Voddie Baucham’s enduring witness

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MARY REICHARD, HOST: Reformed Baptist pastor and author Voddie Baucham Jr. died last week at the age of 56. Here now with a reflection on his life and legacy is WORLD’s Myrna Brown.

MYRNA BROWN: Voddie Baucham loved to tell how God changed his life…

VODDIE BAUCHAM: I was raised in the projects. In gang infested, drug infested, South Central Los Angeles. Raised by a single teenage Buddhist mother. The first time I ever heard the gospel was my freshman year in college. I didn’t know Jesus from the Man in the Moon.

A Campus Crusade staffer introduced Baucham to Christ. Baucham excelled in college football and earned a master’s degree and doctorate from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. It was that combination that first struck Delano Squires.

DELANO SQUIRES: When a man who looks like he can start at middle linebacker on any NFL team, talks to you about strength, you sit up and listen.

Squires is a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

DELANO SQUIRES: But when he talks to you about tenderness and when he we weeps when he delivers a Gospel message behind the pulpit, no part of you says this guy’s weak, he’s soft. That would never cross anybody’s mind. He actually embodied that aspect of manhood that is equal parts tough and tender. And I think a lot of men were drawn to that.

Squires says people also admired Baucham’s courage and how he boldly stood for his faith. An excerpt from a 2021 interview with a Black Lives Matter supporter.

REPORTER: If Jesus was here, do you think He would say black lives matter?

VODDIE BAUCHAM: Well, if Jesus was here, He would say lives matter. I know for example He would say the black lives that are being obliterated in the womb matter and as a Christian I believe that lives matter from the moment of conception, all the way to the moment of natural death.

Squires say Baucham’s steady voice was important in those heated debates.

DELANO SQUIRES: I think it was important because he represented a perspective that was not often heard, particularly with respect to debates around race and faith.

Squires calls Baucham a “race” man.

DELANO SQUIRES: Many people may not understand why I bring that up, but that’s actually important to people like me. At times in conservative evangelicalism and in mainstream Christianity, blackness is set up as an opposing theological construct in some ways to Biblical Christianity. So, in order to be Biblically Christian, you have to be less black. I never saw him as someone who buckled in that tension, either from the left or from the right, so to speak.

Squires says he was most influenced by Bauchman’s commitment to marriage, Biblical manhood and home education.

BAUCHAM: I was 20 years old. Had just turned 20. I met her January 21st 1989. We got married 6 months later. June 30th. Oh I knew what I wanted…

Baucham met and married his wife Bridget while in college. Despite the high divorce rate in their families, they remained married for more than 30 years. Seven of their nine children were adopted and they were all homeschooled.

DELANO SQUIRES: I grew up in New York City. I went to public schools almost my entire life. I didn’t know anyone who was homeschooled. When I thought about home education, like most people I said, how are they going to be socialized? I thought like…weirdo, crunchy kids.

But Squires says Baucham’s clarity on the need for Christian parents to give their children a Christian education and pass on their faith convicted him.

DELANO SQUIRES: And my wife and I we’ve been homeschooling for about five years now largely because of the work that he did.

In 20-15 Baucham took that work and his family to Zambia, Africa. For nine years he served as the dean of the School of Divinity at African Christian University. That’s where Lennox Kalifungwa met Voddie Baucham 18 years ago.

LENNOX KALIFUNGWA: And it’s been an amazing 18 years. Your family is like family to me. You very much are my uncle…

Kalifungwa, originally from South Africa, is a writer, speaker and podcast host. Baucham’s interview with Kalifungwa is one of the last recorded conversations Baucham gave before his death. It was recorded the same week Charlie Kirk was assassinated. Kalifunga asked Baucham for his take on the need for our Christians to be willing to suffer for their faith, like Kirk.

VODDIE BAUCHAM: What I worry about is the individual who is not willing to be persecuted in smaller ways. Almost nobody is going to face an assassin’s bullet as a consequence of being faithful. But there are a lot of people who are going to face the consequences of negative comments online, negative reviews from their boss, negative opinions from co-workers. I don’t look at this and say, yeah, you need to be able to be willing to go out there and face an assassin’s bullet. No. Just be willing to face your family members.

Voddie Baucham is survived by his wife Bridget, their nine children and three grandchildren.

For WORLD, I’m Myrna Brown.

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