SBC 2021: Floor Motions and Attacks on Conservatives

Southern Baptist Convention Tensions and the Stakes of the Vote

Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. We are going to talk about the Southern Baptist Convention today. It is happening. Today's an important day for that particular denomination, and I'm going to put out two podcasts.

This is the first one. I wanted to get it out there before the presidential vote and the resolutions tonight, and just talk about some of the things that are happening as well, give you an update. Of course, things have been taking place after I stopped the record button on my podcast.

That's happened a few times. Unfortunately, Mike Stone, twice, kind of this happened when something happened with him or he responded to something, and I had already put out my podcast. But I wanted to talk about what happened last night a little bit.

Mike Stone, as some of you may know, he was in a conversation with someone who is a, according to the reports I saw, an abuse survivor, and it didn't go well, and she was crying, and the insinuation is that he made her cry and did something wrong.

This has the progressives in the convention really just motivated. It's driving the energy on their base up. I got a message this morning from someone, actually in sort of a higher up in Georgia Baptist denominational life, that just was a little discouraging about this.

I don't think we need to be totally discouraged about this. I think it really all depends at this point on ground game, who shows up, what they've already probably decided. There's probably a few votes that might sway, and that situation may have swayed a few towards Stone because they're sympathetic to some, what they consider to be a dirty trick, like a Democrat playbook kind of thing.

And then there are others, though, who are probably wondering if there's truth to the allegation, and now they're maybe switching support. But I don't know what those numbers are, and I'll be honest with you.

I've had so many people that I've talked to that are at the convention, those who have been in Southern Baptist life for a long time tell me so many mixed reports. I mean, everything from, going into it, Mueller and Stone are kind of the favored candidates, and they are more probably establishment-ish candidates, to, it's gonna be, the conservatives are gonna split the vote, and no conservative's gonna make it to the second round.

It's gonna be Litton and Mueller to, one person thought that this magazine that Randy Adams put out is gonna have a huge, make a huge dent. Others, there's just, I probably, it literally is every single scenario that probably could happen is being predicted.

So the long and short of it is people really don't know. There's over a, there's, I think last I checked, over 11 ,000 delegates, or messengers, they call them, there, and that's a significantly high number.

It probably means that there's a lot of conservatives showing up who are very angry, but don't forget, swamp is deep. A lot of people who went to the SEND conference yesterday, they're paid to be there by the organization.

There's, it really could go in multiple different directions. So we're gonna analyze what happened last night a little bit. There's a report coming out this morning that suggests Albert Mueller's behind this.

I'll show you that. I should also mention this, and it could be just, I'm feeling this way. I don't think so, though. I sense it out there. I think a lot of you are feeling kind of nervous that probably about 1 1 100th of the way you felt during the national election last year, but it's similar to that in a way.

You don't wanna see evangelical Christianity and Southern Baptist Convention go in the same direction, and you're worried about it, and that's understandable in some ways. I'm not sure what's causing all of this, but I've noticed there's a lot of, there's a lot more infighting than I'm used to seeing normally, and I think it's because emotions are high and people really have strong opinions on what should happen today in the Southern Baptist Convention.

Clarifying the “Stage Four Chemo” Analogy and the Need for Drastic Measures

And I know, and I wanna clarify a few things, too. I know one person was kind of going after me because I said stage four chemo. We need stage four chemo for stage four cancer, and that's not technically medically correct.

Yeah, I know that. I know that there's no such thing really as stage four chemo. That's not a category. My whole point, and I hope most of you, I think 99 of you probably did understand, but just to clarify, my whole point in saying that is just that there needs to be drastic measures in order to get the convention to go in the right direction.

There really isn't any other way around it. Yes, I realize that there's no designation medically for stage four, quote-unquote, chemo. My whole point, though, is that if you really think Southern Baptist Convention has stage four cancer, or whether you think it has stage one cancer, as one very prominent member of CBN told me a year ago, it's like, well, it's only stage one.

We've caught it early. And I thought, no, I think you're at about stage three. I'd say now you're at about stage four. If you're more in line with what I think is the diagnosis, then you're gonna take drastic measures.

You're gonna want to do something unprecedented maybe, even asking churches to withhold cooperative funding until audits are made, or certain people are fired, or whatever the list of line items would be.

So that's all I meant by that. And I'm sorry if it confused any of you. The other thing, I saw a few comments on the last video that people were concerned that I, I had talked about how much I like sources and want sources, I'm a stickler on sources, and then the accusation, or I shouldn't even, that's a strong word, not accusation, but the concern, and I appreciate the concern, by the way, I really do, is that I am making unbased, I think the particular word that was used is I'm sharing rumors about something that happened yesterday or two days ago with J .D. Greer in an elevator, and someone confronted him on critical race theory, and he called the police.

And so this was something that I had said I had heard. And that's the only thing I was saying. I wasn't saying that it did happen. I was saying, this is a report, and it's supposed to go out there. And yes, it was sent to me from someone that I trust, not to just be making things up.

It's not a rumor, just so people know. I wouldn't do that to you. I wouldn't, and I would let you know. If it's a rumor, I would say, this is a rumor, and then I would give the reason why you would need to know about it.

Normally, you wouldn't. If it's a rumor, you wouldn't need to know. It's not something that's important. In fact, I think that's probably what I'll talk about later with the Mike Stone situation a little bit.

I'll get into some of that, but this wasn't a rumor. This was actually someone who is, I would say, generally reliable on this kind of thing. They wouldn't just make something up, at least. And they were the ones that texted me and told me about it.

So I didn't have all the information, but that information, as I understand, is coming out, and I will talk a little bit more about that as we go through today's podcast. So that's what you can expect.

I'll talk about some of the resolutions. I'll give some analysis, if there is any left to give, on the presidential situation there and who's expected to win and all that as we go through the podcast today.

And we will have someone, Lord willing, planning on having someone from the convention floor to give me kind of a firsthand account later today for all of you who couldn't be there at the convention, because let's face it, not many of you could.

Tony Evans, the SEND Conference, and the Lynching Joke

So we will start here today. This is from the SEND Conference, which was Sunday night and Monday for pastors, and I guess probably a lot of entity workers were there, probably many of them paid to be there.

It is a clip of Pastor Tony Evans, who's not a Southern Baptist, does believe critical race theory has some useful insights and things like that. So more on the progressive side, from what I understand.

And here is a joke he made, and the reaction to it is the reason I wanted to play this. This tells you, if you're in a convention with people who laugh at this kind of joke, would you laugh at this joke?

Ask yourself, would you laugh at this? This kind of a thing is funny. Let me play it for you.

So it's time now, lynching was over. You're done.

All right, very short clip, but you can hear the laughter from the audience. He makes a joke after someone asks him, why don't you run for the Southern Baptist Convention? And he says, well, I thought lynching was over.

The suggestion here is that Southern Baptists, they're really racist. I mean, look, he's talking at one of their conferences. This is the thing, he's an invited guest to speak. And then he insinuates that they're racist and he would be lynched if he was the president or something like that.

That's what would happen. That's incredibly, you would think at least being an invited guest somewhere and then insinuating that you're the kind of people that would murder someone because they're another color or something like that, that would be offensive.

You'd think that would be offensive. And I understand, everyone makes comments sometimes that are dumb in the moment, you don't think about them. Public speakers, when they speak all the time, they're especially susceptible to that.

I get all that. The laughter from the audience though is the thing I don't quite understand here. If you're a conservative in the convention and if you like your convention for the most part, or you think that it's doing good in the world and you wanna make it better and that kind of thing, this is who you're sharing the convention with.

I mean, these are the people who are committed because they're coming or they're paid to be there, I don't know, but they're coming to, it could be both, probably it is both. They're coming to a conference that is before the convention itself.

Not only are they probably a lot of messengers there, but people who have some kind of a tie or a commitment to the denomination. And a lot of them think this is funny. I'm sure not all of them did, but that's just a little sample of, these are the people that you're gonna be voting with tomorrow, today actually now, today.

So figured I would share that with you. Now let's talk about this story from yesterday, Baptist Press put out on Randy Adams' campaign, they call it tabloid. And I mean, listen to this headline. Adams publishes campaign tabloid, declines specifics of funding.

That is so slanted. The concern isn't what's in the quote unquote tabloid, what's in the newspaper, what it says, can it prove the assertions it makes, which it is backed up, but rather who's funding it?

That's the important question. Who's funding it? If you can get some kind of, this is here, I wanna talk about this. Put myself on the, here we go. You can see me now. This is the thing that gets me. The last week, two weeks really, has shown something that I think it really unmasks hypocrisy, and I haven't really heard anyone calling attention to it.

But a lot of the same people, and I could line them up, I could make a whole podcast on it, I don't think it's worth my time. But a lot of the same people who have spoken out against quote unquote discernment bloggers, or discernment ministries, et cetera, where they say you're just slandering people, you're just putting out unsubstantiated data out there, you're not actually talking to people, you're just trying to make people look bad, that's all you're trying to do.

We've seen that kind of tactic, that it's projection, that tactic has been used in actuality in the last two weeks. It's not even the quote unquote discernment people, whoever they are, who are doing that.

It's not the Protestia, and the Reformation Charlotte, and the Capstone people that are doing this, as much as it is the people on the left in the Southern Baptist Convention. You see what they've been doing to Mike Stone, and I see the same kind of thing towards Randy Adams.

I almost wanna ask them, did you go, did you do Matthew 18? That's what they always wanna say to people who talk about others in a way that's not the most flattering, and respond to public information in a public way, which is totally appropriate.

That's what Jesus even did with the Pharisees. You always gotta have a private powwow with them, because if you don't, you're not obeying the Bible, or something like that. But the last two weeks, we've seen that they don't actually believe that.

How many of them reached out to Mike Stone with any of the accusations that have been made against Mike Stone? It's jumping to conclusions. It's, I mean, I think of, was it Phillip Bethencourt, who's from the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, or was, put out all these recordings, and he said, I'm gonna be a whistleblower in the SBC.

Isn't this the very thing that people like Phillip Bethencourt have been arguing against for the past few years, is that these whistleblowers are all, these are bad people. They should be going to the people that they're making accusations of first.

And there's no reason to do this, it's just not Christian. That's the kind of, that's the flavor of the rhetoric. And now all of a sudden, it's flipped. They've all of a sudden all become, quote unquote, discernment bloggers.

All the progressives, right? Because they're sharing the information, even if they're not the source of it. So here's just, anyway, a little sample, this Baptist Press article on Randy Adams, quote unquote, tabloid.

So let's go through a little bit of it here. Nashville, SBC presidential candidate, Randy Adams, said he, along with others, he declined to name. That's the first sentence. We haven't even finished the first sentence.

People he declined to name combined to fund the publication and delivery of a tabloid-styled newspaper. SBC News was being distributed outside the Music City Center Sunday morning. The tabloid alleges dishonesty and corruption.

No, it actually proves dishonesty and corruption. It shows you where the evidence is. In keeping with the charges Adams has routinely made as part of his campaign platform. Adams, who is the executive director of the Northwest Baptist Convention, told Baptist Press the publication is a one-off for now, at least.

He said the tabloid's purpose was to help messengers understand why he is a candidate for SBC president, particularly related to issues of transparency, accountability, participation, and building partnerships.

Without providing specifics, Adams said no one from the Northwest Baptist Convention was involved in the project. This is just, okay, have we even gotten to whether any of what the magazine, the newspaper talks about is true?

No. And do we ever really get there? No, we don't. It's simply, all this is is an attempt to cast shade on the contents of it, because who knows who's funding it? They might have bad motivations. And that's the worst thing for Christians, someone who might have bad motivations, putting out information, and it's funded, it's a tabloid, you can't trust this thing.

That's the takeaway that people are gonna have when they read this. This isn't journalism. This isn't reporting what is actually happening. This isn't seeking to understand a situation. This is politicized.

This is someone in the can already for a particular candidate or agenda, or they're against Randy Adams or against the transparency message, putting their spin on it. So Randy Adams is dealing with this.

Someone else obviously dealing with a lot of backlash is Mike Stone. Normally I would go collect all the tweets and everything about this. There's actually a lot of them, but I think actually Protestia did a lot of that work for me and I saw these before seeing the article, but I like the organization they have of it.

So here's the story. I'll just read for you some tweets. Here's someone who I guess is at the convention. Moments ago, Pastor Mike Stone told Freedom's Bride, which is her Twitter handle, just outside the convention hall that she was doing harm to the denomination.

As she walked away in tears, pastors and messengers came up to shake his hand and wish him luck tomorrow. When I tried to talk to Stone, he took his wife by the arm saying he couldn't talk. Let's see here.

He needs a private booking to do interviews. I saw her a few moments ago, someone else says. Can confirm, she was left crying in the hallway of the SBC 21. Messengers came around to comfort her, waiting to hear back from Pastor Mike Stone.

Griffin Gooledge, I spoke with five messengers who were there and saw her burst into tears and spoke with having, anyway. It's all the same thing. Let me see here. He missed the interaction, didn't see it.

Okay, the name of this individual is Hannah Kate, and the charge is that Tom Askel, here's the picture just so people can see. Charge is that Tom Askel was talking to her. There's Hannah with the green, I guess that's a identifying necklace, and then blonde hair, and she's talking to Mike Stone.

And her story is that she was going and submitting a, I don't know if it was a resolution or a floor motion or just a recommendation, but it was some kind of paper to people at the SBC to raise awareness about sexual abuse and then to ask for specific action.

And I did read it. I don't think it's included in this article. It's kind of unreasonable. A lot of the things in it, it's kind of like making the SBC work in a way that the SBC is not really, not all of it necessarily, but it wants further investigation and stuff like that.

So anyway, I don't know what the interaction was. I don't know the specifics of everything, and I don't know that anyone even commenting on it on Twitter does, but this is what Pastor Mike Stone said about the whole thing.

"'Tonight as my wife and I walked through the convention "'hall at the SBC annual meeting, "'I was greeted by a sexual abuse survivor "'whom I had never met. "'A reporter stood nearby as she gave me a flyer "'and we engaged in a brief conversation.

"'Others were present in this crowded area, "'including my wife and several other pastors "'and their wives. "'Each has corroborated that it was a polite conversation. "'At no time was I unkind. "'I cannot speak to what happened after I left the area, "'but any other characterization of my conversation "'is false.'".

Here's Hannah Kate. "'I know you guys don't like my church two shirt, "'but pastor's calling me a whore "'as you walk by wearing your messenger tags "'doesn't really send the message that you love. "'Also, Derek, Delane, and Mike George's "'are my security team, so there's that.'".

I know she had also said that, you know, the last thing she said to Tom Askel was, "'I forgive you when God forgives you.'". Not Tom Askel, I'm sorry, Mike Stone. Did I say Tom Askel? Mike Stone. We're about to talk about Tom Askel, so that's why I said that.

Anyway, this is the charge that's being leveled. And I'll show you this. Here's, let's see here. Close that. Here's, so this is just a little bit. I don't know a lot about her. I poked around her Twitter for a little bit last night just to see if I could find any more.

Where's she coming from? What's the angle here as far as like what her motive is and everything? And I think, I mean, I'll take her out of her word that she was abused and she wants to raise awareness and she wants to, who wants the SBC to do something.

I guess it was her dad or her pastor or someone in the SBC who had, I guess, raped her, it sounds like, and then paid for an abortion. And she claims or promoted that somehow, encouraged it. And she says somehow this person is out protesting abortion outside the convention.

That's what her claim is. I have a hard time believing some of the things she says. Like for instance, people were calling her whores. Really? There's people that caustic at the SBC convention. They're just going up to a stranger and calling her a whore.

This sounds like an unstable person. I just don't, I would be shocked to find that out if that was publicly going on. Here's just a few things though that might suggest there could be a political angle to some of this.

Hannah Kate from her Twitter, women who have had abortions are not murderers. All life is precious, including the life of the mother. I am not a murderer. I won't be the abusers. It won't be the abusers who pushed me out of evangelical culture.

It will have been all of the self-righteous critics who still think they aren't a part of it. So she thinks about abortion, what she thinks about evangelical culture. Why I don't identify as a bisexual, a threat.

I'm Hannah Kate. I'm a follower of Christ. I'm attracted to males and females. I've been since around 11. And look, this is hard. This is hard. I know a lot of people who go through abuse situations end up getting confused on sexuality and stuff.

And it's tragic. It really is. Here's what she says though. I grew up in a very anti-LGBTQ community. I didn't get out of that community until this past year. I'm still unlearning. That's the word she uses.

A lot of the dangerous practices associated with the hate-driven ideology that I was taught. Things like gays are evil. Homosexuality separates you from God. Those are just things. I mean, the Bible teaches that homosexuality is a sin.

That there, I mean, it says that a lot more than just homosexuals. It says no thief, no adulterer, no liar. We'll enter the heaven. I mean, it's, these are just biblical things that she's rejecting here.

And she's rejected. So I want you to see this. Rejecting evangelical culture, that it's abusive, fundamentally abusive. Even those who didn't abuse her, they're part of it. So they're part of the abuse.

But the LGBT community, well, you know what? That, not so much. That's fine. There's good things about that, I guess. It's not fundamentally abusive. She also says, looks like I'm voting for Biden. Still wishing it was Andrew Yang in the race.

Andrew Yang is so radical. It's just her political bend is very, you can see radical as well. It baffles me how upset we as Christians get when someone who's been hurt by evangelical culture. See, it's not even the people who hurt her or the person who hurt her.

It's evangelical culture. That's the problem. Starts bad-mouthing it. As if the one wounded is a threat to the gospel. As if the victim owes the offender an explanation of their frustration. Where's the call for repentance?

So what is the expectation here? Again, it's, this is the social justice side of the Me Too stuff that there's really, there isn't really any forgiveness ever. There's nothing you can do. As many people have come to her, even Mike Stone, and said how sorry they are for her situation.

It doesn't matter. It's evangelical culture has a stain. It won't ever go away. It's just who the evangelicals are fundamentally. And that if you say that, look, you're going a little over the top blaming all of us, you don't care about abuse survivors.

You don't care. It's weaponized. And so here's, I just wanna show you this. And maybe by the time I post this, it'll be published. Jordan Hall with Protestia put this out. Two things. I'll read the first one.

It's not as, well, I'll read the one related to what we're talking about. And then we'll go to the one that's a little unrelated. Protestia has received firsthand testimony on record that the woman who ambushed Pastor Mike Stone was seen with an Albert Mueller and SBTS employee talking privately prior to the incident pointing toward Stone.

It was coordinated. We will report the details tomorrow. So those details I'm assuming are out there somewhere. I'm not sure. This is just what's publicly out there. And so people yesterday were concerned that I was repeating hearsay and stuff.

This is, again, we filmed a webcast tonight, also from Jordan Hall, with witnesses of J .D. Greer calling police on a preacher who politely asked him in a public place to repent of bad theology. Yes, the police also thought Greer was a crybaby.

It'll be out tomorrow. So both of these things are supposed to be out sometime this morning. And I'm recording this as the morning is coming to an end. So I'm assuming they are out there now, or they will be soon.

And you can go check them out. Now, look, I'm not the one that saw any of this. I'm just reporting to you what's out there and what people are saying. And whether or not you think Jordan Hall might exaggerate or put spins on things or whatever, it is not like him, and I'll just say this personally, it is not like him, and it's not like Protestia to just make something up out of thin air.

I don't think I've ever seen that. They'll put commentary in their articles, analyzing things, but usually there's a source somewhere. In fact, almost every time there is a source somewhere that you can go look at.

And maybe you won't agree with their commentary, but you will with the kernel of truth behind it all is there is some kind of fact that the commentary is based on. And so I do view this as there's something credible to both of these.

I just don't know what the details are. So that will come out, I suppose, at some point. Now, I want to give you some more about this. So this young lady showed up at the convention this morning during a motion, and I wanna play it for you.

Here is the motion. Go ahead.

Grant Gaines, messenger from Bel Air Baptist Church in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. In light of recent allegations made against the Executive Committee of Mishandling Sexual Abuse Cases, I stand with SBC Church abuse survivors, and right now I'm standing beside one such SBC Church abuse survivor.

And I move that the Southern Baptist Convention, meeting June 15th to 16th, 2021 in Nashville, Tennessee, ask the newly elected president of the SBC to appoint a task force within 30 days of the date of this convention that shall be comprised of members of Baptist churches cooperating with this convention and experts in sexual abuse and the handling of sexual abuse-related dynamics.

This task force shall either assume oversight of the third-party review announced previously by the Executive Committee or initiate a separate third-party review. Said task force shall ensure that the third-party review includes an investigation into any allegations of abuse, mishandling of abuse, mistreatment of victims, a pattern of intimidation of victims or advocates, and resistance to sexual abuse reform initiatives.

The investigation shall include actions and decisions of staff and members of the Executive Committee from January 1st, 2000 to June 14th, 2021. This investigation should include an audit of the procedures and actions taken by the Credentials Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, which was formed at the convention meeting in Birmingham, Alabama, June 11th and 12th, 2019.

The review shall be funded by allocations from the cooperative program. We further move that the task force agree that the accepted best standards and practices as recommended by the commission third party, including but not limited to the Executive Committee staff and members waiving attorney-client privilege in order to ensure full access to information and accuracy in the review.

A written report of the factual findings of this review shall be presented to the task force 30 days prior to the SBC annual meeting in 2022 and made public in full form within one week of the task force receipt of the report, along with suggestions from the task force for actions to be taken by our convention.

Quite frankly, SBC messengers and especially SBC abuse survivors deserve to know the truth.

Again, we'll assume that this constitutes as a second. Make sure you have filed your motion. Thank you.

Now I want you to listen to that applause. It's significant. And this is one of the things that I think I might have misjudged a little bit. I thought the inflated numbers for the convention meant a lot of angry conservatives showed up and I think they did.

But if you're looking at what's happening right now in the convention hall, there's a lot of progressives, I think probably out there as well. And it's really a brilliant move in a way that the progressives, or what do you even call them?

The social justice advocates. They have chosen instead of critical race theory, because the new conservatives were gonna go after that. Instead, they turned the tables two weeks beforehand. This was an organized strategy, guys.

I'm convinced of that. And they chose the abuse issue for their issue. And they have done everything within their power to make it look organic and to use victims, their stories to promote their political agenda.

And they've done so absolutely brilliantly, I have to say. The progressives have, the social justice advocates have done a very, very good job with this. And conservatives, they just don't think the same way.

For instance, a conservative doesn't come to make a motion about critical race theory and have someone next to them who was beaten up because they were white, or lost their job, or was canceled because of their view on social justice.

They don't have their victims. And this is one of the weaknesses in a way of just the world we live in of optics and image. Conservatives are still in a world of logic and reason. Many of them, they think that that should carry the day.

And it doesn't anymore, unfortunately. And that's a sign of our culture going downhill. But the progressives make sure to have abuse victims next to them. In this case, this young lady is crying as she's hearing this.

She was not the only one, though. There was another motion given, and let me play that one for you.

Thank you, Dr. Greer. I too stand with a survivor, and it's my privilege to make this motion on behalf of SBC survivors. Todd Benkert, messenger from Oak Creek Community Church in Mishawaka, Indiana. I move to request the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission to hire an outside organization to oversee an audit and assessment of sexual abuse within the SBC.

The organization shall be authorized to receive and assess over the next three years both reports of sexual abuse, allegations of mishandling abuse from voluntarily participating churches, victims, and witnesses.

Because participation in the assessment is strictly voluntary, the assessment will not be exhaustive, but rather aim to provide broad-spectrum data and analysis on rates of abuse, allegations, mishandling of abuse, allegations, and patterns related to said allegations.

I further move that we ask the ERLC to include the organization's preliminary findings in their 2022 and 2023 annual reports and submit a final report, including the organization's recommendations for our churches, entities, and denominational structures for the 2024 annual meeting.

Is there a second?

Second! Please file your motion. Now, contrast this with the way the conservatives have presented their case against critical race theory, because that's what they came there prepared to do. And see if, compare the energy in the crowd, compare just the emotional appeal that their motions have.

My name's Tom Askell. I'm the pastor of Grace Baptist Church, Cape Coral, Florida, a messenger from there. Pursuant to the provision made in Robert's Rules of Order, newly revised sections 35 .1 and 35 .2, I move that this convention rescind Resolution 9 that was adopted in the waning moments of the 2019 convention in Birmingham, Alabama.

I will assume that constitutes as a second, and so you can bring it here to the front if you haven't already done so.

It's been sent in electronically, thank you. 9B, a motion.

My name is Jared Longshore. I'm a pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Cape Coral, Florida. In light of private correspondence of the immediate past president of the ERLC, purportedly leaked by a third party in which he speaks of wickedness committed in his presence behind closed doors involving gutter-level racism, mishandling sexual abuse, mistreatment of sexual abuse victims, a pattern of intimidation, and resistance to sexual abuse reform initiatives, I move that the messengers ask the newly elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention to appoint a task force to select a Christian third party made up of SVC pastors to investigate the ERLC staff and board regarding their involvement in the past president's alleged concealment of grievous sin and his handling of the same.

I further move that such an investigation include all current and former staff and board activities and confidential ERLC records back to 2018, and that the task force report back to our convention at our next annual meeting with the findings of the investigation, as well as any recommendations for actions to be taken by our convention.

Thank you, Jared. Is there a second?

Please file your motion. From Salem Baptist Church, Mannequin Sabbath, Virginia, a motion related to critical race theory, whereas government entities, states, counties, and school boards across America are trying to force critical race theory on our society, whereas critical race theory is not a Christian idea, but comes out of radical Marxism, whereas critical race theory is out to destroy Christianity in this nation, whereas the tenets of critical race theory focus on putting man above God.

Therefore, be it resolved that the SPC and Nashville stand against critical race theory, and be it further resolved that these, the SPC direct LifeWay Christian Resources to provide and publish materials to teach our churches about the dangers of critical race theory, and be it further resolved that the SPC directs our six seminaries to teach about the dangers of critical race theory, and that the ERLC also provide and publish materials that give Christians true information about the dangers of critical race theory.

Thank you, sir.

Again, the chair recognizes the response as a second. Make sure you filed your motion. My name is Brian King, messenger from Harvest Community Church in Eugene, Oregon. On Thursday, June 17th, 2021, the nine US Supreme Court justices will be in conference to consider NAM's petition to SCOTUS in the case with Dr. Will McCraney.

Given the recent court filings of NAM and the ERLC over the relationships between the SPC and its entities and other Baptist bodies, I move that the SPC, as soon as it is possible, investigate the legal claims presented in the NAM and ERLC court filings in the US Supreme Court and other federal courts to determine if NAM and or ERLC legal claims or statements conflict with the governing documents of the SPC and or the historical relationships between the SPC, SPC entities and other Baptist bodies, namely autonomous state Baptist conventions, autonomous Baptist associations and autonomous local churches.

Thank you. Thank you, brother. Is there a second?

Please file your motion. Look at the difference between these and it could just compare the ones about abuse with the ones about critical race theory and then the issue with NAM and the ERLC filing briefs to essentially override the way that the convention itself functions by claiming that they are the top of a hierarchy, essentially.

These are conservative motions. One's about localism and keeping the convention local and accountable. The other ones are against critical race theory and then investigating the ERLC. And you can see that, and the men who brought those, I mean, I'm grateful for them.

I'm grateful that they brought those resolutions, but you can see the way that the progressives on their issues use just emotional, I wanna say manipulation almost, but they really do make it a whole big show.