It’s a four-way race for the SBC presidency this year

Three months out from the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting, there’s a four-way race for the denomination’s presidency.

Current SBC President Bart Barber is serving his second consecutive term and is ineligible for another term.

So far, four pastors have thrown their hats in the ring for the high-profile volunteer role. SBC presidents are elected to one-year terms with an option to be re-elected to a second term. This year’s election will take place June 11 in Indianapolis.

Announced candidates are David Allen, former preaching professor at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary; Jared Moore, senior pastor of Homesteads Baptist Church in Crossville, Tenn.; Clint Pressley, senior pastor of Hickory Grove Baptist Church in Charlotte, N.C.; and Mike Keahbone, pastor of First Baptist Church of Lawton, Okla.

The four represent various iterations on the scale of SBC conservatism. Some are institutionalists and at least one is part of the most conservative wing of the SBC that has been unsuccessful in gaining power in the past four years.

Jared Moore

Jared Moore is a candidate whose nominator is better known than him. Oklahoma pastor Dusty Deevers says he intends to nominate Moore, who is pastor of a small church and is affiliated with some of the most conservative parts of the SBC.

Deevers, who was elected to the Oklahoma state Senate last year, is an abortion abolitionist — meaning he opposes all forms of abortion and believes women who seek abortions should be prosecuted.

“Jared faithfully represents salt-of-the-earth Southern Baptists,” Deevers told Baptist Press. “He is a faithful husband, father and pastor who serves the Lord dutifully at his local church without the need for fanfare or attention.”

Moore served as SBC second vice president in 2014. He has served as senior pastor at Homesteads Church since 2016. He previously served as senior pastor of New Salem Baptist Church in Hustonville, Ky.

Moore earned a bachelor’s degree from Trinity Bible College, a master’s degree from Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary and both a master’s degree and Ph.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Deevers told BP he believes “our prophetic voice has been stifled in recent years because of infighting, self-dealing and worldly compromise. God’s kingdom will go on with or without the SBC, but we know the Devil would love nothing more than to destroy our long and faithful cooperative mission.”

On the other hand, Moore “wants to see the SBC using all of its tremendous resources to accomplish the Great Commission faithfully,” he said.

In 2016, Moore wrote an opinion piece published online by Southern Seminary advocating a strict opposition to abortion in all forms. There he wrote that “human personhood — human life — begins at conception. This means that abortion is the murder of human persons.”

He continued: “Not only must Planned Parenthood be stopped, but all the murder of unborn human persons must also be stopped. Abortion must be abolished, for it is the great sin of the United States. The blood of 55,000,000 aborted/murdered human persons cry out for justice. May we spend our lives giving a voice to the voiceless until this slaughter of the innocent is abolished.”

Moore is a strict biblical inerrantist. On Feb. 24 he tweeted: “The number one question we must answer in the SBC is and has always been, “What does the Bible say?” We must believe it, all of it, and do what God says. This is the only path forward. Every other path leads to destruction.”

He also is not a fan of current SBC President Barber, whom he has accused of being soft on abortion.

On Feb. 16 he tweeted: “Bart Barber, the post-modernist SBC President, ‘Are women who get an abortion victims? Of course they are.’ Are women who get an abortion culpable in the abortion? Of course they are … women who consent to an abortion are morally and spiritually culpable for abortion.”

Moore is associated with Founders Ministries, a group of SBC Calvinists who have been seeking to turn the SBC into an even more conservative body. A Founders Ministry podcast featured an interview about Moore’s book, The Lust of the Flesh: Thinking Biblically About “Sexual Orientation,” Attraction, and Temptation.

He also believes being gay or lesbian is a choice that is sinful and must be opposed. He recently weighed in on the debate about Alistair Begg advising a grandmother to attend her transgender grandchild’s wedding: “By referencing the Pharisees, the Prodigal Son, and the Good Samaritan in his sermon, Begg compares apples to oranges. None of these Scriptures are positive examples of Jesus attending or encouraging his hearers to attend inherently evil events, in the name of being compassionate to unbelievers.”

David Allen

David Allen may be the best-known of the four candidates by virtue of having taught Southern Baptist preachers for decades and being a popular conference speaker.

Texas pastor Danny Forshee, who says he plans to nominate Allen, explained: “He is a leader in the SBC having served our Lord faithfully as a local church pastor, professor of preaching, and mentor to literally thousands of pastors all over the world.”

After serving as a trustee of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary for 12 years — including being on the trustee board that fired former President Russell Dilday — Allen was hired as dean of the seminary’s School of Theology in 2004. He held that post until 2016, when he was named the first dean of the seminary’s School of Preaching. He also was named distinguished professor of preaching, director of the Center for Expository Preaching and the George W. Truett Chair of Pastoral Ministry.

However, in 2022 he ran into conflict with then-President Adam Greenway whom he says fired him — igniting a firestorm of protest from Allen’s fan base. Although Greenway gave no public reason for Allen’s dismissal, the preaching professor about the same time appeared at a preaching conference with Paige Patterson, the former seminary president who was fired by trustees for mishandling sexual abuse cases and for enriching himself at the seminary’s expense. The preaching conference happened as Southern Baptists were facing a national reckoning over sexual abuse and as Patterson was being sued by a former student for defamation related to a sexual abuse case.

After his dismissal from Southwestern, Allen began teaching at the Adrian Rogers Center for Biblical Preaching at Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary in Memphis.

He still resides in Texas, where he is a member of First Baptist Church of Sunnyvale, located in the eastern suburbs of Dallas.

Allen earned a bachelor’s degree from Criswell College, holds a master’s degree from Southwestern and earned a Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Texas at Arlington.

Clint Pressley

Clint Pressley will be viewed by some as an institutional candidate — conservative but not wanting to tear anything down.

In 2022, he was slated to nominate Florida pastor Willy Rice for the SBC presidency, but Rice withdrew because of allegations he had knowingly allowed an alleged sexual abuser to serve as a lay leader in the church. Allegations against both Rice and the man accused were contested, and some in the SBC saw the accusations as part of a campaign to better position a more conservative candidate for the presidency.

That year, Rice was viewed as an institutional candidate. When he withdrew from the race, current President Bart Barber was nominated and elected in a race against Tom Ascol, president of Founders Ministries, and two others.

Pressley has led Hickory Grove Baptist Church in Charlotte since 2010. Previously he served as pastor of Dauphin Way Baptist Church in Mobile, Ala.

“Clint Pressley loves the Southern Baptist Convention and the mission that holds us together,” said his nominator, North Carolina pastor Chris Justice. “I know him to be a man of conviction who is joyfully orthodox, devoted to the Great Commission, and committed to our cooperation as Southern Baptists.”

Justice said Pressley has “led his church to plant and revitalize other churches, send missionaries. and sacrificially give to the Cooperative Program and Great Commission causes.”

Pressley has also served in a number of denominational leadership roles, including vice president of the SBC Pastors’ Conference in 2013, first vice president of the SBC in 2014-15 and as a trustee for the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary since 2015, which included a period as chairman of the board. He currently serves on the board of directors for the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina.

He earned a bachelor’s degree from Wofford College, a master’s degree from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is pursuing a doctor of ministry degree from Southern Seminary.

Mike Keahbone

Mike Keahbone’s visibility has been on the rise in recent years due to his service on the SBC Executive Committee since 2021 and his role as vice chairman of the SBC’s Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force. He also served on the first Sexual Abuse Task Force.

An outspoken advocate for abuse reform, he has been one of the most public faces of the group of Executive Committee trustees working within the system to address a vexing problem of processes and prevention — even to the point of calling out other trustees.

Keahbone also rose to defend the SBC Sexual Abuse Task Force for hiring Guidepost Solutions, even as ultraconservatives condemned the secular company for a single tweet in support of its LGBTQ employees.

He said at the time: “As a pastor, I want to be in line with [the] Lord and do things right. I had the same concerns as everyone else, but in asking questions and finding clarity, my heart was settled,” he wrote. “I’m just trying to share some of that clarity with those who will receive it. I am always open to answer questions from those who are truly seeking answers but will not respond to those who are disrespectful and rude.”

Keahbone will be nominated by California pastor Victor Chayasirisobhon, who said of him: “Mike Keahbone is the real deal, a leader who loves the Lord, loves the SBC, and strives every day to make it better. He is a son of the SBC, and I am convinced he is more than ready to step up and step into the role of president.”

A Native American with heritage from the Comanche, Kiowa and Cherokee tribes, Keahbone served on the 2023 SBC Resolutions Committee and helped write the resolution titled, “On Religious Liberty, Forced Conversion, and the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report,” which was adopted by SBC messengers.

Before becoming a pastor, he was a student ministry leader. He also served as associate pastor and then senior pastor at Cherokee Hills Baptist Church in Oklahoma City. He earned a bachelor’s degree in ethics at Mid-America Christian University.