By Staff, Conservative Baptist Network
BOSSIER CITY, La. (CBN) — The Conservative Baptist Network has named Arkansas state Sen. Peggy Jeffries and Florida state Sen. Dennis Baxley to its national steering council membership.
“I am so grateful for Senators Jeffries and Baxley, for their lifelong devotion to Southern Baptists, but especially for their willingness throughout their careers to serve boldly in the public arena for Christ,” Conservative Baptist Network spokesperson Brad Jurkovich, also pastor of the First Baptist Bossier in Bossier City, announced on the organization’s website, July 29. “They have been the very definition of salt and light, and it’s an honor to get to work with them now toward a better future for our SBC.”
Jeffries was the first Republican woman elected to the Arkansas Senate and was the only woman in the Senate during her service. She also was elected Republican National Committeewoman for Arkansas and served on the Republican National Committee Platform Committee.
The former executive director of Arkansas Eagle Forum, Jeffries was a lobbyist in both Arkansas and Washington, D.C. for education, pro-life and family issues. At the age of 12, Jeffries trusted Christ as her Savior and Lord, and later served as director of children’s ministries and taught women’s Bible classes at the First Baptist Church in Fort Smith, and was a member of the board of the Arkansas State Baptist Convention. Jeffries and her husband, Jerry, have three grown children.
“There have been few times in American history when an effort such as the Conservative Baptist Network has been so needed,” Jeffries said. “The unbiblical, cultural Marxist views of Critical Theory and Intersectionality are a cancer on and in our churches: they undermine our Christ-centered efforts at evangelism and true reconciliation, and are alienating large and quickly growing numbers of Baptists from our Cooperative Program-based work. Baptists have to stop this insidious effort to co-opt the church away from its Gospel mission into nothing more than a political tool of the left.”
Baxley is chairman of the Ethics and Elections Committee in the Florida Senate, and previously served as Speaker Pro Tempore in the Florida House of Representatives. Additionally, Baxley is chairman of the Florida chapter of the National Association of Christian Lawmakers, is a member of Gideons International and previously served as president of the Christian Coalition of Florida. He also boldly led the Florida Legislature’s fight to save the life of Terry Schiavo, a woman who died in 2005 after being the subject of a prolonged right-to-die case in the state.
The son of a Southern Baptist minister, Baxley is active in Baptist life, including service as an elder at the Vine Community Church in Ocala, Fla., on the board of Jay Strack’s Student Leadership University, and previously on the board of the Florida Baptist Witness. Baxley and his wife, Ginette, have three natural and two adopted children and eight grandchildren.
“The focus of the church, and certainly of our Cooperative Program-funded ministries, should be reaching the lost with the Gospel, not advancing a leftist political agenda,” Baxley said. “We need more evangelism, more care for the suffering, and a lot less virtue signaling and cancel culture. Some of our leaders are losing their way, chasing the latest political fads and worldly philosophies. They need to put their eyes back squarely on Christ and His all-sufficient Word.”
The Conservative Baptist Network is a broad-based grassroots movement of Southern Baptists of all generations who are committed to the sufficiency of Scripture for all facets of life and application. Its 50-member Steering Council includes pastors and laypeople from across America, including well-known figures such as former Atlanta fire chief Kelvin Cochran, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, past SBC President Charles Stanley, and immediate past SBC Executive Committee Chairman Mike Stone. The Steering Council can be found online at ConservativeBaptistNetwork.com.
