Home Christian News Bart Barber, SBC Presidential Candidate, on Past, Future Action to Address Abuse

Bart Barber, SBC Presidential Candidate, on Past, Future Action to Address Abuse

Barber said he could not describe the topics covered, but he hoped the committee will not attempt, as has occurred in the past, to “bundle several resolutions together,” preventing a discussion of each one.

At the same time, he would like the committee to be “careful only to put on our plate what we can eat, only to bring out in the report a number of resolutions that we feel confident we can get all the way across the goal line.”

Some observers have said the SBC’s difficulty with dealing forthrightly with sexual abuse was driven by fears that bad press would inhibit giving to the Cooperative Program, the SBC’s unified budget. But Barber points to the fact that Southern Baptists donated more to the Cooperative Program in the months after messengers at last year’s meeting ordered the report on the Executive Committee.

In January, the denomination announced that the $21.1 million given to the fund, which primarily supports foreign and domestic missions, marked the second time it had surpassed $21 million in a single month over a 10-year period.

“They’re not unrelated,” Barber said. “Responding poorly to these questions damages our missions effort. Responding in a healthy way to them aids our missionaries.”

Barber also recognizes that sexual abuse isn’t the only issue Southern Baptists are concerned with, however. As the nation awaits the Supreme Court decision that could overturn Roe v. Wade, Barber said he expects Southern Baptists, whose first anti-abortion resolutions date to the 1980s, will need to do more than rejoice about a long-awaited victory.

He said his church has long distributed diapers, children’s clothing and other supplies, and Southern Baptists will need to enhance efforts to help “women who are in difficult circumstances who are giving birth to children.”

This article originally appeared here