Matthew Barrett and the Baptist-to-Anglican Pipeline

By Jeffrey Walton

JUICY ECUMENISM

July 28, 2025

Southern Baptist social media was abuzz late last week when a prominent Baptist theologian announced his departure from the Southern Baptist Convention for the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA).

Matthew Barrett, a professor at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City for the past eight years, will depart that institution (among the largest seminaries in the country measured by enrollment) for a new role as a Research Professor of Theology at Trinity Anglican Seminary in Ambridge, Pennsylvania.

This is significant news for a modestly-sized institution like Trinity: the school issued a press release trumpeting the appointment, Barrett’s expertise in Reformation theology, and how he helps students “retrieve the Great Tradition for the sake of recovering creedal orthodoxy in the church.”

Trinity Vice President for Advancement Alex Banfield Hicks tells me that the seminary’s post announcing Barrett had joined the faculty was seen over 200,000 times within 24 hours.

In a widely circulated substack piece, Barrett outlined his journey into Anglicanism at St. Aidan’s Church in Kansas City. He praises the beauty of liturgical worship experienced in The Book of Common Prayer and how sacramental theology “stands in stark contrast to the disenchanted mindset of our modern world.”

He also took a few shots at the SBC.

“Our family is burnt out on the Southern Baptist mindset—the big show. My family has been crying out for participation, not mere performance,” Barrett writes. Read his July 24 essay in full here.

I don’t expect that casual readers will be familiar with Barrett, but I highlight him here because he is emblematic of an evangelical-to-Anglican pipeline among students serious about classical Protestantism.

This isn’t remotely new: it’s been 25 years since Colleen Carroll Campbell researched The New Faithful: Why Young Adults Are Embracing Christian Orthodoxy, an investigation of the reasons behind the choice of orthodoxy in a society that often denigrates traditional morality and rejects organized religion. The draw to liturgy is part of Campbell’s volume, and she name-checked the young adult ministry at The Falls Church (then Episcopal) that I was a part of, Kairos, in suburban Virginia outside of Washington.

Kairos was chock full of Baptists and nondenominational Christians considering historic, liturgical expression of the Christian faith for the first time. For some of them, it was their first opportunity to recite the creeds during a worship service. That ministry concluded 15 years ago this week, but I see its fingerprints across the ACNA. From 1996-2010, Kairos produced an extraordinary number of clergy and laity who met and, in some cases, formed families from that time period. These now populate the half-dozen daughter congregations of The Falls Church Anglican, among many, many other churches both within and beyond Anglicanism.

Many readers of this blog already know that “high demand” faiths tend to be the ones that grow, while those churches that tout “welcome-welcome-welcome” but don’t specify what people are being welcomed to or for tend to plateau and decline.

Recitation of the Nicene Creed is, of course, a significant part of creedal orthodoxy, and Barrett laments the SBC Executive Committee’s rejection of the creed’s inclusion in the Baptist Faith and Message.

“I cannot stay in a denomination where the Nicene Creed has been officially rejected from inclusion and remains blatantly absent,” Barrett writes.

(Denny Burke of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary subsequently pushed back on this assertion, arguing that no, Southern Baptists Have Not “Officially Rejected” the Nicene Creed).

I gladly join in welcoming Barrett and his family into the Anglican fold, although I gently caution that the grass is often greener on the other side. Barrett is correct that overseers/bishops (episcopoi) are among the historic, biblical orders, and I value my bishops. But as a cradle Episcopalian, I also witnessed repeated failures of the episcopacy, and I am uneasy about elevating my Anglican polity as more faithful than that of other Christians. Similarly, those upset by scandal in the SBC will find the same problems in other churches, including Anglican ones (Barrett’s diocese is not immune to crises, nor is my own). The Anglican Church is a hospital for sinners, and our sins are many.

“If the SBC is anything like we are, no one has any reason to boast,” Anglican commentator Anne Kennedy wryly noted.

Fortunately, we’re not here to boast, we’re here to grow in knowledge and love of the Lord. As Barrett himself writes, quoting Luther, “we are beggars.” I’m glad that Barrett has decided to come alongside us in this, as I am grateful for the many current and former Baptists who have enriched us with their teaching and witness (a retired bishop of mine, Martyn Minns, was one such person!)

In looking ahead, Trinity has invited Barrett to deliver the John Rodgers lectures this October.

“I will share my pilgrimage into Anglicanism and explain why I believe Anglicanism is so unique, capable of leading the way, guiding Christians back to biblical orthodoxy,” Barrett wrote this week on Facebook. “What a way to celebrate Reformation week!”