Southern Baptist Convention President Bart Barber spoke on a range of topics with Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes Sunday, giving his views on the church’s response to its sexual abuse scandal, his stance on abortion and gay rights, and his views on American politics.

Cooper visited with Barber at his Texas farm and at his church. Barber was elected in June to lead the nation’s largest Protestant denomination in the wake of a blistering 288-page independent probe, detailing how the convention’s leaders stonewalled and denigrated survivors of clergy sex abuse over two decades.

In the wake of that report, the convention voted to track pastors and other church workers credibly accused of sex abuse and launch a new task force to oversee further reforms.

“I believe that the Southern Baptist Convention faces some unique challenges right now,” Barber said. “I felt like God was calling me to try to give leadership at this moment, to help Southern Baptists move forward.”

When Cooper suggested that the convention had ignored victims of sexual abuse, Barber said the word was inadequate.

“We didn’t just ignore them,” he said.

“Sometimes we impugned their motives. Sometimes we attacked them. The reason why I’m president of the Southern Baptist Convention is because our churches do not agree with that, and have taken action to correct those things….I’m not doing this to try to accomplish some PR objective for us. I’m doing this because I want to serve God well.”

Barber said he did not vote for President Donald Trump in 2016, but did vote for him in 2020 because he agreed with Trump’s support for sentencing reform and his opposition to abortion. He said he does not believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen, and does believe that Joe Biden was legitimately elected.

“Absolutely, I pray for him consistently as the President of the United States,” he said of Biden, and indicated Trump endangered the life of Vice President Mike Pence during the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot. “I want to be driven by the principles of Jesus Christ, and that does not involve mob violence,” Barber said.

Barber stopped short of endorsing any candidate for president in 2024, saying he felt a responsibility to the churches in his convention.

Cooper asked Barber about the recent case of a 10-year-old Ohio girl who had to travel to Indiana for an abortion. Would he have advocated for the 10-year-old to have the child? Yes, he said.

“I wish we could put an end to 10-year-olds being raped,” he said. “I see it as horrible, but I see it as preferable to killing someone else.”

When asked if he believed gays or lesbians can be converted out of same sex attraction, Barber said, “I believe that sinners should be converted out of being sinners, and that applies to all of us.”

In response to Cooper’s question as to whether a person can be a good Christian, a Southern Baptist, and be gay or lesbian and married to a person of the same sex, Barber said simply, “No.”

Over the weekend, Barber tweeted about his interactions with Cooper: