The Rev. Bart Barber, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, on Wednesday said no group of pastors can declare another minister accused of sexual abuse as being “restored” to ministry and that efforts to return the cleric to public ministry are “repugnant.”
Mr. Barber spoke up amid news that the Rev. Johnny Hunt, a former president of the 13.7-million-member denomination, was declared fit to return to public ministry months after admitting to a “consensual” adulterous affair the victim called sexual abuse.
In May, a report from the investigation firm Guidepost Solutions that detailed decades of sexual abuse within the SBC said it found the allegations of abuse against Mr.