The ERLC’s Support for a New Amnesty Bill Isn’t Surprising. But the Radical Beliefs of their Newest Executive Committee Member Are.
Last week, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) of the Southern Baptist Convention stirred controversy by backing yet another unpopular immigration proposal. In an open letter from the Soros-funded Evangelical Immigration Table (EIT), the ERLC lent its support to Rep. Salazar’s “Dignity Act,” a bill widely panned as amnesty by another name (and indeed it is).
And Eric Costanzo, recently appointed to the ERLC’s Executive Committee of its Board of Trustees, is undoubtedly among its supporters.
Costanzo’s immigration activism has been evident since he assumed leadership of South Tulsa Baptist Church (STBC) in 2016. On the “Good Faith” podcast hosted by David French and Curtis Chang, Costanzo recounts the story of how he transformed STBC into “the refugee church,” resulting in backlash from his established congregation.
In another podcast appearance with One Collective, titled “The Importance of International Hospitality,” Eric admitted that his public denunciation of President Trump’s national security-driven travel ban also resulted in the church losing long-time members: “The integration of our immigrant refugee community into our church, which has historically been more of a white, American-born church, has been a game changer. It came with conflict…but man, it’s been transformative.”
When asked about these conflicts, he responded by saying, “We lost people. Some folks were really unreasonable, and if they are unreasonable, you can’t reason with them.” Over time, Costanzo has proudly reshaped the church body to reflect his own personal political convictions. Today’s South Tulsa Baptist Church collaborates with state and federal agencies to receive and integrate refugees from across the world.
Eric’s vision for immigration expansion extends far beyond Tulsa. In 2021, Costanzo joined the EIT’s Virtual Hill Day to lobby lawmakers for immigration reform. These reforms included building bipartisan support for refugee resettlement and a legislative solution for Dreamers, also known as amnesty.
His co-authored book, Inalienable: How Marginalized Kingdom Voices Can Help Save the American Church, makes it clear that he is not only trying to change lawmakers’ votes, but guide them “to subject their views on this sensitive political issue to the Word of God.” He sees unfettered and unlimited refugee resettlement as a “Gospel issue” that Southern Baptist churches are mandated to support.
Inalienable is so progressive in its framing and its uncritical adoption of Standpoint Epistemology that even The Gospel Coalition published a critical review: “Throughout the book, Costanzo, Yang, and Soerens seem to suggest ‘marginalized kingdom voices’ are valid simply by virtue of being from the minority. They encourage accepting ethnic perspectives as normative (58) and propose valuing all non-Western perspectives equally (117)—without sufficiently qualifying that such perspectives must be tested by Scripture.”
From his amnesty advocacy to his willingness to cause church conflict by pushing his political preferences, to his book and podcast appearances, the picture is clear: Eric Costanzo is a committed pro-immigration activist operating within a globalist, progressive, and frankly unbiblical framework.
Just as he has used his positions of power to influence churches and Christians to adopt his perspective on immigration policy in the past, he will undoubtedly continue to do so through the ERLC.
Costanzo’s Decolonization Project
Beyond his support for amnesty and mass immigration, there is something pernicious hiding just under the surface of Costanzo’s policy views that needs to be addressed.
His immigration advocacy seems to spring from a deep well of resentment he appears to have for the native American population. To Eric, refugees are not simply people we can serve, but “saviors” sent by God to teach and shape the American people. The main thrust of Inalienable is that the average American Christian is fundamentally evil and unfit for governance.
What makes us evil is our “ethnocentrism,” presumably due to our unchangeable genetic makeup. It’s his view that the American church cannot “reflect the beauty of diversity of God’s kingdom” because we are too homogenous. We cannot experience the fullness of the Church because we are content to simply disciple our children, grow our families, and evangelize our neighborhoods, towns, and cities.
His fix for the sin of the American church’s “ethnocentric” myopia? Forced assimilation of American churches with Third World migrants:
“Ethnocentrism reveals itself in the ethnic makeup of our churches as well, which usually do not reflect the beauty and diversity of God’s kingdom and the global church. Instead, most White churches in the United States remain rigidly ethnically homogeneous, and grow mostly through transfer of membership and the baptizing of our own children…Jesus renounced the idolatrous ethnocentrism of his day in word and deed, and he calls us to do the same in ours” (79-80).
His proposition is not that immigrants, out of a sense of gratitude, assimilate into our dominant culture. Instead, he sees the refugee as a catalyst for change within the American church. If we are to be saved, we must “desire the influence coming from our historically marginalized communities” around the world.
It’s not clear what the foundation of this new Christianity will be, except that it will require White evangelical men to abdicate their positions of influence in the church. It isn’t enough to simply clothe and feed the refugee. We must be willing to learn from them, allowing them to shape our view of God and the world.
There is a word for this kind of project: Decolonization. Decolonization theory is rooted in Marxism, framing colonial oppression as a form of class struggle in which colonizers exploit the labor and resources of colonized peoples, mirroring the dynamics of capitalism. It adopts Marx’s critique of capitalism to argue that colonialism served as a global extension of capitalist wealth accumulation, impoverishing colonies to enrich imperial powers. Additionally, decolonization theory embraces Marxist revolutionary principles, advocating for radical resistance to dismantle colonial systems and achieve economic and cultural liberation.
And Costanzo celebrates this decolonization process for the church in Inalienable:
“In the same vein, decentering Western Christianity does not mean it is irrelevant, is second-class, or has become obsolete—it just means North America and Europe should no longer define the norms of what it means to be a Christian. Not only is Christianity growing fastest in the Global South, but churches in Africa, Latin America, and Asia are continuing the decolonization process of Christendom, uncovering a more indigenous Christianity with lesser Western influence” (42, emphasis added).
Thus, the immigrant must be offered a position of power and authority in both American political life and the church immediately upon arrival—not because of their wisdom, character, or theological knowledge, but simply because of the color of their skin. And if you disagree, you’re the racist.
The foundation for this global-centric view is that the American church still bears “responsibility for both past and present sins…even when we might not have been personally culpable or even present” (71). The sins he is addressing, of course, would be slavery and ethnocentrism, a stand-in for the term “white supremacy.” His book is teeming with Cultural Marxist accusations of racial injustice and systemic marginalization. The original sin of racism is being used as a lever to force systematic change in the American church.
It is deeply concerning that a prominent Southern Baptist leader holds such extreme views towards his constituency.
Ironically, he does not feel this way about churches from other cultures. According to Costanzo, America still needs “healthy language-specific or ethnic-specific churches, especially among new immigrants.” Just not your language (English), and not your culture (America)—their own. Why the contradiction?
“Not every congregation in America can or should be multiethnic. We believe there are practical considerations and theological reasons why America still needs healthy language-specific or ethnic-specific churches, especially among new immigrants” (59).
Amazing. This Southern Baptist, who holds a position of significant power and influence in the life of our Convention, believes that your majority White Baptist church in a 95% homogenously White county in rural Tennessee is in sin, but “new immigrant” churches that refuse to be “multi-ethnic” are just fine.
How does that make you feel?
One thing we can be thankful for is that Eric is not hiding his views. He is clear about his beliefs. He is condemning the traditional, white American church, the average Southern Baptist church, and advocating for its replacement with a more diverse, global body. He wants to end American cultural hegemony in our own country. The immigrant-led American church is encouraged to maintain cultural specificity; we are not. Their homogeneity is not an affront to God; it is a beautiful display of the Kingdom. And our white-knuckled attempts (pardon the pun) to maintain our tradition are proof of how broken we really are, how much we need to change.
These are not the views of a man who simply wants to “care for the foreigner” in our land. Support for endless immigration based on toxic empathy is naive, but at least the supporting suppositions are understandable.
This is something different entirely. It is resentment towards America itself that drives the ERLC’s newest EC member to support its political and spiritual decolonization. His immigration reform is simply the mechanism of change.
Rising Village, Rising Power for Migrants
Costanzo also serves as the Executive Director of Rising Village, a nonprofit organization that is separate from but intimately connected to his church. The mantra of Rising Village is “from welcome to advocacy.” Translated, this means bringing in immigrants, both legal and illegal, and giving them power.
As of 2024, they are an affiliate partner of World Relief, an organization that has driven significantly increased resettlement efforts in Tulsa.
Eric describes the process by which his church and nonprofit organization welcome refugees into Tulsa, integrate them into the community, and provide them with a “seat at the table.” These efforts include a 90-day program to get new refugees “enrolled in public benefits, getting their kids in school…and job placement.” Once established, they are encouraged to take on positions of influence and leadership within the community.
What interests me is the difference in the language he uses in interviews versus the language he uses in his book. In Inalienable, he says things like “The American church’s lack of urgency and intentionality to seek out and elevate diverse voices, including those of global Christians now residing in the United States, will continue to marginalize the unique perspectives of those who our society has generally not placed at the center of power” (45). This is a naked admission that the end goal of his project is to give migrants power over native-born American citizens.
But when justifying these efforts to the Tulsa public, his project is polished and carefully avoids topics that would be unpopular. He conveniently sidesteps his contempt for “White-led spaces” in the church. He skirts around his belief that churches should focus on increasing “membership toward higher levels of racial diversity and multiethnicity.”
So when he says he wants to help “marginalized people become full participants in our community,” it sounds reasonable. And the public, or Southern Baptists, might assume a benevolent motive.
They deserve to know the whole story. And the entire story is that this ERLC trustee is fully committed to advancing a program designed to replace and subvert the native population of America, both in the church and the public square.
Conclusion
On Thursday, July 30, it was announced that Brent Leatherwood had resigned from his position as the President of the ERLC. This announcement came within a week of the revelation that the ERLC had backed amnesty (again). Are these two occurrences related? Some Southern Baptists might reasonably hope the ERLC’s support for the Dignity Act was a “last straw.” But with someone like Costanzo on the Board, I’m not so sure.
What I am sure of is that Costanzo’s support for a radical decolonization of the American church and nation is both unbiblical and un-American. It’s grounded in Marxist theory, supported by Standpoint Epistemology, and holds out people—specifically migrants—as the savior of the church instead of Jesus Christ.
Against Costanzo’s project of national suicide stands the great Baptist preacher Andrew Fuller. In his sermon, Christian Patriotism, Fuller unapologetically encouraged his British congregation to defend their homeland, not hand it over to invading forces.
“Ought we not to seek the good of our native land; the land of our fathers’ sepulchres; a land where we are protected by mild and wholesome laws, administered under a paternal prince; a land where civil and religious freedom are enjoyed in a higher degree than in any other country in Europe; a land where God has been known for many centuries as a refuge; a land, in fine, where there are greater opportunities for propagating the gospel, both at home and abroad, than in any other nation under heaven? Need I add to this that the invader was to them a deliverer; but to us, beyond all doubt, would be a destroyer?”
Christians can have a reasonable debate over our national immigration policy. But wherever you land, this much is indisputable: the Gospel does not demand that American Christians adopt and advance policies that lead to our subjugation in the church and the civil sphere at the hands of foreigners in order to be “obedient” to Christ.
And, remarkably absent from Costanzo’s reflections on the “border crisis” of the last many years is any acknowledgement of the importance of upholding the rule of law, something Christians are explicitly commanded to support in Romans 13:1-7. It’s as if Costanzo believes that aliens are exempt from obeying the law simply by their immigration status or ethnic heritage. Nor does he acknowledge the real and horrible harms that American citizens have suffered at the hands of illegal aliens, aliens who wouldn’t be here if our laws had been enforced.
With Costanzo on the ERLC’s Executive Committee, hope for a new president who will support pro-American immigration policies seems small. But as Christians, we know that hope springs eternal. Perhaps others on the Board will read this article and realize how deeply out of step, and frankly, dangerous, Costanzo’s commitments truly are.
Whatever happens, Southern Baptists deserve better. Southern Baptists don’t support amnesty. We certainly don’t support decolonization. And it’s right for us to both expect and demand that our entity leaders, both employees and trustees, hold views on significant issues like immigration policy that align with Southern Baptists—and more importantly, the Bible.
