Jerry Sutton

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Jerry Sutton, Two Rivers Baptist Church

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Dr. Jerry Sutton is a Southern Baptist pastor and historian. He is currently serving at Two Rivers Baptist Church, a 7,000 member congregation in Nashville, Tennessee. The church has almost 2,000 in average weekly attendance. He served as the first vice president (June 2005 - June 2006) of the Southern Baptist Convention. Sutton's theology is best described as conservative and evangelical.

[edit] Biography

During the 2006 Tennessee Baptist Convention, Sutton led a movement amongst Tennessee Baptist to affirm the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 edition when he proposed that all appointees of the Convention’s Committee on Committees and the Convention’s Committee on Boards be asked if they affirmed the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 edition.

In June 2006 Sutton announced he would allow himself to be nominated for the Presidency of the Southern Baptist Convention after being repeatedly asked to run by other Southern Baptist. He made this announcement only a few days prior to the election at the Southern Baptist Convention in Greensboro. He ran against two other candidates, Frank Page of South Carolina and Ronnie Floyd of Arkansas. Sutton placed third with 24.08% of the overall vote.

On August 14, 2005, Dr. Sutton and Two Rivers hosted Justice Sunday II.

His August 25, 2005 appearance on Hardball with Chris Matthews (MSNBC) brought a barrage of media attention -- he admitted that while he had read the transcript of Pat Robertson's statements he had not watched Pat Roberton's television segment when Robertson advocated assassinating Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.

Sutton stated that Robertson was "speaking off the cuff" as a "frustrated American, more than an evangelical leader." Sutton used the language: "tak[ing] him out", instead of stating that Robertson advocated "assassination." Sutton went on to state that "what [Robertson] said was wrong." Sutton's point, which seems to have been missed by his critics, was that Robertson couched his statement in the form of a rhetorical question which should not have been taken as a straight forward public policy proposal.

In addition to appearing on Hardball, Sutton hosted Matthews at Two Rivers Church on June 28, 2005 for a show discussing religion in U.S. politics.^[1]

Dr. Sutton has published two books: The Baptist Reformation, which is a history of the conservative resurgence within the Southern Baptist Convention and The Way Back Home, which tells of how "to begin again with God."

Sutton is married to Fern, a professional Christian therapist, and has two daughters: Ashli, who is a third year law student at Liberty School of Law, and Hilary, who is a senior at Liberty University.