agree that this is bad.

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So he's saying there is something bad about social justice when you're trying to seek cultural approval. But his whole thesis here is that what actually is at stake here, the differences between the people on stage at that particular event were not fundamental disagreements over epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics, or the gospel.

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They were actually disagreements over motivation. He says, it seems to me that these debates may arise out of differing perspectives about the motivations behind those who advocate for social justice.

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So instead of fundamental disagreements, diametrically opposed views, religions in conflict, this is not about that.

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This is just about different motives, different motives for doing the same thing. This is, honestly, this is the way that progressive evangelicals from the 1960s, even in the 70s, have been, this is the exact strategy they use to try to infiltrate conservative denominations.

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And they'll say, well, social justice isn't bad. It's just, it's the motive. I mean, there's a biblical social justice out there, and it looks pretty much the same in many ways, but we can forward that.

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We can try to achieve that goal and just use Bible verses instead of Marx. We don't need Marxism. We don't need the world and their approval.

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We just need Jesus, and Jesus says to do these things. And so they Christianize it, and that's how it always works, just about.

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Well, Bart Barber says it's about motive, and there is a bad motive, and that's seeking cultural approval, but there's a good motive, he says.

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He says this, the gospel, as revealed in scripture, is supposed to be esemplastic, which means unifying.

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And sometimes Bart uses these big words, and he, it seems out of, it's just like, wait, what?

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Like the rest of his grammar and everything doesn't seem to be that elevated, but then he'll insert these words.

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But there's a way, he says, of seeking social justice that arises solely out of a longing to see that biblical truth exemplified in our churches.

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That, I think, is a good thing if done well. So, as long as your motive isn't seeking cultural approval, but rather seeking biblical fidelity, then you can do social justice, right?

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So this is, I think some would think, oh, good, he's against social justice when they read this, and it's like, no, actually, it's the opposite.

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He's for it as long as the motive is correct. And that's, and it's sneaky stuff. It's, and, because there's so many words here, and there's so many good things he says, but you gotta get to the heart of what he's saying.

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He's saying the disagreements over motives. So that's the fundamental disagreement. And as if your motives are okay, then you can seek social justice.

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He says evangelism is a social justice issue because historically it's been by means of evangelism that social stratification in churches has been avoided or busted up.

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God adds to the church as many as are being saved, and they aren't all alike. You wonder if he even understands social justice.

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It's weird, it's just a weird tweet. Evangelism is a social justice issue. I'm sure the people who really, the founding fathers of social justice, the great thinkers of social justice,

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I'm sure that Rousseau and Marx and Gramsci and Foucault and the

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Frankfurt School and Derrick Bell, and like, I'm sure they're all thinking, man, evangelism, that's part of our goal.

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Yeah, right. Don't tell me this isn't trying to take something popular in the world and then

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Christianize it or try to be included in it or try to find an attachment that one can make to it so as to somehow say, we're part of this.

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But that's, I don't see any other way. Like, who would say this? Evangelism is a social justice issue.

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But because it, by means of evangelism, social stratification in churches has been avoided or busted up.

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So when differing people get saved, it, I guess, increases diversity and there's different socioeconomic backgrounds.

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And so that keeps things fresh. It's a weird take.

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Here's another one. And honestly, a lot of Bart's tweets, I tried to pick clear ones for you, but a lot of his tweets are like this, where you're just like,

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I don't, you're left scratching your head. You're like, what in the world are you talking about? He says this about social justice.

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He says, what were the ideas opposed during the Southern Baptist Conventions? Conservative resurgence, denial of the stated authorship of biblical books, attribution of miracles in the

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Bible to natural causes or to mythology, adoption of German higher criticism regarding the Bible, et cetera. This was in March of 2022.

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He says, what are the ideas opposed during the present controversies in the SBC? Wokeness, Black Lives Matter, critical race theory,

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Me Too. During the conservative resurgence, all of the contested matters had to do with the Bible and theology.

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This time around, all the contested matters have to do with secular politics and social causes. God forbid that I should promote division among his churches over anything lesser than his word.

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So this is basically saying that people who would promote division, and he has said things against CBN, by the way, Conservative Baptist Network, but people who would promote division over these things are basically they're less

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Christian in a way. They are, God forbid that I would promote what they're doing that I would, and this is less than his word, these disagreements.

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This is just, it's beneath us. But here's the thing, he doesn't understand or he's purposely advocating a falsehood here about these ideas because they do undermine biblical fidelity and Christianity, broadly speaking.

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Look, and we've talked about this before, but wokeness, BLM, critical race theory, and me too, there's assumptions behind these things.

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You have a different view of truth. You have a different view of reality. You have a different view of ethics, and oftentimes a false gospel attached to these things.

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That's exactly the problem. And I've gone to great pains to write a book, Christianity and Social Justice, Religions and Conflict to demonstrate this.

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And Bart is just, he doesn't see it, that this is actually, these are also attacks. And the other thing that I would point out is that some of this stuff that he's talking about, like natural, miracles in the

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Bible, the natural causes, adoption of German higher criticism, it's not like this stuff has just gone away either. Some of this stuff is alive and well in seminaries.

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And Russell Fuller demonstrated this a few years ago when he talked about even some of the professors at Southern Seminary, like Dominique, I think it was

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Dominique Hernandez was his name, who was promoting this about the book of Job, that the inspired writers of scripture were somehow almost like they were duped somehow into believing pagan myths.

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And that made its way into the pages of scripture, not as an example of these are pagan myths to avoid, but rather as an affirming standard of these are, the authors of scriptures in some places were actually duped.

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They actually thought that these pagan myths were true. And so, I mean, this stuff is still around, but Bart is, he's unaware of this.

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I mean, this is the guy leading the Southern Baptist Convention. This is someone who really is out of touch and doesn't understand the issues that are affecting, the primary issues affecting his convention.

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That's dangerous. There's a long thread here. We might have to do two episodes on Bart Barber here, but Bart Barber on guns.

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And you can just see how long this is. And by the end of it, you're not exactly sure what he means by it. Let me just give you some,

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I mean, this is typical though for Bart Barber. There's just a wall of words and you're like, what is this word salad?

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I don't understand. What are you getting at? What do you mean? Let me do my best to try to interpret what he means here.

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So he talks about first, why he doesn't carry a weapon. And so he gives a couple of reasons, but one of the reasons is, that he doesn't think there's a need to prepare to play some role in a civil war against an oppressive government.

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He said, that doesn't motivate me. He says, I've seen firsthand what life looks like in the midst of a conflict like this.

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We are nowhere near the circumstances that would justify it in my estimation. And so he doesn't look at the

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United States, see everything that's happening and think, well, we could be right for a civil war or we need to, it's justified somehow in some way.

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Now, I'm gonna try to table this discussion maybe for another podcast, because this is a legitimate question to bring up is, what happened in 1776?

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Are we not past the point with the incursions made by our central authority that are unconstitutional?

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Are we not past the point that they were in 1776 for some kind of a conflict of some kind, or at least a jurisdictional friction between states and the national government?

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And of course, if you did have an effort to really nullify or secede, you may have a wartime, it may come to shots being fired and things.

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And so is this a circumstance that is possible when you look at what happened at the election last time?

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I think we were close to some real civil conflict. And so Bart is saying, no, this isn't 2022, this is

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June, 2020, June of 2020, when you have American cities burning down, and he's like, nah, we're not, nah, nowhere near that, don't need a gun.

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He also says, I've come to doubt the likelihood that in that rare situation, which I would need to draw and use a firearm for self -defense,

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I would actually remember to do it. Police officers trained to use weapons constantly, apart from having that training, I'm skeptical.

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So I'm not going to bother with getting a license and then lugging around some uncomfortable firearm for the reasons

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I've given. I support your right to do it, I'm not going to do it. So he's saying, you know, he says, so he says you have a right to do it, but at the same time, he's giving you all the reasons why you really don't need it.

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And then, and why police are way better equipped than you. And so, and then he talks about all the different things that in the country, in the rural area that you'd need a gun for.

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And he says, it's maybe more common than some people realize to need a gun as a tool out on the land.

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He says he would have needed one four times in the last couple of weeks. I guess it's sad that he didn't have one on him, but he said he would have liked to have one on him.

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It's strange, but anyway, he didn't. And then he says, you know, there's other things going on here that are probably ways in which many of our differences are not as much

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North, South, East, West, Coastal, Middle America as they are rural, urban. So that's the real distinction is these.

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There's a difference between rural and urban settings. And he's right to some extent about this. He says, there are some policy suggestions, red flag laws, for example, that seem reasonable to me, even if I think them unlikely to solve any significant risk in my life.

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And so he's, so this is, I don't know if this is playing middle ground. I don't know what this is. It's a weird threat, because it's giving all the reasons you don't need a gun, and then saying, well, if you're in a rural setting, you probably do need a gun, but then he's in a rural setting, and he's saying he doesn't need a gun, really.

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And then he's saying, well, you have a right to have a firearm, but police officers are just way better equipped to do this, because they train.

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And then, you know what? At the end of the day, if there's anything that's hard and fast here that you can sink your teeth into, it's red flag laws make sense, which, of course, is not a conservative position at all.

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So having, and we talked about this with Mike Dolan, a police officer, a few weeks ago. I mean, you want a list?

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You want someone, like an ex -wife or something, to be able to just really get you on a list that will basically make you guilty until proven innocent?

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Okay. Having a gun, let's see, isn't reasonable. Let's see.

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He talks about basically how in the city you don't need one as much.

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I would argue, actually, in the city, especially during June of 2020, you definitely needed one. But I do digress here.

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This is Barbara on guns. It's kind of pathetic. And then on his approach to abortion, here's another issue.

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He says, don't let people distract you from this fact. If Roe v. Wade is set aside in the ruling of the

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Dobbs case, this is indisputably a victory won by incrementalism. Every baby's life saved from abortion in your lifetime or mine has been saved by pro -life incremental approach.

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Why? Because Mississippi's incrementalist pro -life is the law that is being reviewed by SCOTUS. This is the kind of law hated and opposed by those who have sponsored the

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Louisiana law you are reading about on Twitter these days. And this is back in May. We talked about the law in Louisiana.

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And then the approach is decrying incrementalism in the pro -life establishment, on the other hand, have put zero points on the board.

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They'll allege that pro -life legislation has actually made abortion legal. That's about to be proven wrong, it appears.

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And then someone says, Pastor Bart, how do you answer the abolitionists on if abortion is murder, then we need to punish the mother as an accessory to murder.

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And then Bart Barber says, in an abortion at a clinic, the mother is never the one doing the killing and is often also not the one doing the hiring.

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Abortions are sometimes paid for by other parties. So here's the bottom line with Bart. He is against abortion abolition.

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He is for an incrementalist pro -life approach. That's what he says. He was against the original,

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I guess, draft of the Louisiana abortion bill that would have banned abortion without exception.

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They've changed that. And then the most telling thing here is he doesn't think that the mother is the one doing the killing.

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And of course, you could use this logic in all kinds of other places. Is the dictator who presses the button for the nuke or is the ruler of the army who says, troops, go fight?

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Are they responsible in any way for what those troops do? And according to this logic, I guess not.

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I guess they're just not. So of course the mother has a partial responsibility here. Of course.

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Now, are there situations where you could have someone who drugs,

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I don't know, I'm thinking hypothetically here. I can't think of a concrete situation, but they drug someone and bring them to the clinic and there's an operation that takes place and there was no choice made by the mother,

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I suppose. But what is that, not even 1 % of the cases? I mean, the mother, maybe with pressure from her parents or her boyfriend or something, it could be, but it doesn't get her off the hook that if she's choosing to go have an abortion, that is murder.

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And she's opting for that. She does have a choice in this. And so Bart actually, well, she's never the one doing the killing.

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I mean, this takes away the culpability and that's a big deal in my mind. You Bart Barber on same -sex attraction here.

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Bart Barber, this is weird, some of the most convoluted stuff in my mind, but he, so let's start at 2014.

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So this is one of the tweets we're going back actually a ways for, but then I'll bring it up to, I think within the last six months.

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So here's 2014. He says, he doubts that anyone at the ERLC, the

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Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission for the Southern Baptist Convention, believes that all non -celibate gay people endure an eternity in hell.

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And then someone says that I don't get it. If self -avowed practicing homosexuals can be saved without repenting, what's the point of the

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ERLC? And then Bart Barber says, Jacob, this is someone on Twitter, repenting does not equal perfect. I repent of getting angry.

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I wind up getting angry again. I'm not going to hell for that. Homosexual practice is a sin, I believe that. Arrogance is a sin,

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I believe that. Being a serial boaster is enough to send you to hell apart from the gospel. But if you've been saved by grace, serial boasting will not send you to hell, nor will sexual sin, including homosexuality.

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So this is, again, it's like, you could find something in this to kind of like agree with in the sense that like, okay, well,

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I suppose, yeah, if your sin is covered by the grace of God, then yeah, you are,

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Jesus has paid for those sins. At the same time, like repentance is the fruit, is the evidence of an action, that the work of God has been done in your heart, that their grace has been extended to you in such a way that you've become a child of God and been born again.

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If you don't have sanctification, you don't have an ongoing work of repentance. If you're habitually committing sin, and there's, you know, this is part of your lifestyle, and homosexuality is,

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I mean, certainly something like that, which is not even, this isn't a natural affection even, this is something that, you know, decisions to sin are made that bring you to this decision.

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And if you just keep doing that habitually, then you should probably be examining yourself.

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Who are you? Are you an actual believer? And this isn't to say the grace of God can't cover those sins, grace of God can cover murder, grace of God covers anything, but when the grace of God covers these things, a work is done in someone's heart.

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And so there's repentance, and that's the characteristic of the Christian life, is an ongoing sanctification process, an ongoing repentance, looking more like Jesus Christ.

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Sure, there are sins that come up in that, but the trajectory is going to be one of going up.

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And so Bart doesn't make these qualifications, and it would seem, especially in this period of time we live in now, and even in 2014, man, this is kind of, these are important qualifications to make if you're gonna make a statement like that.

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So serial, I mean, he uses the word serial, serial boasting, serial homosexuality won't send you to hell.

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Yes, it will. Yes, it will. If that's who you are, if that's what you're doing, if that's what characterizes you, and I mean, this is exactly what sends you to hell, just like boasting and sexual sin and some of the other things he mentions here, or lying, or disobedience to parents.

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I mean, all these things do, these sins. And so yes, the grace of God comes in, but if there's no change after the grace of God comes in, and you're a serial homosexual, then you better start asking yourself, was

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I saved? This, so the point is, this is again, this is

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Bart, and this is why it's hard, and why I didn't even wanna do necessarily an episode on him before, because I'm just like, man, parsing this stuff out is difficult sometimes, because it's like, he says some true things here, but then it's also, it's like, why does this hit you as wrong?

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Because the note at the end of this is, yeah, you could be a serial homosexual. It's like, how about no, you can't be that, that's not part of your identity, that's not who you are.

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Just because you sin sometimes, that doesn't make you a serial sinner.

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That makes you a child of God who's repented, and is repenting, who is on that upward trajectory of sanctification.

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That's the important thing to emphasize. Here's, but here's more, something more clear. Bart Barber weighs in on this situation with Marcus Hayes.

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For those who don't, haven't heard about this, Marcus Hayes was, actually he preached at the pastor's conference this year, but he did, he was candidating at First Baptist Church of Naples in Florida.

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There's a whole documentary about it on YouTube, Enemies Within the Church, The Story of First Baptist Naples. You can go check that out, but Marcus Hayes says this on stage while he's candidating, and then this question is brought up to Bart Barber about what

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Marcus Hayes said, and what do you think about it, Bart Barber? And I'm gonna play you that clip, so here we go.

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Homosexuality is, it's a sin. Now, if you have, now maybe somebody even in this room, you may have same -sex attractions.

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I don't know, I would say that's not a sin. To identify something that is a sinful temptation as part of your nature, and in effect, to say to God, I'm gonna have this disposition to violence or retribution, and that's just part of who

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I am, and it's not something you'll ever be able to touch or change I think that's something that's sinful.

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It's a sinful denial of the power of God to do something. Now, does the word same -sex attraction, when

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Marcus Hayes is talking about it, mean the fleeting temptation that you think you'll be delivered from, or does it mean that kind of shaking your fist in God's face and saying, this is who

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I am, and it's who I'm gonna be from here on out? I don't know, because I don't know Marcus Hayes, and I've never talked to him about it.

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So again, you have 90 % of that is good, but then when you think about what he's saying, where does it lead you?

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Well, it's not a sin as long as you categorize the same -sex attraction you have as a fleeting temptation

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God will deliver you from. So as long as it's something that's temporary that God will deliver you from, then it's not a sin.

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But if it's not a sin, then why does God have to deliver you from it? This is one of the things, there's tension in this, there's a problem here.

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This is an unnatural desire, and I'm getting that from Romans 1, that this is a desire that, this is not something

28:47

Jesus would have been tempted with, even though he's tempted in all points as we are, that he would have been tempted in the category of sin, but he wouldn't have been tempted in these unnatural desires where decisions are made that downstream lead to this kind of a temptation or this kind of a problem or sinful decisions, whether by yourself or by others.

29:07

And so this is, I mean, this is what Romans 1 says. It's a result of trading in worshiping the creator for worshiping the creation.

29:18

And I mean, you could put other things in this category as well. I mean, look, you could put other sexual deviancies here that are not a part of God's design and fill in the blank, and this wouldn't make sense.

29:30

You would be like, wait a minute, that doesn't make sense. As long as you're having, you have a thought concerning bestiality or pedophilia, or you pick whatever unnatural temptation that you wanna put in there.

29:45

It's not a sin as long as it's fleeting and you think that you'll be delivered from it. Well, I mean, this is, how do you get to that point of having these temptations?

29:55

This is certainly a desire God does not want you to have. And so I think as Colossians states, we're supposed to be killing those desires.

30:06

And this is a desire, this is a temptation that would be way out of accord with God's plan.

30:13

And so absolutely, it would be sinful. And you just confess it and move on and God gives you grace.

30:21

And I think that's how, I mean, I have a number of friends who are former homosexuals. I mean, that's how they dealt with it.

30:27

It's not, there isn't some like secret strategy that were just five steps that you gotta go through in order to get to this point.

30:37

It's really as simple as, well, I don't want to think about those things.

30:43

This is wrong. These temptations are evil and I'm gonna work hard to combat that.

30:48

I'm gonna put restrictions in my life. I'm going to fill my head with other things. I'm going to pray.

30:54

I'm going to combat these things. I'm gonna have accountability. And that's the same thing you do for other sins. But Barber absolutely has tension on this topic when he talks about it.

31:04

It doesn't make sense to me how he approaches it. Why does God have to deliver you from something if it's not a sin?

31:12

So speaking of FBC Naples, if you watch that documentary, you'll know that in that particular situation, you had a number of people from the church who were accused of racism.

31:23

And you had all these bigwigs in the Southern Baptist Convention saying how horrible it was. You had Danny Akin and J .D.

31:28

Greer and Russell Moore and even Jack Graham got in on it. I mean, there was a bunch of people saying, it's horrible that there's racism at First Baptist Church of Naples.

31:37

Oh my goodness. And so Barber got in on it too. And October of 2019, he said, "'Hey,

31:43

FBC Naples, your governing documents "'probably do not require a super majority "'to remove from membership those people "'who espouse sentiments or take actions "'contrary to your church's statement of faith.

31:52

"'Afterwards, it is likely "'that they do not have voting privileges.'" And he says, "'Celebrating the 81 % is the point "'of considering disciplinary action.'"

32:00

The 81 % are those who voted for Marcus Hayes, this woke pastor. He says, "'Celebrating the 81 % is the point "'of considering disciplinary action "'against anyone who disseminated racist sentiments "'to influence this process.

32:12

"'Congregationalism, in its better forms, "'doesn't leave a whole church holding the bag "'for what a few miscreants want.'"

32:18

So he calls them miscreants, insinuates they're racist. He goes with the narrative.

32:23

And it was all a lie, it was all false. And I don't see apologies coming from any of these people, Barber included, for the slander that they propagated against First Baptist Church Naples members who were trying to take a stand against really the destruction of their church.

32:37

And I say that in all seriousness because Marcus Hayes did go on to another church, and it's split the church all up.

32:44

It's caused all kinds of problems. FBC Naples was trying to avoid these things, at least the concerned members, and they were castigated for it.

32:52

They were called racists. There's a whole documentary you can watch. Bart Barber was on the side of slander and has not apologized.

32:59

So what happens when the, and these are, honestly, these are charges that arise from critical race theory. These are, you don't have to read critical race theorists to adopt some of these assumptions because they're all around us.

33:10

So assuming that, oh, they must be racist because they're opposing a black guy that we have, who's unqualified, by the way, by the standards of their constitution of the church, but where they're opposing him, therefore they must be racist because a lot of them are white.

33:23

And that's stupid, that's juvenile, that's beneath us. But you got the members of Southern Baptist Convention at the highest levels to propagate this myth.

33:35

Bart Barber on plagiarism. Now this is an important topic, all right? Just like critical race theory is gonna be an ongoing thing, and Bart Barber has swung and missed on that.

33:43

What about plagiarism? Where's he at on this? Well, you have the former president of the Southern Baptist Convention being a serial plagiarist.

33:50

Bart Barber says a few things. Let's go to the Twitter thread first from September of 2021.

33:56

He says, Mark's gospel is Peter's account given without any attribution at all. Plagiarism is an academic standard that wasn't even invented until centuries after the

34:05

Bible had already been written. It is a man -made protocol of how to indicate the sources of published academic work. And then someone says,

34:12

Bart, I honestly didn't think we need to hold God responsible for plagiarism. If I remember correctly, the scripture is God -breathed, not man -copied.

34:18

And then Bart says, well, now it's both, isn't it? Do you deny that Mark's gospel is Peter's account offered without attribution?

34:25

The point you just made is simply that God inspired Mark to plagiarize Peter, which wasn't sinful, which didn't compromise his holiness.

34:32

Why? Because plagiarism is a man -made standard. And then it's centuries later, it is not sinful in and of itself. It is only sinful if you're bound by some sort of obligation to an authority who requires you to do work by this man -made standard.

34:47

Mark was not bound by any such authority. He plagiarized as God inspired him to do.

34:54

I don't know if I need to comment on this. Mark plagiarized as God inspired him to do. Okay, well, if plagiarism is okay, then

35:04

I guess all the seminaries that Bart Barber now is responsible in part to appoint trustees for and manage in some way, they guess they have some bad standards because they actually try to, plagiarism is like the cardinal sin of academia.

35:23

It's stealing. It's stealing other people's work and then attributing it to yourself. So yeah,

35:29

Mark's gospel is Peter's account. Well, was

35:34

Mark stealing it from Peter? Was it something that he was taking and then attributing it to himself?

35:42

I wrote this. This is all my information. And then was the Holy Spirit saying, yeah, go steal that? No, that's clearly not.

35:49

This is a pathetic comparison. But this is what we get from Bart Barber.

35:55

Under this logic, I guess we can just steal anything, any intellectual property. I mean, this is just opening

36:00

Pandora's box here. Here's what the resolutions committee, he presided over this year. He was the chairman of it, said about a resolution on plagiarism.

36:09

He says, the committee said, while the committee affirms the thesis that preaching is a sacred trust from God for which preachers are accountable, we do not believe that the convention has yet reached any informed consensus on the many specific burdens placed upon pastors in the text of this proposed resolution.

36:23

So yeah, we just don't know what to do about plagiarism. I mean, this is incredible.

36:29

They know what to do about, what was one of the resolutions this year, about indigenous peoples in the

36:36

United States and how they were colonized by Christians and how horrible this was, that they were forced conversions and all this stuff, which,

36:44

I mean, that's a real big problem, apparently, in the Southern Baptist Convention. But there's a consensus on that, apparently, that issue that isn't affecting really anyone in the convention.

36:54

Not currently, but they can do that. But this one, no, no, we just don't have a consensus.

37:00

It's laughable. But that's Bart Barber's, he's the chairman of his resolutions committee, and this is what he says about plagiarism.

37:08

It's kind of offensive if you think about it. God's inspiring people to steal from other people, really? Here's Bart Barber on the reaction to COVID -19.

37:17

He says a number of things, and this spans the gamut. This is from, I think, initially 2020, 2021, and 2022, or sorry, sorry, 2020 and 2021.

37:28

So first he says, when schools, governments, and businesses close to combat the spread of the disease, the church's decision to gather anyway is not merely a choice, not to join the other institutions of society, but a choice to work, to undo what the entire community is unified to try to accomplish.

37:41

Translation, I'm for COVID lockdowns, and the church needs to close. That's what he's saying. Here's what he says, again, in 2021.

37:50

He says that, someone says, Bart, please share your thoughts on, well, actually,

37:55

I'll start here. This is what he says first. In the case of the mission field, I'm very, very worried about perception, perception.

38:01

This is your president of the Southern Baptist Convention, very worried about perception. Our church, now just remember what he said about social justice, that wanting the approval of the world was a bad motivation for social justice.

38:13

Wanting the approval of the church, good motivation, or the approval of God, wanting to practice biblical fidelity, good motivation for social justice.

38:21

Here, he's saying, he's now worried about perception. Perception, what does the world think about us?

38:26

Our church staff is entirely vaccinated, for example, although our membership is not. Even if a church staff member accidentally spreads

38:34

COVID, all know we did what we could to prevent it. So worried about perception. I mean,

38:39

I hope they didn't require this at the church, but the whole staff's vaccinated, but be worried because, man, some of them aren't.

38:46

Some of the members aren't. What happens if we have an outbreak? I mean, what's the perception gonna be? Here again, and this is the biggest one of all,

38:54

Bart, please share your thoughts on the IMB, International Mission Board for the Southern Baptist Convention, their vaccine mandate.

38:59

So they mandated every missionary had to be vaccinated to go on the mission field. In fact, many missionaries came home never to return to the mission field.

39:06

I know some of them because of this, and here's what he says. I appreciate any response or thoughts you have. Bart goes,

39:11

I support it. He supports it. He supports the COVID vaccine mandate for IMB missionaries.

39:19

Once you go overseas to do missionary work, so many other variables are at play. If you walk into a village and bring a deadly disease, the doors that get shut there may never be reopened.

39:31

Now, I think I'm probably about as far as I can go on YouTube talking about this particular issue.

39:38

However, I will say this. There is, and I'll be very cryptic about it, but I did get an email about some of the effects of some of this treatment, and let's just say there's concerns.

39:52

So we will possibly, in another episode, maybe not one on YouTube, I'll talk more about that, but Bart Barber defending this mandate.

40:01

Bart Barber, and here's where things get a little personal. He also has defended Rick Warren. And this is,

40:07

Rick Warren's on the ropes because Rick Warren, I showed you the video of this whole thing he says about how great he is, basically.

40:13

He's trained 1 .1 million pastors. He's just, more than all the other seminaries combined in the

40:18

Southern Baptist Convention. He is just great. And he's on the ropes, and in this moment, this is recently, this is from the 16th of this month,

40:26

Bart Barber says, he's thankful, he has to find something he's thankful for, about Rick Warren. About Rick Warren's courageous advocacy for full religious liberty for Muslims, our different opinions over pastoral complementarianism, notwithstanding, it was a pleasure to meet him this week.

40:39

And then he goes, there's a whole thread here. He says, it's no shocker discovered that the president of the

40:45

SBC is a Baptist. Advocating for religious liberty is a core of Baptist belief. If you do not support religious liberty, you are not a

40:51

Southern Baptist. You are far outside the Baptist faith and message. Let's see, he says, if you differ with Rick Warren about complementarianism while agreeing with him about religious liberty, would you take a moment to ask yourself why?

41:07

Why is it that I am angry about a tweet that didn't actually say anything I disagree with? I mean, this is so dumb.

41:13

This is, this is Bart Barber, defending Rick Warren after Rick Warren has sung the praises of himself and supported the women pastors at Saddleback.

41:24

And Bart Barber has to come in and say, well, I wouldn't say anything about that. Well, yeah, but why are you doing this now?

41:29

Why right now are you deciding to do this whole thing, appreciating Rick Warren's courageous advocacy for Muslims?

41:36

Where is this coming from? Well, everyone knows it's coming from a context, a historical context. Rick Warren's on the ropes and you're jumping in to say, hey, let's defend

41:44

Rick Warren for this over here. And then he's then pretending like, well, this has nothing to do with the complementarian issue.

41:52

Well, how would you object? Just anyone's daring to say something nice and true about someone else at a time when everyone else is fighting.

41:59

What makes me angry about someone's accentuating the positive, accenting the positive, especially when he's already on the record about this question right here on this platform multiple times.

42:10

And actually, I don't know if I can read more of this. This is just, it gets ridiculous. All right, so here's the thing.

42:17

Here's a question, I think, that lies before us a little bit about religious liberty. And I just wanna do a little detour on this because I think you're gonna have it come up again.

42:26

And I wanna read for you. I'm pulling it up right now. See if I can pull it up on the screen, perhaps. This is a book by Benjamin Reilly called

42:33

The History of the Baptists in the Southern States. And it's, at one time at least, it was pretty standard history.

42:41

These days, I don't think probably a lot of seminary professors are assigning Benjamin Reilly, unfortunately.

42:48

But he was one of the, I think, first ones to really give a systematized approach to Southern Baptist history.

42:55

Here's what he says, and I'll read it for you about the beliefs that Baptists have of religious liberty.

43:00

He says, among the first who came from England to America, as we have seen, were Baptists. They were generally fugitives from ecclesiastical tyranny of the old world.

43:07

Believing that everyone should be left at liberty to worship God as he might please, or to neglect to worship altogether.

43:13

If he might choose, they began the propagation of these principles. In harmony with these views, they contended for entire exemption from compulsory support of a system or creed which they could not approve.

43:23

This opposition they did not hesitate to express when occasion arose. Through such opposition was frequently attended with extreme peril.

43:31

When, therefore, a taxation on the part of the establishment was resisted by dissenters, which included others besides Baptists, the persecutions against such oftentimes were violent.

43:40

The specious plea of these persecutors was that while magistrates have no power against the laws, doctrine, and religion of Christ, yet for the same, if their power be of God, they may use it lawfully and against the contrary.

43:53

The passage of the Act of Toleration under William and Mary in 1689 aroused great hope among the

43:58

Baptists of both America and England. So let's stop right there. This is a freedom of conscience thing, conscience thing, and this is really what this is, is advocating against a state -sponsored religion, specifically a

44:15

Christian denomination in the historical context, advocating against a state sponsoring a particular Christian denomination, which then you have to be a member of or you have to support financially through taxation.

44:26

And if you don't, or you preach against them, then you're jailed. A lot of Baptists were jailed. This is the Baptist position.

44:32

What Bart Barber is talking about here is not even, this isn't what, he's saying this is what

44:37

Baptists believe. So therefore, Rick Warren's advocacy for what he calls full religious liberty for Muslims is part of this.

44:45

Well, a few things first. Number one, Baptists, at the time, at least, of near the founding and before the founding of the

44:53

Southern Baptist Convention would have been, they wouldn't have conceived of this religious toleration for groups that would be that far outside of Christendom.

45:03

That wouldn't have been a thing in their minds as much. Maybe you can find some little examples here or there, but as a group, though, that wasn't a consensus.

45:13

The other thing, so Muslims wouldn't, that's not a Christian denomination. Maybe Rick Warren thinks it's closer to that.

45:18

But the other thing here is that compulsory worship or membership in a state church is not even an issue today.

45:27

So what's he talking about? Is the religious liberty of Muslims threatened somehow in our country?

45:33

Is there a place that they have to pay taxes to a Christian church or denomination that go directly to a denomination?

45:42

Are they somehow compelled to be members of a state church? What is he talking about?

45:48

Because that would be, if that was happening, maybe he'd have a point, but that's not what's happening. And as near as I can tell with Rick Warren, I mean,

45:55

Rick Warren is just, he's kind of an advocate for the Chrislam stuff, that we worship the same God, that we're just really closer together than both sides would have us believe, and we can work towards common goals.

46:09

And I mean, that's, so when he said this immediately, I'm thinking Rick Warren's the Chrislam guy.

46:14

I don't understand, what do you mean? That's not even a fair depiction of what Rick Warren's been doing with Muslims.

46:20

I don't, where is this happening in our country? So Bart, this whole tweet doesn't make any sense, but it seems like it's a way to shield

46:28

Rick Warren, or at least to say that this guy's got, really, he's a good asset for the

46:34

SBC at a moment when he's on the ropes for contradicting the Baptist faith and message. So, on women pastors.

46:42

So that's, you can see Bart Barber here, kind of grasping at straws to defend

46:47

Rick Warren. But you can see him, he does, this is a pattern for him. He defended the ERLC, the

46:53

Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, by posting the Baptist Press's explainer, how the

46:58

ERLC, George Soros, and Evangelical Immigration Table, they're not connected. George Soros isn't funding the Evangelical Immigration Table.

47:05

And Bart Barber calls the claim that Soros money is going to the Evangelical Immigration Table, a huge deliberate lie, a huge deliberate lie.

47:13

And this is, I think he was serving, at this point, on the board for the ERLC, in some capacity, when he posted this.

47:21

Unfortunately, though, this is true. George Soros money, Open Society's money, has gone to the National Immigration Forum, and the

47:27

National Immigration Forum is connected to the Evangelical Immigration Table, because it's really what inspired and started the

47:33

Evangelical Immigration Table. In fact, you have Open Societies putting out documents, bragging about what

47:39

Russell Moore, former head of the ERLC, has done. They're taking credit for Russell Moore, at least some of what he's done.

47:46

So Bart Barber is definitely in the wrong on this. And this is someone who had an affiliation with the

47:52

ERLC at the time, and yet doesn't seem to know this, and this is not someone you want running your convention, but here we go.

47:59

So he is running, he is, in part, having a lot of influence on the convention as president. So you have him defending the indefensible here.

48:07

You also have, let's see, well, let's just say, this is one of the slides

48:13

I wanted to show you. You have things from the past, and I dug up a few things. I'll just show you one, though, because it just would take me so much time to just put everything else that he said from his blog in order.

48:25

But you go back to 2007, Bart Barber was saying things like this. I believe that it is impossible for the Southern Baptist Convention to do anything about sexual abuse problems, sexual predator problems, that both enjoys any chance of making a substantive positive difference and does not violate

48:40

Southern Baptist polity. That was in 2007. Yeah, Bart's not, Bart's now making videos on his

48:47

Twitter saying how important it is. It's the most important work he does, perhaps, to avoid, to appoint people to a task force to address the sexual abuse in the

48:56

Southern Baptist Convention. I mean, this is totally a different tune than he was singing in 2007. And there's a number of things like that that cause people to wonder whether or not he's changed positions in order to be in the place where he's sitting now.

49:11

So why was he elected? This is my opinion. And I forgot to post here, there's a picture of Rick Warren, or Rick Warren takes a picture of Bart Barber and just calls him,

49:21

I forget the term, something like champion of the Great Commission or something. But Rick Warren supports

49:27

Bart Barber, a number of people did. But these were interesting to me. This guy named Nate Brooks on Twitter, he goes, even though I agreed more doctrinally with a different candidate,

49:35

I voted for Bart Barber because winsome is as important as reformed. The more reformed candidate has declared our convention to be slipping into apostasy, vilified those supporting abuse survivors, et cetera.

49:49

Winsome. And I've made this point for years. I saw it at Southeastern. I thought, wait, everyone, you can disagree on creation evolution, or at least you can, yeah, you can, you can disagree.

49:59

You can think there's some kind of evolutionary process that God used. You can disagree on Calvinism, Arminianism.

50:05

You can disagree on eschatology. You can disagree on cessationism. Those are all fair. You can disagree on those things and be a professor at Southeastern, but guess what?

50:13

You're endangering your job when you disagree on social justice issues. You just are. And that just shows you there's a new orthodoxy.

50:20

That's all it shows. It demonstrates there's an unofficial statement of faith that people are following, or at least not violating.

50:27

They must be careful to make sure they're in the bounds of that is beyond or more important than even soteriology.

50:35

That's where we're at. That's why this is a different religion. So you have James Merritt here saying, "'Congrats to Bart Barber on being elected

50:42

SBC president. "'So proud of the SBC for the vote.'" Let's see. "'Our convention is headed in the right direction "'and there is no drift,' all caps, "'none,' all caps.

50:51

"'Ignore anyone who says otherwise.'" Right, yeah, there's no drift. And that's, I think, why Bart Barber was elected.

50:57

The elites liked him because he would defend them. He would cash aid on CBN.

51:04

He made it seem like there is no drift because he posts stuff like this. This is from 2020. "'What if I told you we were actively living "'in a golden age of Baptist harmony and peace "'in the 1800s, differences of opinion "'not half as controversial as the ones we face today, "'created new denominations after new denomination.

51:20

"'Today, the SBC is conflict, yes, "'but with God's help, through our polity, "'we resolve our conflicts time after time.

51:25

"'We pastors do enough premarital work to know "'that the good marriages aren't conflict -free, "'they are conflict -resolving.'"

51:31

So peace, peace when there is no peace. This is Bart Barber. And that's why I think people like him who are elites in the convention.

51:38

He's winsome in their minds. I don't see that, but he doesn't attack them.

51:44

He defends them. He defends the center. He's not going to fundamentally change the Southern Baptist Convention from the direction it's going.

51:51

And he's also, he's said enough things that seem conservative enough that it's believable.

51:56

It's a candidate that, you know, and he's taken different sides on different positions, and he's vague on different positions.

52:02

And so he's safe. He's a safe candidate for them. He's not gonna rock the boat or jeopardize anything they're doing or threaten them.

52:11

So that's, I think, why he was probably elected. And so that's my opinion, but, you know, I think there's enough evidence there to show that that's a strong possibility at the very least.

52:21

And so this is where the Southern Baptist Convention stands today. They are in deep peril. They are in trouble, and they have someone at the helm who doesn't know that they're trying to steer the ship through a storm, and they're pretending that the water's actually calm, which is guaranteed hitting rocks and icebergs or whatever else is out there.

52:40

The ship is taking on water, and the captain doesn't think that there's a problem. That's where we're at with the

52:46

Southern Baptist Convention. And the question for Southern Baptists is, do you wanna stay on this ship? Do you want to keep contributing to the effort to change the, to, you know, make sure that the sails are in the right position and try to get the water out of the ship?

53:03

Do you wanna try to keep bailing it out when you have a captain that's bent on crashing it into rocks? And I think the answer should be obvious, but if you're gonna stay on the ship, then you're gonna have to fight.

53:15

It's gonna be, and this is one of the analogies that has been used, which I'll probably show you in an episode coming up, but on the conservative, some of them have said that they wanna take the ship, and Ed Litton actually posted recently keep, something like keep the ship.

53:33

And so there's a tug of war going on here using that very analogy, but I think it's an apt analogy.

53:39

What direction is the ship going? It's going towards a waterfall. It's not good.

53:46

It's gonna be bad, and you have someone who's incompetent to actually handle the real problems at the helm.

53:52

So it's a sad commentary on the state of the Southern Baptist Convention, but I have to always remind everyone and that the

53:59

Southern Baptist Convention isn't the kingdom of God, and God's still doing the work. And so just remember that. It's important that we know the truth.

54:05

We don't wanna sugarcoat it. We don't wanna be just Pollyanna all the time, and certainly this podcast is not that at all, but we wanna know the truth, but we also wanna remember that God's doing a work.

54:15

He truly is. I actually just got, I just thought of this, so I'll just mention it, a message from John Cooper from Skillet just the other day, and he sent me a little video.

54:27

They're playing shows in Europe, and they love to play these secular shows because they can evangelize at these shows.

54:34

And these people are coming out to these rock festivals. They're hearing all these other secular rock bands, but they get to hear

54:39

Skillet, and they get to hear John Cooper, and he preaches to them. And there's doors that are still being opened that God's using, and God's using people in the different places they're at.

54:49

I mean, you might not have thousands of people coming to hear you, but you may have a neighbor or a family member or a coworker that will listen to you, and that you can share the gospel with them, or maybe it's online.

55:01

You can share the gospel with friends that you've met there. I mean, there's so many opportunities now with the internet to be able to do that, and share the true gospel, share the true teachings of Jesus, true

55:11

Christian ethics, apply them to the issues of the day, and you don't come up with what Bar Barber's coming up with. And so I'm just hopeful that more resources, more people are going to see the just train wreck that Bar Barber presidency is gonna be.

55:30

And I hope that more people kind of get off this ship and start producing good resources. We need more good resources out there.

55:36

Lifeway, what's the one? CBD, I get these magazines. I mean, there's barely anything in these that you can look to and say, well, that's solid, let's get that.

55:45

Most of the stuff being produced right now isn't that great. And so what we need is good Christians who understand the gospel and Christian ethics, and to start producing these resources.

55:57

And hopefully I'm one of those people, but there's gonna be more. And let's not waste our resources trying to take back a convention that just is hopelessly adrift in a stormy sea.

56:10

Let's put those resources elsewhere and be really, let's be good stewards of what we have.

56:16

I think there was a time to take back the SBC when you could have been a very good steward and we had a window, but I think the writing's on the wall.

56:23

I think God's making it clear that this is the direction it's going, and the

56:29

United States is under judgment. I think these large denominations are under judgment, and the faithful remnant is gonna need to put their resources, their limited resources in the right places.