Tom Buck, a Southern Baptist pastor in Texas, is an outspoken critic of the “woke church” movement in the Southern Baptist Convention. The “wokeness” in the denomination spans far past the borders of simply racial issues but encompasses a wide variety of liberal ideologies ranging from feminism to racialism to various forms of sexual abnormality.

The Southern Baptist Convention has clearly been on a liberal drift at least since 2013 when far-left political operative, Russell Moore, took office in the denomination’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. In recent years, Buck has become one of the most vocal opponents of the drift.

After Ed Litton was elected to the presidency last year, we broke the story here at The Dissenter (formerly Reformation Charlotte) that Litton, like his predecessor, JD Greear, preached a sermon stating that the Bible merely “whispers” about homosexuality. As Southern Baptist laypeople and non-celebrity pastors and leaders joined forces, it soon became apparent that Litton had not only swiped that line from Greear, but he was also a serial plagiarist copying sermons nearly word for word from other pastors dating back several years.

The embarrassment became too much for even the establishment to bear and the establishment ultimately threw him out to the dogs not to seek another term. This opened the door for another establishment to take the reins and within 24 hours of Litton’s announcement that he would not be seeking another term, it was announced that Clearwater, FL pastor, Willy Rice would be nominated.

Willy Rice has since been abandoned by the woke establishment mob for ordaining a man to the diaconate who the Southern Baptist Convention, including Willy Rice, said would be disqualified from ministry.

Now, of the three remaining candidates, there is the new choice for establishment puppet, Texas pastor, Bart Barber, a lesser-known name, Robin Hadaway, who appears to be devoted to missions and Evangelism, and the unapologetically conservative choice, Tom Ascol of Founders Ministries. Of these three, it is well known that Tom Buck is closely associated with Tom Ascol.

The woke establishment hates Tom Ascol because he rejects the liberal drift of the current leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention. In 2019, the Southern Baptist Convention voted to approve a resolution that said Critical Race Theory (CRT) was a “useful analytical tool” that could be used by Christians to understand racial grievances in society and the Church. But CRT has been deemed incompatible with Scripture and a biblical worldview and has been embraced by the left to advance various forms of Marxism and Socialism; and within the Church, it’s been used in the same way but cloaked in Christian-ese.

In 2020, Tom Ascol led a movement to rescind that resolution which gained quite a bit of steam among the conservative camp in the Southern Baptist Convention and Ascol gained a prominent voice among his peers and an antagonistic voice among the establishment.

The 2020 SBC annual meeting was later canceled due to “COVID-19” and Ascol’s motion to rescind the resolution was unable to see the light of day—the current leadership of the denomination then single-handedly unanimously voted themselves into another year of power without the consent of the messengers.

In 2021, however, the establishment was prepared. The Conservative Baptist Network was formed and the establishment elitists rallied a defense against the conservative movement. At all costs, these men were determined to hang on to their power. In a last-minute run-off election, Ed Litton, the establishment’s candidate, was narrowly elected to the presidency after an underhanded campaign was launched against conservative, Mike Stone.

At this same meeting, the conservatives once again attempted to rescind the Southern Baptist Convention’s official endorsement of Critical Race Theory but the establishment enlisted men like James Merritt to stand their ground and wag his finger in the face of those who would dare question their authority. Merritt gave an impassioned speech about “unity” and stuff like that despite the fact that it was this wicked ideology that caused division in the denomination.

“If some people were as passionate about the gospel as they are about critical race theory, we’d win this world to Christ tomorrow,” Merritt said. But Merritt knew what his job at the convention was. And, at least for a time, he fulfilled his duty and staved off the opposition.

But the opposition to Critical Race Theory and other attacks on the sufficiency of Scripture and the unity of the true body of Christ has continued to grow. And, Tom Buck, is still one of the loudest voices making waves in the denomination.

Last week, Buck’s wife, Jennifer, released a story of God’s redemptive grace on the G3 Ministries website. The story described a rough start to the young couple’s marriage that lasted a few years but ultimately ended with God’s restoration. While some of the details may be hard to endure, it is nonetheless a beautiful story of God’s grace and encouragement to any other couples that may be facing hardships in their marriage.

But the establishment, it seems, was hell-bent on using the Bucks’ story not to draw people to Christ, but to make a political statement and use it against him.

Earlier this week, a story surfaced on Baptist News Global, the leftist rag of a news outlet associated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship—a denomination that separated from the Southern Baptist Convention during the Conservative Resurgence. I won’t link to the article because the article is a slanderous hit job against Buck, his wife, and conservative Southern Baptists as a whole.

The author of the article, David Bumgardner claimed to have received an “earlier draft” of the article that Jennifer published that he says used stronger language to detail Jennifer’s experience during this time. However, Jennifer herself has taken to Twitter to discount that notion and says that, instead, she actually feels abused by SBC leaders.

It is worth noting that David Bumgardner is now, as of just last week, serving as a pastoral intern at Canal Street Church in New Orleans, a church that is partnered with the Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board for funding. NAMB is vice-chaired by Willy Rice who just recently stepped out of the race for SBC president.

Tom Ascol stated earlier on Twitter that he “received a phone call informing me that the powers that be in the SBC were shopping my wife’s rough draft concerning our marriage to news outlets attempt to silence my voice.” If true, which this author certainly has absolutely no reason to believe that it isn’t, then this would clearly fit the bill of a political hit job by the leftists who hate him and subsequently hate Tom Ascol.

Buck, however, went on to say that he would not deal with this issue during the week of Easter as he focuses on his church and his family, however, he did state that there is much more to this story that needs to come out.

We will be keeping our eyes open to see what kind of light will be shed on these “powers that be” in the Southern Baptist Convention. Stay tuned as we follow the story and we will continue to release details as we find them out. In the meantime, we will continue to pray for Tom and his family and the Southern Baptist Convention.