This is a strange one. In a recent profile of the Rev. Bart Barber — the current president of the Southern Baptist Convention — the Nashville Tennessean team did something that was both unusual and totally predictable.
Unusual? My state’s dominant newspaper used a theological term when it needed to find an accurate political term, of some kind. Yes, you read that right. I just urged some journalists — in this case — to use accurate “political” language instead of mangled doctrinal language.
Predictable? The abused theological term was “fundamentalist.”
To make matters even more complicated, the Tennessean used an ACCURATE historical-political reference in the headline — “Bart Barber defied the Conservative Resurgence. How it is now shaping his SBC leadership” — and then turned around and used “fundamentalist” in the overture.
Dang it! (I will also ask: Is the pronoun “it” in the headline a reference to Barber’s decisive act of defiance or to the Conservative Resurgence itself?) Here’s that flawed overture:
Bart Barber defied the top brass.
In May 2018, the Texas pastor and his fellow trustees at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth fired seminary president Paige Patterson, the architect of the fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention. Following years of financial-related controversies, revelations about Patterson mishandling reports of sexual abuse pushed Southwestern’s board past a point of no return.
Barber, once a loyal foot soldier in Patterson’s movement, was a decisive vote in Patterson’s dismissal, thereby severing his allegiance.
The emphasis on the “Conservative Resurgence” as a movement inside the SBC is accurate, since that is a commonly used term among historians. The Tennessean kind of explained that term later in the story, and we will get to that.
After making that wise choice, why use the church-history term “fundamentalist” at the top of the story? That’s a word that fit with some Southern Baptists who supported (as opposed to leading) the “Conservative Resurgence,” but not to all. Using that term also suggested that Barber has changed some of his theological beliefs, as opposed to his stance on crucial issues in SBC politics.
I see zero evidence in this news report that Barber has changed theologically. It that is the case, then ask him hard questions about that and then report the answers.
OK, let’s deal with that oh-so-predictable journalism F-word. I would urge readers to dig into these GetReligion posts from religion-beat patriarch Richard Ostling — “What is 'Fundamentalism'? Name 666 or so examples from recent news coverage ...” and “What is 'fundamentalism'? Hint: Grab a copy of the Associated Press Stylebook.” Meanwhile, I noted, In an “On Religion” column on this subject:
The powers that be at the Associated Press know this label is loaded and, thus, for several decades the wire service's style manual has offered this guidance for reporters, editors and broadcast producers around the world.
"fundamentalist: The word gained usage in an early 20th century fundamentalist-modernist controversy within Protestantism. ... However, fundamentalist has to a large extent taken on pejorative connotations except when applied to groups that stress strict, literal interpretations of Scripture and separation from other Christians.
"In general, do not use fundamentalist unless a group applies the word to itself."
The problem is that religious authorities — the voices journalists quote – keep pinning this label on others. Thus, one expert's "evangelical" is another's "fundamentalist." …
Anyone who expects scholars to stand strong and defend a basic, historic definition will be disappointed. As philosopher Alvin Plantinga of the University of Notre Dame once quipped, among academics "fundamentalist" has become a "term of abuse or disapprobation" that most often resembles the casual semi-curse, "sumbitch."
Yes, “sumbitch” is pretty much what the Tennessean team was saying in the overture of this feature. The whole point of the story is that Barber used to be a “sumbitch” and now he is a good guy, sort of.
But is he still, theologically, a “fundamentalist” or is he now a normal “evangelical’? It’s certainly appears — no matter what some leaders of the new, updated SBC right say about him — that he is not a progressive evangelical, at all.
Again, how has the folksy Barber changed theologically? The implication, sort of, is that he has. After all, he is no longer a “fundamentalist.” Maybe.
What does the Tennessean story do well?
It does a good job of describing how and why Barber cut his ties to the Rev. Paige Patterson, one of the most powerful leaders in the late 1970s Conservative Resurgence that took control of America’s largest non-Catholic flock. It’s clear, during the Southwestern seminary clash, that Barber was concerned about issues of honesty, finances and, in a sign of things to come, sexual abuse. Hers is a key passage about the change in Barber’s stance inside the SBC:
… [B]ehind that cheery persona is a story of the battles that Barber waged for people who fanned the flames of factionalism and covered up clergy sexual abuse. It contributed to the mess that Barber is now trying to clean up as SBC president.
Along with regret Barber feels about his past actions and the allegiances he held, he also sees learned lessons about what went wrong and how he could take a different approach.
“Bart went against that political juggernaut. He was within it and then he stood against it,” said Southwestern professor Malcom Yarnell, who’s known Barber for 20-plus years. “The only way that’s explicable is he jettisoned personal loyalty because of his sense of loyalty to Jesus Christ and to his church.”
Here is a crucial question that the story really needs to answer: Does Barber regret supporting the doctrinal goals of the Conservative Resurgence or does he regret the degree to which he was blind to some of the personal actions of some movement leaders?
Let’s walk through a crucial section of the Tennessean story:
One of the Conservative Resurgence’s most well-known victories was at Southwestern, when the coalition stacked enough sympathetic trustees on Southwestern’s board to vote to fire its president, Russell Dilday. Ken Hemphill was Dilday’s replacement. Patterson then succeeded Hemphill.
Ah, a missed opportunity.
Friends and neighbors (and all who speak fluent Southern Baptist) Ken Hemphill is NOT some early draft of Paige Patterson. Hemphill was a mainstream evangelical who fit the Conservative Resurgence in terms of doctrine, but not — key point — in terms of total loyalty to Patterson and other leaders in SBC politics.
It appears that Barber was a good fit with folks like Hemphill, but not Patterson. Was that a matter of doctrine or the personality politics of SBC power?
Let’s keep reading:
At the time of Dilday’s ouster, Barber was a student at the Fort Worth seminary, where he enrolled in a Master of Divinity program after graduating from Baylor. He embraced Southwestern’s new, more conservative trajectory and it inspired him to eventually pursue a Ph.D there in 2000. …
Barber’s academic interests and his emerging political commitments played off each other. Conservative Resurgence leaders were championing the same ideals he was studying, such as religious liberty and local church autonomy.
“He (Barber) is not a legalist. He’s driven by principle, rather than law,” Yarnell said. “The principle of democratic congregationalism and doing things in order and in a kind way is who Bart is.”
Keep reading. And pay close attention to the blogging history of Barber vs. the Rev. Wade Burleson. Note this:
Burleson once supported Patterson and the Conservative Resurgence, but eventually became a vocal critic of the movement and its leaders. Barber took it upon himself to fight back, writing posts such as “Keeping Watch over the Establishment” in 2007 and “Why I love Dr. Paige Patterson” in 2008. …
To Barber, an attack against Conservative Resurgence leaders was an attack against the ideas the movement stood for. He and others like him became collectively known as the “Baptist Identity” bloggers.
“I very quickly handed out team jerseys to people, one side or the other,” Barber said.
Clearly, what happened is that Barber separated his loyalty to key Conservative Resurgence leaders to his dedication to basic theological principles supported by that movement.
The Tennessean story shows that. But it never connects the dots, as to what Barber believes now about basic theological questions.
If Barber has not changed, on doctrine, is he a “fundamentalist”? If the answer is “no,” then why not? How has he changed his theological beliefs, as opposed to his loyalties in terms of the personalities of SBC politics?
This is crucial: Did Barber break with Patterson over issues of theology or ethics? Here is a key moment:
Barber wanted Patterson’s eventual departure to happen with retirement, allowing him to leave on a positive note and avoid ugly conflict with the board.
That all changed with revelations about Patterson’s response to reports of rape on seminary grounds and a woman’s disclosure about domestic violence. In each of the three scenarios, Patterson responded with a seeming lack of compassion for the women reporting the abuse and showed deference to the accused.
At that point, there was no question in Barber’s mind. “It got to the point where I was going to save the seminary by firing Paige Patterson.”
Then, later, there is this — as the Southwestern board moved to oust Patterson:
Southwestern’s board tried to fire Patterson during a marathon 13-hour meeting in May 22-23, 2018, but were unable due to two holdouts. Barber was one of them. Instead, the board decided in that meeting to change Patterson’s title to president emeritus and asked him to retire soon.
After that May meeting, Patterson and his attorney fought back, which Barber felt was “just plain insubordination.” Also, a Washington Post article detailed one of the instances in which Patterson dismissed a female seminarian who reported being raped.
At that point, “there were two things I knew that shaped my vote to terminate Paige Patterson,” Barber said. “One was that I knew two people who had voted against firing him in the May 22-23 meeting whose opinion had changed.”
“The other thing was I had seen him (Patterson) fire people for far less and without so much attention to process,” he added.
Any signs of a theological change there?
Finally, at the end of the story, the Tennessean team stresses that Barber faces another crisis in which he gets to prove whether he is a good guy or a bad guy. In this case, the fight is about an issue — the ordination of women to ANY form of ministry — that represents a clash between two important beliefs in Baptist polity and theology. Will Barber stand, as in his past, for the autonomy of the local congregation, or will he take a conservative doctrinal stand, again, against the ordination of women?
That’s a tough call, in terms of doctrine and Baptist history. I would imagine that, for Barber, this is an agonizing choice — when it is stated in doctrinal terms.
There is that question again, the one the Tennessean never asked or answered: Has Barber changed in terms of his theological commitments? How has he changed?
FIRST IMAGE: Personal photo by the Rev. Bart Barber, circulated on X.