Bart Barber Pulls Angel Hernandez on Amendment Vote

During the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting, there was a resolution proposed (and later ratified) entitled “On Defending Religious Liberty” which as originally worded, prioritized religious freedoms as being ordained by God even for sinful practices. Resolution 2 included language rejecting “blasphemy laws” which are not only in the Mosaic Law but historically recognized as permissible. Nonetheless, there was an amendment proposed by David Mitzenmacher to explicitly add protections to Christians as follows:

RESOLVED, That we steadfastly oppose all legislation that would designate any part of the Holy Bible as hate speech, or impose any restriction on proclaiming God’s Word, or otherwise stifle the religious liberty of Southern Baptist;

Also arguing for the amendment was Jeff Wright.

Only a simple majority was required to add the amendment to the resolution. When Bart Barber took the vote, it was unclear whether the crowd was clearly in the affirmative or against the amendment, but regardless, Bart Barber called the vote in favor of rejecting the amendment, something that aligned with the platform that ruled it to be an unfriendly amendment. As president, he is responsible for declaring which side wins in a hand vote, but like infamous MLB umpire Angel Hernandez, he blew the call.

He then instructed people to stand and after conferring with his umpiring crew, maintained his call. State Senator Dusty Deevers, who called the point of order, then called for a ballot vote, which he first attempted verbally before doing a hand ballot vote. Ultimately, the amendment failed.

Bart Barber is a baseball enthusiast, as a fan of his St. Louis Cardinals. He should know better than to make a questionable call based on eyesight that would resemble a blown call in baseball.

Cynically, friends like Jeff Wright and David Morrill, both messengers at the SBC, understand that Barber called the vote in favor of the platform. Because the SBC is overrun by managerialism, the platform will defend its own agenda as bureaucracy becomes increasingly self-aware. So when the SBC had the opportunity to oppose the so-called Stop Antisemitism Act that Mike Johnson’s Congress passed, Bart Barber pulled an Angel Hernandez to avoid condemning a law that called Christianity hate speech.