Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) president Bart Barber exhorted his fellow Southern Baptists at the annual meeting in New Orleans Tuesday to develop a taste for the good, the true and the beautiful. Hours before Barber faces off against Mike Stone in the SBC presidential election, he used his presidential address to challenge messengers to desire to find beauty in the SBC more than they want to find corruption.
Anyone hoping to find examples of doctrinal or moral compromise in the SBC will find it if they look “long enough,” said Barber, given that there are 47,000 churches in the denomination. But people can also find “champions of the faith,” “defenders of the abused,” “courageous missionary-martyrs,” and “conscientious whistleblowers.”
The question is, “Do you want to see it?” asked Barber. “Do you have a taste for seeing it? Or do you find it unattractive?”
Bart Barber Gives Presidential Address at SBC Annual Meeting
The SBC’s annual meeting takes place in New Orleans this week from June 13-14. At the beginning of Tuesday morning’s opening session, over 11,700 messengers had registered.
One of the hot-button issues messengers will address this week is the denomination’s stance on women in positions of church leadership. Yesterday, the SBC Executive Committee (EC) approved a recommendation to give messengers the opportunity to vote on whether to amend the SBC constitution to include a permanent ban on female pastors, as proposed by Virginia pastor Mike Law.
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