This is a strange one. In a recent profile of the Rev. Bart Barber — the current president of the Southern Baptist Convention — the Nashville Tennessean team did something that was both unusual and totally predictable.

Unusual? My state’s dominant newspaper used a theological term when it needed to find an accurate political term, of some kind. Yes, you read that right. I just urged some journalists — in this case — to use accurate “political” language instead of mangled doctrinal language.

Predictable? The abused theological term was “fundamentalist.”

To make matters even more complicated, the Tennessean used an ACCURATE historical-political reference in the headline — “Bart Barber defied the Conservative Resurgence. How it is now shaping his SBC leadership” — and then turned around and used “fundamentalist” in the overture.

Dang it! (I will also ask: Is the pronoun “it” in the headline a reference to Barber’s decisive act of defiance or to the Conservative Resurgence itself?) Here’s that flawed overture:

Bart Barber defied the top brass.

In May 2018, the Texas pastor and his fellow trustees at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth fired seminary president Paige Patterson, the architect of the fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention. Following years of financial-related controversies, revelations about Patterson mishandling reports of sexual abuse pushed Southwestern’s board past a point of no return.

Barber, once a loyal foot soldier in Patterson’s movement, was a decisive vote in Patterson’s dismissal, thereby severing his allegiance. 

The emphasis on the “Conservative Resurgence” as a movement inside the SBC is accurate, since that is a commonly used term among historians. The Tennessean kind of explained that term later in the story, and we will get to that.

After making that wise choice, why use the church-history term “fundamentalist” at the top of the story? That’s a word that fit with some Southern Baptists who supported (as opposed to leading) the “Conservative Resurgence,” but not to all. Using that term also suggested that Barber has changed some of his theological beliefs, as opposed to his stance on crucial issues in SBC politics.

I see zero evidence in this news report that Barber has changed theologically. It that is the case, then ask him hard questions about that and then report the answers.