“Though he is a well-educated church historian and an expert on SBC history and polity, Bart is not an elitist,” Finn added. “He gives the impression that he would rather be working on his farm than hobnobbing with denominational leaders.”
For his part, Barber said he ran for president because he prayed and concluded God was calling him to do it, not because of the sex abuse crisis.
Still, after recently appointing an abuse task force that will make recommendations at next year’s annual meeting in New Orleans, he said Southern Baptists are determined that there must be reforms and identifying solutions to the problem is his top priority.
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“Look who all has been touched by this,” Barber said of sex abuse. “It’s in public schools. It’s in Scouting. It’s in the military. It’s in Hollywood. It’s in sports. It’s in USA Gymnastics.
“And so if Southern Baptists, who also have problems in this area, can lead the way to real solutions … that would be a great shining victory for the SBC,” he added. “And what Hollywood and USA Gymnastics and the government and the military … don’t have is the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit and the promise of God himself that he has built his church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”
Barber grew up in a Southern Baptist family in Lake City, Arkansas. Baptized just before his sixth birthday, he felt God calling him to ministry at age 11 and preached his first sermon at 15.
His late father, Jim, ran the home office for an Arkansas congressman, a Democrat named Bill Alexander. His stay-at-home mother, Carolyn, now 77, taught him to read by the time he entered kindergarten and made sure he paid attention in church.
Often his dad would bring politicians by the house, he recalled, and his mom would make chicken pot pie or smothered steak with mashed potatoes and gravy.
“It’s kind of weird,” Barber said. “Here we were in very small-town Arkansas — not a lot of money, not a lot of fame or anything like that — and a gubernatorial candidate would stop by the house.
“Dad always had an interest in politics and current events,” he continued. “And from when I was young, I enjoyed sitting there listening to the adults talking about all this stuff.”
Barber attended Baptist-affiliated Baylor University in Waco, Texas, where he met his future wife, Tracy, in a campus ministry. They have two children: Jim, 19, and Sarah, 16.
He also earned a master’s in divinity and a doctorate in church history from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He pastored in Mill Creek, Oklahoma, and Royse City, Texas, before moving to Farmersville in 1999.
“He has the heart of a pastor. He is someone who really cares about folks,” Tracy Barber said of her husband of 30 years. “The people in our church are our family, and Farmersville is a small town, so it lends itself to that.”
Steve Speir, 74, is a 42-year member of First Baptist Church of Farmersville, which averages Sunday attendance of about 320. His wife, Linda, plays the church organ.
Barber is “very organized,” Speir said. “He won’t keep anything hidden. Our entire church has full disclosure on all financial matters. They give an accounting for every check that gets written.”
Another longtime member, Donna Armstrong, 75, voiced similar confidence in Barber: “We never doubt whether he’s biblically based or loves the Lord. He also just knows how to be human and relate with people.”