Episode Transcript
[00:00:17] Speaker A: Hi, everybody, and welcome to another edition of the Southern Fried Podcast, a production of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. It is my great pleasure this morning to have with us Dr. Rex Horn of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention, not only head of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention, but a man that many call Arkansas's pastor overall, and somebody that has been a mentor to me and a great friend in my life. Thank you so much for joining us.
[00:00:49] Speaker B: This morning, Rex, it's a pleasure and a privilege to be with you. Thanks for the invitation.
[00:00:53] Speaker A: We thought we'd make it the Rex and Rex show this morning.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: Well, you and I call it Rex the Elder and Rex the Younger.
[00:00:59] Speaker A: No, Rex the Greater and Rex the Lesser on this side, how I like to call it. But you recently announced that you will be stepping down from the Arkansas Baptist State Convention. I want to go back, though, to when you took the job and then we'll talk about stepping down later. But when you took the job, I mean, you were retirement age then.
What led you to take on the leadership of the state's largest denomination?
[00:01:36] Speaker B: Well, Rex, that's a great question.
I enjoy leadership at any level, at any place and of course, when it fits, what I would say is my calling related to Christian vocation.
It was something that I was interested in just because I knew so many people had built so many relationships over all these years.
And I took it at first as interim. And so the committee asked me if I would serve as interim as they continued the search. But along the way they determined that maybe there were some things, things I could help them with for a while. We never thought it would be a long while. I tell folks all the time at my age, you're not making 10 and 15 year plans. You know, you want to make a difference, but you just want to make it a little better for the next guy.
[00:02:21] Speaker A: I'm reaching that point. I understand.
[00:02:23] Speaker B: So that's what we've done. It's in good shape, the convention, and looking forward to whoever is the next leader.
[00:02:30] Speaker A: Absolutely. Of course, I'm a lifelong Southern Baptist and we always laugh about what a small state that Arkansas is an example of that.
The guy that Dr. Horne replaced, Sonny Tucker, somebody I went from the first through the 12th grade with and only, and we were friends. And one of those spur of the moment things. The only fight I ever got into in high school football practice was with Sonny Tucker. And I think I told you I'd kid him later on. I said, if I ever knew you were going to be the Head Baptist, I'd have been a lot Nicer to you.
[00:03:09] Speaker B: Back in high school I'd have liked a.
Now that's two good guys and two good Arkansans right there.
[00:03:16] Speaker A: But talk a little bit about your tenure, what things you've focused on and why now is the time to start talking about transitioning out.
[00:03:28] Speaker B: Well, you use the word that I use all the time, transition. I think that as we look at our country as a whole, almost in any respect, whether it's politics, whether it's business, whether it's education, whether it's church life, any institution that seems like it's going.
And so several things that I thought, the committee thought that I could help with is, you know, in leadership a key is being able to be truthful and transparent. Now that doesn't mean you tell everything you know, right? As an old Oklahoma guy told me when I was a young guy, you don't have to die empty headed. So you don't tell everything you know, but what you tell is the truth. And so you, you know, it's always a matter. Today, maybe it's with the advent of social media, I don't know. But it's so easy to throw something out there that may be true, may be half true, maybe an outright lie.
So you've got to be transparent about things. Particularly when as Baptists, everything is voluntary.
[00:04:28] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:04:29] Speaker B: And so we build our ministries. As far as what comes through the executive board of the State Convention on Voluntary Contributions from the churches, there's no assessment, there's no dues. A church can decide to give a lot or nothing or a little bit.
So we want to be transparent with our finances. We also want to be mindful of the time that this is different. Years ago, before the great technology and podcasts like you have and the Internet and all these different things, the staff did a ton of conferences across the state. They were traveling everywhere. So you had to have a lot of manpower.
Not that many years ago, but a couple of decades ago we had, let's say 85, 88 full time employees at the convention building. Today we have 38.
So you want to do more with less.
So we have people in the right spots. We've got great staff, great executive team leaders. So as I was making the decision, I thought, well, I knew I wouldn't be here. I thought maybe three, four, five years.
And this marks three years this fall.
I looked at what we have, our team, where we are and everything, and I thought, I've still got gas in the tank, I still have a vision, but I can't imagine a better time to start the transition for the next leader to come in. And so that's what precipitated it.
[00:05:46] Speaker A: It seems to me in any position that there is a real art in knowing when it's time to go and having the humility, having the grace to say it's time to go.
[00:05:58] Speaker B: I totally agree. I've watched people through the years, whether it's pastors or whatever leadership position might be that I learned. And I'd always tell my friends and I'd say a couple things. I'd say I want to get out of here a year or two early, where folks would have said, well, you know, he could still do the job rather than he was doing a good job up until a year or two ago.
He's slipping a little bit. So I'm blessed with the fact that I've got a family that would tell me as well. But it is an art to it and to go out feeling good about it and understanding that you're just handing it off and that the responsibility now will be upon the next leader. I'm only responsible for the time that I led and what I tried to do and hand it off healthy to someone.
It is a little bit of an art, but it's also the right way to do it.
[00:06:53] Speaker A: You know, the Arkansas Baptist State Convention, as I mentioned at the outset, the largest denomination in Arkansas long has been in recent decades. And I kind of want you to give me your perspective on what's been a national issue, and that is the decline of what we know as mainstream denominations, the growth of non denominational, a lot of non denominational super churches out there, the growth of far more evangelical denominations. What's kind of your read on what we've seen happening in this country in recent decades, not just recent years?
[00:07:30] Speaker B: Well, I think a couple of things. One is I think that you have to look hard to get any more evangelical than Baptist. You know, I mean, we both grew up in that tradition, I would say. I think mainstream denominations as a whole, it's not that people look upon them as suspicion, they look upon it as well. That's something of the past.
And so there's not and I don't say this critically, I just say when I was growing up, and maybe it's just the way that I am, I've always been interested in those that came before me, whether it was pastors I came to, Emanuel Wo Vaught. But I'd go back beyond Dr. Vaught to those pastors, Wade and Whittington, and those got interested in them at Ouachita all the way back to Conger and of course being able to know Grant and Elrod and Westmoreland and in the convention, Don Moore and these fellows. Well, I think and I don't again, it's not a criticism. I think the generations after our generation, the tradition, the loyalty, what's happened before is not as important as now.
And we've moved over time. Your folks, my folks were pillars of the community, pillars of the church.
They were more involved than they were what's popularly called today consumers.
So today people are what does the church give me?
What does this denomination give me? What does it represent according to how I think? And you know, you introduce things like the phrases we hear today, my truth or what I think so we're Baptists particularly, we still base very strongly on what we believe, the authority of scripture and these kinds of things. So it's just been now I would say the other thing is there's been a rise of a number of you mentioned evangelical groups in Arkansas Bible churches that have done a fantastic job doctrinally. They're align really close to Baptists, but it's a little different way, a little different style perhaps and a different church governance than most Baptists. So all of those things I think enter into it. Though I would say this, it's also interesting in the Baptist everything is voluntary.
[00:09:50] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:09:50] Speaker B: So the reports, annual reports, they may send them, they may not and not has become stronger. So where we used to get 90 or something or more, maybe 60 something percent, so the reported numbers look lower than probably what they really are.
[00:10:06] Speaker A: Right. That makes sense. That makes sense.
You mentioned Ouachita, which of course is my alma mater. I grew up a block off of campus.
We're in Ouachita gear today as we tape this.
I don't make any secret about that and my love of that place, I want to go back back talking about making major decisions in life.
You had done great things at Emmanuel, it is safe to say you were beloved as pastor of Emmanuel Baptist here in Little Rock and a guy that we both so looked up to, the late great Buddy Sutton, Little Rock attorney. I remember at that time Mr. Sutton telling me, he said, you know, if Rex takes the washtaw job, all my Emanuel friends are going to be mad at me. And if he stays at Emanuel, all my washtar kids are going to be mad at me. So I'm about to make a lot of people mad either way.
But talk about after many years in the ministry, that decision to move into higher education and what drove that decision at the time.
[00:11:16] Speaker B: It was the hardest decision that I've ever made.
[00:11:19] Speaker A: I can imagine.
[00:11:21] Speaker B: Had been at Emanuel nearly 16 years.
We had been through good and bad and the spotlight during the eight years of President Clinton's presidency. We had relocated the church. I had turned 50 years old. I was at a place I loved, and I felt like that, as you said, they were very good to me. They loved me. So it was a very difficult decision.
In fact, some people, when they make a decision, they'll take a yellow pad like you have. Rex and pros and cons. Reasons to stay, reasons to go. If I were putting it like that, I could come up with 100 reasons to stay versus only one reason to go. And that one reason was, as we read in Scripture about the still small voice, I just felt like that I was being glad to do that.
It was not even honestly the pull of higher education, though it is so important. It was just an institution and a place I loved and I respected.
And the committee thought I had some leadership gifts that might fit them well for the particular time of the university.
And I'll tell you, as hard as it was to go, it was a blessing that I'm so grateful for. Because when you think about higher ed, there's always supposed to be friction between faculty and staff, administration. It's just a part of it, and it's going to be.
But I found that as we worked together and talked together, to this day, I feel like I've made lasting friendships there, not only with. You'd expect me to get along with the Christian faculty folks, but just in general.
I found a deep, deep loyalty to Ouachita. So I was grateful. And I say to people all the time, my life is marked by before Emanuel and after Emmanuel. Emmanuel is always at the center of my life and of my ministry. And I'm forever grateful for that because out of those relationships and friendships has really spurred the things I've done in the last. Well, it's been. I went to Emmanuel 19, so I mean, it's been a long time. And I've been gone, you know, 15 years, 18 years now, whatever it is.
But everything stems from our experience at Emanuel.
[00:13:28] Speaker A: Absolutely. And I don't want to be accused of running from the fact that this newspaper where we are now, has written a lot of Emanuel stories in the last few years, things that occurred long after you were gone. And I don't want to ask you to comment on those, but you have been leading a new congregation that is meeting at Pilaskiites Baptist Talk A little bit about that.
[00:13:58] Speaker B: Well, Hope Church, yes, indeed, it's a group of people. A number of them were former manual people. But the joy of it has been the new people that we've reached in the Hillcrest area of Little Rock. It's just, you know, now Emmanuel would be certainly considered as a large church, not a megachurch as far as the thousands that you see in Dallas and other places, but very influential, very strong church. This church is more of a neighborhood church, which is the normative sized church.
And so our people, though they are scattered from Maumelle to Rowland and to Hillcrest all around, have found a real joy in ministering in that area and to the school there, Pulaski Heights elementary and Middle School. Be involved with the neighborhood association and just get to know people.
Yeah, I think the offices of Hope Church must be Milo's, the coffee shop there, because that's where they're all going to talk and visit and meet people.
So it's been a joy coming on a year old now and it's doing well.
[00:14:59] Speaker A: Wow. Well, that's great. Now I want to go back. You talk about meeting people and listening people I went through with Washington. I want to go back there. I would think being a college president for the first time, your first year, maybe first few years there were spent doing a lot of listening to faculty, staff, alumni, students.
[00:15:22] Speaker B: Yes, that's true. In fact, I remember my first meeting with the deans. I knew all of them, some a little better than others, but casually knew all of them. So in my first meeting I just looked at them and said, well, obviously I'm not like you. I didn't come up through academia. And they laughed and realized, well, here's a guy that's shooting straight. In other words, I don't have all the answers.
And I said, I trust you all to lead. Well, just keep me informed. I'm not a micromanager, but I just want to know what's going on. I want to give leadership.
And so the way I look on my leadership during those early years was a conversation, but a lot of listening and a lot of learning.
And I formed a deep appreciation of academia and the campus and of course specifically Ouachita.
As I watched how they worked, particularly the faculty and committee work and things like that, how seriously they took that.
And really that was encouraging to me and of course to see the influence that they have upon the students that come through.
I was there nine years, so that's a bunch of different classes. But they may or may not remember that I was a president. But they remember the professors and the coaches that touched their lives and that's the way I wanted to make it better for them.
[00:16:41] Speaker A: I can assure you they remember you were the press and it was a great era for the school when, you know, in this day and time, nine years is a long time for a college president with all that's on you.
And you made the wise decision then to take on higher education on kind of a statewide level at that time. And you really upgraded Arkansas independent colleges and universities from the guy.
[00:17:15] Speaker B: That's not true.
[00:17:15] Speaker A: The guy that had preceded you there.
[00:17:17] Speaker B: That's not true.
No.
[00:17:20] Speaker A: We traded up on rexes. Let's just put it for those who forgot. I left to go to Simmons Bank. But you know, one of the things I always look back on is when I was thinking about taking that job back in 2010 and you were president of Ouachita, of course you were on the board, you were hiring.
I called another of those late great Arkansans. I mentioned one in Buddy Sutton. But Dr. Ben Elrod, who headed that organization, had been my neighbor for many years when I was growing up and was later Wichita's president. But I asked Dr. Elrod, and I almost remember this word for word, do you think I would be a fit there?
And he said yes, because you're a self starter. And he said, what you got to realize is there is no harder job than being a college president because you got to keep the students happy, you got to keep the faculty happy, you got to keep the alumni happy. He said, not a One of your 11 presidents will wait for word.
[00:18:26] Speaker B: Go ahead.
[00:18:27] Speaker A: Not a one of your 11 presidents going to wake up tomorrow morning and say, I wonder what's going on at aicu.
[00:18:34] Speaker B: That's true.
[00:18:34] Speaker A: It's going to be whatever you make it.
But it did give you a few years there to work with 11 different college presidents. And one of the things I found fascinating was to take an ecumenical approach because you had everything from Southern Baptist to Missionary Baptist to Church of Christ to President Presbyterian to Methodist institutions. I know I found that interesting.
[00:18:59] Speaker B: It's very interesting. And what great colleges and universities and what great leaders that these schools have had, that was a lot of fun. I enjoyed going on those campuses in a different role, in that role there and just visiting with them and talking to the folks and showing up for some of the events like you did so well.
It's a very interesting group. And I'll tell you, the independent colleges play a tremendous role.
[00:19:25] Speaker A: And that was going to be my next Question.
Preaching to the choir here, but I'm going to let you give your answer. But the importance of those 11 four year independent colleges to the state as a whole.
[00:19:40] Speaker B: Well, there's such a deep loyalty among the alumni, those that have gone through those, it's true, the state schools, but by the nature of the fact that it's smaller and I think there's a tendency to look out after each other in a strong way all through life.
And so there's that. Also I like the fact that in these faith based schools we might give a little bit more attention at times. And this is not again, not disparaging of any university, but to what I would call the soft skills of knowing people, of knowing how to have conversations, of caring. It's small enough, you are going to make a ripple, you are going to make a wave. And so just those kind of soft skills complementing great education that get really used to in the private schools, there'd be a lot of stuff lacking from what you could get in a larger school or a state school. That gap has closed quite a bit now.
[00:20:36] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:20:36] Speaker B: You see everything from engineering to other specialties and things that are being offered by a lot of the private schools now. So it's very healthy. They're really not competitors with the state school as we know.
Our graduation rate or number of people attending college is still very, very low.
[00:20:53] Speaker A: We need all the college graduates you can get in Arkansas.
[00:20:55] Speaker B: We really do and really need to be in which I see happening. There needs to be a partnership between all of the campuses. And I think that that is true.
[00:21:03] Speaker A: Absolutely.
I'm bouncing around a little bit. But before we run out of time, of course I want to go back to the thing that at least for a period you were most known as, and that was President Bill Clinton's pastor.
He had been a manual member here in Little Rock and continued to lean on you during his eight years the White House.
I tell people I was speaking to an out of state group that's in visiting Arkansas last night. And I tell people I said all of us got our 15 minutes of fame during the Clinton administration. I mean I was on national talk shows I'd never dream of being on again as political editor of this newspaper. But in that private position as someone's pastor counselor, Gosh, I mean, you had to ignore a lot of phone calls, I'm sure, and not return or say, I can't talk about that to the media because there's no brighter spotlight in the world than the spotlight that's on the White House, when a pastor is visiting and counseling a member of the congregation, that's a very private thing.
That had to be difficult, I have to think, under that hot white spotlight.
[00:22:24] Speaker B: Of the White House, it was incredible. You know, every once in a while, I think I'm just a guy from Cullendale. I mean, South Arkansas people know Cullendale's part of Camden, where the mill was, and my dad and my papa worked out at the mill. And here I was. I was 37 when I came to Emanuel. My dad died one year after I was here. Governor Clinton was elected president the second year I was here. And so here I was with the bright light from all over the world. I gave a lot of stuff to Ouachita and their archives, and I was down looking one day, and I had forgotten a lot of this. Newspapers, magazines from all over the world had called. The hardest part of that was not that the president was a member of our church. He was always. And Hillary was as well, frankly, very gracious and generous toward my family. We got to see things, do things that you never think you'd do in your whole life.
But the challenge thing for me was for people not to understand that my role, as I understood it, was to be pastor of the members of Emanuel Baptist Church, whether it was the president or whether it was somebody that nobody but their family knew, and to try as best I could to treat them the same, although the context could not be more different.
So everybody had their idea of how it ought to be handled, and I just determined I was going to handle it like I had people in the past and like I would do with people today, today. And that's trying to be a pastor and encouragement to them. And so there are things that happen. You know, I thought at times about a book or about this or about that, but I thought, no, you know, that was a special time. I have some very strong convictions about what happened. And particularly looking at the present day, to be honest about it, 30 years ago, my crowd, which has always been conservative, all this sort of thing. It was, you'll remember, Right. Character matters.
[00:24:17] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:24:18] Speaker B: And, you know, it's not that he's a Democrat. It's not. It's that. It's that character matters.
So.
And I've told everybody I believe this. I'm an independent. I've voted for Republicans as much or more than I have Democrats through the years.
But let's hold the same standards about things.
[00:24:34] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:24:35] Speaker B: And I don't think we do today. I think that's been a shift, and I think we started out talking about church life. I would say the same kind of thing has happened all over the place. That standards we once held or that once were very important have shifted somewhat.
And on the other hand, with that being said, I understand people and I understand myself. We're all conflicted. We're all complex. And let's give each other a little grace and mercy and keep the conversation going and work for a better country, a better church, a better school, a better community.
That's what I want to be looked upon as somebody that just tries to make a difference.
[00:25:09] Speaker A: Well, you certainly have. Before we run out of time.
You mentioned growing up in Cullendale. Of course, back in the years when the international paper, paper mail dominated life there.
You played high school basketball at Camden Fairview for the great Pat Foster.
Your decision to enter the ministry, what drove that for a boy from Cullenale?
[00:25:36] Speaker B: I appreciate that. On the one hand, maybe it was that I wouldn't smell mil smoke for.
[00:25:41] Speaker A: The rest of my life.
[00:25:43] Speaker B: No.
[00:25:45] Speaker A: Played football in Arkadelphia, who was in the same district. I always thought that gave Camden Fairview a home field advantage because they were used to it and we were choking as we played.
[00:25:55] Speaker B: Listen, I watched that belch out of that smokestack for years and years.
I was very fortunate. My mom and dad were committed Christians.
My dad was at the mill all his life.
So I grew up in the church.
They were not in vocational Christian ministry. My grandparents weren't, although they were all people of faith.
And it was really interesting as a boy, Rex, I began to sense the fact that maybe the Lord, which I didn't understand, might want me to go that way. I looked upon it, as I mentioned earlier, a calling, not a choice.
We all make choices, but it was a calling. I felt like the Lord was preparing me or moving my mind and heart toward that. So Becky and I married young and I was still wrestling with it somewhat.
And I counseled with one of the ministers in our church and he asked me what I felt I should do. And I told him, he said, well, set yourselves that way. Start preparing, going toward, get your education, get on to seminary, whatever, and if the Lord doesn't want you doing that, he's going to show you another path. So that's what I did.
I've been very, very blessed to have the life that I've had and to know the people that I know and that the Lord has been so gracious to me and my frail and ups and downs and people have been gracious.
But it started as a boy at Cullendale First Baptist Church and Bible School and Sunday nights and Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings.
I just grew up loving the church.
That old church made out of cinder blocks. I don't care what it looks like when I walk into a church across Arkansas, large or small, I just like it. I just like it.
[00:27:42] Speaker A: Yeah, I can relate. I can relate.
I'm going to close with this because I like to always ask great Arkansans this question. You know, all of the name recognition, even though you were trying to stay quiet, I mean, a lot of national name recognition as Bill Clinton's pastor, what you accomplished at Emmanuel. And I won't press you on any specifics, but I know there had to be great opportunities, you know, with huge Southern Baptist churches, maybe in Texas, Atlanta, wherever. But why Arkansas?
What drove you to stay here in Arkansas, your home state?
[00:28:23] Speaker B: Well, there were a couple of opportunities that we thought about, prayed about. I tell you, Rex, you talk about a guy. I'm talking about you, that loves this state. I just love Arkansas. I love everything about it.
I love the Delta. I love the mountains. I love Little Rock Central. I love south Arkansas. My high school buddy said, well, you. Yeah, we love it because we're from there.
We're not still there. Well, that's not true. I love when I go back down to Camden, just like you at Arkadelphia. So Arkansas is just. Well, you know, the only thing I can say is it's just home.
[00:28:59] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:29:00] Speaker B: And I appreciate being at home. I love being at home.
[00:29:03] Speaker A: Well, I can relate to that also. I'm glad you're still home. Glad you're still doing great things.
Obviously, you've got a lot of guns, gas in the tank. So even after you stepped out at the Arkansas Baptist State Convention, I think there are more things ahead.
[00:29:19] Speaker B: Well, I appreciate it. Look forward to the future. And thank you for having me on today.
[00:29:23] Speaker A: Absolutely. Dr. Rex Horn, our guest on this edition of the Southern Fried Podcast. I'm Rex Nelson of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. Thank you for joining us. We'll see you next time on the Southern Fried Podcast, a production of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.
