SBC Update: Clint Pressley New SBC President, ERLC Motion Fails, Law Amendment Fails

All right, we're live now on the conversations that matter podcast. I'm your host John Harris.

It is a wonderful summer day And I'm assuming it's a wonderful summer day in Tennessee.

I'm in New York right now, but I have two guests with me from Tennessee I'm not talking about the

Southern Baptist Convention guys. I'm talking about the weather. I hope that's true. You at least have that right? Sure.

Yeah, sure. Okay Trying to start on a positive note you're not helping me.

I know it is Discouraging day and I want to get both of you to kind of give your input on this

We have Jeff Wright who is the pastor at Midway Baptist Church? He was just at the

Southern Baptist Convention over the last three days. We have David Morrill who? Writes for protest

TIA and you can check out protest TIA comm if you want more info. Well, thanks guys

I know your time is valuable. I appreciate you joining me and we being willing to discuss this I thought maybe what we would do is play some of the clips and Then have you guys explain what happened today?

Because I know there's a lot of confusion out there with what did and didn't happen. I was even confused about some things

I thought at first that the law amendment had passed when I saw the results and then I didn't realize it took two -thirds so Let's start here with you

David. You made a motion from the floor and I'll let you explain Or you wanted I don't even know if that's the right word you you wanted to correct

Or edit a motion that you had made. So here's what you said Colorado I wanted to speak against my previous motion being ruled out of order on the basis that it was

Getting funds from the cooperative program because it's my understanding So there's not a motion on the floor

So you can't really speak against something if what you're trying to do is raise a point of order

Or if what you're trying to do, I'm sorry is to appeal the decision of the chair Yes, you may you can do that Okay, is that what you'd like to do?

Well, I'm just trying to figure out why Yes, that's what I'm trying to do. Okay, very good

All right. So state your appeal and what you're what you're gonna need to do here in stating your appeal is state why?

My ruling that it was out of order is wrong. Okay? yeah, I suppose

I would say it's out of order because the Original commissioning of the sex abuse task force in 2021 allocated cooperative program funds

For that task force. So I'm not sure why my task force seeking financial accountability cannot also allocate cooperative program funds

It seems like it's not a not an even standard at this point Let's give a head a little bit your patient Let's see here

Okay, so I'm not gonna play the rest of it just because I think that's the gist of it Anyway, long story short the vote happened and you lost that vote.

What were you trying to do there David? Well, so that the day before yesterday I had had presented a motion basically to to commission a task force very similar to the sex abuse task force that they commissioned in 2021, but to Investigate how over the last few years all that process went down Because I mean and and I know both of you have done research and investigation into this and we've chronicled it over the last

Few years and and seeing that a lot of the narrative behind why all this started as far as this Yeah, what

I what I like to call the SBC's sex abuse adventure at this point How well it started how it went how the financial accountability is was sort of lost

Justice was lost. So I wanted to commission a task force to investigate that and also to investigate

Rachel den hollander's involvement in all of it because I think that she was a big part of why there was a lot of guilt and pressure and confusion among Forwarded that motion to the executive committee yesterday and then apparently

Bart Barber decided it was out of order because I had mentioned at the end of the resolution that CP allocation would would basically fund this task force and I copied and pasted that language directly from the 2021 motion that Grant Gaines offered to start us on this whole

Sex abuse task force adventure thinking. Okay, you know, I'll do the same thing. Yeah, if it works for him, it should work for me and apparently

Bart thought otherwise Jeff is that because I kept seeing this throughout the convention as I watched it was

Bart a bad parliamentarian Bart's not a bad parliamentarian.

He's a biased parliamentarian. He knows the rules he knows the language and You know,

I don't want it I don't feel a burden to be nice to Bart Bart does a fairly good job running the meeting

But he clearly runs it with a bit and David's bent cuts against popular fashions

And so it's out of order despite what language you may you know use it's been successful in the past Okay, so We have a situation where there's different weights and measures being applied and what worked for Someone on the left is not working for you

And and that's sad because that would have been a really good thing And and I think just to set the tone for everyone

I know I said it's a nice day and I tried to be nice and everything But there's you're gonna go through a series of defeats for conservatives.

That's really there's really no other way to put it. This was Not good for conservatives this year in fact worse than I even thought it would go and I thought it wasn't gonna go too well, so We're gonna go through it and then at the end

I'll ask you guys if David you're still with us because I know you got to catch a flight just you know What do you think should be the response like going forward so you can think about that's we're going

All right. Next. Let's see. I don't want to listen to Bart anymore Let's let's talk about this.

This is Albert Mueller and he is Responding what was he before I play the clip?

What was he responding to exactly? It was there is something against him and a few other people about sexual abuse, right?

There's something I made a motion Someone had made a motion the prior day to censure

Bart Barber Al Mueller and I believe life way maybe the lifeway president to the organization or something

Because of their support for the amicus brief That that the

SPC signed on to with relation to the And Jeff correct me if I'm wrong about this.

You might know a little closer than me, but to the The SPC had signed on basically to an amicus brief indicating their

Disagreement with extending the statute of limitations for second like third party third parties to sex abuse lawsuits and So the

SPC I would have argued was being fine fiscally responsible to do that I thought it was the right decision and I thought

Bart supporting it was actually the right decision But of course he caved as soon as public pressure changed he caved and apologized for it and all of this so that so, you know

Somebody somebody wanted another pound of flesh from these guys over it, right? Well, if I can jump in John, so it was kind of an interesting

Example of how the parliamentary bias works in SPC and That you have operatives involved

So the original censure which is part of a very unique clause in the

SPC bylaws it you won't find it in any other entities organizing documents the original censure was aimed at Bart Al and Mandrell who's the head of lifeway?

It was brought out of committee Stunningly because for years and years attending this they will not bring anything out that names specific names

They brought this out and it you know, it immediately lifts your eyebrow. What's going on here? well, as soon as we got in the room today, there was an immediate move to exclude

Bart Barber and why that matters is He did what David said he caved and he did what the fashions of the moment want

So really what this was to do was to isolate Al Mohler To put him through a public struggle session

Al cares very much about his legacy About how he's perceived in the annals of Southern Baptist history and this was an attempt to penalize him for daring to break with the the fashionable winds of the abuse witch hunt and Subject him to public shame and so it went on and then

Al got up to say what David said Basically, this was in the best interest of Southern Baptists.

Well, let me play that for everyone and Jeff I don't know. You might want to just check your connection there. I'm not sure what's going on with your mic

Here's Al Mohler on the floor Meeting by meeting

I am here with Keith Daniel who is the chairman of the Board of Trustees and also with Josh Powell immediate past chairman of the

Board of Trustees the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has nothing to hide and I'm trying to think about how we can serve

Southern Baptists best in this very moment I think one thing you need to know is that presidents of your institutions are not the lawyers for your

Institutions and that's for good reason We have lawyers as general counsel hired by the

Board of Trustees They make legal decisions the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and serving

Southern Baptists has avoided scandal by following the advice of auditors accountants and attorneys and not violating that advice

We have the responsibility to act righteously and to act in ways that are consistent with the

Southern Baptist Convention We too stand for the cause of defending the defenseless and we believe the best way to do that is through the proper application of the rule of law our

Board of Trustees hires the attorneys the attorneys on behalf of the

Institution plot and they undertake legal strategy. They represent us

You do not want the presidents of your institutions Flouting the advice of the general counsel that your boards of trustees hire

That's what you want us to do Otherwise chaos will ensue

We have nothing to hide. We have acted righteously in this situation in the case at hand

Here the Supreme Court of the Commonwealth of Kentucky said that the issue had not only been wrongly decided but was unconstitutional we believe that justice and righteousness will come by the proper application of the rule of law and So I just want to tell you that I'm pleased to answer as president of the

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary to board chairman behind me This is our plea

Hold your institutions Accountable, but to following the very rules we are given

Thank you, miss Okay, so two questions David first of all did the

Southern Baptist Convention follow Al Mueller's advice there or did they censure him and then secondly He's referring to a case.

I think I covered it in Kentucky I can't remember all the specifics of it, but that must be the amicus brief that we're talking about here

Yeah, they They they didn't censure him but not because Not because they voted against a censure but because they ruled the motion to censure out of order so originally the

Bart or whoever had ruled that the motion was in order and it was going to go to the floor for a debate and discussion, but then they allowed the messengers to Overrule that and the messengers overruled the motion being in order which meant the motion was out of order which meant it never came to a censure

Okay, is that a little bit of a victory I suppose I don't know yeah,

I thought so I Thought so, but but Bart came out smelling like a rose to be honest because because Bart was able to both

Get credit for allowing a motion to censure him To get to the floor to be debated by the messengers and then have the messengers say no, that's okay

Bart You know you we respect that we and we didn't have to vote on whether to censure him or not now

I don't know about Jeff, but I disagreed with the entire thing. I didn't think Bart should have been censured at all

I think he actually did the right thing. I think apologizing for it was the wrong thing I think you know caving to the to the pressure of the zeitgeist was the wrong thing and that's

Following the law and doing what he was supposed to do in protecting the Southern Baptist Conventions, you know financial

You know assets and the giving of the churches was the right thing to do Yeah, that's my exact same read.

Yeah, that's perfectly right and what Al said even in that clip I know we've all got gripes with Al but the chaos that he talked about is exactly what this investigation has produced

He's right and you can see the the double standard there, right? So If you don't call the cops on a sex abuse claim

You're you know, you're a violent abuse cover -up, right? But if you do things right legally and they still don't like you well, that was the wrong move

How dare you follow the law, right? We have a higher standard to me It's an impossible burden of expectation

But that's what the winds of the fashions of the SPC are currently insisting on. Well, and that's what

Good. I was gonna say that's what the the lifeway present he he actually argued that the reason that the messenger should reject the censure is because The person that brought the motion never went to him privately he actually pulled the

Matthew 18 card yes, I Didn't play it, but we can't play everything

I just I think it's rich that Al Mueller's the one that's going through this given that he's the one who?

Validated the Houston Chronicle story when it first came out. He's the one that Legitimized Jennifer Lyle's story said it was abuse.

David Sills is an abuser. These are the early and the first Penetrations of me too into the

Southern Baptist Convention molar was leading the charge and now he's upset about where this went and I just Find that rich.

So, all right, let's go to the next clip See what we got here

I think this might be oh no, this is an important one. Okay, this is Tom Askell Talking about the

ERLC and disbanding it which was a great motion to bring up Let's just disband the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.

I'm a school Grace Baptist Church, Cape Coral, Florida Bylaw 25 is called in part abolishing entities and instructs messengers how to do this by stating quote

No entity shall be discontinued without a majority vote at two successive annual sessions in the of the convention

Obviously this bylaw anticipates that there may be times when the SPC entities will need to be discontinued

Such a time has come for the last eight years The ERLC has become increasingly distant from the values and concerns of the churches that finance it

I along with countless other pastors have voiced our concerns to executive trustees and trustees over positions actions and inactions of the

ERLC on August 1 2018 I was appalled when the

ERLC produced and released a professional video Arguing that animal rights is a pro -life issue

Though the video was finally taken down. I'm left to wonder why was

Cooperative Program money ever used to produce such a video Many of us have pled with the

ERLC to work for legislation that grants pre -born children Equal protection under the law, but they refused to do so in 2021 messengers voted a resolution that says quote as Southern Baptists We will engage with God's help in establishing equal justice and protection for the pre -born

According to the authority of God's Word as well as local and federal laws

Yet one year later the president of the ERLC Issued an open letter to state lawmakers in which he and others stated that they represent quote

Tens of millions of pro -life men women and children across the country and they went on to say let us be clear

We state unequivocally that we do not support any measures seeking to criminalize or punish women

And we stand firmly opposed to include such penalties in Legislation that letter killed the bill in Louisiana Which would have been the first law in the

United States to completely outlaw abortion It's time for us to call the

ERLC to become accountable to the churches who pay for it by law 25 Wisely does not allow for the discontinuation of any entity with just one vote

It takes two positive votes for two successive years Adopting this motion today will not eliminate the

ERLC today But it will send a clear message that the churches of the SPC are deeply concerned about their mission drift

We're often told by our leaders that the local church is a headquarters of the SPC It's time that the

ERLC hears from headquarters a positive vote will give them one full year to make a course correction

Please support this vote Okay, no, that was long we're gonna play though a little bit of Brent Leatherwood's response and so we can contrast this is the response from the

ERLC Can you please state your name your church and your point of order

Thank You. Mr. President. My name is Brent Leatherwood I am a messenger from Brentwood Baptist Church in Brentwood, Tennessee And I am a deacon of that church and that means

I am called to serve. Dr. Leatherwood also You're gonna be able to continue to speak

But let me explain why because everybody's watched me recognize you and ask what your point of order is Actually, the urgent request button was pushed because under article 12

He has a privileged place to be able to reply and respond to this motion I'm sorry that I interrupted you to do that, but I just wanted to help everybody understand

Thank you. Thank you. Mr. President so as I was saying I View myself as a servant and I bring that servant heart

To the other role that I occupy which is president of your ethics and religious

Liberty Commission And we read in Proverbs that a gentle answer turns away wrath

That is certainly my prayer For what? I'm about to respond to I hope that my response comports to that the history of this 100 year old

Commission has always found it at the leading edge of issues sometimes speaking for our churches sometimes speaking with our churches

Examples such as civil rights the sanctity of life the protection of conscience

Responding to abuse in the church now our brother likes to bring up an issue from a different era

Well before I was president of this organization back in 2018 Look, that's from a different time

That video was taken down nearly immediately because the organization realized it had made a mistake

And so none of us is perfect, but we did take that down and we accepted responsibility for it

But in all that this organization strives to do it strives to be faithful to scripture

Faithful to what the Lord calls us to do faithful to serve our churches And we are in a great hour of need in our culture and in our convention

Division and anger are plentiful Voices are wanting to tear down with false

Assertions and half -truths that are everywhere to eliminate an entity whose voice is needed

Now as much as ever Would be the wrong move

No, this Commission speaks truth With a capital

T and That and the grace that it also speaks with Is exactly what is needed now,

I would ask this body to reject this motion Okay, I can't take anymore.

I got to stop it. All right, I'm gonna let Jeff and then we'll go to David Responds to that because I know that the vote came and Tom Askel did not

He was not able to Get his motion passed Yeah, so Brent's just a liar.

He just lies whenever he opens his mouth. So There were two items that Tom cited one was that stupid, you know animals pro -life video.

The other was the more infinitely more atrocious Killing of the abortion bill

Brent was on staff at the ERLC at the time that the ERLC produced that video

That video came down and was left up for a long time, but it did come down when people online

Held them accountable and so there was no immediate takedown They had to wait for a roar to come from social media to take that down We're in his hands in that he you know, he's

Russell Moore runs the ERLC through Through Leatherwood by wire anytime he wants to there you know their hand in glove and he never touched the atrocious assault on human life that he was the author of as the head of the

Of the ERLC and then you know what we didn't get to see there is Tom did respond Brent went on to impugn

Tom's Character attribute political motivations to him, you know, we hear so much about the hateful rhetoric that comes from online voices

When our entity has get any opportunity to speak where they can't be spoken back to They're the most vicious people in the world and thankfully

Tom had a chance to highlight that for the messengers and say hey Look what he's doing here

I've been in the room now for a lot of moves to do something about ending the ERLC and so it failed again but it fails by a smaller margin every time and You know,

I don't know what kind of snowball effect the the convention will have this year more more conservative churches leave every year

But if enough hang around Brent's gonna report you. So it's just a matter of time

Yeah, David it's I It's it's true.

Although we can't we can't ever see it when it happens The word gets out the we can't forget that the messengers that are there

And this is I would argue the further that it gets away from the south the more than this happens

But the messengers that are there tilts towards those who are institutionally invested their lifeway

Employees their NAM employees. They're the people that have a financial very personal and financial stake in The size and influence and resources of the convention and the word gets around about who the troublemakers are so they know

Founders ministry and Tom Askew and they know Instinctively if he's standing up to do something.

It's probably something they're supposed to oppose and Or if Jeff stands up there or now if I stand up there

They're here we're all put in that same sort of bucket of conservative deplorables with a lot of the messengers and that's not to say that there

Aren't conservatives on the floor and people that I mean we can see But by still the majority that wanted to ratify the law amendment even though it didn't get quite there

I guess we'll talk about that a bit but We can see there are conservatives on the floor but there's also just a big there's so much institutional weight in not changing anything and The more that we debate and the more that we argue and the more contentious stuff gets people have a pretty especially regular folks

They have a really limited Appetite for that and the platform knows it they know if they if they muck things up and they can get it to be a lot of hemming and hawing and Divisiveness and that it always favors the status quo.

I don't favor is not changing something Gotcha Jeff you had something more.

Yeah, just real quick I'm assuming your audience is pretty well informed on this John But what happens with the annual meeting is that for a lot of the attendees?

This is a paid vacation by their churches. And so they have no interest whatsoever in doing what we've actually come to do they want to get out of any business session as quickly as possible and get to a

Triple -a ballgame or you know, they're the restaurant. They've got reservations at go see sites. I sit behind multiple

Men and their wives and listen to multiple wives say oh, why are we doing this? Why can't we wrap this up? This is exhausting and It ends up just like David said this tremendous inertia against actually doing anything meaningful

I honestly don't know how to fix it because churches just send these people thinking they're here to do something serious

And that's just not what's happening All right. Well on that note, let's go to the next item here on the agenda, so I'm gonna skip past the votes and I Think let's see

Okay, so this I won't play the video for but just another negative thing

Michael Clary And Brad Groves, I don't know if either of you want to talk to this

But Brad Groves beat Michael Clary for the SPC first vice president Michael Clary was the conservative as I understand it

Brad Groves Graves, sorry was not and so not only did the presidency go to someone who is more

We'll say progressive than we would like but also the vice president is anything to say on this You've read it correctly, okay.

Yeah. All right Let's go to the next item. Then we got our this I got to play the clip So there's more that could be said than then just one clip

But let me play this kind of representative clip from Dean and Sarah's convention sermon

We're all just looking at our phones and we hear this voice behind us It's the gate agent coming through and they're saying step to the left, please

Step to the left, please Step to the left, please And as we're looking at our phones all of us not even thinking about I don't even saw the person we just went like this

All of us and step to the left of the person went right past us Messengers and guests this morning the world wants us to step to the theological left

And we must always be cautious Southern Baptist that it will never happen on our watch

It is such a temptation Perhaps the sin that so easily entangles us in this era of Southern Baptist history is being so concerned about what others think about us especially online a

Side Street warning to us is not to become enamored by what Joe Rigney calls the progressive gaze

With this figurative progressive that for some reason we want so badly To see us is either cool or accepting or on the right side of history or not too conservative

Or definitely not one of those kind of Christians that Twitter and podcast tell us about lingers on our shoulder

And we can so easily just step to the left as we stare at our phones to appease and press and get a thumbs

Up just for the moment Do they think I'm too conservative? Do they see me as in the middle third way enough?

There are other things you may sweat such as making sure you're not seen as a liberal by SBC hobby watchdog

Twitter The answer to this is not to move to an extra biblical, right?

But rather to stay on the faithful road of following Jesus fixing our eyes on him and submitting ourselves under the authority of his word

It is so easy to get entangled and start running down a side street chasing clout rather than chasing

Christ Okay We'll stop there then and I'll get your reactions.

So Jeff you want to go first and then David Yeah, I mean, I know

Dean. I've known Dean for a long time Dean that right there was a giant gaslight Dean is the theological left and he appropriates the language of the people that he thinks are on the right like Joe Rigney to Just advance the killer ism.

He was ostensibly decrying. That's third way ism right there He's trying to marshal Joe Rigney as an authority on his side

And by the way, Joe Rigney today went out of his way online to make sure that everybody knew Dean was his buddy

This is the same kind of hijinks and and Dean by preaching that sermon Dean was being signaled as Dean is in the on -deck box to be the next

SPC president He's a JD Greer kind of clone clone of a clone He's everything that he's you know

Ostensibly saying he's not right there and what he what he wants to do is trick the messengers and be oh

This is the faithful guy walking the road Down the middle of ditches when he's the boy saying step left step left step left as far as specifics go on Dean I remember he was the guy one of the guys who was really covering for Adam Greenway when enemies within the church

You know Premiered and Adam Greenway attacked enemies within the church Dean and Sarah was right there saying how faithful Adam Greenway was

I wonder though and I can't remember because I was surprised when I saw this to like what are some other examples because I'm like I know that guy's more on the left because I know even in years past.

I know I've tangled with them I know others 80 Robles has tangled with them quite a bit on things and And I was surprised to hear him kind of do what you just said

Jeff So what makes you say he's on the left more oh, he's a thoroughgoing company, man

He'll never take a position that's contrary to the SPC elites. That's one thing

He's been in bed with them since the first time I met him out on Russell Moore's ERLC. I mean recently

Jared Moore's been laying him out for his position on homosexuality You know, it's the classic.

Oh, it's not really a sin to want to sodomize someone. It's just if you act on it You know anytime you scratch

Dean blue liberalism rolls out but you know above all he's fundamentally committed to using the

Entities of the SPC to climb his career ladder and that's always going to involve him compromising toward the fashions of the world

David what do you say? No, I agree with Jeff it's a

Lot of these guys they end up what doing what we call being website Orthodox Where so they like Dean can get up in this sermon and basically for half the sermon

Plant the generic seed of we're gonna follow Christ and not follow the world follow Christ all the way He's not getting specific yet.

He's just getting the framework out there. He's building this empty shell Of moral imperative for the messengers to say well, of course you all want to follow

Christ, right? You know, you know, you don't want to follow the world You want to follow Christ, but he hasn't put any meaning into it yet That comes later after the the crowd of it you know the messengers in this case or the

Congregation for instance is invested and they say of course we want to follow Christ Then he starts to describe what that is.

And by the time he's describing what it is They're already invested and this is a typical a typical

Bait -and -switch kind of a technique but in Dean's case Jeff's right. He has been on the record multiple times

Jared Moore has approached this and other I think I mean, I'm sure protesting we've talked about it at some point Basically supporting side

B SSA, you know LGBTQ you know Capitulated Christianity that kind of a thing.

He's he's he's in there So it wasn't surprising to me to hear him say things that conservatives would be like, yeah, that's pretty good

But he you know Then he slips that little poison like I don't know what he meant for instance by the the overreacted right or so however, he said it like don't go too far to the right and you're

In your attempt not to be left, I'm not sure what he meant by that Yeah, of course not couldn't be yeah all right, let's see what else we got here and What was this?

I'm trying to remember what this oh this let's see here And I for some reason

I captured this. I thought it was significant. Oh, this is the law amendment stuff All right.

So let's just play this real quick This is the argument first against the law amendment and then for the law amendment

Here it is The question before us today is not what that's clear.

The question is not do we believe the Bible? That's also clear We are complimentary and we believe the scripture

The question is is this amendment necessary for our convention to respond when churches in our convention?

Act in a way contrary to our Complementarian doctrine we showed last year.

We have an effective mechanism It allows us to act with convention conviction.

Excuse me in unity when it comes to this issue last year We removed two different churches one really big like a mega mega church one normative size this year

We removed an institutional legacy church y 'all We have shown that the mechanisms we currently have are sufficient to deal with this question listen, the last thing

I want to say is I believe that we need to act in unity as a Convention the other three amendments that we made we made by raised ballot and it was an overwhelmingly majority

Referendum on this issue So I want to risk something if you will to my fellow brothers and sisters because this has been weighing on me a whole lot

Would you be willing if this goes to a written ballot to see that as our message that we're not unified

When it comes to this issue if we all raise overwhelming majority, let it be so But if not if this goes to a written ballot

Maybe that's our signal that we are not unified as Southern Baptists And why would we go forward with something that we are not unified in I love that We are unified in the

Great Commission We are unified in our biblical convictions, let us go forward in those and vote down this amendment.

Thank you. Mr. President Okay, also at microphone 10 a but this time to speak in full in favor of the amendment please state your name your church and Your argument

Thank You. Mr. President. My name is Mike law and I'm a messenger from Arlington Baptist Church I rise to support this motion because it is faithful to God's inerrant word

Southern Baptists love the Bible and long to be faithful to the Bible in 1987 there were 18 women serving as pastors in the

Southern Baptist churches last year. We learned there were over 1800 This is a problem in 1st

Timothy chapter 2 verses 12 to 14 The all -wise God says that a woman ought not teach or exercise authority over a man

Terms associated with the pastoral office our culture may see this prohibition as harsh

But our God is all -wise and he wrote his word for the flourishing of both men and women

Our Baptist faith and message agrees while both men and women are gifted for service in the church

The office of pastor elder overseer is limited to men as qualified by Scripture Let's be exceptionally clear

We gladly celebrate the myriads of women who serve the church in many essential ways

We are so grateful for these godly sisters. This amendment is not about women in ministry

It's just vividly about women in the pastoral office Last year, we rightly stood on the truth of Scripture and adopted this amendment

Many things have changed since last year But one thing has not changed

God's Word remains the same the Bible still teaches that the office of pastor is reserved for qualified men

Other denominations have failed here. Even this year. We have seen the United Methodists collapse into unbiblical chaos

Brothers and sisters for the glory of God. We must side with Scripture last year.

We voted for biblical faithfulness Yesterday we voted for biblical faithfulness

Today, let us vote for biblical faithfulness Tomorrow and every day

Let us vote for biblical faithfulness Until we hand this convention over to the next generation to vote for biblical faithfulness

This amendment is faithful to Scripture This amendment makes clear that the pastoral office is reserved for biblically qualified men

This amendment announces our unity in God's Word to build churches according to God's design in conclusion,

I encourage you to vote yes for this amendment to adopt this amendment and stand with the

Unchanging Word of our good and wise God and I move the previous question

All right, well there are the results so there were more people who actually did vote for it, but it was only 61 %

Which is not enough. So we'll start with Jeff and then go to David on the law amendment issue

Jeff There's a lot of questions coming in right now about you know, how did this happen?

How in the world did the SPC not pass this? Drew Smith says can y 'all explain why anyone voted against this?

I really don't understand Yeah, well you heard in that setup from the man speaking against the motion, you know

We have to assume that we're complimentary We have to assume that we're biblical and once those are taken off the table then, you know

It's just a matter of are we doing this, right? So what's happened here is the SPC the backstory is the

SPC has seen leaning into DEI style Policies is the way to maintain their size which involves ethnic congregations that may have female pastors

That's been the selling point asking these churches to come in They thought they didn't

The SPC elites didn't think they'd ever have to chat, you know Deal with that and so they could do that and nobody would care as I'll illustrate in just a moment

But now the law amendment has put a spotlight on it and they found out there is actually a will within the

Southern Baptist Convention Remaining to hold the line on this matter and the UMC was providentially a good illustration of that So the the game has been to say well we our mechanisms work we vote you heard the guy say it

We voted out Rick Warren. We voted out Fern Creek right before You know yesterday we voted out

FBC, Alexandria with a female pastor in it, right? So the mechanism works what he did not mention is that FBC, Alexandria by their own reporting has been in the

SPC for 44 years Collins mothers from the Council on biblical manhood and womanhood got up when the

Alexandria motion was before us and said hey Credentials committee. How long have you known about the situation with FBC, Alexandria and you you could hear the back peddling

They they were never going to answer that question They got away from that as soon as they possibly could What they did is try

Alexandria out there and say see look the mechanisms work as a way to Distract from know the mechanisms actually don't work.

You're just now in an awkward position where we're expecting you to So, how did people vote against it? Well, here's here's what

I'm going to tell you I naively thought going to a ballot vote Was going to be in our favor because I thought it would put on the record objective data about how much consensus is in the

SPC About this what actually happened John and David, you know, check me on this

What actually happened is that men who would not have voted against the amendment?

Had they been required to raise their hands publicly in The privacy of a private ballot we're happy to express their egalitarian leanings and That's where the 30 -some -odd people percentage of people went against the law amendment

If we had had a ballot waving they would have felt a public burden because the world is watching and they're constantly

Being groomed to think that PR is all that matters They would have raised their hands like they did last year where the vote was much more

Significant in terms of percentage in favor, but this year because it could be a private matter with a private ballot

We've got to see a little bit more clearly how deep the rock in the SPC is we needed 66 %

We got 61 % David do you agree with that that that's what happened because I was surprised to that last year

Wasn't it like 85 % or 90 % that voted for the law amendment and then to see it plummet to that number is crazy

Yeah, yeah, it was much more significant and I have actually I Was joking with Jeff like we ran into each other at lunch and we both went up to Mike law just to sort of commiserate

He seemed a good spirits. He thinks that there's still momentum for this issue So that was nice, but I was

I was joking with Jeff. I said, hey, what do you mean you get on John stream? I'm just gonna be behind you and like, you know jump out or something, but we're different buildings now, so I couldn't do that Yeah, I generally agree with that I think that's the the reason and I agree with just analysis that going to the ballot versus a just a hand -raised vote allowed people to not have to That they didn't have to publicly stand against Banning women pastors they could do it secretly and and I'm not sure that it was their secret egalitarianism as much as it was their their belief found it or not that Ratifying the law amendment would cause the

SBC to lose hundreds and hundreds of churches And so they're there the institutionalism of it all

That plays a big factor a lot of the folks that are there are really invested like I said before in the size of the

SBC and so it's you know that as I and I put this on X a little Bit earlier the the hundreds of churches

Maybe thousands of churches in the SBC that have women pastors either by name or by function is our dirty little secrets

But as long as they keep You know Participating in the cooperative program and all the all the funding and things like that We don't really particularly care if they're doctrinally faithful and like they you know, as long as they keep the coffers filled

You know, we don't want to we don't want to risk kicking them out by getting too doctrinally, you know insistence and specific

So I don't have the numbers in front of me but the last issue I wanted to discuss with you is the issue of the president of the

Southern Baptist Convention and We have a new president obviously Clint Presley who is some the only one

I really focused on as far as I Didn't want people to vote for him and it's because I thought he was gonna win early on or he was probably gonna be the kind of center -left keep the ship going in the same direction favorite pick and It's interesting to me that we had two conservatives.

We had Jared Moore and we who was the other guy. I'm sorry I'm blanking on his name David Allen David Allen, thank you.

So we had David Allen and With the first two rounds of voting they were both eliminated Jared Moore was eliminated in the first round David Allen was eliminated in the second round So by the time we got to the final round We had from my understanding.

It was two guys who were a little more on the left who are running against each other So it there wasn't much of a choice

Now Clint Presley some guys it's interesting. I'm already seeing people out there. Colin Smothers is one of them, right?

Colin Smothers is out there Congratulating and I think he said something positive about like Clint Presley is gonna do a good job something like that and I'm getting used to this because every year it just seems like this happens where you know guys who you presume would be maybe who had voted for someone else are

They do the statesman thing and they'll congratulate the guy who won and I get it to some extent

But like Clint's not in our camp, right? I Just want to get your guys take on that.

I I'm going off of his whole illegal immigration thing the he hired an illegal immigrant supported the dreamers made a video in support of the dreamers and And then

I think a lot of his stuff on Twitter was scrubbed and stuff so I don't know exactly what he supported and what he didn't but Everyone I've talked to who either has been a member of his church or Has known him for any length of time tells me the same thing that he's not gonna shake things up he's a company man, and he's he does lean towards the left so you guys have any information to either

Validate that or contradict it David won't you go first? I've got some stuff, but you may knock it out first Yeah, well, it's a couple things to know about about Clint Presley He's he's very close with a lot of the the platform stalwarts.

The guys have been around a long time Very close with James Merritt Clint Presley actually was the one who initiated and was going to bring the cooperation group

Motion to the floor at last year's SBC The merit the merit motion was originally suggested by Clint Presley Publicly on Twitter and then he backed out of it.

So I guess James Merritt just said all right, if you're not gonna do it, I'll do it myself and You know and it's possible that Clint backed out of that in order to sort of stay out of the fray

For running for SBC president this year I mean these guys plan this stuff years and years and years in advance

Like Jeff was saying, you know Dean being groomed maybe for the next one, you know a couple years from now or whatever

That's how they do it They always have a next guy in line and they always have a guy that's sort of you know in the bullpen

In case there's a Willie Rice Willie Rice, you know Deacon Gate fiasco They always got a barber in the bullpen that can jump in if necessary to to basically be the placeholder

Yeah, so also on Clint Presley good friends with JD Greer. He's been a long -term trustee at Southern Seminary very entrenched in the elite circles of SBC when

JD Greer endorsed Bruce Frank He said, you know, I'm endorsing Bruce Frank and that got kind of cut off He's the next said but then

Clint Presley would be good too And so just to kind of add to the hopper when

Tom Askew I Can't remember what the convention was But after Birmingham when resolution 9 passed and it created an uproar about critical race theory

Tom at the next convention stood to ask The messengers to rescind that motion Clint Presley was immediately at a mic opposing

Tom Askew on this front I Mean if you don't mind me speculating this is no inside knowledge

But what I think this represents is a convention that's been in the control of North Carolina and Texas Baptist You know,

North Carolina mostly Aiken and JD Greer, Texas Aligning with him. I think

Clint Presley is Al Mohler saying Oh, I can use a North Carolina guy to pull Louisville back more in control of the presidency

And so what you actually have there is a guy who's in Two institutional camps and he's not going to do anything contrary

This is something that I've realized over time, but I think most Southern Baptist laymen do not understand the politics of this because and I Don't even frame it this way most of the time because I'm thinking in terms of politically left and right

I'm thinking in terms of Orthodox versus heterodox and that's how I approach it and most of us conservatives

I think we're theologically minded and that's how we think however It's about power and You have different power centers in the

SBC Al Mohler and Louisville. They were the power center He was the kingmaker and a few years ago when he lost the convention bid there

I think that fell Aiken and probably even more powerful than Aiken is Kevin easel

They really control a lot of messengers and probably call the shots more than molar

And so there's been and I've been multiple insiders have told me this board members

People in the you know top echelons of you know, the committees of the SBC have told me that you know, basically yeah, there's been kind of a war between North Carolina and Louisville and So I appreciate you bringing that out

Jeff and people need to be aware of this that there's there when things don't make sense to you it might be because there are other interests involved and You're just not aware of them they're not operating on the same, you know the same framework that you're operating on so Well, John if you'll allow me

To help your audience on this, you know, I have a popular level understanding of this topic

But I think it's the right paradigm at least in the popular level the SBC runs like a cosin Austria Yeah, like a crime family with different sub families within it

Who are constantly jockeying against one another for power prestige and Territory and that's the paradigm.

I think that best explains SBC Institutionalism and what David's doing there is what I said to the

North American Mission Board is the big funding slush Slush fund and so they have engaged in real estate speculation selling property ostensibly for housing missionary missionaries on like furlough

They've started flipping houses. It's given them an incredible nest egg They dole it out in perks to their loyalists.

And again, this is resulted in Al Mohler Going up against some of his friends trying to reassert his sway

Yeah, not exactly the most encouraging thing but that that is what the reality is and I remember you know

One of the former trustees at Southern Seminary telling me that Clint Presley was totally a company man never went against the

Al Mohler Wasn't any help in an actual fight and totally fine with all the

CRT stuff that was being pushed there at Southern Seminary So he's the president of the Southern Baptist Convention now So do not expect things to change and and don't go with these guys

Don't go with Colin Smothers and other guys that I'm sure I'll be seeing online on Twitter that are saying that oh, no

He's actually pretty good I mean, I remember when they were conservative guys saying oh Bart Barber might be pretty good when he it happens every year

Don't buy it. That's just my thing a few comments here Dylan says notice in his response and I think we're going back now to Brett Leatherwood He does not respond to the abortion letter.

That is true. He skipped over that Peter Sawyer says the average SPC church member is conservative.

I would even say the average SPC pastor. It is these elites They're the problem. Do you guys still agree with that?

I mean we trot that out every year and that's kind of what gives people hope of like well maybe next year the conservatives will show up because that's who the

SPC is you guys believe that still or David I don't want to be too eager here.

Do you want to jump in on that first? I'm gonna have fun Generally, I agree with I agree with that But where the rubber meets the road is who can get people to the annual meeting?

So it seems like every year somebody brings up and there was this year as well somebody bringing up.

Hey, can we enable? Remote participation and the platform knows very well that remote participation is going to shift the entire

Messenger voting bloc conservative so many people who are in small conservative churches.

They can't fund messengers out there They don't show up, you know, whether it's an Anaheim Indy wherever it is They can't travel

But the the folks that work for NAM and the folks that work for the IMB and the folks that work for Lifeway And of course the the big megachurches and things they can all fund

Messengers to go in and maintain the status quo. So yes, I think your average conservative pastor is more conservative

Certainly your average few sitter as I like to call him is more conservative But it doesn't make any difference as as long as the rules and things like that demand that people are in person voting.

That's that's That's why it seems like there's that disconnect. There is a disconnect Yeah, so this has been

I've been one of those people hoping just what you're saying there John for years and years So here's how I've come to think of it. If your

SPC church is older than 40 years You're probably much more conservative than the elites if your church is younger than 40 years

You're probably groomed by North American Mission Board funds into platform allegiance because they're the ones flying you in for conferences

They might have helped you know pay your pastor salary while you were planting your church Something like that.

So our legacy and heritage SPC churches much more conservative unable to travel like David Just said this is why remote voting always gets attacked like it's some sort of assault on innocent children

Because they know what would happen But it is changing the

SPC is planting left Not just leaning full -blown leftward

Congregations and they're grooming the people who participate towards leftism And so the younger the church the more left -leaning or left committed that you'll find

So that's John are you an independent Baptist I go to an independent Bible Church So yeah, basically I was

Southern Baptist for a short period of time went to his SPC seminary Askel is ignored every time he stands up says

Lisa, and I'm unfortunately that's probably Becoming more and more true Drew Smith says

SPC doesn't love God They're concerned with seeing how close they can get to the line of worldliness without stepping over it.

That is a sentiment I think a lot of people are feeling Bree and babes podcast says were the people in the room.

Yes, both of my guests here were in the room both Jeff and David Renaissance of men will

Spencer says I'm just here for the female pastors driving racecars. Ah When does that start?

Ah, so for those who don't know the North American Mission Board It was a racecar, huh?

They bought it. They had it somehow wheeled in Display just a show

We can't know John because that's one of the things that's sort of low -key terrible about this annual meeting every even the most small grass ports financial transparency was again treated like an assault on innocent people and so If they bought and a wrap that IndyCar, we're looking at six digits if that's a rental and they put a wrap on it

We're looking at ten digits in terms of cost Nobody knows nobody can know

Dean and Sarah has been on his social media doing apology work for NAB Oh, no, this was a minimal cost whatever that could be true

But guess what? We never will know because they guard their financial documents like it's their lifeblood

We have David CRT stupid William Wolfe is claiming that 61 % is us bullcrap.

Danny Aiken is in that 61 % I think he's talking about the law amendment and the 61 % who voted for it

I mean we're in that but I don't know how much of a sliver we are because he's right that there were

Got their molar guys were also in that 61 % like this was a super low bar

I know I've said that number of times but guys who live through the conservative resurgence They're pretty much all on board with this.

This wouldn't really even contradict your soft complementarians a lot of them They would be fine with the law amendment so such a low bar and yet we couldn't meet it so It's about keeping this it's about keeping the spigot on it's about keeping the money flowing.

So and the cooperation group Recommendations that were adopted is isn't the same thing that that was the break glassing that that is currently the break glass in case of emergency

Strategy in case the law amendment passed So the law amendment if the law amendment had passed the fear was now we're gonna have hundreds of churches that the credentials committee is going to have to remove from the convention because the

Constitution is now clear on this. Oh, I see. And so so the the cooperation group recommendations were basically to say

Hey now the executive committee has a wide berth to change how all of this works in the future

So maybe maybe if the law amendment passes then the executive committee can say well We don't think the credentials committee should have such a role after all

We want to return the we want to return the authority to the messengers to decide who's in and who's out Yeah, which which just means that the messengers lose the benefits of the the credentials committee

I'm actually doing the work to say this church is not in compliance and this church is you know

Then if it's on the floor, you have a bunch of messengers saying I don't know anything about this church You have somebody from that church behind a mic pleading.

We love the convention. We love the convention We've been here for 40 years kind of like FPC Alexandria did

Yesterday and the thought is you know, hey this message was too nice They're not gonna kick people out of the convention that love the convention when they don't have a recommendation from the credentials committee

Yeah, that's interesting. I was reading that I didn't quite understand the background of that particular recommendation

I think there were four recommendations and The one that really piqued my interest was it seems like if they wanted to do this over again

So if you had a coalition of conservatives that say we want to do another law amendment type thing They would need now two -thirds not a majority vote

They would need two -thirds off the top to even make this a consideration. Is that correct? I Mean, this is one of those deals that you get from the left that you got to pass the legislation to see how it's gonna

Work, you know, but that seems to be the correct reading on first blush, you know engaging with the text.

Yeah. Yeah All right, Kyle Nichols says that he heard Presley at the 2024 North Carolina discipleship conference

And he does seem like a plant for the SBC establishment to carry out elites agenda his issues stances change with the wind

And he can't help but feel discouraged And then David CRT is stupid says

Kyle don't feel discouraged. Just leave the SPC So this is where I want to get your opinions.

You guys are both in the SPC Talk to the people who are SPC or go to SPC churches

What's the deal here? Like do you leave at this point? When do you leave if it's not now is there hope?

What do you think? Well, I'll make a run at that My church is very well informed about the

SPC. We're small But we participate and we know and what I find is that I think maybe contrary to some people's expectations

I'm the one with my foot on the brakes saying let's not leave the SPC yet So the more your church knows about the

SPC if they're conservative the more they're gonna want to be out I have for a couple of years now been saying if the

SPC matters and it does it's not essential But it matters if it matters enough to the bad guys to want to take it

It matters enough that we should try to stop that But we're in this situation where I'm calling it the reverse snowball

We do want to get those heritage and legacy Southern Baptist churches in the room because I do think they will vote

Better if they're properly informed but every time we have one of these annual meetings more and more of them find that the last straw and they bail out and so the the pool of Helpful voters is constantly diminishing and this close to the defeat of the law amendment and whatnot, you know

Last time I was on your podcast. I'm with SPC John. I was pretty rowdy I'm still rowdy, but I do

I have more questions now about whether we could ever actually marshal the numbers needed To bring meaningful reform.

That's a major question for me, you know Four or five hours after the law amendment is defeated and you might feel different tomorrow and But yeah, it's a discouraging day from that standpoint

David are you what do you think about staying in the SPC verse leaving? Well, we have we have

I mean members at my church that I've talked to over the past few years that basically They're on all sides.

So I have some that are saying well Why are we even part of this for numerous reasons and then others that are saying if you if we leave the

SPC I'm going to another church and so trying to some and those are the older folks

You know, like our church has been SPC since the 60s like since its inception And so we got older folks that are second third generation

SPC that are saying if we if we get out of the SPC we're leaving so the challenge on the doctrinal end is to To help people understand that it's okay and possible to be

Baptist to be convictionally Baptist by practice and doctrine and tradition without being in the

Southern Baptist Convention Once that hurdle is is is over now we can start talking about what is the what is the pragmatic benefits or you know,

The benefits of this church of cooperating in this way because there's nothing wrong in and of itself with voluntary

Cooperation the SPC is a it's a parachurch ministry cooperation between other churches

But when you get to the point where with a good conscience you can't continue to partner with people that are you that you know

Are manifestly disobeying scripture. That's where the rubber meets the road at the local church

And you know the I think that we underestimate, you know

We talk about sometimes it's secular politics how we can see politicians That hold the purse strings being able to buy votes by doling out that money to voters and things like that I think we underestimate how much that happens in an in an institution as big as the

SPC how many people that are voting who are

Financially dependent on the whole thing and very unlikely to vote for anything

Even even for doctrine they might believe in that would rock that boat or compromise or put it with their financial

Situation and their jobs and and you know, so the status quo has so much gravity in the

SPC yeah, you know the year that they should have probably done the online voting was 2020 and they just skipped the whole entire convention without really any precedent or well

They say they have a precedent because what was it like decades before there was one convention that was skipped

During a like World War two or something. I can't remember but You know, it just yeah, it's just like if it's not gonna be that year

I don't see that happening ever and you have to win the room and it just seems like that's impossible at this point

Maybe we had a window of opportunity 2018 2019 2021 maybe I don't know but that window seems to be closing as Jeff said more and more churches

Keep leaving So Bree and babes did two for two dollars say why wasn't the ballot vote on law

Mike law shut down? So I'm not sure exactly what she means by that Jeff.

Yeah, I'm like a run of that So I wish we did more ballot voting Because it would be more objective a lot of the non ballot voting is just and this happened twice in this annual meeting a room

That looks very close to 5050 Bart just declares a side that wins

According to his preferences. And so if you ask me, I wish we did more ballot voting

It takes more time people don't want to take the time to do it. So we're left with that So again, I mentioned this earlier.

I naively thought that the ballot vote was going to work in our favor That's why none of us opposed it because we thought it would reflect the previous vote

Last year that would document a 90 -something percent of SPC annual meeting members a 12 ,000 person body

Voted overwhelmingly in favor of the law amendment what I've since found out is that there was a lot of closeted egalitarian and egalitarian sympathetic and Institutional sympathetic men who would be happy to vote in private differently than they would in public

So, you know, I think I actually represent some of the hardline Conservatives in SPC and I think most of us were happy for The ballot vote at the time sweet summer children that we were in those those days

It's funny, you know Russell Fuller has stories of guys who he knows personally in the SPC Who were on the other side of the conservative resurgence who are still working in the

SPC and at prominent seminaries? I can't really name there I'm thinking of one name in particular at Southeastern that he hasn't given me permission to share but you know

He you know was sitting next to this guy and looked over his shoulder and saw it was

I think a They were voting on something like Egalitarianism this was back, you know in the early 90s and he noticed that this guy was on the other side of it and yet You know still employed in the

SPC. And so, you know, how many of those guys are there? I don't know but it's this vote makes it seem like there's a whole lot more of these guys than we realized and a lot of posers

Not in fact exactly a vote of confidence there All right. Well, I appreciate it. We've been going over an hour

David needs to go catch his flight and you guys have been very gracious and giving me your time and Informing Southern Baptists who are concerned out there.

Thank you for that. If people want to check out Jeff stuff, I guess what Twitter Jeff is that the best place?

Yeah, merely Jay ride SPC underground and we're also looking to start looking at alternatives

And so we formed a group called credo Alliance looking for a home for Southern Baptists You don't think they have a home in the

Southern Baptist Convention anymore So any of those things would be a way to connect with me. All right and Protested calm for David's writings on this stuff

Well, yeah, we'll have a read up about this later for sure All right. Well, god bless you guys.