How Pence outshined Trump at the Southern Baptist Convention

Jun 12, 2024

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Church messengers stand for worship during the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting.

Church messengers stand for worship during the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting on Tuesday in Indianapolis. | Doug McSchooler/AP

BAPTISM BY FIRE — Aside from his literally giant looming presence on Monday as he beamed into a meeting here in Indianapolis via two large TV screens for less than two minutes, Donald Trump was largely missing from the annual gathering of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest and most politically powerful Protestant denomination.

This was no MAGA fest: There were no MAGA caps or Trump signs in sight, and mentions of the likely Republican nominee were scarce. When he spoke Monday to a room of a hundred people, only a handful pulled out their smartphones to record.

The scene served as a reminder that, despite his widespread popularity among evangelicals and other conservative Christians, many church leaders remain skeptical of the worldly embrace and veneration of Trump and MAGA politics — even if it delivered the downfall of Roe v. Wade.

Trump’s presence at the periphery of the proceedings wasn’t necessarily a departure from form. The confab is designed primarily for 11,000 so-called messengers — think of them as delegates hailing from individual churches — to weigh in on resolutions like whether to oppose in vitro fertilization (which they did earlier today) or whether to fellowship with member denominations that allow women to be pastors (which they rejected narrowly) and to elect an SBC president. It’s not designed for politicking, though Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan have all spoken to Southern Baptists at their various functions in their past.

Albert Mohler, a prominent evangelical theologian and president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, told Nightly that Trump hasn’t been clear enough on his abortion stance.

“I think President Trump needs to say that he is as pro-life as he was in 2016 and that he will defend the unborn and work with the pro-life movement to help affect a meaningful defense of unborn life and of life at every stage. I think he must make that clear.”

It also tells us that the abortion and access to contraception wars are far from over. “We’re about to find out how pro-life the pro-life movement is,” Mohler said.

Trump did not mention the word “abortion” at all in his brief, pre-taped video address, instead hewing close to his brand of partisan grievance politics.

“You just can’t vote Democrat. They’re against religion. They’re against your religion in particular,” he said, though Democrats like Carter, Bill Clinton and even Al Gore at one point all considered themselves Baptist. Trump only received a polite smattering of applause for his remarks.

The biggest star of the convention was — surprise — former Vice President Mike Pence, who has been attacked by Trump after rejecting the then-president’s pressure to block the certification of Joe Biden’s election. Unlike Trump, Pence touted the administration’s appointment of three U.S. Supreme Court justices who helped “send Roe v. Wade to the ash heap of history,” Pence said. He won three standing ovations, and stood in a reception line for almost half an hour after speaking, signing autographs and posing for selfies.

“Pence is a lifelong pro-lifer,” said Daniel Darling, a Southern Baptist and a former spokesman for the National Religious Broadcasters “He’s a movement conservative. He got into politics, in part because of that issue. And I think that’s part of how he sees his continuing role and voice is to continue to champion that issue and make sure that Republicans don’t sort of cast that aside.”

Even former presidential candidate and current Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis received more namechecks from the stage and in the hallways than Trump, mostly because of his firm positions in the culture wars and particularly on abortion.

“I don’t like [Trump] personally,” said Joanne Sharp, of the First Baptist Church of Marion, Illinois. “It’s personality. He can’t keep his mouth shut. But I think he was a decent president aside from not being able to keep his mouth shut.”

Pence, however, continues to talk about an issue that remains essential for the SBC: “I honestly think we haven’t come to the end of the debate over life: We’ve come to the end of the beginning.”

Megan Messerly contributed to this report.

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Nightly Road to 2024

SBC ON IVF — The Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest and most politically powerful Protestant denomination, voted today to oppose in vitro fertilization. The move may signal the beginning of a broad turn on the right against IVF, an issue that many evangelicals, anti-abortion advocates and other social conservatives see as the “pro-life” movement’s next frontier — one they hope will eventually lead to restrictions, or outright bans, on IVF at the state and federal levels.

COMMUTATION SPECULATION — The White House today would not say whether President Joe Biden might consider commuting the upcoming sentence of Hunter Biden after his son was found guilty of three federal gun charges, writes USA Today. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, when asked during a gaggle with reporters on Air Force One whether a commutation for Hunter Biden is on the table, pointed to Biden previously ruling out a pardon for his son but did not rule out a possible commutation. “I haven’t spoken to the president about this since the verdict came out, and as we all know, the sentencing hasn’t even been scheduled yet,” Jean-Pierre said.

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AROUND THE WORLD

Ukrainian servicemen search a target with a US Stinger air defense missile launcher on the front line in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, on May 28, 2024.

Ukrainian servicemen search a target with a US Stinger air defense missile launcher on the front line in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, on May 28, 2024. | Andriy Andriyenko/AP

FATIGUE WORRIES — As defense chiefs gather in Brussels this week to talk about sending more weapons to Ukraine, U.S. and European officials are growing worried that the far-right surge in the European Parliament election last weekend foreshadows increasing Western fatigue with the war.

U.S. officials maintain that the vote, which saw gains by far-right parties in Germany and France that are skeptical of continuing aid for Ukraine, won’t immediately be felt in Kyiv. Yet former officials who speak to members of the current administration say the results could be a harbinger of brewing resistance to the war effort.

And combined with fears about the potential return of former President Donald Trump to the White House and his comments on allowing Russia to bomb alliance members, the European election results lend new urgency to efforts to shore up support for Kyiv before November’s U.S. presidential vote, they say.

“There starts to become this far-right momentum that starts growing, and it seeds and it supercharges other far-right forces,” said Heather Conley, a former deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, noting that the question of the outcome of the U.S. elections is in the backdrop of every conversation with allies. “You can feel this urgency of, ‘let’s get this locked down in the next six months,’” she added, based on her conversations with people still in the administration and European officials.

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Nightly Number

3.4

The percentage that the core inflation index has risen over a 12 month period, representing a slight cooling from last month’s rise of 3.6 percent, and the smallest such increase in three years.

RADAR SWEEP

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Parting Image

On this date in 1987: President Ronald Reagan speaks in front of the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin, Germany, during Berlin's 750th anniversary celebration.

On this date in 1987: President Ronald Reagan speaks in front of the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin, Germany, during Berlin's 750th anniversary celebration. | Roberto Pfeil/AP

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