The ERLC Exposed!

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All right, we are live now on the Conversations That Matter podcast. Thankful for Resurrection Design.

Check them out. We got a great podcast for you today, though. And without further ado, I wanna just introduce two of the guests who are here.

Oh, I just need to make one little announcement. We are not on Rumble. I think that was my fault. So you can let people know if you know of anyone trying to stream this on Rumble.

Get over to X, get over to Twitter, or get over to YouTube, and you can leave comments there or ask questions as well as we get into this.

But we're gonna talk about the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission for the Southern Baptist today. This is a Southern Baptist episode.

And we have two guests with us that have been on the podcast before, and I'm really pleased to have them back,

William Wolfe and Megan Basham. Welcome, guys. Thank you so much for being willing to do this. I really appreciate it.

Hey, John, thanks for having me. Glad to be back. So for those who don't know, just really briefly,

William Wolfe asked, oh, William, you got a nice banner there. I just noticed that. Two banners.

The director of the Center for Baptist Leadership. And my understanding is you guys are trying to bring some accountability to the

Southern Baptist Convention. And you were recently in the White House, so maybe you can briefly talk about that.

And then, Megan, of course, you're the New York Times bestselling author and reporter at the Daily Wire. Are you in charge of the

Morning Wire? What's your role with the Morning Wire? No, I'm not. Thank God, because that would be a mess. No, so I'm a culture reporter.

So I'm on several days a week. The nice thing about the culture beat is that it's kind of everything.

So any little shiny thing that catches my interest, I can pitch. And our producers are generally like, yeah, do that.

So it kind of means I get to be a Jill of all trades. Yeah, very cool. I really appreciate your book.

Obviously, we had you on to talk about that. And the reason that we have you on now, both of you, is because of the article that you wrote,

Megan, which I think was really needed and really good. I was actually impressed with how long and detailed it was.

I knew you were gonna be doing a piece, but I didn't realize how much information and investigation that you were gonna do.

And people can check it out at, is it Christ Overall? I think that's the website, but it's on the

ERLC. And I thought maybe what would be helpful for Southern Baptists is to go through some of that material, but also to expand it, maybe take some questions and start at the very beginning.

Because the question that I've always gotten on this topic is, and whether it's the ERLC or NAM or the

IMB or any of the entities, the seminaries, like don't they fulfill a positive role?

Like, wasn't there a point in time that these organizations did really good work and we could get them back to that point?

They've just lost their way a little bit. And I think there's questions about to what extent have they lost their way, which you did a great job in showing a very large extent actually.

So maybe if we could start at the beginning and I'll start, William, if you know the answer to this first.

The ERLC wasn't always the ERLC, right? It was the Christian Life Commission. So maybe take us through that.

Why is, was there a Christian Life Commission? What was the purpose of it? When did it start? Yeah, well, the

Christian Life Commission was founded in 1953, but there had been previous iterations of an organized attempt by Southern Baptists to engage in the culture and on political and societal issues for decades before this.

And this history is covered in Tom Nettle's two -part series at Christ Overall on the

ERLC. And so first you had the Committee on Temperance that was founded in 1908.

And Baptists were, of course, very heavily involved in the temperance movement, you know, in the anti -drinking movement, anti -alcohol movement.

And so there was the Committee on Temperance. Then there was the Committee on Temperance and Social Services in 1915.

Then there was the Committee on Social Service in 1922. Then there was the

Social Service Commission in 1933. And that became the Christian Life Commission in 1953.

And then the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, as we know it, was established as an entity of the

Southern Baptist Convention. And particularly at that point in time, only of the

Southern Baptist Convention, the conservative Baptists, because some of these previous efforts have been joint efforts between the more conservative

Baptists and the less conservative Baptists. And so if we think about it really historically, the

Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, in particular, as its own entity, as it stands today, was in many ways the product of the conservative resurgence and a desire for the newly sort of reconstituted conservative

Southern Baptist Convention, or the reclaimed conservative Southern Baptist Convention to be engaging on social issues in a conservative fashion and not fundamentally from a liberation theology, social justice theology.

That's not exactly the word they used back then, but you know what I mean, from a more left -leaning angle.

So it's kind of sad to think about where it is today in light of what it was meant to be. Megan, can you hear

John? I can't hear, we can't hear you, John. I can hear you, can you hear me? I can hear you.

Still nothing. John says, keep going.

It's on my end. All right, Megan, let's keep going. We know what we're talking about. So you chime in on the history here. I mean, I don't know the deep history that you, that Tom Nettles, that others know.

You know, when I kind of came upon the subject and started writing about it, I was talking to Mike Whitehead, who was the former general counsel of the

ERLC. His son, John Whitehead, is now a trustee. And he was telling me that he got involved right after the

Christian Life Commission was created because of that left -wing organization that you talked about.

So there was, its name is escaping me, but there was a Baptist policy advocacy group that the

Southern Baptist Convention was a part of, and it was very much being controlled by people on the progressive side who were pushing aims that your ordinary

Southern Baptist wouldn't support. And so that was really why the ERLC, which was then the Christian Life Commission, was created in the first place to say, we don't want to be a part of some of these more progressive policy agendas that this group is a part of.

So we're gonna break off and start our own thing. And that was how the ERLC, then known as the

Christian Life Commission, came to be. So with that goal in mind,

I would say they started pretty well. Yeah, can you guys hear me now? Now I can hear you.

You're back, good. I've never had this happen ever before. That was the first time that I couldn't hear you all of a sudden.

I thought it was on your end, it was on mine, but my mic just turned off for some reason. But so I heard,

I think, most of what you both just said, and it sounds like there were some good, noble things in the beginning.

One of the things that I found though, and I don't know if you've come across this, is Foy Valentine, who was the director for a while of the

Christian Life Commission throughout the 70s, he was pushing things pretty far in a social justice direction.

And so I don't know if he was an anomaly, or if, I don't really know what to make of that, if they had a good foundation.

He was actually at the Chicago Declaration Workshop, and then the formation of that statement in 1973.

And if you read that, of course, it sounds like Black Lives Matter drafted it in 2020. It is very far left, and it was intended to influence evangelicals.

And he signed it, and not only signed it, but he was one of the session, I guess, presenters.

He gave a presentation there. So he talks about, even, this is a quote from him.

He said that Karl Marx wanted to change the world, and then he described Christians, and said that they were tasked with the world changing, which included economic systems, the structure of society, and the world.

And so what Marx was unable to accomplish, he thought Christians should. So I wanted to just, not to throw a wrench in it, because I believe what you're saying, but just ask, is there a previous iteration of Russell Moore or a social justice bent that has existed at various times in the

SBC before the current Brent Leatherwood and Russell Moore ERLC?

Have you noticed that at all, or was that just maybe an anomaly in the early 70s?

I was gonna say, I'll let you speak to that, William, because I kind of picked it up right there in the 90s. Kind of pre -90s,

I don't have a whole lot of background information. Operating on what Mike Whitehead was sharing with me from his time as general counsel was that, he was well aware of what you're talking about,

John, and that what the ERLC at that point when he came on board was meant to be was something different from that.

But yeah, I mean, everything kind of pre -90s is very blurry in my vision. Yeah, no, what

I'm wondering is, the conservative resurgence just changed everything. Yeah, well,

John, it's interesting, like broader historical point, I mean, particularly when you think about Baptists, I mean,

I was reminded on Facebook last night that I had posted six years ago, this anecdote of a

Southern Baptist theological seminary professor speaking at a

Planned Parenthood in Charlotte, North Carolina in support of abortion access and rights in 1990.

So this would have been three years before Mueller showed up and really like the history of Southern Baptists social work, political work, cultural engagement has been fairly left -leaning historically.

So in some ways you could say that people like Brent Leatherwood and Russell Moore are just working right in line with sort of that historic bent of a left -leaning political engagement.

And you're right in terms of Floyd Valentine. So in 1987, still the Christian Life Commission, Nettles notes that under the influence of growing dominance of conservative trustees at Southern Baptist entities,

Floyd Valentine resigned as executive director of the commission so that the still moderate majority on the board could elect a man more in keeping with a conservative viewpoint.

And so they actually like put some specifications and like who they should pick when there was a vacancy.

It says upon the next vacancy for the position of executive director to fill the position with a person whose record and confession demonstrated convictions concerning the sanctity of unborn life in accordance with sentiments expressed in the conventions 1980, 1982 and 1984 resolutions imposing abortion.

So one of the main flashpoints there is Floyd Valentine was not being strong enough against abortion as Southern Baptist would like to see.

So yes, this is a history of the ERLC that's playing out over again. Yeah, and as we were talking,

John, I just kind of wanted to jump in and say, I pulled up my interview with Mike Whitehead. I've got it on my little Otter app that gives me a transcription.

And some of what he said dovetails with that, that it was an awareness of a problem already within a

Southern Baptist entity. He said the CLC had hosted a family life seminar.

They did these annual seminars before I was involved and they hosted a seminar featuring the

Playboy Foundation president to speak on sexuality and marriage. So, I mean, obviously there were some points where they were going way off the tracks.

It's incredible. And this is one of the things and a reason I wanted to bring this up is when I started in 2019 or so, very publicly being critical of the

ERLC, I noticed that that was some of the pushback that there's precedent for this. In fact, in 2016,

I think it was, they had this conference and, oh, who was it? He just died recently.

He was, I think, oh, now I'm blinking on his name. Ron Sider, Ron Sider was there. And Ron Sider gave a speech on a holistic approach to pro -life involvement.

And even said that at the end of the speech, he said, if we're going to be relevant and get minority

Christians to work with us, we're gonna have to be comfortable saying Black Lives Matter. And this was in the context of pro -life.

He got a standing ovation for saying that. This was at an ERLC event. And that wasn't really that long ago.

We're talking less than a decade ago. And the pushback, I remember, I found that I was getting from people was, this is just who we've always been.

This is just part of Southern Baptist. We're pro -life, but we also are, we don't have a

Republican or a Democrat allegiance. We are just gonna be biblical, so to speak, on all these different issues.

And we take them case by case. And wouldn't you know, 90 % of them seem to be on the left.

And they wanna keep this pro -life pillar or pro -family value pillar to remain somewhat,

I guess, relevant to conservatives. But it seems like what's happened historically, though, is there really has been a shift in the convention.

Not so much the churches and the people, but the leadership where you did have this conservative resurgence, which did match more the people sitting in the pews.

They are political conservatives. They did vote for Donald Trump in high numbers. But there's still guys in some of the entities, including the

ERLC, who wanna keep pushing the needle left. And maybe that's the story.

But you found this. So what you found, Megan, in your article, and maybe we could switch gears to talk about this now, is that there does seem to be a presentation for your regular average

Southern Baptist that seems to indicate, yes, we are doing good Christian work and even conservative work in the nation's capital.

But in actuality, if they are doing any work, it seems to be pushing things left. So maybe

I'll open the door for you, Megan, to just share with us what you found. Yeah, and that's a pretty good summary of what

I heard from so many of the people that I spoke to on Capitol Hill, senators' offices, congressmen's offices, in some cases, the senators directly, were telling me those who are known for those conservative priorities that are those culture war issues, quote -unquote, the social issues of family, of marriage, of abortion, all of these things that are not controversial among Southern Baptists.

We all kind of agree on that, right? Yes, these are big priorities. Biblically, we think there is no question about what the Bible says.

So when I started asking all of these people on Capitol Hill, do you hear from the

ERLC to promote these priorities, even someone like Senator Mike Lee of Utah, who has been at the forefront of so much of this type of legislation, told me, no,

I don't know who they are. He said, you know, maybe they're talking to my staff, but the fact that I don't know who they are suggests that they have been entirely absent on some of these big fights over marriage, over the sanctity of life, over protecting kids from gender ideology.

And so that was just something that I heard again and again, including from some people, and I'm sure we'll get to some of these pretty pointed quotes from Eric Tietzel of the

Center for Renewing America, where they were just telling me, it seems like they have very little interest in truly being involved.

We don't know them and they're not effective. And then on the flip side, as you said, there are some issues in which you will see

ERLC leadership get highly energized about gun control. On a state level,

Tennessee gun reform bill, Brent Leatherwood was very active and very out front.

So there are issues that they will promote, but it's not those issues on which there's no question and no debate among Southern Baptists.

William, when you were in seminary, I know, I think we have some, I don't know if we have overlap.

Maybe I was before you at Southeastern, but the ERLC was involved. I'm sure that you saw the same when you were at Southern.

It seems like what Megan's saying is like they don't have a lot of influence on the policy side of like their actual job, but it seems like Baptists in institutions like seminaries,

I know that we had ERLC guys coming to chapel all the time and the students thought of Russell Moore at the time as like this holy prophet figure.

Like he was doing really good work and I know that many of my classmates were shaped by him and his thinking.

So, I mean, did you see the same thing? The very first class I took for my master's of divinity degree at Southern Seminary in 2017 online, because I was still living in Washington DC, was

Christian ethics. The professor for that class was a guy named Douglas Blunt. The lectures were

Russell Moore. And I remember, this is 2017, so it's like woke stuff is definitely circulating.

And I've certainly always had my opinions on immigration in particular and what

I think is a Christian immigration policy and not a leftist immigration policy. But I was watching these lectures and I was like, this is ridiculous.

Like these lectures from Russell Moore that were still being put in front of students. And this is at the point he's at the

ERLC were entirely sort of left leaning on major issues, climate change, social justice, racism, immigration.

And so his influence extended well beyond sort of his departure there at Southern. And I think that really gets into so much of this.

That's an unavoidable piece of this conversation about the ERLC and that is the person and figure of Russell Moore.

I mean, and this guy who is essentially, I mean, I've said this before and I'll say it again.

The one thing you can hand to Russell Moore is he is a stone cold political operator.

I mean, when you think about what he did to Mike Stone in the ERLC, right? So this is another very important historical piece.

The ERLC was way out over at skis. Russell Moore was embarrassing the convention. He was essentially making being never

Trump like his personality, the main thing he cared the most about. I mean, he has this article at first things, can the religious right be saved in 2017 about like Christian support for Donald Trump and so on and so on.

And so when Mike Stone was the president and CEO of the executive committee of the

Southern Baptist convention, he tried to essentially just send this letter of inquiry to ethics and religious liberty commission saying, hey, you guys are causing a lot of division in the

SBC. We're concerned about your mission focus, about your priorities. We're also hearing troubling concerns about the way you're managing your staff and where you are.

I mean, Russell Moore essentially like disappeared into like his whole of personal self -reflection after Donald Trump won, right?

So this basic letter of like good governance and Russell Moore's response to that was to launch this brutal political crusade to crucify anybody at the

ERLC who would dare question his at the executive committee who would dare question his leadership, lying about them, slandering them and essentially using that as pretext to start this whole witch hunt on a crisis of apocalypse of abuse at the

EC. And honestly, we have to look back and say, he won. He did it. Like Mike Stone tried to do a basic like good governance thing and Russell Moore's political retribution succeeded.

So like this guy is a stone cold political operator. He's built a cult of personality around himself.

He is completely incapable of any honest self -reflection and his ghost, as I've said before, 100 % still inhabits the machine of the

ERLC. Leatherwood is his dyed in the wool acolyte. Russell Moore is his mentor and he's pulling the strings at every turn still here when it comes to what's happening at the

ERLC. Yeah, and I mean, if I can jump in there, that's not just William's reflections.

Those are things that I heard from people who worked with the ERLC, who served as executive committee trustee members at the

ERLC. So I spoke to Tammy Fitzgerald, who is the head of North Carolina Values Coalition. And she spent some time as a trustee at the

ERLC during the Russell Moore era. She was in fact on the executive committee and what she experienced really reflects what

William just described there. She said, when I came in, it was right as Russell Moore was coming in.

And she thinks that they appointed her because at that point they were looking for women to put on the board, to better have that diverse representation amongst the trustees.

So they brought Tammy Fitzgerald on board, but I guess they discovered she was not the right kind of woman, not the woman they were looking for because she immediately, when

Russell Moore started to say, hey, we're going to change our focus from the culture wars, meaning abortion, homosexuality, transgender issues, we're gonna move away from that and we're gonna move towards issues like immigration, sexual abuse, and alleged racial injustice.

She stood up and said, hold on a minute, as someone who has worked for decades in these so -called culture war issues,

I don't really wanna hear that, oh, we're changing our tone because that suggests that my tone was wrong, the tone that for the things that I've been working on for decades were wrong and that my focus was wrong.

So she spoke up about that and she said, after that meeting back in the early 90s, or excuse me, in the early 2000s, 2012,

I think is when she started, she was immediately surrounded by Russell Moore minions as she put it, who were lambasting her, saying you're wrong, you shouldn't say these things,

Dr. Moore has a broader vision for the direction that we're headed. She specifically named people like Phil Bethencourt kind of accosting her after that meeting.

So this was something that she experienced when she said, hold up, this is what, these are the policies we agree on as Southern Baptists, those are the issues that we should be pursuing.

And she said, they told her, we're still gonna be Christian, we're just not gonna be mad about it anymore. It's amazing, it really is.

We're not gonna be mad about it. Was there a precedent before Russell Moore came in for, like, was he set up?

Because I've wondered this, Russell Moore takes the fall for a lot of these things and rightly so, but I don't know if you heard this little story

I shared on X, like maybe last week it was, of the, before Russell Moore even got into the

ERLC, I talked to a John Boehner staffer. So this was actually while Moore was in, but he was sharing to me a story of before Moore was in.

And he said that they were always getting lobbied about immigration policy, specifically the Gang of Eight stuff, so amnesty.

And so this wasn't Russell Moore doing it. Was there already a trajectory because of the evangelical immigration table?

And is that the key to all of this or is that just one tentacle? So, you know, my perception

I'll give you after, you know, digging into all of this and not having, you know, the long view of history that someone like Tom Nettles does,

I can at least look at Richard Land and go, my sense of what happened at that time was less,

I am truly committed to these progressive policy, progressive leaning, let's say, policies.

So much as that was the direction that the culture was going, it was where, you know, elite institutions were going.

And so to sort of be in step with them, that was the concession that say, Richard Land as a leader made, well, we're gonna be involved in this because it shows that we're not the old school moral majority.

Look, we can partner over here on this issue that's viewed as being more on the left. That's my perception.

I don't think Richard Land was someone like Russell Moore, who was very much trying to bring in progressive policies.

I kind of saw it as a concession and also not understanding who they were dealing with.

I mentioned to you on X, John, I mean, sort of the very funny story I heard from a couple of different people, one of those being leadership at a

Catholic organization who told me they remember during the Richard Land era being in meetings with John Boehner, where the

ERLC was trying to push banning smoking as their big issue.

Right, I remember now you did see that and say, yes. One, and you know, the Catholic guy was telling me,

I wanted to crawl under the table because it was so clear they had no idea what they were, you know, the culture that they were dealing, the person they were talking to.

John Boehner is a chain smoker. I think he has a background in tobacco. Boy, were they barking up the wrong tree.

And also it's a very debatable issue whether smoking is, you know, should have been a really high priority of the

ERLC in that era. Yeah, I think that's actually one of the things in 2016 that I saw at the conference

I mentioned previously was smoking was one of the pro -life issues. But, you know, one of the things though, and I keep pitching this to you,

William, because I think these are sort of the two questions. What is the ERLC doing politically, which

Megan has really showed us, eh, not really that much. Like they're, if they are pushing the needle, it seems to be on these more left leaning issues.

But then what are they doing to the convention, which is, I know more your kind of wheelhouse as you're trying to reform the

Southern Baptist Convention. And so, you know, do you see them having a lot of influence?

Obviously they put out these articles, right? They do events. They have all these pictures of them looking important in Washington.

I don't know what they're doing exactly, but they're in Washington. Does this play well to the room when the

Southern Baptists meet? And I'll just say, I'll end with this. I remember, I think it was the last convention.

Wasn't it Tom Askell who said, let's just disband this thing. And then Brent Leatherwood got up there and he started waxing eloquent of all the important things the

Southern Baptists do. And it seemed to play well. Like he actually pulled it off. He avoided getting canned.

So yeah, maybe you could talk about that a little. Yeah, so I think

Brent Leatherwood is largely unpopular within the Southern Baptist Convention amongst the rank and file.

But with the people who are, at least last year at the convention, like Bart Barber up on the platform and the other people sort of running the show, he's definitely, he's supported there.

I wouldn't be surprised if there are people who are legitimately afraid of crossing him because crossing him means crossing Russell Moore.

I mean, I've thought about that too. It's like, when are the guns gonna be trained on me? And that's fine.

I'm ready for that. But I think that what continues to exist, the dynamic at play in the

Southern Baptist Convention, John, is that there are so many people who are just largely tuned out.

This is the real burden on my heart for reform in the Southern Baptist Convention kind of lies through something that I've called just sort of re -engaging the

SBC. Like we just need churches to sort of re -engage the Southern Baptist Convention. I don't want pastors focusing all their time, energy, and efforts on what's happening at the

SBC. They need to be pastoring the church, but they need to give like 5 % more of their time to be tracking what's happening in the convention because if they're not, and most of them aren't, then they show up to an annual meeting.

They've not heard any of these podcasts. They've not read any of Megan's articles. They've not read anything at Christ overall.

And then you just see, you see someone like Tom Maskell, who many people wrongly associate with being somebody who has like perennial frustrations.

They're all legitimate perennial frustrations. But there's Tom Maskell with his perennial frustrations trying to get rid of the

ERLC. And then you get this very, and last year was this guy, Luke Holmes. And they get these like squishy, moderate, sympathetic looking guys to come up to the microphone and talk about how important the

ERLC is. And then what they've done this year, what they're doing right now, what they will be doing for the next few months is they are straight up buying support from Southern Baptist pastors by bringing them to Washington DC and things like that.

And they're particularly waging a campaign amongst, I guarantee you, the state directors, like the

Florida Baptist Convention state director, the Texas, the conservative Baptist in Texas, the

SBTC. They brought their state director, Nathan Lorick, up to take them around DC because I'm confident that they were concerned that one of the guys who could potentially be the leading voice supporting getting rid of the

ERLC this year would have been someone like Nathan Lorick because the Texas Baptist Convention is one of the biggest

Baptist conventions in the ERLC, in the SBC. And Nathan knows more than anybody else out there,

I'm sure, how much ERLC divisiveness is hurting cooperative program giving. So all that to say is that pastors are tuned out.

So when we get to the convention, it's like, who are we gonna listen to? Are we gonna believe Brent Leatherwood when he stands up there with a suit and his tie and his glasses and he talks about how wonderful they are?

Are we gonna believe these grievance grifters as they call us? So I think this saturation of education is really important.

This Christ Overall monthly series, podcasts like these, it really is like an education threshold.

You have to get the voters educated. I think we're moving the needle, right? So the vote last year was materially different than previous votes.

There've been previous votes that have tried to defund the ERLC. Tom Askell's vote last year that the motion was to abolish it per convention bylaws, bylaw 25, which takes two years.

So you vote for it one year and if it passes with a 50 % threshold, nothing happens. I love this.

I think this can sell, right? I think people can buy this. We vote in Dallas to abolish the

ERLC. We pass it by 50%. Guys, nothing happens. You love the ERLC, great.

A one -year clock just started. You go tell them everything they need to do to reform, to get better, come back to us in Orlando, give us the checklist and say, man, they heard it.

They've changed, right? If you really want the ERLC to end forever, you vote for it too. So it's like whether you wanna abolish it, whether you wanna reform it, or honestly

I'd say even if you love the ERLC, we need to send this unmistakable signal to the trustee board, to the leadership and to the staff that something has to change.

And right now I don't see any other major mechanism to do that other than successfully clearing that 50 % threshold to get rid of them in Dallas, which does nothing immediately and gives them a year to get their house in order.

Yeah, so you're amped up, you're motivated, you're ready to see it happen. And we got some questions coming in.

I'm just gonna encourage everyone right now, get your questions in. I am tagging them and we will get to them.

We've been going a little over half an hour. I wanna ask you, Megan, a little, these are practical questions for Southern Baptists out there and you can take them in any order you want.

You talked about these photo ops, right? That you see and William mentioned in DC.

Of course, William has his own photo op with the president of the United States about a week ago. I don't think

Brent Leatherwood has one of those, but he has these other photo ops where they're in these conference rooms looking very serious, very important, crafting policy or something.

So the first question is what's happening there? Because that does appeal to some Southern Baptists. They want to know that they have representation.

The other thing is, what exactly, how much resources are Southern Baptists putting into this?

I don't know the percentage of the budget. I don't know if you know, but how much money is going to pay the salaries of ERLC fellows to file briefs or to do whatever they do?

And then third, and you can answer these in any order you want. I think a lot of your article focused on how they're absent from the field, but there are some places, as you say, that they have been somewhat active.

I kind of ironic at the state level, it sounds like. So maybe highlight some of those things that they actually tangibly are doing and how maybe they're not in the best interest of Southern Baptists.

So if you can remember those three things, yeah, go for it. You might have to nudge me.

I'll nudge you. So the first one, part of why I went to all of these movers and shakers on Capitol Hill, why

I spoke to the Congress people themselves, the members of Congress, the senators, was because the impression that we all get as Southern Baptists is really only what's put out for us, right?

If we don't hear from those people, all we can do is look at those photo ops and go, well, I guess that looks good.

Or we can see that the ERLC has announced that it signed on to an amicus brief with the

Alliance Defending Freedom and go, oh, well, that sounds good. But then what you do is you go to someone like Mike Whitehead, who sits on the board still of the

Alliance Defending Freedom, which is an incredibly important, incredibly effective organization. And he tells me, no, we don't really work effectively with them.

They sign things, they take credit for things, but they don't move the needle. So that's substantial that someone at that caliber is saying that, and that he's not alone, that you have someone like Eric Tietzel, who was

Josh Hawley's chief of staff, who was the vice president of government affairs at the

Heritage Foundation. So again, really large, really influential organizations. And just to sort of encapsulate what someone like an

Eric Tietzel, who's served in those roles, is telling me, because he was the most pointed, I'm just going to quote him.

As a Southern Baptist who happens to be an expert in what the ERLC is supposed to be doing, I can tell you they're completely and entirely worse than useless.

They're actively counterproductive to the ends that Southern Baptists ought to expect from an entity that purports to be the public policy arm of their convention.

When it comes to protecting life, family stuff, you know, the basic conservative things, where all the movement groups in town would tend to align, they'll sign coalition letters, but that's nothing.

It's meaningless. Those agenda items are going to happen anyway because other groups that are more influential and effective than the

ERLC are driving them. The ERLC just hops on board and takes credit.

Now that's Eric Tietzel speaking. That's not me, the whatever they call me, the conflict entrepreneur or whatever.

This is what, you know, actual representatives of some of these policy organizations and people on the

Hill are saying. And when you looked at all of those photos that they were posting last week, a flurry of social media posturing saying, look at all of these pastors that we have brought to meet with someone like Senator Cruz to tell him about our important agenda items.

Well, then I call Senator Ted Cruz's office because I'm working on this story and I want to be fair. And I am reaching out to dozens of people who are telling me we don't know the

ERLC and those who do slightly know them don't have positive feelings about them.

So I do call Senator Ted Cruz's office when I see this and I say, hey, can you tell me about this meeting?

What was the agenda? What, you know, any particular bills that were discussed or strategized?

And they say, no, it was very brief in general. We don't recall ever meeting with them before. They don't recall ever hearing with them before last week.

So that's significant. You know, these pictures of Ted Cruz are splashed all over the internet. Ted Cruz's office is telling me after the fact, oh, it was a nice general meeting.

We don't really recall ever meeting them before. So that's significant. Yeah, can

I say something on this too here in terms of like, so this Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission is in a full -on

PR like campaign mode, right? And they're being aggressively assisted by Baptist Press.

Brent Leatherwood hiccups in Washington, DC and Baptist Press writes a glowing article about it.

But who is Baptist Press? Baptist Press is the official news service of the Southern Baptist Convention.

And who is it managed by? The Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee. And so right now, everything that the

ERLC does gets this glowing like full article write -up by Baptist Press, who's joining with them on behalf of the

Southern Baptist Executive Committee to run PR campaign for the ERLC. It's very, very disingenuous.

I mean, you can go back and look at like Baptist Press' ex -feed right now, their articles. I mean, they're doing a positive story on Brent Leatherwood and the

ERLC every week at least, if not multiple times a week of late. And it's fundamentally, it's like, it's unfair to Baptist, right?

We like, that's not the role of Baptist Press is just to be a cheerleader for this embattled entity, but that's exactly what they're doing.

And not just a cheerleader, and I'm gonna come back to what we were discussing, John, but also, I mean, they're printing inaccuracies on behalf of the

ERLC that are still sitting there. There is still a Baptist Press explainer claiming that the ethics, or excuse me, that the evangelical immigration table has never received any funding from George Soros and that its partnership with the

National Immigration Forum is not predicated on George Soros' money. That's a lie.

You know, I demonstrated that in my book. I didn't go into it in this article because it was a little bit of a tangent, but to your point about Baptist Press, I go, that is still sitting there.

You will even still see them refer to it when documents coming from George Soros' foundation directly say, we gave this money to Southern Baptists.

So it's just not true. So that's one point. And then the other thing about Baptist Press, getting back to this question of creating

PR campaigns, is that it's very understandable that most pastors don't understand what meaningful policy advocacy looks like.

So they're told, we have someone in the Capitol who reads every single bill coming out of committee, just really diligent, dedicated.

That's the kind of work we're doing. That sounds good if you don't understand that what we're talking about is a 25 -year -old who a year before was like someone's intern and has no connections with any of these congressional members' offices.

He doesn't know anyone. He's not going to some of these, and that's a question too. Why is he not going to some of these legislative boot camps where you have groups that are training policy advocacy people how to be effective?

And so what I'm told is, no, someone who's reading every bill is someone who doesn't know what they're doing and doesn't have connections because you shouldn't be doing that.

That's a waste of time. If you're a policy advocacy group, you should be in the room when those bills are getting drafted.

You should be in the strategy sessions. You should be helping to submit language and craft that language.

So that's one part of it, that they don't understand that, that we really do not have someone in D .C. who knows these people and who is able to represent in an effective way.

And that, by the way, includes Brent Leatherwood, who lives in Nashville, but I am also told does not have

D .C. connections of any significance. That was mind -blowing to me because I mean, even on the state level, and I dabbled, right?

But I did like this internship in Albany for a very short time. That's all you do is go to committee meetings. Sometimes they're very boring, but that's what you have to be seen in the room.

They have to know that your constituency is being represented there. And that was actually one of the most mind -blowing things in your piece.

I was like, they're not even at committee hearings? Or that's weird to me. But what about the budget?

So that was the second thing I know I asked. Southern Baptist probably wanna know, okay, so how much of my dime is actually going to this?

What's the budget for the ERLC? Either of you have information on that?

When I looked, it looked like it was fairly low. And that was kind of one of the things that I said in the piece.

You can give them a little grace for the fact that they are working with maybe three to $4 million, which is, you can correct me if I'm wrong on that,

William, if you have different information. But my understanding was about three to $4 million, which is not a lot of funding for someone who's doing real

DC advocacy work. And that point was made to me. I was like, eh, they're kind of small. So I could understand that.

But that's when I said, okay, well, they're in Nashville then if they're working with small budgets and we know they have taken up some

Tennessee state level issues, maybe they're active in Tennessee because that would be an easy way to represent

Southern Baptist in the state and with the state lawmakers that are right there in their own backyard. And even the state lawmakers of Tennessee who've worked on some very important bills that the

Daily Wire was heavily involved in, promoting the ban on transgender surgeries on minors.

That was legislation that the Daily Wire highly backed through our prominent host,

Matt Walsh. A lot of people were partners in that. And when I spoke to the co -sponsor of the bill, he told me, no, we didn't receive any help from the

ARLC. We don't know who the ARLC really are. We don't really interact with them. And keep in mind, the

ARLC claimed that they supported the bill all the way through that state level legislative process.

So they're saying that they supported it. And then I talked to the people who crafted and co -sponsored the bill and they're going, we don't know how they supported it because they weren't connected with us.

Wow, that's incredible. Go ahead. So my take on the budget is, and not to argue with Megan though, we can disagree, that's fine.

It's like, my take on the budget is 3 million is actually quite a bit. Like three, you can do very effective political advocacy, public advocacy, resource development with $3 million.

With the staff that the ARLC currently has, I know for a fact, there's no way they're spending all of their annual budget.

They're just simply not, like they don't have the people to be spending it on. I'm sure Brent gets a pretty decent salary and then maybe

Chief of Staff Miles does as well. But then after that, they've got low level individuals that I'm sure are not making substantial salaries because they just frankly don't have the experience to justify those salaries.

And then the resources that they're producing and the work that they're doing aren't gonna be so expensive. So I guarantee one, they're not spending their budget every year.

Two, we know this for a fact because last year, and Sam Webb wrote an incredible article on this at Center for Baptist Leadership.

Last year, when the end of the whole abuse response implementation task force was kind of winding down, they hadn't gotten done what they wanted to get done.

And so the people who were involved in that tried to create this non -SBC nonprofit called the Abuse Response Commission.

Almost all the other entity had said, yeah, we're not giving you any money for that because it's not an

SBC thing, that's crazy. Brent Leatherwood then agreed to give $250 ,000 to the previous iteration, the

ARITF. And where was that money gonna go? It was gonna be a pass through to the non -SBC nonprofit, which essentially violates our business and financial plan.

So the RLC is not spending their money. 3 million is more than enough to do effective advocacy.

There are a lot of very effective groups in DC that I'm sure are operating under that budget number.

And so it is fundamentally, I think it's just like year over year, it's a waste of $3 million of Southern Baptist Convention tithe giving.

At best, and then at worst, they use the money they use to do bad things. I mean, just to list the two briefly, right?

So one, they solicit outside funds, which I don't even know why they're doing that because they're not spending their budget. So they get outside donations from progressive groups,

FETS or Democracy Fund to do things like MLK50. And I can't prove this, this is just a hunch, but Paul Miller is a research fellow at the

Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. He's actually done a previous stint with them, and he wrote this terrible book against Christian nationalism.

It's very liberal. I actually think that you can trace it out to where in his previous stint at the ERLC, he wrote that book on like FETS or dime donations to the

ERLC. So it's like, and they're also getting Facebook money too, which again, why are they taking this money?

They're not like, they don't need it. They're not doing anything good with it. And so like, my point there would be like, they have more than enough to be effective and they just simply aren't.

Yeah, I mean, this is a lot to take in for Southern Baptists who care about these issues and they're disappointed.

Some of them are angry. Some of them are hearing this for the first time and some of them are gonna be showing up in June and trying to do something about it.

So since we only have about 15 minutes, I wanna get to some of the questions from Southern Baptists.

I'm assuming some of them are Southern Baptists in the audience. And one of them is, and this might be one for you,

William, is do we have any ideas on what the ERLC and the progressive elements will try to push at this year's convention?

So you can reframe that to ERLC types or people that support the

ERLC's current direction. What do you think is gonna happen if you wanna make a prediction? I mean,

I don't feel like this is a hard question and it's not gonna be anything new. This is what they'll do. They'll probably do some lunch in Dallas, right?

They'll probably get some squishy, like Bush -style Republican speaker.

They had Pence last year. They might get somebody in that vein. So they'll do some lunch and it'll be like moderates.

We're the happy moderates here in the SBC. And then when it comes time to debate the future of the

ERLC on the floor, if there's a motion to abolish them per bylaw 25, you'll get Brent Leatherwood at a mic and you'll get some of their sort of like, you'll get some of their defenders who will try to, they'll try to get conservative looking guys to get up there and say, no, they're great.

They're great. I was in DC with them. They took me around. We met with Senator Cruz and Senator Langford.

We took a picture on the balcony with Speaker Johnson. Guys, they're doing great work. Trust us, just trust us.

Like that's all it will be. We'll be like somebody that they brought to DC. We'll go to the mic and say, we love the

ERLC. They're doing great. Ain't nothing to see here. That's essentially all they can do. That's what they will do.

So, Josh Pulver says, so basically the ERLC claims advocating for their constituents, which is mostly conservative

Baptists and then those at the top push leftist schools. This is one of the questions that I'm using this to dovetail my own question, but Brent Leatherwood was really active with the

Nashville shooter issue. Like he did multiple news conferences. And I mean,

I even think, was it Infowars or some outlet did this whole like, kind of like guerrilla camera thing of like, you know, try to get him to comment on why he was trying to -

I thought it was Steven Crowder, but maybe. Was it Steven Crowder? My apologies to Steven Crowder for the confusion there.

So yes, I think you were right. But anyway, like he wanted to suppress this manifesto and very public and a lot of political capital invested in that issue.

And I remember thinking the whole time, like it doesn't surprise me that he wants to do this, but it's a little odd to me that this becomes, like his daughter goes to this school, it's in the local area, but like the whole

Southern Baptist Convention though, like this is their resources. They're putting them into this. So I don't know if you want to comment on that a little bit, back to the sort of the pushing the progressive goals.

But, you know, I don't think you focused a lot on that particular issue in your piece. What do you make of that emphasis?

Yeah, I mean, there were a lot of things that didn't go into the piece that could have gone into the piece. Cause you know, it was like 4 ,500 words, but it was really important to me to go this.

I don't want to have my say in my analysis here. I just want to let Capitol Hill speak to the issue of the

ERLC and hear from them. But what I will say is that yes, that trans issue, and I still have a lot of questions surrounding that because as you say, it didn't make a lot of sense to me why for instance, the

ERLC was not stronger behind that bill to stop Vanderbilt from doing transgender treatments on children.

And so I thought it was strange from the get -go that why was the ERLC just kind of absent on that issue that was right there?

I mean, there you can walk from ERLC offices to the Tennessee State Capitol in 12 minutes.

So why were they not present? And I think that may tie into that question of the Shooter's Manifesto because some have suggested it might implicate

Vanderbilt and perhaps there's some relationship between Leatherwood and or the

ERLC and Vanderbilt that prevented them from wanting to back that bill initially to any public degree, to any degree in which we saw them out there doing it.

And also explains why Leatherwood was so strong on trying to keep that trans

Shooter's Manifesto from coming to light because they are some suggestions that she got counseling at Vanderbilt and that would implicate them.

So that's kind of stuff that's all still in the stir. I'm not sure how that will play out, but certainly it showed a level of hubris for Brent Leatherwood knowing that he is so very public as the

ERLC's leadership, as the representative of Southern Baptist policy arm to go out and say, this thing should not be released and to do it so strenuously because Brent Leatherwood used scathing language about the people who leaked this trans

Shooter's Manifesto because they thought the public had an interest in it. And I agree with that person. He was far more scathing language against that leaker than he ever did against the trans

Shooter herself. So, I mean, that was always noteworthy to me. After the fact,

I think it was Sidney Bristow, you can see sort of in the background of Brent Leatherwood's press conference in which he claims, no

ERLC resources were used for me to make this statement or me to hold this press conference.

This was just done on my own dime. Well, one, I don't know that you really get to do that because you are the face of the

Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. And every paper that ran a story about that press conference noted his leadership of the

Southern Baptist public policy arm. So that's one part of that. And then the other thing is I have a hard time believing that no

ERLC resources were used on that press conference when it was kind of right there still during the primary business day.

And one of his staffers were right there with him sort of scurrying in the background, getting papers, organizing people.

So I would like some transparency on exactly how that press conference was put together.

I remember that. Yes, and we covered that. And you had all these pictures. Some of them were like pixelated, but you could match them with staffers on the website.

And it was like, well, if it's not ERLC, then why is everyone from the ERLC at this event or this press conference?

We only have a few minutes left. So if people have questions, get them in now. Here's another question. This is maybe more aimed at you,

William. This is from Matt Borish. He says, could the conservatives have to take over the platform and leadership at the

SBC before they can get any traction on conservative cultural issues being in the front of influential people in DC?

Yeah, I've met Matt, like Matt. I think that like the way to answer that question is, well, no,

I mean, there are other people doing it who are Southern Baptists, myself included. Danbury Institute's doing good work too.

But it's fundamentally about like, it's fundamentally about new leadership at the ERLC. That's what we need.

We need new leadership. And here's the thing is like, I was trying to think how can I appeal to maybe the undecided? I'm not always the best at that.

I'm the guy who helps rally the base. But it's like, look, you can love Brent Leatherwood. Like you can love him.

Like you can think he's a great guy. And like nobody's questioning his profession of faith, his belief in Jesus, his discipleship, his walk with the

Lord. And you can still think he's just not the right guy for this job. And I think that's what the volume of evidence shows.

Brent Leatherwood is not the right man for the job leading the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission in the current cultural climate and political climate we're in here in America in 2025.

And one of the things, this gets back to our historical point at the beginning, the left has shifted so drastically to become such an untenable party and organization for Christians that the idea that the role of our

Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission is to equally appeal to the right and the left is fundamentally invalid.

You cannot do that. But that's really the mindset Brent operates in. And whether it's him on the

Transgender Manifesto, whether it's the Red Flag Laws, and fundamentally it's just his attitude and his personality.

I got to hear him speak at Dallas Baptist University. I was in Dallas when I knew he was speaking there. I went and I heard his talk.

It was very, very weak, mediocre, winsome to the left. There was an abortion abolitionist advocate there afterwards who wanted to go in and talk to him about why they signed that letter in Louisiana to oppose the

Bill of Abolition. And his chief of staff just strong -armed this guy, wouldn't let him talk to Brent, and said, we've discussed this.

We're not talking about it. He shielded Brent from any reasonable questions. And then Dan Darling was there too.

So like Dan and Brent and his cadre walk out afterwards. And I'll close with this, is that thinking back to what we're gonna hear at the convention,

I thought of this J .I. Packer quote, half truth masquerading as a lie becomes a whole untruth, right?

And so the half truth we will hear from the ERLC is we're signing amicus briefs. We're signing petitions to defund

Planned Parenthood. That's the half truth. There are so many other things that they're doing. And the whole truth shows

Brent Leatherwood is not the right man for the job right now. Well, there is a question about who the right man would be from Jarrett Scott.

So William, I didn't get it in time. I was gonna pull up your picture with Trump, but would you take it if you,

I don't think, I don't know, I shouldn't say never, for the floor of the convention this year, maybe you get nominated to be the head of the

ERLC. I'll let Megan take that one. I mean,

I think there's a lot of great candidates. I mean, I think there's all kinds of people who could run the ERLC and do a really terrific job.

So I won't float names and I won't put my finger on the scale. But one thing

I can tell you is, and I'll correct a little bit and say,

I see your point, William, about yes, with three to $4 million, you could, if you had someone who was a DC insider and actually had that Rolodex full of all of the people who are in so many of these crucial offices and know how to get somebody to coffee and to start putting a bug in their ear about something that could turn into a bill or an executive order.

I see what you're saying there. But I will also point out that part of what they do do with their resources because they're not effective on the

Hill is that they are very familiar with churches and pastors though. So while they aren't able to make a lot of inroads with DC, they are able to make a lot of inroads with big churches.

And so what you tend to see them doing instead is say developing materials for that evangelical immigration table partnership where they're not influencing policymakers, but they are influencing pastors.

So they're sending that kind of material that argues for lax border policies. And they're putting that into churches and they're saying, hey, you should use this curriculum or use this explainer or use this resource or come to this conference in which the,

I hate all of these acronyms, the evangelical immigration table will be involved.

So I would say they are effective at that and that's the problem. So, because they're not supposed to be ambassadors for DC to churches.

I couldn't agree. Let me just say very quickly, I have no interest in the RLC job. I just want that on the record. My kind of pitching it to Megan there.

I have no interest in it whatsoever. I'm not angling for it. That's not what Center for Baptist Leadership is doing, but to get the right person in the job, we'll take a major change at the trustee board.

That's how it has to, it's not just Leatherwood. We need to essentially replace the vast majority of the trustees on the

ERLC board. So it needs total systemic sort of organizational reform.

And if Baptist can't find somebody to do this job, what is wrong with us? I mean, we have 13 million people out there, right?

I mean, I trust that there is a committed Baptist who believes the Baptist faith and message, who knows how to do policy and ethics work effectively, who could fill this job.

But it's one of those things where it's like, sometimes you can't see things until an obstacle is removed. And that's what we're dealing with right now.

We need to remove some obstacles so the right person can sort of be made present for this position. And they should be

DC based in my opinion. I mean, if you're going to actually do meaningful policy work, you need to be where the policy is set, so.

Didn't, no, I'm gonna get out ahead of myself here, but didn't NAM like pay for lobbying in DC?

And then didn't they pay like quite a bit? Was it maybe more than the ERLC budget? I've just,

I'm going off of like, I don't know if either of you have that information. I don't have that. They very well could have though.

And an insightful quote that the head of Catholic vote, who is a very effective policy advocate made to me was that he's like, look, we don't have a lot of money, but we have a very large base that they know is aligned on these issues in which we approach various senators and lawmakers.

And so they fear us or they welcome us because they know we can mobilize that base. The problem with the ERLC as well is that it's alienated from a massive

Southern Baptist base. So really nobody has any reason to fear or welcome their advocacy because they kind of look at the

ERLC and go, they're not mobilizing anyone. They have no relationship with their base either. And this was my main concern.

And this is what I saw as a student, what caused me to even speak out was I could tell that these guys coming in and these

ERLC folks were not instrumental in crafting policy or in actual politics.

Bruce Ashford was like, I think he was the provost when I was at Southeastern. And I know he had some, I don't know if he was ever officially on the

ERLC. I think he was. I think he did write some for the ERLC. But my point is that these guys weren't respected in the political field, but the students, they kind of worship these guys.

That was the thing that really got me is like, these students are gonna become pastors. These pastors are gonna be looking to the

ERLC for their political thinking and resources. And that's what they're gonna be telling their congregations.

And these congregations are gonna be filled with future politicians. Like that's how this works. That's why we should care about it because they do exert influence, even if it's not direct, it's indirect.

And that's why, Megan, I'm really appreciative of that whole article you did. I know that took a lot of work.

And I see other questions coming in, but we only have about a minute. So I wanna get to this question for you, Megan. And I know you've been public with this, so I think it's okay.

But Aslan Rising 1776 says, I am behind in the stream. So I don't know if Megan's cancer has been mentioned, but please let her know

I am continually praying for her. I saw a few tweets about or mentions of this.

And so I don't know if there's any update you wanna give or anything like that, Megan, but yeah, we are praying for you.

And I'm very impressed and I'm thankful, but I'm very impressed that you have the capacity through everything you're going through to come on a stream like this, and you care so much about Christianity in America.

So thank you for that. Thank you. And I'll say that so far it's going very well. I'm so grateful for the prayers and they must be working because we went through six weeks of radiation with minimal side effects.

And first round of chemo was down a couple of weeks ago. I go in the second round of chemo tomorrow. So you might not see me for a few days after that, but, and the side effects build.

So I may have to drop out some, but so far I've really been feeling pretty well, pretty energetic and not too bad on the side effects.

So we're just trusting the Lord that it's gonna knock it out. Yeah. Okay. Well, we are praying for you.

Thanks for sharing. And Judd Saul at the last minute, is Brent Leatherwood gay? Look at the time, look at the time.

We have to end the podcast now. So with that, William, where can people follow you? Yeah, people can find us online at centerforbaptistleadership .org.

Follow us on Exit Baptist Leaders, subscribe to the Baptist Leaders Podcast on YouTube. And the last thing

I will say, John, and I think this is really important. The most important resource the ERLC has to steward are the 45 ,000 churches of the

Southern Baptist Convention, more than any dollars in their bank account or influence in Washington, DC.

And that's fundamentally what they are not stewarding well right now, not equipping those 45 ,000 churches and 13 million

Southern Baptists to be faithful Baptist voices in the public square. And that's what needs to change.

Amen. Megan, where can people follow you? You can find me on Exit at Meg Basham. You can find me on Instagram at journalist,

Megan Basham, every week. I'm on Morning Wire podcast three or four times a week.

And you can always find me at Daily Wire and do go read this article. If you are a Southern Baptist, go read this article, read all of them at Christ Overall.

I would recommend the entire series, but if you really want to know what people in DC think of the

ERLC, if they think of the ERLC at all, that article should be a resource for you.

And it is linked. So it's in the info section. If people wanna go check it out, you can go there directly. Well, God bless.

And we're praying for you, Megan. Have a good week, both of you. And until next time. Thanks, John.