It’s Time to Do Business as Southern Baptists. Here are Four Issues We Need to Be Ready to Handle Rightly.
If cooperation in the Southern Baptist Convention invites us to be stewards, then making an annual trip to the SBC is mission-critical. Indeed, as I argued in Part 1, the Annual Meeting, although composed of many parts, should be viewed as a “mission trip” for organizational fidelity rather than just an excuse to visit a new city. If the SBC adage “we can do more together than apart” holds true, then we need to actually “get together.”
It’s primarily the churches, not our entity heads or trustees, that must accept that responsibility and do the work to ensure the SBC holds fast to the truths of the gospel. That will only happen, indeed, it can only happen if Southern Baptist pastors and their church members treat the SBC as a “mandatory” business meeting, not just an optional vacation.
Unfortunately, there is widespread apathy towards attending the Annual Meeting. Which, brothers and sisters, I’m arguing, is a failure of our God-given stewardship of the SBC. Recent statistics reveal a shocking number: Out of the over 40,000 SBC churches, “90 %+ of SBC churches send no representative.”
If Bible-believing Southern Baptists who desire our Convention to 1) hold fast to its theological commitments and gospel mission, 2) see our entities run in a responsible, financially transparent, and effective manner, and 3) bad actors and failed leaders held accountable—we need to pump those numbers up.
If you’re a Southern Baptist within driving distance of Dallas (and I mean that generously, come on, a six-eight hour road trip isn’t too bad), it’s not too late for you to come as a messenger to the Annual Meeting.
However, it’s not just apathy toward attending the Annual Meeting that has led the SBC into its currently less-than-optimal state. It’s also apathy towards attending to the Convention’s business by those who are gathered that’s a problem.
So, if you’re on your way to Dallas, please read this and consider how we can work together to treat the business meeting as a business meeting and complete the necessary work during these two days to strengthen the SBC. While there may be more, here are four of the most significant issues facing the SBC that faithful Southern Baptists must be ready to handle rightly in the Lone Star State.
Four Issues to Tackle as We Do Business in Dallas
First, pass the Law Amendment (again).
Last year in Indianapolis, the Law Amendment received support, for a second consecutive year, from a large majority of Southern Baptist Convention messengers. But it didn’t receive the supermajority needed for ratification, falling just a few percentage points short of the required 67% threshold. It is essential to remember that, although it wasn’t adopted, it was widely supported and viewed as necessary by over 60% of the room.
Why did it fall just a few hundred votes short of the mark? One reason is undoubtedly the fact that certain Convention leaders and “business as usual” voices spent a year telling Southern Baptists that the Credentials Committee process was “sufficient” to handle churches with female pastors.
That turned out to be false.
In February of 2025, the Credentials Committee proved again that “the process is broken.” When confronted with two openly egalitarian churches, NewSpring Church in South Carolina and Abba’s House in Tennessee (which had five women with the title of pastor on staff), the Credentials Committee informed Southern Baptists that both churches should still be deemed in “friendly cooperation.”
This failure prompted Texas pastor Juan Sanchez (who amended the Law Amendment during its first outing) to write a letter, along with other pastors, informing Baptists that he would lead an effort to revive the Amendment in Dallas.
There is one additional parliamentary hurdle to clear to secure this first vote on the Law Amendment in Dallas, which Collin Smothers explains here: Re-Litigating the Law Amendment. In short, vote in favor of suspending “Standing Rule 6” and then vote to pass the Amendment (for the first time in this second go-round).
Thankfully, the current president of the SBC (Clint Pressley) is publicly supportive of the Law Amendment in ways that the last three presidents (Greear, Litton, Barber) were not. And thus, as the issue of “holding fast” to our confession of faith against a rising tide of egalitarianism in the SBC arises again, I’m thankful to have a president who upholds and defends the biblical view of male-only pastors.
It’s time to get this done and get it done right. As Smothers explains, “Instead of challenging the credentials of churches with women pastors at every annual meeting, the Law Amendment would allow messengers to instruct the Credentials Committee and the convention on what cooperative compliance with the Bible and the Baptist Faith and Message should look like.”
Second, honestly address the Executive Committee’s request for $3 million in Cooperative Program missions giving to cover ballooning legal fees resulting from the Guidepost Solutions Report.
The Law Amendment is not the only action item from prior years that demands attention again in Dallas. Mounting legal fees resulting from the disastrous Guidepost Solutions report, to the tune of $12 million-plus, pose an existential financial crisis to the SBC’s Executive Committee.
In February of this year, it was announced that the EC decided to take the drastic steps to both 1) approve the sale of the SBC headquarters in Nashville, TV, and 2) ask messengers in Dallas to authorize $3 million more to cover legal fees—this time from the Cooperative Program itself.
As reported by Baptist Press at the time, “Executive Committee members approved a recommendation Tuesday morning (Feb. 18) for a $190 million 2025-26 SBC Cooperative Program Allocation Budget that includes $3 million earmarked for anticipated legal costs. The recommendation moves forward to messengers for a vote at the SBC Annual Meeting held in Dallas in June.”
A deeply troubling statement from SBC EC President/CEO, Jeff Iorg, punctuated this announcement when he confirmed that avoiding “using Cooperative Program funds for legal costs by paying out of reserves is no longer an option.” He added that “Decisions were made by the messengers in 2021. Those decisions have consequences. Those consequences have costs. And those bills must be paid.”
But as Jon Whitehead has so meticulously explained, the messengers who made those consequential decisions in 2021 were emotionally manipulated and misled by false claims of an abuse “apocalypse” compounded by a “criminal conspiracy” to cover it up.
None of that was true. There was no crisis, as Denny Burk explains here.
And there was no conspiratorial coverup, as both the investigation into the Executive Committee and the Department of Justice probe concluded.
But there has been emotional sabotage, weaponized empathy, and gross mismanagement, resulting in over $12 million-plus spent on legal fees, a (thankfully) tabled attempt to start an “independent” non-profit “Abuse Response Commission” funded by the ERLC, and now a hat-in-hand request for messengers to approve $3 million more—this time taken from our missions dollars.
Before any messenger in Dallas votes to approve this expenditure, here are twelve questions that should be answered. And if the EC cannot or will not answer these questions honestly, why should we trust them with another big check?
Third, secure 990-level financial transparency from our entities.
Closely related to financial questions stemming from abuse-related issues are larger questions about finances in general in the SBC. Unfortunately, Rhett Burns’ motion to require entities to provide non-profit industry-standard financial transparency in the form of 990-level equivalent information, as supplied to SBC churches, was stonewalled last year when the Executive Committee refused to bring the motion to the Convention floor.
Nevertheless, he persisted. And the issue of financial transparency remains. As Rhett Burns wrote after the Convention last year, there are many reasons that financial transparency is needed in the SBC:
“First, our churches and messengers who fund the gospel work of the SBC deserve it. Second, trust is at an all-time low in the SBC right now—and much of that loss of trust is due to an increasing number of reports of serious financial mismanagement at our entities. Third, this is simply a “best business practice” and one that our entities should have been doing for a long time. Finally, this information [i.e., financial reports] would empower messengers to hold the trustees accountable for overseeing our entities; they are not appointed to defend the entities but serve Southern Baptists by overseeing them. We are told to ‘trust the trustees.’ But do the trustees trust the messengers? This information would show us one way or another.”
In short, trust needs to be rebuilt between messengers and SBC entities, which includes a financial overhaul and a means of reporting that does not conceal the contributions made to SBC entities, by whom, and for what purpose.
In truth, rebuilding trust is one of the mission-critical goals for the SBC, and you should come to Dallas calling for the SBC to focus on trust and transparency.
Burns has worked throughout the year to raise awareness of the importance of this critical reform. He’s written multiple articles (here, here, here, and here), launched a website, sbctransparency.net, published an Open Letter, and just last Friday, June 6, he delivered a special address to all Southern Baptists, “Whether We Doge or Die,” calling on messengers in Dallas to support his motion to amend the Business and Financial Plan to secured “simple, normal, Baptist, and right” levels of financial transparency.
It’s (sadly) remarkable that Rhett’s motion is even controversial. Controversial or not, we must be allowed to debate and vote on his motion in Dallas. So, come prepared to support Rhett’s efforts to amend the Business & Financial Plan and secure financial transparency, no matter what.
Fourth, hold the rogue ERLC accountable.
If trust is low across the denomination, it is lowest with respect to the ERLC. Last year, Tom Ascol made a motion to abolish the ERLC under SBC Bylaw 25. This motion requires two consecutive votes over two years, with a 50% threshold to pass each time.
After the ensuing floor debate, Ascol’s motion received (by some reports) as much as forty percent support from the messengers. Although that vote failed, a discussion of the focus and efficacy of the ERLC’s ministry remains.
This debate was accelerated when, last July, Brent Leatherwood was fired and then re-hired by the ERLC trustees (with the then-Chairman of the Board, Kevin Smith, stepping down instead) after he praised Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential election campaign as a “selfless act.”
As Sam Webb succinctly put it in his explainer on what happened, the entire saga revealed that “Brent refuses to be managed; the trustees refuse to do their job.” Needless to say, many lingering questions remain from that blowup.
In March, Christ Over All spent a month thinking about what the ERLC has been, is, and could be. In our series, “The Ethics and Religious Liberty Conundrum,” we sought to address the following questions:
- What is the ERLC doing to regain trust in the SBC?
- Who is funding the ERLC?
- What is the ERLC’s position on abortion?
- How does the ERLC engage immigration and national security?
- Do the current leaders in the ERLC have inroads to the Trump Administration?
- How does Resolution 9 and the selective use of critical theory inform the ERLC?
- What does lobbying currently look like?
- What theology underpins the ERLC’s commitment to religious liberty?
That monthly “theme” was our most-read theme of the year so far. There were many thoughtful pieces and podcasts in it, featuring respected Southern Baptist voices, such as Tom Nettles, Mark Coppenger, Steve Wellum, ERLC trustee Jon Whitehead, and local pastor John Michael LaRue, among others.
However, perhaps the most impactful was Megan Basham’s investigative report, “Too Busy with Woke Stuff”: The All Too (In)Visible and Inconsequential ERLC, which revealed how the ERLC is viewed in Washington, D.C. After speaking with 20 well-placed sources, Megan concluded that “Worse than those who view the ERLC as invisible and hence irrelevant are those who see it as actively harmful.”
And Eric Teetsel, President of the Center for Renewing America, told Megan that “As a Southern Baptist who happens to be an expert in what they’re supposed to be doing, I can tell you, they’re completely and entirely worse than useless. They are actively counterproductive to the ends that Southern Baptists ought to expect from an entity that purports to be the public policy arm of their convention.”
Our hope at Christ Over All was to initiate a serious discussion among Southern Baptists about the ERLC—its past, present, and future ministries. Unfortunately, as I noted in my lead essay, What Do We Do with the ERLC? An Open Letter to Southern Baptists, ERLC President Brent Leatherwood never responded to my invitation to discuss our concerns or participate in the series itself.
Since March, I’ve yet to receive a response from the ERLC regarding the concerns we raised. I’m a Southern Baptist pastor laboring less than an hour outside of D.C.; I would have gladly driven up for a meeting with Brent to have an honest and open conversation.
Instead, Southern Baptists have been treated to an aggressive public relations campaign, as the ERLC flies in hand-picked pastoral cohorts to D.C., produces videos, sends mailers, drums up “letters of support” from former SBC presidents, and tries to take credit for policy outcomes that would have happened with or without their involvement.
As Willy Rice put it, he doesn’t think anyone believes anything has changed, and that this is “a little PR,” but that the ERLC needs to know they are way past “PR” at this point.
Rice adds that “We need to have some radical changes. The house is on fire. Instead, we’re treated to what is pretty pedestrian PR campaign. So I really do think we have to act.”
How can we act in Dallas? By voting “Yes” on another motion to abolish the ERLC.
To be clear, if you want to reform the ERLC or save the ERLC, this is the vote to take. If you think we need the ERLC, this is the vote to take. Voting in Dallas to abolish the ERLC doesn’t eliminate the entity—that would be the second vote in Orlando in 2026. However, what it does do is send an unmistakable signal that profound changes are needed at every level.
So come to Dallas ready to take action. Few matters are more important today than the intersection of church and state, and we need a strong and reliable ERLC. Yet, questions remain on whether the ERLC has, will, or can adequately represent the SBC. If you doubt that, listen to ERLC Trustee Jon Whitehead explain how, fundamentally, nothing has changed at the ERLC over the last four years under Brent Leatherwood’s leadership.
Showing Up in Dallas Ready to Work for the Good of the SBC and the Glory of God
Ultimately, I urge Southern Baptists to attend the Convention for reasons that marketing efforts cannot explain. I am urging Southern Baptists to be good stewards of their time, their talents, and their trust within the SBC. Indeed, the business of the convention is to direct the entities to be faithful to God with the money that is entrusted to them. And for every Southern Baptist Church that gives to the SBC, they have a responsibility and an opportunity to oversee how that money is being used.
To that end, we need to be ready to 1) Pass the Law Amendment; 2) Demand answers from the EC about runaway spending on “abuse reform” mismanagement; 3) Secure 990-level financial transparency from our entities; and 4) Vote to abolish the ERLC to trigger real reform at the ERLC.
For if we long to reach the lost in America and the nations with the gospel, then we need to do more than give money. We need to give money wisely. We need to preserve institutions vigilantly. And we need to elect officers and appoint committee members who are entirely committed to the doctrinal statement of the Convention.
In short, to effectively fulfill the Great Commission, we also need to steward the resources and institutions that have been entrusted to us. For if we are not good stewards at a Convention level, we should not expect God’s blessing or accept pleas for more money. Instead, we should begin by getting our house in order, which means attending the business meeting where that is scheduled to take place.
Yes, that requires some preparation and planning to understand the details of the convention. It also means learning the processes of the Convention. However, such maturity is necessary to protect the Convention from the devil’s plans and to be most effective in missions, evangelism, education, relief, and church planting.
Truly, these are the things that the SBC should be doing, but to do them well requires conservative, Bible-believing messengers to come to Dallas (or Orlando, or Indianapolis) to speak, vote, pray, and work toward the effectiveness of the SBC.
That is why I am going to Dallas next week. And I hope to see many of you there.
