Brent Leatherwood, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said his entity had two defunding questions on its plate June 11 as he delivered ERLC’s report to the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Dallas.
The first was lawmakers’ pending decision on the defunding of Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the nation. The second was Southern Baptists’ own motion to defund the ERLC itself.
Leatherwood said federal lawmakers were wrestling “even at this very hour” over “a long-held priority of the Southern Baptist Convention” — defunding Planned Parenthood.
For more stories at your doorstep, subscribe to The Baptist Paper.
Looking for more SBC Annual Meeting coverage? Here you go.
In June 2022, Southern Baptists celebrated the overturning of Roe v. Wade, a landmark court case that had allowed nationwide abortion rights for nearly 50 years. Leatherwood said now “the opportunity is at hand for the next great pro-life achievement — stopping Planned Parenthood.”
Leatherwood also acknowledged the motion brought yesterday (June 10) to SBC messengers to defund and abolish the ERLC, which was voted on by messenger ballots shortly after Leatherwood’s report.
“I lament that once more this is before our convention,” Leatherwood said, referring to similar motions that have been filed at the past three annual meetings. Later in the day, the results of the vote were announced: 2,819 messengers (42.84%) voted to abolish the ERLC and 3,744 (56.89%) voted to retain the ERLC as an SBC entity. The motion to abolish failed.
Leatherwood said he knows the ERLC isn’t perfect and thanked messengers for the grace and prayers offered to them in these efforts.
RELATED: What is the function of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission?
At the conclusion of Leatherwood’s report, Jonathan Whitehead, a messenger from Abundant Life Church in Lee’s Summit, Missouri, raised a question about a letter sent from the ERLC to congressional leaders in April 2024 communicating Southern Baptists’ position that leaders had wavered on supplying defense funds to Ukraine.
Whitehead said the body of messengers “did not adopt that position” and asked if the ERLC could be trusted to communicate on churches’ behalf.
Leatherwood responded that Southern Baptists “as a body passed a resolution in 2022 calling for this convention to take a stand against that illegal Russian invasion. And just like we do with all those other resolutions, we turn them into action as best we can.”
He did not address whether the April 2024 letter reflected a new or evolving position beyond the 2022 resolution.
Later in the session, messengers spoke in favor of and against abolishing the ERLC before taking it to a ballot vote. Abolishing an entity requires two consecutive years of affirmative votes.
Richard Land, who served as ERLC president for 25 years, spoke in favor of the ERLC, urging messengers that this was a critical time to affirm the entity and let it continue its work.
Willy Rice, pastor of Calvary Church in Clearwater, Florida, spoke to his motion before the vote, saying that abolishing the ERLC “is how we save it.”
The two-year vote process would give the ERLC “time to hear the concerns of the churches, pursue meaningful reform and return with a renewed mission, and that’s what we hope for,” Rice said. “But make no mistake, this motion is a wake-up call.”
He claimed the ERLC had caused “division and confusion” and accepted financial support from “outside progressive advocacy groups,” but did not name the groups in his explanation to messengers.
Scott Foshie, chair of the ERLC board of trustees, shared a statement with the media following the vote: “We would like to thank the messengers for their careful consideration of the work of the ERLC. We hear the voices of those who have concerns. We are committed to listening well to pastors and lay leaders, both those who support and those who question as we work together to best serve Southern Baptists and advocate for their priorities in the public square.”
