SBC annual meeting may be deja vu all over again

Note: For more discussion on the upcoming SBC annual meeting, check out the latest episode of BNG’s podcast “Stuck in the Middle with You.”

 

In less than three weeks, messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting will descend upon Dallas, where past will become prologue.

The biggest issues on the agenda — as known right now — will be reprises of matters already considered by the convention. These include a renewed effort to amend the SBC Constitution to make it unquestionable that churches that ordain women, allow women to preach or give women any job with the title pastor will be expelled.

Also returning to the docket: An attempt to either defund or obliterate the SBC Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. And the plague of mishandled sexual abuse cases will hang in the air again, this time in a request to set aside $3 million in Cooperative Program giving to cover legal expenses.

This will be only the third time the nation’s largest non-Catholic denomination has held its meeting in Dallas since the 1985 meeting that set records for attendance (45,000) and conflict (a hotly contested presidential race between “moderates” and “conservatives.”) The annual meeting was held in Dallas in 1997 and 2018.

Dallas lies well within the heart of the SBC’s most populous territory, which extends through the Deep South into Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri. About 8,000 churches in Texas affiliate with the SBC.

Presiding over this year’s meeting will be Clint Pressley, a North Carolina pastor who has been much less visible on the national scene than his predecessor, Texan Bart Barber. Pressley has not made national news and remains little known outside the SBC, even though the church he serves as pastor, Hickory Grove in Charlotte, has 18,000 members and is the second-largest Baptist church in the state.

So far, Pressley is running for a second term as president unopposed. There is a single announced candidate for each elected office this year.

This is an unusual situation as normally officer elections elicit multiple candidates in hotly contested races. What does this mean in 2025? It could mean no one else wants the challenge of being the public voice of the denomination. Or it could mean most in the SBC are pleased with Pressley’s leadership and see no reason to challenge it.

The latter viewpoint is unlikely, however, as Pressley has been working not-so-quietly to advance one of the most controversial items on this year’s docket: Getting rid of the ERLC.

What’s wrong with the ERLC?

As BNG has reported before, the ERLC has been the target of far-right conservatives and Calvinists in the SBC for at least five years. Their concerns are layered but boil down to the same challenges that plagued the ERLC’s predecessor organization, the SBC Christian Life Commission, for decades: It is nearly impossible to speak either to or for Southern Baptists on the most contentious social issues of the day.

In the 1960s, the CLC endured endless criticism over its stance on race. Denominational leadership was way ahead of the person in the pew on civil rights. And yet, the CLC made a difference in moving SBC churches toward greater acceptance.

Today, hardly anyone outside the SBC would call the ERLC “woke.” Yet within the SBC there are fierce and relentless critics who think the ERLC is (a) not hardline enough on abortion, meaning not advocating for women who get abortions to be tried for murder; (b) not supportive enough of Donald Trump and the MAGA movement, meaning not overlooking the immorality and cruelty of the administration as it trounces on the teachings of Jesus; (c) too concerned about allegations of sexual abuse in SBC churches, meaning listening to and believing women and children rather than denying their pleas; (d) not well-represented or respected in Washington, D.C.; and (e) too close to gun control in response to school shootings.

A few more points of clarification on all this.

Abortion has been a cause of contention with the CLC/ERLC for decades, ever since Jerry Falwell determined opposition to abortion was the key to evangelical political victory. Before the “conservative resurgence,” conservatives lambasted the CLC for not actively opposing abortion.

Today’s ERLC is so anti-abortion that they’ve won recognition from the nation’s leading anti-abortion groups. This is an enormous part of the agency’s work. And yet, for some, it’s not enough. It’s not mean enough. It’s not cruel enough. It’s not Trumpy enough.

The ERLC’s current president, Brent Leatherwood, fell into the job after Russell Moore ran afoul of the TheoBros in the SBC for almost all the above-mentioned problems. Moore was and remains a vocal never-Trumper.

Leatherwood has studiously avoided taking a stance on the Trump question — which, to the TheoBros is taking a stance. You’re either with them or you’re against them.

Believe it or not, there are folks in the SBC who still deny clergy sexual abuse is a real problem. They want the denomination to stop talking about it, move on and act like there’s nothing to see here. Right or wrong, that criticism filters down to the ERLC.

One of the most entertaining criticisms of the ERLC is that it lacks influence in the nation’s capital. This is a valid point, but it’s nothing new. Neither the CLC nor the ERLC ever has had influence in Washington, D.C.

There’s a reason the ERLC offices are in Nashville. It is, by design, an inward looking agency. It was not intended to be an advocacy group like so many others today. Yeah, there’s a small D.C. office, and yeah, they’re hosting pastors for grip-and-grin meetings with elected officials. But none of that amounts to anything influential.

Here is yet another example of where the parachurch movement has won the day. There is no denominational entity — except perhaps the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops — that wields much influence in D.C. But you know who does? The parachurch ministries. Particularly the well-funded groups affiliated with Focus on the Family.

These groups have influence because they have no accountability to a local church anywhere. They can say and do whatever they want. They are church adjacent but do not represent any church.

Finally, the gun control accusations are the lowest blow of the lot. Leatherwood is the father of three children who were at the Covenant School in Nashville when it was attacked by a shooter who killed three adults and three other children. He has been deeply involved in the parents’ response group and at times has become a natural spokesman for them.

His critics say he has been unable to separate his personal life from his work life and that his personal opinions have shaped the ERLC’s response on an issue the convention has not authorized the ERLC to address.

Now we’re back to the original problem: It is nearly impossible for an SBC ethics agency to please 12.7 million Southern Baptists on the most contentious issues of the day.

“It is nearly impossible for an SBC ethics agency to please 12.7 million Southern Baptists on the most contentious issues of the day.”

One proposed solution to this problem — which likely will come in the form of a motion at this year’s meeting — is to limit the ERLC’s work to only the positions SBC messengers have adopted as resolutions in annual meetings.

There are multiple problems with this idea.

First, forever and a day, the SBC has declared loudly that its resolutions reflect only the sense of the messengers at any particular annual meeting and are “nonbinding.” This proposal would make resolutions binding.

Second, some resolutions are so controversial that they barely pass and may be amended in subsequent years.

Third, some sort of time frame would have to be included because the SBC in years past has adopted resolutions that directly contradict resolutions passed more recently. SBC attitudes on abortion offers a clear example.

So what will happen to the ERLC?

There are four obvious options:

• No change will take place.
• A motion will be made and adopted to defund the ERLC for the coming fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1. This would effectively shutter the organization because nearly all its funding comes through the denomination’s Cooperative Program budget.
• A motion will be made and adopted to disband the ERLC. This would require affirmative votes in two sequential years, so it would not have immediate effect.
• Some variation on the above-mentioned idea to limit what the ERLC can do will be adopted.

In recent years, the ERLC has survived similar attempts to sideline its work. Those vote margins have gotten thinner and thinner. It is highly likely this will be the year something dramatic happens; it’s just a matter of which method of execution is chosen.

The Law Amendment

Two years ago, a Virginia pastor who comes from the most conservative sector of the SBC made a motion to amend the SBC Constitution to make it expressly clear that any church that allows women to preach, ordains women or gives a woman a job title with the words “pastor” or “minister” must be expelled from the convention. Because his last name is Law, the motion became known as the Law Amendment.

This already is the stated position of the convention, but critics claim the SBC Credentials Committee has been inconsistent in applying this standard. Churches in clear violation have been allowed to stay, they claim.

“Critics claim the SBC Credentials Committee has been inconsistent in applying this standard.”

Here’s a technical note you might not know: Traditionally, the way to remove a church from the SBC is to refuse to seat its messengers at an annual meeting. That’s why this sorting job falls to the Credentials Committee, which is charged with granting credentials to messengers.

In recent years, however, the work of the Credentials Committee has been expanded and made year-round so it can be more aggressive in investigating and expelling churches. Still, only the convention in annual session has the ultimate authority to expel a church. Typically, that is done upon recommendation of the Credentials Committee but it also can be done in response to a motion from the floor.

In between annual meetings — the remaining 363 days of the year — the Credentials Committee may recommend expulsion to the Executive Committee, which has the ad interim authority to approve such a recommendation. However, churches expelled by Executive Committee action have the right to appeal their expulsion to the full convention in annual session, which has happened recently.

Those who most stridently oppose women in ministry hope to make these cases so open-and-shut that the expulsions will become perfunctory and unchallenged.

Now, back to the Law Amendment. A constitutional amendment requires a supermajority vote in affirmation in two consecutive annual meetings. The Law Amendment got such a supermajority in 2023 but fell short of a supermajority on second reading in 2024. The motion got well beyond a simple majority last year but not the required 66%.

It failed largely because the SBC had received so much negative attention and had received so much pushback on the Law Amendment as unnecessary. Yet several high-profile cases have kept the fire alive in the past year, and SBC oddsmakers (as if that were a thing) say to place your bets on the resurrected Law Amendment passing this year.

Speaking of bets, does the SBC still oppose gambling in all forms? Technically, yes. There are resolutions on the books to that effect. But these days, if the ERLC launched an anti-gambling campaign, odds are they would lose more support than they already have.

It’s only 80 miles from downtown Dallas to the nearest casino, just across the state line in Oklahoma.

 

Mark Wingfield serves as executive director and publisher of Baptist News Global. He was a Southern Baptist for the first four decades of his life and was a journalist within the SBC ecosystem for 21 years. He’s no longer a Southern Baptist but continues to write frequently on SBC issues for BNG.

 

Related articles:

What’s old is new again: Conservatives threaten funding over SBC’s ethics agency

Why Mohler is wrong about the ERLC | Opinion by Lee Enochs

ERLC under attack again, but with a twist: It has no Trump influence | Analysis by Mark Wingfield

Attempt to dismantle SBC Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission fails

Russell Moore leaves ERLC for Christianity Today, highlighting the new schism within SBC

Former SBC leader says ERLC out of touch with mainstream

Law Amendment will be resurrected at this year’s SBC meeting

Don’t be lulled by the failure of the Law Amendment | Analysis by Mark Wingfield