The Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee took noteworthy action on several issues during its February meeting, including a polarizing program for the 2020 SBC Pastors’ Conference and a new 5-year vision plan for denomination. The EC also voted for the first time to disfellowship a church over sexual abuse.
No action garnered as much attention, though, than the EC’s vote to examine past and current activities of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC). In announcing the probe, the EC cited “ongoing concerns” from its own members, state leaders, and other Southern Baptists that the ERLC is not adequately fulfilling its Convention-approved ministry assignments.
The ERLC Executive Committee strongly opposed the probe, calling it “unwarranted, divisive, and disrespectful,” in an open letter posted Feb. 20 on ERLC.com. The group said messengers at the SBC annual meeting should have an opportunity to say whether they agree with the EC’s decision. “Until then, we are instructing Dr. Moore and the ERLC not to comply with it until messengers have an opportunity to signal their belief that such a task force is appropriate and legitimate.”
The EC’s officers responded to the letter by reiterating earlier statements that the task force is not an attempt to remove ERLC President Russell Moore or direct the ERLC’s staff. Noting the task force motion “passed unanimously among the (EC) officers, unanimously in subcommittee, and by an overwhelming majority,” EC officers emphasized the board’s responsibility to promote the Cooperative Program.
“When we continue to hear a growing number of reports that churches are either planning to decrease or withhold Cooperative Program gifts and are given specific reasons that relate to a Southern Baptist entity, we have a responsibility that we are granted under the bylaws of the SBC to consider those reports,” the officers said.
At the Nashville meeting, EC chairman Mike Stone said the inquiry will provide a process through which the EC can determine to what extent the ERLC’s actions are affecting the Cooperative Program, Southern Baptists’ chief channel for funding ministry and missions. The study task force is not, Stone said, an attempt to remove Moore from ERLC leadership.
The entity president was a vocal critic of then-candidate Donald Trump leading up the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Moore apologized shortly after the election to those who felt he had criticized all who voted for Trump. But some churches, including Prestonwood Baptist in Plano Texas, temporarily escrowed Cooperative Program giving because of the ERLC’s positions on certain issues.
In 2017, the EC appointed an ad-hoc committee to study the effect of churches escrowing or discontinuing their CP giving. Later that year, the committee reported that fewer than two out of every 1,000 SBC churches had diverted funds during the previous year. The 14 churches that were confirmed by the committee to have done so were estimated to have diverted a total of about $1.5 million away from the Cooperative Program, Baptist Press reported.
In their response to the EC probe, the ERLC Executive Committee noted the earlier study. “Rather than create a new study or task force,” the group said, “we believe the wise and appropriate approach is to refer those offering present anecdotal complaints back to the 2017 Executive Committee study findings. Regardless, the entire premise of evaluating the ERLC effect on CP giving is flawed unless one also investigates how many churches have increased their giving because of their enthusiastic support of the work of the ERLC.”
Although the ERLC Executive Committee speaks for the ERLC, their open letter was issued without a formal vote of the ERLC Board of Trustees.
Illinois has two representatives on the Executive Committee and one on the ERLC Board of Trustees. Adron Robinson and Sharon Carty of the EC and Scott Foshie of the ERLC board released a joint statement following the entities’ exchange of words online.
“We want to assure our Baptist family in Illinois that the three of us have great trust, love, and respect for one another as we serve our respective trustee boards of the ERLC and SBC Executive Committee,” they said. “We are working together, along with other SBC-elected trustees from Illinois, to ensure that all your entities, including the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, serve with both integrity and excellence.
“There are many great servants doing the Lord’s work at the ERLC and at our other SBC agencies. We do not want to see anyone falsely accused, but we take our objective oversight responsibility seriously and will always work as agents of truth.”
-Additional reporting by Baptist Press