NEW ORLEANS (RNS) — Texas pastor Bart Barber was elected to a second year in office during an afternoon session of the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting.
Barber received 7,531 votes, 68% of the 11,014 vote total, beating out Georgia Baptist pastor Mike Stone, a more conservative challenger, who received 3,458 votes, or 31%.
It was the first time in a decade that a sitting SBC president had faced a challenge and only the second time since the late 1980s. The president of the United States’ largest Protestant denomination, in an unpaid role, oversees the annual meeting and promotes the SBC’s mission and beliefs. Presidents are elected for a one-year term and generally run unopposed for a second term.
Barber was an unlikely candidate for president when he first ran in 2021. At the time, he was mostly known for his quirky Twitter videos and an uncommon expertise on SBC governance. He had also played a key role on the board that ousted SBC legend Paige Patterson from his role as president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Texas.
Pastor of a church of relatively modest size, Barber became a candidate for president after Florida megachurch pastor Willie Rice, who had been considered a favorite, dropped out after news broke that his church had ordained a church leader with a history of sexual misconduct.
Ironically, Rice ended up nominating Barber’s challenger, Stone, for president.
Stone, who lost a previous election in 2021 by a narrow margin, has close ties to the Conservative Baptist Network, which has criticized current SBC leadership and claims that the denomination has become too liberal.
During a series of campaign events, he cited rising legal costs, due to dealing with a sexual abuse crisis, that have reduced the reserves of the SBC’s Executive Committee. Citing an Executive Committee auditor, he said that those costs were “unsustainable.”
“For Southern Baptists, unsustainable should be unacceptable,” he said in announcing his candidacy. Stone also had been critical of the SBC’s abuse reforms, saying that local churches should deal with abuse.
Tuesday’s election marked the third year in a row that a CBN-backed candidate has lost the presidential race.
Stone congratulated Barber on his reelection on Twitter, saying, “May God continue to grace you with wisdom, discernment and strength. That will continue to be my prayer for you as you lead.”
