The Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission approved a statement Jan. 30 that will help guide the work of the public policy entity’s next president. Meantime, the presidential search committee reported progress in their effort to bring a nominee, with hope that a new leader will be in place by the SBC Annual Meeting in Orlando in June.
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“We wanted to send another signal to Southern Baptists that we love them, we want to serve them,” Trustee Chair Scott Foshie said as the statement was adopted. “The ERLC is committed to keeping the best interests of Southern Baptist churches at heart.”
The statement offers recommitment to robust relationships at every level of the SBC, rebuilding trust, and representing Southern Baptists well. It outlines a two-prong approach to the ERLC’s work going forward that elevates its responsibility to the churches.
“This is the message we’re communicating to presidential candidates,” said search committee chair Mitch Kimbrell. “We want presidential candidates to be on board with these commitments.”
Now, with this statement in place, the next round of interviews begins with eight candidates, the list recently trimmed by more than half. Pointing to the number of highly qualified candidates interested in the position, Kimbrell said, “that’s a good problem to have” in contrast to the 2021 search when few people wanted the job. The SBC’s wrangling with sexual abuse and the fallout at several entities was at its peak at the time.
Seeking consensus, rebuilding trust
The statement may address concerns raised by those who wanted to abolish the ERLC in two previous conventions. It identifies clear dependence on the Bible, the Baptist Faith and Message(2000, amended in 2023), and resolutions approved by convention messengers to identify issues and positions the ERLC will address. It seeks to steer away from controversial issues without broad agreement. For Foshie, the key word is consensus.
“The motion signals the kind of posture the trustees want the next president to have, and that he is deeply rooted in healthy relationships with Southern Baptist churches,” Foshie said.
The trustees hope to rebuild trust with those who felt distanced from the political positions of former president Russell Moore and his successor, Brent Leatherwood. The lesson learned in Leatherwood’s controversial social media posting during the 2024 U.S. presidential campaign will be beneficial to the next leader: don’t act alone.
“If you look over the last decade, particularly the last five years,” Foshie said, “the ERLC board has been striving to improve governing documents, to create milestone moments where the full board has to make decisions about key matters.”
Foshie is the incoming executive director of the Illinois Baptist State Association; his ERLC tenure concludes with the June convention. Foshie has spent much of his eight years as an ERLC trustee developing board policies to create greater transparency and strengthen accountability of the ERLC president to the trustees.
The next president won’t speak for himself, Kimbrell said. He speaks “from” Southern Baptists. “The ERLC is not the new president’s branding platform; it is a trust that belongs to Southern Baptists.”
“With the profile for presidential candidates, the advocacy guidelines adopted in 2024, and this motion, the stage is set for the board to be effective encouragers, but also effective governors,” Foshie said.
After Leatherwood’s resignation following the 2025 campaign to abolish the SBC’s public voice, Interim President Gary Hollingworth has sought to focus ERLC content, stabilize the staff, and rebuild relationships with churches. Hollingsworth is a long-time pastor from Alabama who was widely respected for his tenure as Executive Director of the South Carolina Baptist Convention.
Hollingsworth has been “a grace gift to the ERLC,” Kimbrell said. “When 43% of the convention votes to abolish your entity, that’s unacceptable. We know we’ve got trust rebuilding to do,” and the interim president has made good inroads.
Resourcing and equipping churches
This statement will deepen the spadework Hollingsworth has been doing since September. The trustees clarified two prongs: resourcing and equipping churches, and representing Southern Baptist values in the public square. Trustees hope that future research work will be strengthened by deepening church relationships and expertise provided through SBC pastors and professors.
“These two ministries are most effective when the ERLC is deeply engaged with churches, partnering with local associations, state conventions, and national entities and providing trusted research on cultural issues important to Southern Baptists,” the statement said.
The two-prong approach producing a presidency with clearer guardrails may give the ERLC time to rebuild trust, and to prove again its value for SBC churches and their members.
“We don’t think to do those things well is to chase two rabbits and risk getting none,” said Kimbrell, a Georgia native who pastors in Vermont. “The better we resource our churches, the better voice we will have in the public square. The more our resources are trusted and respected, the more our advocacy will be trusted.”
The board requested Southern Baptists “to pray for the ERLC’s ministry, staff, and trustees, that we will serve in an effective and trustworthy manner.”
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Eric Reed and originally published by the Illinois Baptist.
