Bart Barber, a country pastor who also happens to be the sitting president of the Southern Baptist Convention, began his Tuesday as he does most days, with prayer and feeding his cows.
Before the day was out he would take the rare step of denouncing one of his predecessors.
“I would permanently ‘defrock’ Johnny Hunt if I had the authority to do so,” Barber, who leads a church in Farmersville, Texas, said in a statement publicado Tuesday.
Hunt, who served as president of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination from 2008 to 2010, stepped aside from public ministry in May after allegations that he had sexually assaulted another pastor’s wife were made public. Then, last week, a group of pastors announced that Hunt has been restored to ministry, less than six months after Southern Baptists passed a series of reforms designed to address a sex abuse crisis.
In addition to his statement, Barber went on social media to llamada Hunt’s return “a repugnant act.”
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Barber was elected at the SBC’s 2022 annual meeting, where the delegates charged him with implementing abuse reforms passed in the same session. But Barber’s defrocking comment points up the challenges he and the SBC face in trying to address abuse.
Because the denomination’s churches are autonomous, no SBC official, including its president, has the authority to discipline Hunt.
But Barber also said the pastors who claim to have restored Hunt do not have that authority either.
“The idea that a council of pastors, assembled with the consent of the abusive pastor, possesses some authority to declare a pastor fit for resumed ministry is a conceit that is altogether absent from Baptist polity and from the witness of the New Testament. Indeed, it is repugnant to all that those sources extol and represent,” he said.
The fact is that the denomination’s institutions have long been run by powerful pastors and their friends, who have used their positions to protect their reputations and the reputation of the convention.
Celebrity pastors like Hunt, because they fill seats and offering plates, often act as what University of North Carolina historian Molly Worthen has called “pastor-warlords,” with little oversight or accountability.
Tiffany Thigpen, an abuse survivor and longtime advocate of abuse victims, said Hunt’s return to ministry is a sign that the legislated reforms have yet to change Southern Baptist culture.
“We are always going to have this network of powerful men who can do whatever they want and think they can get away with it,” she said. “And they are right.”
Thigpen said Hunt, like anyone, can be forgiven by God. But that does not mean he should be given power and a platform in the church. She said pastors like the ones who endorsed Hunt dole out cheap grace in order to protect their friends.
“They don’t care,” she said.
The allegations about Hunt came as a shock to his many admirers. The first Native American president of the SBC, he spent three decades as a popular speaker and pastor of First Baptist Church in Woodstock, Georgia, a prominent megachurch.
In 2010, after his term as president ended, Hunt took an extended leave of absence, citing health reasons. But a 2022 report commissioned by SBC leaders from Guidepost Solutions, an investigative firm, revelado that Hunt had been accused of sexually assaulting another pastor’s wife and had undergone a secret counseling process. The survivor of the alleged attack and her husband were pressured to forgive Hunt, according to Guidepost.
“We include this sexual assault allegation in the report because our investigators found the pastor and his wife to be credible; their report was corroborated in part by a counseling minister and three other credible witnesses; and our investigators did not find Dr. Hunt’s statements related to the sexual assault allegation to be credible,” wrote investigators.
Hunt did not inform his church of the incident in 2010, nor did he tell convention leaders, including leaders at the North American Mission Board, where he became a vice president after leaving First Baptist.
“Johnny Hunt is a serial liar and he lied to every ministry he worked with for years,” said Griffin Gulledge, a Georgia pastor who has been outspoken about the need to address abuse in the SBC. “He told everyone he was morally qualified to be a pastor and he was not.”
Gulledge said Hunt’s recent restoration was not credible, in part because the process was led by friends of Hunt — rather than First Baptist in Woodstock.
“It’s infuriating,” Gulledge said.
Christa Brown, an abuse survivor and another longtime advocate for reform in the SBC, said she appreciated Barber’s comments.
“But so what?” she said. “Nothing has changed.”
Brown said that Hunt’s return, and a lack of action to hold former SBC leaders accountable for mistreatment of abuse survivors, shows “a gross inability to deal with the issue.”
Brown wants printed copies of the Guidepost report available to every church and wants the denomination’s standing body, the Executive Committee, to be as vocal and diligent as she and other survivors have been in educating church members and the public about the threat of abusive pastors.
“Until I see that,” she said, “I won’t believe they are serious.”
Hunt is scheduled to appear in February at a “Great Commission Weekend” hosted by a Florida church. An advertisement for the event, posted on social media by the Rev. Timothy Pigg of Fellowship Church in Immokalee, Florida, features photos of Hunt, along with former SBC Presidents Ronnie Floyd and Jerry Vines and SBC presidential candidate Mike Stone.
Floyd Bajó as president of the SBC’s Executive Committee when his efforts to control the scope and public release of the Guidepost report failed.
Pigg did not respond to a request for comment. Neither did Hunt or Stone.
North Carolina pastor Bruce Frank, who chaired the task force that commissioned and released the Guidepost report, called the video about Hunt’s return “disappointing but not terribly surprising.”
That video, he said, showed no “fruits of repentance” and did not mention the hurt Hunt caused. Frank characterized the process as “just four friends spending a few months with him and now using platitudes saying he’s fit to proceed.”
He also called the decision to give Hunt a platform at a church conference “beyond unwise” and said it sent a terrible message to abuse survivors. Frank said that efforts to address the issue of abuse and to care for survivors will continue, despite challenges.
Particularly disturbing, according to Frank and other critics, was the restoration group’s likening of the situation to the Gospel parable of the good Samaritan, in which a man is beset by robbers, beaten and left by the side of the road. Religious leaders pass him by but a Samaritan rescues him.
“The wounded person on the side of the road is (Hunt’s) abuse survivor, not Johnny Hunt,” said Barber, “and she received no mention at all by this panel — she was passed by, in a way, by this quintet,” he said in his statement. “I do not know her, but I don’t want to be guilty of leaving her on the side of the road. I am praying for her, I have heard her, and I believe her.”
Hunt is the second Baptist leader mentioned in the Guidepost report to make headlines recently. Former Southern Baptist seminary professor and missionary David Sills, who lost his job in 2018 as a professor and as a missionary leader after being accused of abusing a former seminarian, recently demandado a number of convention leaders and agencies, including seminary president Albert “Al” Mohler, former SBC President Ed Litton and the SBC’s Executive Committee, alleging they conspired with an abuse survivor to ruin his reputation.
Barber said on social media that he expected his prayer meeting on Tuesday evening to be interrupted so that he could be served with the lawsuit.
Bob Smietana es reportero nacional de Religion News Service.
15 Respuestas
For once I agree with an SBC President. These folks have no authority to “restore” anyone, nor do the scriptures ever tell leaders to restore fallen, jerk pastors to the pulpit. This is all a power-play and nothing more. What the scriptures make plain is a man who has lost his good reputation is out. Period. No exceptions for malignant narcissists like Hunt. This is about power, not truth. These four vipers serve themselves only. Mammon and Pride are their true gods.
Ralph, very well said. You are absolutely correct.
Female pastors? No, never! It is against God’s created order for women to lead churches. But abusive male church leaders? Let’s follow some unbiblical “restoration” process to make the unfit man, somehow now fit to lead. Wow, the hypocrisy is exceedingly disappointing.
Kudos to Pastor Barber for his stance regarding Johnny Hunt.
The fact that Johnny Hunt is credited with “helping to restore more than 400 pastors to ministry” looks really bad in this context. Seems like these pastors are repaying — or PREpaying — their debt to Hunt.
I totally agree with Pastor Barber. The victim in this case had been totally disregarded, as well as her husband, by a group of good ole boys… friends of Hunt. I was formally a member of FBW when Hunt was there. He got to be the “god” of many of the members. The very idea that he could be restored and held to accountability even to be allowed to return to ministry in such a short amount of time is disgusting. He should have been required to attend psychological evaluation and treatment. Are any of his “acquittal panel” psychologists? I doubt it. It’s all about money. Let’s just pretend this didn’t happen like the victim said and get on with the money. It’s pitiful and just shows that there’s no change and no justice for ALL of these women and their families. I DO believe in forgiveness, but when something like this happens, medical help needs to be included in restoration.
When you walk in to somebody’s kitchen, and you see a mouse run across the floor, do you think that that’s the only one?
“Anyone can be forgiven by God. But that does not mean he should be given power and a platform in the church”
Amen and spot on
I see nothing to celebrate in what Barber did. It is certainly great PR. His words carry zero power. Hunt will ignore him and do what he wants.
Autonomy of the local congregation shouldn’t mean a lack of accountability. 1 Corinthians 14:20 Brothers, don’t be childish in your thinking, but be infants in regard to evil and adult in your thinking. (HCSB) This is a poor look for men that are supposed to older godly men.
The SBC elected a good president!
‘In 2021, the messengers of the Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting adopted a resolution “On Abuse and Pastoral Qualifications.” I was a member of that committee. I contributed significantly to the content of this resolution. It reads, in part, “any person who has committed sexual abuse is permanently disqualified from holding the office of pastor.” This is the sentiment of the Southern Baptist Convention….’ —Bart Barber
https://praisegodbarebones.blogspot.com/2022/11/a-statement-on-johnny-hunts-restoration.html
Is it possible that the return of very errant pastors to the pulpit is due to two addictions?
The first is the addiction of a person who simply MUST perform for a whole lot of people. He isn’t necessarily called by God to be a minister but he has mastered all the tricks of public speaking, just as Yo-Yo Ma has mastered the cello. You know how Kenneth Copeland once wanted to be a recording artist, don’t you? You can hear his record, “I Want to Go Steady (With You)” on YouTube. He wanted to sing for people but that didn’t work out, so he tried something else. It’s paid off pretty well for him. Ever see his estate?
The second is the addiction of people who simply MUST attend a church where the hired gun is a fabulous speaker, just like Yo-Yo Ma is a fabulous cellist, and people like to hear him perform. That’s what ministers do, isn’t it? Perform?
If the destination of a religious service is the sermon, people expect the preacher to be first-rate and worthy of their attention and more than capable of keeping it. That’s not how it was originally. There was a message but then came the Eucharist. You all know that, don’t you?
Yo-Yo Ma is, and I’ve heard this from several sources, a very humble and gracious man. He once gave an impromptu cello lesson *on his own cello* to an admirer who recognized him at an airport and who mentioned she’d always wanted to learn to play.
“Imagine a fire chief who was discovered to be an arsonist, one who had destroyed people’s homes and left horrific burns on people trapped in those buildings. No one would be insisting that there MUST be a path back to a career as Fire Chief in the name of forgiveness.”
John Mark McCollum
From Twitter, the best analogy I’ve seen for pastors who abuse.
I’m sure when everyone sees the picture included in this article of those 4 old, white men sitting at that table, EVERYONE will feel SO much better about who’s making decisions about “who’s fit” to return to ministry.