The 2026 Annual Southern Baptist Convention has a lot of anticipation going in. With current president, Clint Pressley, term-limited, Southern Baptist messengers will elect a new president, one of the few powers of SBC messengers, in a supposedly bottom-up hierarchy. The president plays a key role in representing Southern Baptists in the public square and making committee appointments. Clint Pressley was a competent upgrade from Bart Barber’s tumultuous tenure, however, Pressley inherited a financial crisis that became a focal point in 2025.
Two candidates have announced. Joshua Powell serves as pastor of Taylors First Baptist Church, South Carolina where he draws on early influences like John MacArthur’s writings to uphold Scripture as the sole authority in theology and life. He frequently comments on Southern Baptist Convention issues, such as church accountability and global evangelism stories, including personal arrests for sharing the gospel abroad. Powell’s claim to fame in the SBC is a story of his arrest during an overseas missionary journey in a Muslim nation.
JD Greear’s endorsement of Powell is a major red flag, as Greear has fought to make the Southern Baptist Convention more woke, including the tolerance of female pastors.
Powell is politically conservative and not shy about that. But on immigration, Powell might be weak. His teaching pastor praised the pro-amnesty resolution from 2023. This teaching pastor, Nathin Finn, is also the recording secretary for the SBC. Powell has ties to Al Mohler, where he served as Chair of the Board of Trustees for The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. His support for the Mike Law Amendment to ban female pastors is implicit.
The Center for Baptist Leadership intends to nominate Willy Rice. Rice was floated for nomination in 2022 for the liberals, but a scandal torpedoed his campaign. Since then, Willy Rice has switched sides and become a vocal defender of orthodoxy in the Southern Baptist Convention.
Although Willy Rice seems like an uninspired choice, his home-field advantage in Florida makes him somewhat formidable, especially in a crowded field. But Rice’s supporters are framing him as a war time leader to contrast the establishment-friendly choice in Powell.
5 Responses
Great insight.
Thought you might enjoy my recent article.
https://americanreformer.org/2026/01/a-failure-of-leadership/
The wording “one of my best friends” shows that nepotism is the primary mechanism of nomination in the SBC. Which is a red flag for anyone still in there. In a supposed bottom-up hierarchy a candidate with strong support from the actual membership would make the nomination first. It’s usually not a candidate liked much by the top dogs.
The sad message the sheep don’t want to hear is that 2 Cor 6,14 instructs them to leave their local church, if their church is unable to leave the SBC by themselves. “But everything is fine here in my local church”. But the “yoke” is not a “local” thing, as long you are a “Southern Baptist” you are yoked to these guys.
@Louis Im sorry, but your recent article is 39 years out of touch with reality. That article is still assuming, that people still consider these clowns a “moral authority” in anything. Since the advent of televangelicals and the Rick Warren church this has been out of the window. These celebrity personalities are considered entertainers running a comedy show dressed in Christianese language. Their “seeker-sensitive” approach centers around their skit being funnier than their neighbor comedian, and their worship music having more bass punch, than the neighboring night club.
The loss of money has nothing to do with any “moral” failings. Since the 1960s nobody gave an F about the moral integrity of celebrities. This includes celebrity “pastors”. They now lose money, because the following generations don’t care at all about gramp’s celebrities. John MacArthur is dead and soon will be his fanboys. Nobody will replace him.
This is actually the price you pay for building Evangelicalism around celebrity culture: Once the celebrity boomers are gone, their “Evangelicalism” is gone with them.
“Once the celebrity boomers are gone, their “Evangelicalism” is gone with them.”
I hope your prediction comes true.
American-style “evangelical Christianity” is a disgusting, repulsive, and heretical monstrosity.
The only things American-style “evangelical Christianity” evangelizes are the worship of the evil jews, the worship of earthly imposter “israel”, holocaust groveling, race-mixing, miscegenation, and the genocide of the white race.
American “evangelical Christian” missionaries eagerly infiltrate foreign countries to brainwash unreached peoples into believing that “you will go to hell if you don’t submit to being enslaved by the jews.”
As long as American “evangelical Christians” continue to propogate the idolization and worship of the jews, and proselytize race-mixing propaganda, it is entirely understandable and commendable that countries such as China, Russia, and North Korea BAN western “evangelicals” from their countries.
No decent or honorable or moral country would tolerate foreign infiltrators going around brainwashing their people into believing “if you don’t blend your own race out of existence through miscegenation while worshiping the evil jews, god will be angry at you and send you to hell.”
And that is EXACTLY the message that American-style “evangelical Christians” are proselytizing these days.
American-style “evangelical Christianity” is a disgusting, heretical, and blasphemous perversion that serves jewish interests.
American-style “evangelical Christianity” is rampantly corrupt, with most of its leaders and influencers taking jewish money in exchange for gaslighting white Christians into embracing the genocide and destruction of the white race.
American-style “evangelical Christianity” has gone full Elmer Gantry, and hopefully this grotesque and heretical perversion will be consigned to the trash heap of history.
The term “Grahamites” would be the fitting term for the church tradition started by Billy Graham. (It has already been used for a 1800s Presbyterian dietary reformer, however the latter tradition has already died off, so the the term could re-used for the 1950s “revival”.)
Proselyting Americans are astonishingly unsuccessful outside the African and (South-)American world, where loud mega churches cater to the preferences of the native population. Asia for example is a very quiet culture, where the American message doesn’t catch on despite their desperate tries to the “contextual”.
“Contextual” also means contextual ecclesiology, soteriology and eschatology. Megachurchism, Billy-Grahamism and Dispensationalism only ever worked on American and African soil.