By Deepa Bharath and Peter Smith

ANAHEIM, California (AP) — The new president of the Southern Baptist Convention said he will accelerate sex abuse reforms in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

Texas pastor Bart Barber’s first priority: to assemble a panel of people – Southern Baptist leaders and experts – to shepherd this work for the whole convention as mandated by thousands of representatives from local SBC churches.

The day after his victory in a run-off race against Tom Ascol, a Florida pastor who vowed to take the conservative denomination further right, Barber reiterated his desire to lead by being a unifier and peacebuilder. The SBC has seen deep divisions and a steady drop in membership for more than a decade.

During a news conference Wednesday, Barber voiced his commitment to forming a new action group to help carry out the recommendations of the Sexual Abuse Task Force, which delegates overwhelmingly approved Tuesday. Delegates at the SBC’s national meeting also agreed to create a way to track church workers credibly accused of sex abuse.

Those recommendations came after a blistering 288-page report from outside consultant, Guidepost Solutions. The firm’s seven-month independent investigation found disturbing details about how denominational leaders mishandled sex abuse claims and mistreated victims.

On the final day of the two-day annual meeting, Barber said sexual predators have used the convention’s decentralized polity to turn congregations “into a hunting ground.” But with systemic changes and reforms, Barber hoped sexual predators will be put on notice.

“The hunters are now the hunted,” he said.

While he was reluctant to provide a timeline for action, he promised to appoint the new task force swiftly.

Barber repeatedly called for Southern Baptists to find common ground despite their differences over issues such as race and gender roles.

“I do believe we have seen some unhealthy ways recently that secular politics have dominated the conversation here in the Southern Baptist Convention,” Barber said. “As Christians, we need to be engaged in politics. We just need to make sure that in the dance between theology and politics, theology leads.”

Barber said “the coarseness and crass discourse out there has crept into” the SBC and into people’s social media feeds. Expressing anger on Twitter and “trying to own” people instead of solving problems has only deepened divisions among Southern Baptists, he said.

“Every way I’ve served SBC has left scars,” he said. “But this family of churches is worth it.”

However, the SBC, despite its size and political influence, has yet to figure out a way to stem long-term declines in membership or in baptisms – their key metric for religious vitality – that began long before the pandemic disruptions.

Barber said tracking membership is complicated and results can be skewed but noted the SBC president has little influence over it. “It’s the local churches that are going to carry the gospel forward and help us grow,” he said.