Bart Barber

While I was in Africa my undergraduate alma mater fired its highly successful and lucrative football coach and removed its president in response to an ongoing scandal over campus sexual assault by football players (related Voices post here, citing … [Read more...] about The Responsibility Art Briles and Kenneth Starr Neglected

Is the Republican Party dead? Those who say so are overreaching. The Republican Party still dominates the landscape at the level of the several states. Thirty-one governors are Republican, compared to eighteen Democrats and one Independent. A whopping sixty-eight out of ninety-eight partisan state legislative chambers (remember, most states have two, a senate and a house) are Republican, with Republicans controlling both the governor's mansion and the capitol in twenty-three states. In state government, Republicans have never been stronger. So, of course, the GOP is not dead. But that … [Read more...] about If This Were the End of the Republican Party, Could That Be a Good Thing?

Whereas any act of sexual predation is a sin and an abomination, and many acts of sexual predation constitute crimes; and, Whereas all fifty states, the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U. S. Virgin Islands have laws requiring certain professionals to report suspected sexual abuse of children, and twenty-seven states specifically require clergy to report suspected sexual abuse of children; and, Whereas God has commanded us to “submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in … [Read more...] about On Sexual Predation in the Southern Baptist Family

In a few days I'm going to introduce to you a resolution that I have written regarding sexual predators in churches. I hope to introduce this resolution to the Resolutions Committee for this year's Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting. I'm taking the rather unusual step of offering this post as a preface to the post in which I will give you the actual text of the resolution. Why compose a preface to a resolution? Because I'm trying to anticipate the suppositions that readers might indulge about my motivation for authoring this resolution. We tend to interpret people's actions by what we … [Read more...] about Preface to a Resolution

All Southern Baptists (to my knowledge) would afford me the liberty not to observe Lent. In a development that most of our predecessors would find surprising (bizarre?), however, an increasing number of Southern Baptists embrace the practice of Lent for themselves, or even encourage it in others as a good, spiritually meaningful practice. I'll be uncharacteristically brief about this: Lent is not in the Bible, nor anything resembling it. Movement toward Lent is movement away from the idea that the New Testament should give us the pattern for ecclesiastical celebrations or individual … [Read more...] about Why I Encourage People Not to Observe Lent

Baylor University, my alma mater, made it to ESPN. Oh, what thrills that statement would've sent throughout the student body when I was enrolled at Baylor (1988-1991)! Our football team was horrible then. Our favorite cheer was "Up the middle! Up the middle! Up the middle! Punt!" We scheduled Rice for Homecoming so we would have a shot at winning. In those days of Baylor football mediocrity (and that may be too positive of a word), I still knew a couple of things about the football program that instilled pride in this young Bear: I knew that Grant Teaff was a committed churchman. He … [Read more...] about A Sick Abomination in Southern Baptist Life

In this corner, we have the folks who tell us that Islam is a religion of peace. Of course, they're wrong. Most of the people writing from this perspective are either trying to make Islam look better to Americans, trying to make America look better to Islam, or trying to fit world events into a worldview that regards faith as something shallow, intellectual, and unbinding (you know, like a Vicky Gene Robinson sermon). We know better, we Southern Baptists. We know that faith is a powerful force shaping character and behavior. We know that not all faiths are the same. They do not merely go … [Read more...] about Muslims Commit Acts of Terrorism; Baptists Don’t Dance

No matter the bumps, no matter the bruises,No matter the scars, still the truth isThe cross has made…the cross has made youFlawless. …or, has it? Prelude So, before I offer a theological critique of a Christian song, one might ask, "Hey, why offer a theological critique of a Christian song?" It's a worthy question. I do not do this very often. I'm no music critic. There's always the risk, no matter how carefully one executes it, that criticism winds up being harmful or offensive. Before penning such a criticism, one ought to have good reasons. The following list includes some merely … [Read more...] about Not Yet Flawless

When a man is so wrong about ice cream, who could pay attention to what he says about politics? But before tearing down the present (unjust and undemocratic) party primary system, I'd like to offer an alternative: Group the several states into five ten-state cohorts (just distribute DC, Puerto Rico, Guam, et al, among them as you like…I care not). Have five party primary dates. Rotate which states get to go first. Balance the groups as well as you can in selecting them. I could live with that. I'm not even saying that this is the best way—I'm saying that EVEN I can imagine a better … [Read more...] about Why Our Present Primary System Is Not the Best Way