Voddie Tharon Baucham, Jr. (March 11, 1969 – September 25, 2025) was an American Reformed Baptist pastor, author, and educator. He served as Dean of Theology for nine years, from 2015 to 2024, at African Christian University in Lusaka, Zambia.[1]
Baucham was born in Los Angeles in 1969.[2] His mother, Frances, was a teenager at the time, and his father left the family not long after his birth. Voddie grew up in Los Angeles with his Zen Buddhist mother, but the two moved to South Carolina when he was twelve to live with an uncle who was a Vietnam War veteran. Baucham then attended a Texas high school with the dream of attending the United States Air Force Academy.[3]
Baucham was active in itinerant preaching for many years, primarily in Texas, and spoke at some of the early Passion Conferences in the late 1990s. He later served as pastor of Grace Family Baptist Church in Spring, Texas, (a congregation within the Southern Baptist Convention) until moving to Zambia in 2015. He was a board member of Founders Ministries.[9]
In February 2021, Baucham experienced heart failure and had to travel to the Mayo Clinic Florida for treatment. A GoFundMe campaign for his medical expenses raised more than a million dollars.[10]
In March 2022, Baucham confirmed that he had been asked to accept a nomination for president of the Southern Baptist Convention, though he noted that, as an overseas missionary, he was unsure of his eligibility.[11] He also received the 2022 Boniface Award from the Association of Classical Christian Schools, given to recognize "a public figure who has stood faithfully for Christian truth, beauty, and goodness with grace."[12]
In 2024, he moved back from Zambia to the United States.[13] In January 2025, it was announced that he would be one of the founding faculty of Founders Seminary in Florida.[14] Baucham remained in the position until his death in September 2025.[15]
He and his wife Bridget had nine children. He was a practitioner of Brazilian jiu-jitsu.[7] Baucham died on September 25, 2025, at the age of 56, after suffering an emergency medical incident.[15]
Baucham was an adherent of biblical patriarchy. He outlined his views on the subject in his 2009 book What He Must Be: ...If He Wants to Marry My Daughter, though preferring the phrase "gospel patriarchy".[19] Baucham criticized Sarah Palin's vice presidential candidacy in 2008, on the basis that women serve best at home.[20][21]
Baucham was also a supporter of the stay-at-home daughter movement.[22] He appeared in Vision Forum's 2007 documentary Return of the Daughters, in which he said that America is suffering an "epidemic of unprotected women."[23]
Family and church
Baucham and his wife homeschooled their children, and he spoke against Christians sending their children to public schools.[24][25] In his 2007 book, Family Driven Faith: Doing What It Takes to Raise Sons and Daughters Who Walk with God, Baucham argued that parents (especially fathers) can and should disciple their children through family worship and through attending family integrated churches.[26][27]
Critical race theory
Baucham rejected critical race theory in favor of what he called "biblical justice", and saw it as a religious movement, with its own cosmology, saints, liturgy, and law.[28] Baucham's 2021 book Fault Lines: The Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism's Looming Catastrophe outlined his criticisms of the movement.[29] In Fault Lines he argued that Critical Theory and its subsets, Critical Race Theory-Intersectionality and Critical Social Justice are grounded in Western Marxism, the public social justice conversation is perpetuating misinformation, and is incompatible with Christianity as a competing worldview.[30] In August 2021, Baucham was accused of plagiarizing parts of the book and falsifying a quote he attributed to Richard Delgado, an early researcher of critical race theory.[31] The publisher, Salem Books, rejected the plagiarism claim, saying it was merely a matter of style, while Delgado denied making such a quotation.[32]
Biblical apologetics
Baucham's sermons[33] and book, The Ever-Loving Truth: Can Faith Thrive in a Post-Christian Culture?[34] advocate that Christians defend belief in the Bible with reasoned arguments rather than tradition or personal experience. Baucham promoted a specific argument for biblical belief resting on five claims:
The Bible is a reliable collection of historical documents[33][34]
123456Baucham, Voddie T. (2023). The ever-loving truth. Washington, D.C: Salem Books, an imprint of Regnery Publishing. pp.133–151. ISBN978-1-68451-504-2.
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