Southern Baptist Convention Narrowly Avoids Eliminating Branch Accused of Wokeness

The Southern Baptist Convention held its annual conference this week, and delegates narrowly voted against eliminating the public policy arm, which has been accused of advancing left-wing ideology.

Delegates, which the SBC calls “messengers,” gathered in Dallas, Texas from June 8-11 for the annual meeting.

The effort to abolish the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission failed by around 950 votes, which ERLC critics say serves as a wake-up call for reform.

ERLC has been accused of pushing social justice initiatives like critical race theory and gun control. ERLC President Brent Leatherwood has lobbied for gun control under a pro-life banner and led a group to block the release of the transgender Nashville shooter’s writings.

Former ERLC president, Russell Moore, repeatedly denounced President Donald Trump, even though the majority of Southern Baptists voted for him. In 2020, he called the president “reality TV moral sewage” and criticized the Republican Party for aligning with him.

ERLC Vice President Miles Mullin denies that the branch advocates for critical race theory.

“Following the clear teaching of Scripture and in alignment with the Baptist Faith & Message, the ERLC supports Christian unity across ethnic and socioeconomic lines,” Mullin told The Daily Signal, “but we do not advocate for, endorse, or deploy critical race theory.”

The effort to abolish ERLC failed by around 950 votes, which ERLC critics say serves as a wake up call for reform. About 57% voted to support the ERLC, and 43% voted to abolish it.

“This is a difficult loss, but it is far from a victory for the ERLC. It demonstrates how little faith ordinary Southern Baptists have in the entity,” said Megan Basham, author of “Shepherds for Sale: How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda.”

“That the vote is this close when the conditions are MOST favorable and the deck was stacked in allowing Leatherwood extensive stage time to defend his entity when the other side was not offered the same amount of time to make its case speaks volumes,” Basham continued.

Critics of the Baptist public policy arm say the convention advantaged ERLC in the vote by giving Leatherwood opportunities to promote his work. ERLC was able to distribute literature in every seat in the convention, and it used the SBC email list to direct messengers to vote against the motion to abolish it.

In response, Mullin told The Daily Signal that ERLC participated in no unusual or out of the ordinary practices this year.

“Every year, each SBC entity, including the ERLC, gives a report to the entire Convention,” Mullin said. “Often entities distribute resources to messengers as part of that report. That is all we did.”

The vote showed that unless ERLC undergoes massive reform and stops associating with secular, left-wing groups, it will be abolished at a future convention, Basham said.

“The ERLC does not associate with and is not influenced by secular, left-wing groups,” Mullin said in response. “We take our marching orders from the Scripture, the Baptist Faith & Message, and actions taken by our messengers, at times working with coalitions to advance the things that Southern Baptists care about most.”

Between 2018 and 2021, ERLC received $150,000 from eBay founder and longtime Democrat donor Pierre Omidyar, Basham reported. The Fetzer Foundation, which gets money from Bill Gates, has given ERLC $220,000. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg gave another $90,000.

Some Baptists say the large percentage of votes against ERLC demonstrate that Leatherwood should step down.

“If a pastor only had 56.89% support from his congregation, he would step down tomorrow,” said executive director of the Center for Baptist Leaders, William Wolfe.

“Either way, this level of lack of confidence in the ERLC demonstrates that Leatherwood and current trustees should be replaced,” Basham wrote.

“Leaders of Southern Baptist entities serve at the pleasure of their board of trustees,” Mullin said in response. “These trustees from across the country are faithful pastors and laypeople who are independently selected and approved by messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting and are accountable to them.

While some theologically and politically conservative Baptists left the SBC disappointed in ERLC’s survival, they returned to their home churches with other causes of celebration.

Messengers at the 2025 Southern Baptist Convention were responsible for “passing the most conservative slate of resolutions we’ve ever done,” according to David Closson, a messenger from Capitol Hill Baptist Church in the District of Columbia, and author of “Life After Roe: Equipping Christians in the Fight for Life Today.”

Closson introduced a successful resolution titled “On Standing Against the Moral Evils and Medical Dangers of Chemical Abortion Pills.”

Convention attendees also voted to pass a resolution titled “On Restoring Moral Clarity through God’s Design for Gender, Marriage, and the Family,” which called for overturning the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision Obergefell v. Hodge.

Another resolution that passed was titled “On Banning Pornography.” It asked lawmakers to “enact comprehensive laws” banning “pornographic content in all media” and provide mechanisms “to eradicate pornography nationwide.”

However, biblical conservatives once again did not succeed in amending the SBC constitution to clarify that the only kind of church in friendly cooperation with the convention is one that “affirms, appoints, or employs only men as any kind of pastor or elder as qualified by Scripture.”

While 61% of messengers voted for the amendment, it barely missed the required 66% supermajority to pass.

The Baptist Faith and Message already makes clear that the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture. But in 2023, Mike Law, a Baptist pastor from Arlington, Virginia, discovered about 1,800 female pastors in SBC churches, leading him to introduce the Law Amendment.

Last year’s SBC rejected the amendment because opponents felt it was not necessary due to the position being stated in the Baptist Faith and Message. Opponents of this year’s Law Amendment argued that if the SBC constitution clarifies that the office of pastor is limited to men, the denomination would be at risk of being sued for defamation.

Denny Burk, professor at Baptist Theological Seminary, said this argument doesn’t make sense because the constitution already says that cooperating churches must closely identify with SBC beliefs about pastors.

“Why would we be in more jeopardy for making it clearer? Our constitution also says that churches that endorse homosexuality, racism, and abuse are not in friendly cooperation,” Burk said. “Should we remove prohibitions on homosexuality, racism, and abuse from the constitution because of legal risk? If not, then why would clarity about a prohibition on female pastors be a problem?”

Still Burk said he hopes the SBC got the message that the majority of Southern Baptists oppose female pastors.

“I hope that will help them to hold the line on our confession of faith,” Burk said. “If they don’t, then I suspect we will have to adjudicate more membership challenges on the floor of the convention.”

Though there is more work to be done, Closson said most messengers left the SBC hopeful about the future.

“I think most people, when they left Dallas, were very happy and encouraged,” he said.

Note: The author of this article is a member of a Southern Baptist church.

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