On Sunday night, 60 Minutes aired an interview with Bart Barber, the new president of the Southern Baptist Convention. It was a hell of a get, even for this particular show, considering all the reasons the head of an organization rife with sexual abuse might not want to speak on national television. Add to that the denomination’s anti-abortion, anti-civil rights stances, it’s just not a good time to be a Baptist.

Anderson Cooper even opened the segment saying of Barber, “we weren’t sure he would want to sit down and discuss weighty matters of church and state, but he did.”

If the goal was to present a more compassionate side of the SBC, the interview was a success… at least for a moment. But if it was an attempt to stop the bleeding in terms of people leaving the faith, I doubt this segment did the SBC any favors.

Perhaps the best moment from Barber came when he was asked directly about the sexual abuse crisis.

Remember that reporters found that, over the previous decade, more than 250 staffers or volunteers had been “charged with sex crimes” against more than 700 victims. We also learned in the SBC’s own investigation that a private list of alleged predators (that wasn’t shared with member churches) included “703 abusers, with 409 believed to be SBC-affiliated.” It’s so bad that the Department of Justice is now investigating “multiple SBC entities,” but not specific individuals, about their mishandling of sexual abuse cases. ...