We (Grace Baptist Church) make a recognition of sins and crimes. The state is not prepared to deal with sins. The church is not the state. The church is not prepared to deal with crimes. Where you’ve got overlapping sins and crimes, both the state and the church have to do their business. We try not to disavow the authority of Christ because He appointed those magistrates as his deacons. So we tell our people if you’re in an abusive situation, call the police, and then you call the elders. You deal with a crime on the basis of the authority that God established from His Word in the world.
What do you see as your most important responsibilities as SBC president?
You do have opportunities to speak. So, you get the opportunity to try to highlight things like I talked about. You need to do your duty in appointing committees—the Resolutions Committee, the Committee on Committees. Those need to be carefully appointed. You moderate the meeting, but hopefully, you have a good parliamentarian that keeps you out of train wrecks on that.
I would say trying to build bridges between these disparate groups we have in the SBC right now. God’s given me that ability over the years. The Building Bridges conference was something I called Thom Rainer to put together. We got Danny Akin involved and did a conference for Calvinists and non-Calvinists. It was educational and fun.
RELATED: Former Missionary Robin Hadaway To Be Nominated for SBC President
So, that’s an informal thing that can be done. So much can be overcome when you get people in a room. It’s just a lot easier to come to a meeting of the minds, even when you disagree, you understand each other and I would want to see that happen.
By Jonathan Howe and Brandon Porter
EDITOR’S NOTE: Baptist Press will be releasing in-depth interviews with each of the known candidates to be nominated as SBC president at the Annual Meeting in Anaheim. We plan to release our interview with Tom Ascol on May 2, Bart Barber on May 3, and Robin Hadaway on May 4. The interviews have been edited only for clarity, grammar and length.
This article originally appeared at Baptist Press.
