The Presidency of Bart Barber at the Southern Baptist Convention has been characterized by incompetence, defamation, and lawsuits. The Southern Baptist Convention, and Bart Barber, personally, are involved in several lawsuits related to defamation or the SBC’s invitation of sex abuse lawsuits made when they commissioned and published the Guidepost Report. Bart Barber was elected to the Presidency of the SBC with the mandate of carrying out the recommendations of the Guidepost Report. Yet he also has the duty to steward the assets of America’s largest Evangelical denomination.
On August 9 2022, Barber would approve a shrewd amicus brief in a case of Samantha Killary, an actual sex abuse victim whose case has implications for the SBC’s lawsuit against Hannah-Kate Williams. Williams is an alleged sex abuse survivor who was used as a prop to manipulate SBC messengers into waiving attorney client privileges. None of her allegations of sex abuse or coverup thereof have been substantiated, and she is a known slanderer. Interestingly enough, she has been circulating a rumor about the SBC’s impending bankruptcy due to 9 figure settlements. The amicus brief was filed to squash her lawsuit on the grounds of retroactive statute of limitations changes being applied to third party non-perpetrators. The SBC filed the amicus brief to advocate that the law should not be interpreted to include third party non-perpetrators as it was intended only for the perpetrator. Its motion to dismiss is contingent on the opinion of the court in this case.
Last week the amicus brief was made known to the public and this has upset the feminist bloc in the SBC. Bart Barber published a statement on the amicus brief and how it came to be.
You see, if I had given you a hot take…if I had commented immediately, I would have said, “What are you talking about? I don’t know anything about any amicus brief.” But over the weekend I found the email where I approved the SBC’s participation in this brief.
This is my doing. I approved it. I take full responsibility for the SBC’s having joined this brief, and this lengthy statement will help to explain the mistakes I think I have made.
Bart Barber could have doubled down and admitted he ordered the amicus brief because it was in the interest of the SBC. Rather, Bart Barber admits to approving the amicus brief, believing it to be a mistake in hindsight. But how did Bart Barber make this mistake? Apparently incompetence.
And I know that a lot of you would pose this question: “Bart, what were you thinking?” I’m going to try to answer that as best I can, although I’m having to piece it together myself, since I did not even remember that I had done this. Maybe I can explain why I did not remember it.
It happened on August 9, 2022, nearly fifteen months ago. The day before, on August 8, 2022, I announced the appointment of the Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force. That night I released a video responding to heated criticism I had received for appointing Todd Benkert to that committee. I made that video from a hotel room in Nashville.
Why was I in Nashville? The day we are talking about, August 9, was the day when I attended orientation with all of the new members of the SBC Executive Committee. We were in meetings all morning and into the afternoon. As soon as that day-long orientation was over, I had to go to another meeting. I had called the Great Commission Council together to reveal to them something they did not yet know—that the Department of Justice had opened an investigation of the Southern Baptist Convention and that we were determined to cooperate fully.
In the middle of that day, I now know that I received an email from the SBC’s legal team making me aware of this brief and recommending that we join it. It came at 1:30 PM, which was during the EC trustee orientation and a little more than two hours before I needed to lead that other meeting. The filing deadline was that day, the email said, so I had a little more than three hours to reply one way or the other.
And so, maybe you can imagine what I was doing. I was sitting in an orientation meeting, trying to pay attention. At the same time, I was fielding questions about my ARITF appointments, some of which were pretty insistent. Also, I was preparing for what I expected to be a tense and difficult meeting. In between all of that, as the other things allowed time, I was sneaking looks at this brief, reading it to see whether I could approve of our participation in it. And the clock was ticking. The whole thing was an email conversation, and a brief one at that. I became aware that the SBC Executive Committee was joining the brief. I approved our joining the brief. I hadn’t heard anything about it or thought anything about it since then until last Wednesday.
Having a tight deadline, Bart Barber blames the pressures of the job on his “wrong” decision. Bart Barber then shifts blame to the Executive Committee.
There’s another important question to consider. The Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, not the Convention President, is empowered to act as the Convention ad interim. The consent that I gave on August 9, 2002, was consent that I gave in coordination with the decision made by the Interim CEO of the SBC Executive Committee to join this brief. The messengers have not voted on any of this. Does it even lie within the power of the SBC President to make decisions about amici curiae unilaterally on behalf of the Convention? I think probably not. When the SBC Executive Committee exercises its ad interim authority on matter like this, I think that the President of the SBC is as obligated to execute those decisions as he is if the messengers had voted on the matter themselves.
He continues to pander.
Those are interesting questions, to be sure. The more important question is this one: What about Samantha Killary? Knowing what I know now about what she has endured, I can’t stop thinking about her. What have I communicated to her and to other survivors by taking this action? Those questions can give clarity when legal questions are difficult to sort out. And some of the legal questions in play certainly are difficult to sort out.
While Killary is undoubtedly a real victim, the most ethically questionable aspect of the amicus brief would have been the witness towards her. Yet, the precedent of her court case has statewide implications that cannot be overlooked. Bart Barber then pontificates on the merits of statute of limitations.
I am not sure exactly what I think about statutes of limitation. I think they are a mixed bag. I agree with our 2019 resolution that statutes of limitation can get in the way of true justice. I also think that sometimes they are an important part of justice. The SBC gets sued sometimes by abusers alleging defamation when we take stands against clergy sexual abuse, and that’s only going to increase as we move forward with abuse reform. Protections like statutes of limitation enable us to have a Ministry Check Website. I am uncomfortable with the harm statutes of limitations can do, but I also think that they play a valid role in the law sometimes.
I may not know for sure what I think about statutes of limitations, but I know for sure what I believe about preventing clergy sexual abuse. I know for sure what I believe about reporting suspected sexual abuse every time, right away. I know exactly what I believe about how sexual misconduct disqualifies people from pastoral ministry.
Also, among all of those other things that I can say with certainty, I can say this: I did not give this decision to file this brief the level of consideration that it deserved. Some of the most important information affecting my decision was information I failed to seek. Knowing what I know now, I know that I should have asked more questions. I should have taken the opportunity to request a meeting between the Interim CEO, myself, and our legal counsel to gather more information. I did not have the power to decide then, but I did have the opportunity to advise. I failed to use that opportunity wisely, and I regret that. Our future decisions likewise lie with the SBC Executive Committee. I hope to do a better job of using my voice to influence those decisions going forward.
Bart Barber tries to balance out his actions by stating that his liberal appointments to the Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force disapproved of the brief and their record in standing up for “survivors” is unquestionable.
I was not thinking, “How can I harm survivors of sexual abuse today?” I spent that day appointing people like Marshall Blalock and Todd Benkert, both of whom have publicly expressed disapproval of this brief. I wasn’t appointing Todd or Marshall out of one hand while trying to thwart their efforts out of the other. I know that for sure. I spent that day trying to support everyone on the Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force and to carry forward our work. August 9, 2022, was not a day I spent trying to hurt survivors.
Bart Barber is attempting to use his folksy reputation to deflect blame and accountability for actions that were not wrong in and of themselves merely because they are unpopular on the internet. But in the end, it’s yet another example of his incompetency as President of the SBC.
Powered by RedCircle
