Southern Baptist Elites Spent Years Attacking Trump. Now, It’s Time for Them to Take a Page Out of His Playbook
In his recent address to a joint session of Congress, President Trump delivered a masterclass in leadership that the Southern Baptist Convention would do well to study.
Standing before the assembled House and Senate, he spoke with remarkable clarity about the political reality:
“This is my fifth such speech to Congress, and once again, I look at the Democrats in front of me, and I realize there is absolutely nothing I can say to make them happy or to make them stand or smile or applaud, nothing I can do. I could find a cure to the most devastating disease, a disease that would wipe out entire nations, or announce the answers to the greatest economy in history or the stoppage of crime to the lowest levels ever recorded, and these people sitting right here will not clap, will not stand and certainly will not cheer for these astronomical achievements.”
What followed proved his point precisely. Democratic representatives remained seated, stone-faced, as Trump honored a 13-year-old cancer patient, memorialized murdered victims Laken Riley and Jocelyn Nungaray, advocated for protecting women’s sports, proposed deporting violent criminals, offered tax relief for all Americans, pledged to eliminate drug cartels, and outlined a path to peace. Not once did he pause to placate them or water down his message to win their approval.
The President has learned what many SBC leaders have yet to grasp: Those who oppose your fundamental values will never be appeased, so stop trying.
This is precisely the leadership approach the Southern Baptist Convention desperately needs today—leaders who recognize that those pushing our denomination toward progressive positions cannot and should not be accommodated. We need men who will act decisively on what we all know needs to be done, without being paralyzed by fear of criticism from those who would remake the SBC in the image of mainline Protestantism.
The issues confronting the SBC mirror many of those challenging our nation. Within our convention, we’ve seen the insidious creep of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives masquerading under the guise of racial reconciliation. Our leadership can denounce DEI and Critical Race Theory all they want, but words aren’t enough. We need leaders who will systematically root out every DEI initiative in every SBC institution, dismantling the frameworks and priorities adopted under previous leadership. Seminary presidents need to purge these ideologies from every classroom. Entity heads need to fire staff who continue pushing these agendas.
Every conservative in the SBC already understands the fundamental incompatibility between biblical reconciliation and secular DEI programs. The time for winsome persuasion and careful explanation is over. We need action that completely eradicates these worldly frameworks that replace the sufficiency of Scripture with the ever-shifting demands of progressive ideology.
This same pattern of institutional capture by progressive elements extends to other critical areas. What began as a proper concern for abuse victims has morphed into victim advocacy that now dictates denominational priorities. Compassion has been weaponized, and legitimate concerns about protection have become battering rams against biblical authority structures.
Meanwhile, egalitarian churches with women serving as pastors operate in open rebellion against both biblical teaching and our Baptist Faith and Message. Yet our Credentials Committee sits paralyzed, unwilling to enforce the very confessional standards that define our cooperation. This cowardice masquerading as careful deliberation makes a mockery of our confessional commitments.
The pattern is painfully clear: Our leaders talk a good game about biblical fidelity while surrendering ground at every opportunity. They issue conservative statements while allowing progressive practices to flourish unchallenged. Consider the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, which has repeatedly demonstrated it represents the values of The New York Times more faithfully than those of the Southern Baptist churches that fund it. Despite widespread recognition of this problem among the people in the pews, our leaders offer nothing but platitudes and promises of minor adjustments.
Meanwhile, the lack of transparency in the Cooperative Program financials borders on scandalous. Southern Baptists faithfully give millions to support missions, yet tracking how these dollars are spent requires the investigative skills of a forensic accountant. Those controlling the purse strings resist accountability at every turn while assuring us they value transparency.
The SBC doesn’t need more study committees or carefully worded resolutions.
We need leaders with the backbone to implement what we all know needs to be done—leaders who will confront wokeness directly, enforce our confessional standards without apology, redirect or defund entities that have strayed from their mission, and open the books on our finances without reservation.
President Trump’s first months back in office demonstrate exactly this kind of leadership—not through novel solutions but through sheer determination to act on promises made. While his opponents wring their hands about “norms” and “processes,” he simply does what he pledged to do, undeterred by the hysteria of his critics. The SBC desperately needs this brand of decisive leadership—men who fear God more than they fear the disapproval of progressive elites.
Trump has shown that leadership isn’t about extraordinary vision or complex problem-solving—it’s about the courage to implement what everyone already knows needs to be done. His opponents call this “divisive” and “unpresidential,” but effective leadership often feels threatening to those invested in the status quo. Similarly, the kind of decisive action the SBC needs will inevitably be labeled as “uncharitable to those with differing beliefs” or “lacking nuance” by those who benefit from institutional inertia.
But the time for extending endless courtesy to progressive voices has long passed. Conservative SBC leaders need to take decisive action without regard for those who would move our denomination leftward. These progressive elements aren’t in charge, and they don’t get a say in steering our future. The Baptist Faith & Message and Scripture itself already define our boundaries clearly. We don’t need to grant progressives the benefit of the doubt or pretend their vision for the SBC deserves equal consideration.
Real leadership means understanding that clear biblical teaching doesn’t require endless qualifications. Real leadership means having the courage to act on behalf of the majority of faithful Southern Baptists who simply want their denomination to remain faithful to Scripture and effective in its mission.
The time for endless deliberation has passed. The moment for decisive action has arrived. Like President Trump returning to office with renewed determination to fulfill his promises, the SBC needs leaders who will act on the clear consensus of the convention’s conservative majority rather than being steered by progressive voices that will never be satisfied until our biblical foundations are completely eroded.
Let me be clear: I like many of our current SBC leaders. I believe that most of them are good men who hold biblical convictions and sincerely love our Lord and our convention. The issue isn’t their character or their theology—it’s their willingness to act on those convictions.
Southern Baptists should unapologetically demand this new, bold, clear-eyed approach from our existing leaders. However, if they cannot or will not summon the courage to implement what they know to be right, then we must soberly acknowledge they are not the men for this moment and should be replaced with those who will act.
The question is not whether we know what needs to be done—we do. The question is whether we will elect and support leaders with the courage to do it, regardless of the inevitable criticism from those who don’t share our convictions in the first place.
