NASHVILLE (TN)
Baptist News Global [Jacksonville FL]
August 12, 2026
By Mark Wingfield
Johnny Hunt’s defamation case against the Southern Baptist Convention and its Executive Committee is dead, with a federal judge throwing out the remainder of the case Aug. 12.
Hunt, a former SBC president and former executive vice president of the SBC North American Mission Board, filed suit in March 2023, alleging former SBC President Bart Barber and the denomination defamed him and invaded his privacy by making public the story of his “brief, inappropriate, extramarital encounter with a married woman” in 2010.
That information was part of the blockbuster Guidepost Solutions report released in 2022 that documented a pattern of covering up and ignoring reports of clergy sexual abuse in the denomination. Hunt was unexpectedly snared in the investigation.
At first, Hunt denied the allegations leveled against him by first-person testimony of the woman involved, then he admitted the encounter had, in fact, occurred but insisted it was not abusive in nature. The woman — who is unnamed — continues to claim otherwise.
Hunt contended the woman’s story was exaggerated and incorrect. In his court filing, he asserted: “Pastor Johnny has never sexually assaulted anyone. … He engaged in consensual, limited contact with the wife of an SBC pastor. The wife — not Pastor Johnny — initiated the encounter. And Pastor Johnny ended the encounter after a very brief period when he realized that his acquiescence to the encounter was a sin.”
Hunt sought about $100 million in damages based on what he reported as lost employment and lost speaking engagement and lost product sales, in addition to mental anguish.
Last April, Judge William Campbell of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee tore apart Hunt’s claims in a scathing opinion that left only one part of the suit intact. He released the SBC, the SBC Executive Committee and Guideposts from the case but left open one small window — the claim against Barber, who tweeted about Hunt while Barber was serving as SBC president.
Barber posted statements on social media criticizing Hunt’s attempt to return to ministry after the sexual abuse allegations. Barber said the nature of the allegations against Hunt would “constitute a felony in any jurisdiction in the U.S.” and declared Hunt was unfit for resumed ministry.
Barber was responding to Hunt’s announcement in November 2022 that four of his clergy friends had convened a council and found Hunt fit to return to ministry.
Also of note in the latest ruling is that Judge Campbell unsealed one piece of evidence in the case. That is a transcript of a text message between Hunt and his publicist planning how his restoration to ministry would be announced, including a statement from Hunt that said, “I’m willing to pay!”
In today’s ruling, Judge Campbell explained that Hunt’s claim against Barber “turns on Hunt’s status as a public or private figure. If Hunt is a public figure, the actual malice standard applies. The court previously found that Hunt has offered evidence from which a jury could conclude that the tweet was made “negligently” but not with malice, he wrote.
Campbell then ruled that any reasonable jury would find Hunt to be a public figure, therefore requiring the higher standard of actual malice to claim defamation.
With that question settled, nothing remained of Hunt’s lawsuit, and the entire suit was dismissed.
Related:
‘Pastor Johnny’ sues the SBC and Guidepost
Guidepost report documents pattern of ignoring, denying and deflecting on sexual abuse claims in SBC
Panel of four male pastors clears Johnny Hunt to return to ministry
‘Pastor Johnny’ is the head of a family empire that feeds off the SBC