It's been a turbulent few months for the Southern Baptist Convention. The SBC is the largest evangelical institution in America, representing 47,000 churches and about 14 million members. But in May, it was revealed some of its now former executives had ignored hundreds of allegations of sexual abuse in Southern Baptist churches for decades. When SBC members elected a new president in June, they turned to a small-town, Texas pastor named Bart Barber to lead them.
With a Department of Justice investigation into the abuse scandal underway, and midterm elections looming, we weren't sure he would want to sit down and discuss weighty matters of church and state, but he did– and as you're about to hear,Bart Barber has a lot to say about faith, scandal, and the political extremism threatening American democracy.