William Wolfe: 1.8K Female Pastors In SBC, Russell Moore and ERLC, SBC Convention 2025

William Wolfe of ‪@CenterforBaptistLeadership‬ and SBC pastor Tim Bushong discuss the upcoming SBC convention, Russell Moore, the ERLC and three key points:
-financial transparency
-rogue entities
-law amendment and female pastors 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everyone, Tim Bushong here from Eschatology Matters. We're part
of the Fight laf Fast network, and with me today
is William Wolf. Hi.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
William, Hi, Tim.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
I see you're from the Center for Baptist Leadership.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
That's so they tell me.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
That's exactly right. Before we get going, let me just
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(00:57):
at Reformation Heritage Books. That's Heritage Books dot org slash
how to Lead. Well, there we go, so William. In
about a week and a half, there's a little brew haha.
Going on in Dallas, Texas in the USA. What is that?

Speaker 2 (01:17):
It is the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention,
America's largest Protestant denomination. A bunch of Baptists descend on
some poor, unfortunate city every year to gather for a
business meeting. At least that's what it's supposed to be.
A time where we do the business of the convention
together over a period of two days, preceded by a

(01:38):
pastor's conference that occurs a couple days before that.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
Right, and this year, Center for Baptist Leadership has another
event scheduled, and you want to tell us about.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
That, Yeah, we do. We had a fantastic event last year.
You were there, Tim let us in the doxology at
the end of it luncheon on Tuesday. This year, we're
doing an evening event. We could call it a reception.
I'll be providing dinner for our wonderful guests, So make
sure to grab something to eat after you exit the
convention hall and work your way over to the highatt
Regency in Dallas, just a few blocks away from the

(02:10):
main convention center. We'll be meeting the Landmark Ballroom and
Our event this year is called for the Faithful Majority,
how to rebuild the SBC and revive America because we
do believe we represent the majority of Southern Baptists with
the issues that we're pursuing, the reforms that we are seeking,
even though many in leadership are not with us, we

(02:30):
think the base and the conservatives are.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
Yeah, I agree totally. You know, just recently I heard
your second interview with Willie Rice, and the whole time
I'm thinking he's he's kind of sneaky because he's got
that Southern good old boy thing going on, but he's
actually super highly intelligent and wise. And I thought that
interview was great. I want to recommend that to all

(02:56):
of our listeners go over to Center for Baptist Leadership
podcasts and listen to both interviews with Willier are great.
But you guys brought up something really I thought poignant,
and that is the way that the Southern Baptist Convention
right now, the institution, the way they look at so
called quote billy Baptist. Who is this guy? I mean,

(03:19):
I think I've met him. I think I've met a
few Billy Baptists. But who do they represent and what
makes you confident that you think the majority of Southern
Baptists are in favor of some of the reforms. We
haven't really talked about some of the issues. But Who's
Billy Baptiste.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
Billy Baptist is a character that was developed by doctor
Jerry Vines back in the day during sort of the
heyday of the Conservative resurgence. It's from his sermon that
he preached multiple times, called a Baptist and his Bible.
And during that period there was this pitch debate in
the Southern Baptist convention really over the inerrancy of scripture?

(04:00):
Do we trust God's word? The major social and theological
currents of that time, we're leading the mainline Christian institutions
and seminaries towards higher criticism and theological liberalism that denied
the inerrancy, the infallibility, the inspiration of scripture, the trustworthiness
of scripture, the sufficiency of scripture, you name it. You know,

(04:23):
they said, we don't know if Jonah ever happened. We
can't be sure that these miracles of Jesus really occurred
the way that the scripture says they occurred. Some of
these portions of scripture might be trustworthy, some may not be.
And as wa Chris Well, also a leader of the
Conservative Assurgents, pointed out, that is a part of a
pattern of death in any preacher's life and in an

(04:45):
institution's life when you begin to abandon the inerrancy of scripture.
And so Jerry Vines came up with his character Billy
Baptist and a Baptist in his Bible as just a
good old Southern Baptist, faithful American Christian who says, if
God's word says it, I believe it, and it's settled.

(05:05):
And that's what happened. We took the convention back for
those people. We re established commitments to an errancy in
our seminaries forty years ago, thirty years ago. But now,
tim it's a new form of liberalism, a new form
of compromise and elitism that sort of looks down on
the Billy Baptists of the SBC.

Speaker 1 (05:24):
Yeah, yeah, I think I walk in both worlds. Sometimes
I think about, you know, how, you know, I've been
reformed for a long time, read a lot of the
higher stuff, but in real life, when it comes right
down to it, it's like you're dealing with people that
they actually have a very high view of God's word,
and then when they see some of their leadership compromising

(05:49):
on what you know to be true or trying to
redefine things, is disappointing. And I think that's one of
the things we want to talk about today. In the
Southern Baptist Convention. There's a will think called the Cooperative Program,
and the Cooperative Program has been around for one hundred years.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
It's celebrating the one hundredth anniversary at the convention in June, Okay.

Speaker 1 (06:12):
And the original purpose of that was so that all
the Southern Baptist churches in the entire convention, both the
greatest small could partner together and give together towards the
common goal of the seminaries, the missions, and the institution
of the SBC. Is that correct, Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
Fundamentally, to fund International Missions IMB that they get the
biggest allotment of every dollar that comes into the Cooperative Program.
There's a set allotment for each entity. IMB's number one,
NAM is number two, so international missions, church planting that's
under the purview of the North American Mission Board, and

(06:51):
then theological education. The sixth seminaries also get their cut
so to speak. Then we also have the Ethics and
Religious Liberty Commission and various iterations that existed before it,
and our publishing house LifeWay as well.

Speaker 1 (07:06):
Yep, yep. What's happened to the Cooperative Program in the
last five ten years.

Speaker 2 (07:12):
Well, trust has declined fundamentally, that's what it is. Giving
is down. Churches are leaving, but why because people don't
trust how their dollars are being spent. Because if you
don't like what's happening at the ERLC, and many Baptists don't,
if you give to the Cooperative Program, some of that
money is going to go to the ERLC, And so

(07:32):
many churches have begun designating their giving directly to a
specific SBC entity, a seminary they trust the IMB and
therefore cooperative program giving overall is down. I'll also say
this tim It appears that there are entity heads who
are plotting for something like a post Cooperative Program future,

(07:54):
a future in which they fundraised directly from the churches
and even outside sources. Then we have to ask ourselves
what are we doing as Baptists If we're taking non
Baptist money for our Baptist mission. Are we even Baptists?

Speaker 1 (08:07):
Anymore exactly that and what you just said, And hopefully
that's not going to happen. But that's that's where our
church is. And I would love to be in a
convention of churches where I can actually trust where my
money's going, how it's being spent, you know, the little
you know out in the woods wood cutting video I
made the other day, I talked about millions of dollars

(08:28):
and getting nothing in return. I should have phrased that
a little different.

Speaker 2 (08:31):
But what did you mean by that, Tim?

Speaker 1 (08:33):
Well, yeah, I didn't get my feast of the pie,
you know. Well for you know, what I meant was
that back in twenty twenty one, there was this huge
effort and and movement made to kind of come into
the whole sexual abuse UH situation and spend money on
the problem. There was a task force set up. Millions

(08:56):
of dollars were spent on that, and nothing came of it,
nothing substantial on nothing concrete. There's no there was no conspiracy,
as doctor Moore tried to make it seem like, and
all that money has gone and that's that's Grandma's tithe money,
right there. Yeah, that's right, that's what I'm That's what
I'm talking about.

Speaker 2 (09:12):
I knew that. I knew that's what you meant. And
Willie Rice also has done a great job pointing out
he says, we've spent millions of dollars on consultants, on lawyers,
on legal fees, on settlements, and not one child is
better off for it. In the Southern Baptist.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
Convention, That's exactly right. What what was put in place?

Speaker 2 (09:34):
Nothing, well, lots of ridiculous settlements because they when they did,
when they started down this ridiculous path of accepting the
false narrative that there was an abuse crisis in the
SBC that never existed. Then you know, if there's a crisis,
it's sort of like emergency powers. We suspend the constitution,
we suspend reason, and we just do whatever we have

(09:54):
to to solve this issue, even if it doesn't exist.
And so they in the Guidepost Solutions Report, obviously, and
Guidepost is an incredibly left leaning organization celebrating gay pride,
you know, funded by the SBC. They did ridiculous things
like defaming individuals and slandering individuals who while they certainly

(10:14):
engaged in sin and in some case some cases you know,
consensual adult adultery. They were not abusing people, and they
were not abusing kids. And so when you call people
sexual abusers for engaging in consensual adult adultery, they're going
to sue you for it. And that's what's happened. And
also mentioned Bart Barber, former president of SBC. You know,

(10:37):
some people don't like how I tweet, but man, that
guy's tweets have been included in multiple lawsuits. I genuinely
wonder how much money the Southern Baptist Convention has spent
because of Bart Barber's tweets. It's an open question, right.

Speaker 1 (10:51):
I thought it was no mean tweets. Right, we're supposed
to celebrate that, Okay, So that brings us You're talking
about the trust in the institution, trust in the leadership.
You know, I was there in twenty one. I saw
the manipulation. A few things are more frustrating than to
see someone's logically walk through argument only to see the

(11:12):
room dissolve in tears, with one person getting up and say, oh,
I promised myself I wasn't going to do this, and
everybody go, oh, oh the poor girl. What she What
that does is it just holds everyone hostage to some
kind of personal emotion or empathy or whatever it is.
And there were a lot of things I saw that

(11:34):
it was my first convention. Then I was there last
year in Indianapolis in twenty four that was better, but
I still saw how the platform manipulated the room, and
that's more of an existential. While you're there, you can
see this going on. What do you think are the
top three issues that Billie Baptist really needs to think about?

(11:57):
Because we all know, you know, the vast majority of
Baptist like this, but they're also not willing to say yeah,
and the organization my granddad belonged to, and my dad
belonged to and I belong to has some real big
holes in the hull of the ship. You know, no
one wants to admit that. What are the top three
issues right now? May twenty ninth, point twenty five.

Speaker 2 (12:19):
Yeah, Well, the first thing I would say is before
we get into these issues, if you're listening to this
whenever it's out and you haven't decided to come to
the Southern Baptist Convention Annual meeting, and you can, you should,
I would say the meta issue with the SBC is
the disengagement of the average sized SBC church. Seventy percent
of all SBC churches are one hundred members or less.

(12:40):
If you don't come to the annual meeting, rest assured
the megachurches are sending their messengers. The megachurches are in
bed with the system and the platform, and they are
not going to be voting in your interests. So if you,
particularly if you live within driving distance of Dallas, and
there are a lot of SBC churches around there, come
to the meeting. But here let's break down the issues.
The first one I would say is financial transparency. Rhet Burns,

(13:04):
a pastor from South Carolina, has been leading an effort
for multiple years now to secure increased financial transparency from
the entities of the SBC to the churches of the SBC.
Because we believe that the churches are the center and
the home and the leaders of the convention, not the
entities and not the president. We've turned that system on

(13:25):
its head. Rhet's motion, we call it nine to ninety
level financial transparency. He's taking similar information that a nonprofit
would disclose in its federal filings, which is compensation for
top five executives, conflicts of interests and things like that,
and make it available not to the federal government but
to SBC churches. His motion has been stalled and blocked

(13:47):
and killed by the Executive Committee and particularly the Subcommittee
on Finances and Stewardship for multiple years now, but he's
not letting it go. So he's going to be trying
to offer that motion again. And at the same time,
the new leadership of Executive Committee, Doctor Jeff Jorg If
I'm saying that right, I'm not sure if I ever
am and others have proposed a rewrite of the Southern

(14:10):
Baptist Convention Business and Financial Plan. Currently we're not even
abiding by the Business and Financial Plan, and this rewrite
codifies the obscurity that's currently out of bounds, and this
sort of blesses it. So we need to actually oppose
the proposed rewrite of the Business and Financial Plan, which
not only codifies the current obscurity that's being practiced, but

(14:31):
it actually blesses the outside fundraising we were talking about.
So to boil it down, be ready to vote for
Rhetburn's motion, and particularly be ready to vote on a
parliamentary procedure. When Rhett offers it, they will try to
refer it to the Executive committee where it will go
and die. So rhet will have to challenge the ruling
of the chair so to speak, and get a fifty

(14:51):
percent majority vote in order to have a debate and
a discussion and then a vote on this second be
ready to vote against vote down the proposed Business and
Financial Plan rewrite that codifies the obscurity of the current system.
So that's a big one. I'll say this, Tim, The
financial transparency is not just because we want to know
what people are making. The financial transparency is the most

(15:14):
needed medicine right now to reform our broken trustee system
because the trustees that run these entities are no longer
accountable to the Convention because we don't have a benchmark
for how they're performing. If this financial information is made available,
we will be able to not just trust the trustees,
but verify that we can trust the trustees. So if

(15:34):
you think the trustee system is broken, and it is,
that's why we vote for financial transparency.

Speaker 1 (15:39):
Good good. I saw in one of the subtweets or
whatever that they're trying to say, oh, no, we're fully accountable.
We'll let you know how the decision was made to
give them a raise or to send their salary and
it's like, okay, it's not just about that. And by
the way, if you want to follow at Burns, here's

(16:01):
his website, SBC Transparency dot net. Lots of information on
that website. Yep, all right, what's the second one?

Speaker 2 (16:12):
Okay, I'd say the second one is dealing with rogue entities.
We've got a variety of rogue entities, I believe in
the SBC, but we've got one particular sore thumb, and
that's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. It's one of our
smaller entities. It's operating budget annually is three to four
million dollars. It gets a pretty low percentage allotment from

(16:34):
the cooperative program, but it sure punches above its weight
and causing division in the Convention, and it has for
over a decade now. As Willie Rice so eloquently said
on our podcast, they're engaging in some pr right now,
but we know that nothing has fundamentally changed. Russell b
after Richard Land took it on a never Trump progressive direction,

(16:56):
partnering with George Soros founded and influenced organizations, partnering with
other progressive organizations like the Democracy Fund, which helped I
believe pay for this super woke conference they had MLK fifty,
you know, which was just a whole bunch of white
guilt and unbiblical CRT and DEI nonsense. Brent Leatherwood has
a history of advocating for progressive policies, like anti Second

(17:19):
Amendment laws in Tennessee. They also have a history of
killing bills that would have abolished abortion at the state level.
This happened in Louisiana, and then he's nowhere to be
found on major fights unless there's a fight that he
can run to and say, hey, you know, we signed
a letter on this, so it's our victory. I call
it stolen valor.

Speaker 1 (17:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (17:40):
So, in summary, the motion that we expect is a
motion to abolish the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission under
by Law twenty five of the SBC That requires two
years at a fifty percent vote threshold. So that doesn't
mean it goes away, but it sends what I would
hope would be an unmistakable signal that you need to
overhaul this entire thing. Get a new board leadership, get

(18:00):
new staff, get a new mission. Come back to something
Baptists in Orlando and say we heard you and we
made changes. Don't kill us. We're on the right track.

Speaker 1 (18:10):
Right, right? Do you do you think it's possible to
save the ELC from this fate without without replacing the leadership? Oh?

Speaker 2 (18:19):
Absolutely not. It's the trustees are doubled down. And I'll
tell you why we know this, Tim is because last July,
about a month or so after the convention in which
we took a close to a forty percent vote on
getting rid of the ERLC, which as a pastor, you
would know if your congregants took a vote on you
and you quote unquote won the vote at sixty forty,

(18:40):
did you really win the vote?

Speaker 1 (18:42):
Yeah? Yeah, what kind of trust you have from your congregation?

Speaker 2 (18:45):
Right exactly?

Speaker 1 (18:46):
Well, that was interesting that they didn't take a ballot
vote on that. I mean Tom Askell made the motion
Cord twenty five and it's like, uh, it did invest
They just kind of waved their hand over it. And
no one really knows what the percentage was. I mean,
everybody around me was like abolish, abolish, you know.

Speaker 2 (19:04):
Yeah. It was a big boat though, and it was
substantially more than it has been in previous years. Anyway,
Leatherwood didn't care the trustees didn't care one trust he did.
The chairman, Kevin Smith, he told I think essentially he
told Brent you're on thin ice. Well, then Biden drops
out of the race, and Brent Leatherwood says, what a
noble and selfless act to give up power? Which was
which is just ridiculous, right, it really is. I mean,

(19:25):
I'm trying to be charitable, but I'm also just being
frank and honest. That's a really silly way to characterize
what Biden did. It's not even true, and that's the problem.

Speaker 1 (19:32):
It's not true exactly right.

Speaker 2 (19:35):
Kevin Smith goes to Nashville and tells Brent, hey man,
you need you need a time out. He didn't go
to fire him. He won't, essentially, I think, to maybe
put him on leave. Brent Leatherwood sits there and says, no,
I'm not taking a time out. I'm not going on leave.
And so then Kevin fired him. Kevin Smith, the chairman,
fired him for insubordination, tells a stafford to post a

(19:57):
press statement saying he's been relieved. What is Brent other
would do? He sits there in his office and he
calls his old pal and his mentee Russell Moore. Russell
Moore whips up a media firestorm, causing the other executive
committee members of the ROC Trustee Board to cave over
the weekend. And then how does it end with Kevin Smith,
the chairman who tried to do the right thing, resigning

(20:18):
and Brent being reinstated. How do you come back from that?

Speaker 1 (20:21):
Dude? Yeah, it was insane. What was the what was
the national publication that Moore wrote his letter in? I
can't remember, but it was. It was all over the place.
It was like, oh can you believe this? You know,
it's like, what do you care what Russell Moore says?
Who cares? He quit with his you know, fire and
shots across the bound twenty one. Now he's a Presbyterian.

(20:43):
Really we're supposed to be all concerned.

Speaker 2 (20:46):
Well, he whips up a media mob. And I will
say this again. Our group gets often, I think, very
unfairly criticized for our rhetoric and how we represent those
who we may disagree with honestly when we're just telling
the truth about them. Russell Moore called the firing of
Brent Leatherwood by Kevin Smith the perfect intersection of stupid
and evil. So he just called the chairman of the

(21:09):
RLC evil and this just is too rich. I can't
help but not point this out. Kevin Smith was the
first black chairman of the e RLC. We love to
talk about diversity and SBC and getting minorities into positions
of power, but when push came to shove, Russell Moore
and Brent Leatherwood decided to lynch the first black chairman
of the ERLC politically to save Brent's job. Again, this

(21:32):
out of control rogue entity needs to be held in
check and we need to vote to abolish them to
get new leadership.

Speaker 1 (21:39):
Yeah, I agree. You realized that the actions and tweets
of the e RLC are the pretty much the number
one reason why Syracuse designates all our giving to the
I m b's It's that I told. I told one
of our association meetings one time when we were talking

(22:00):
about this, and you know, we had the State the
State guy up and he's cool and everything, but they
want to keep things kind of rolling as they are.
I said, I got to be honest with you. We
don't give it the CP. We give the IMB. Every
time Brent Leatherwood tweets a cold hand reaches up and
clutches my pancreas and tries to pull it out. It's
the worst. He does not represent anything I believe except

(22:21):
for the basic Baptist faith and message. Apostles creed, you know,
because they don't apply the Bible to the rest of life.
That's the that's the frustrating part.

Speaker 2 (22:32):
Well, I mean, John white Att has put it really well.
They have really imbibed social justice theology and political engagement,
and quite frankly, the only reason they've toned down their
wokeness is because the culture is more thankfully anti woke
right now, but just biding their time. No real reforms,
no apologies. So they're on this excessive pr campaign, trying

(22:54):
to take credit for things that would have happened whether
they existed or not, like the defunding of Planned parenthood
in a mass of House Senate Bill flying In Cherry
picked pastors who agree with them to Washington, d C.
For photo ops. And I will say this, there's been
some photo ops that I think maybe were much more
forced than people could possibly imagine. I'll leave it at that.

Speaker 1 (23:18):
So well, Meg Basham did the follow up. She's like,
I know these people, they don't know you.

Speaker 2 (23:23):
Right, come on, and so you know, to try to
let me put the most like, if if somebody's listening
to this and they're undecided on what to do with
the ERLC, let me just be very clear. I think
it's important that the Southern Baptist Convention have something like
the ERLC. Yeah, it could even be the ERLC if
the reputation is not so thoroughly tarnished, but it can't

(23:44):
be under this leadership for Brent Leatherwood. We can also
say I'm sure Brent Leatherwood is a brother in Christ.
I'm sure he loves the Lord and he's a great
husband and a father. But he's not the right man
for this job. And that's not a bad thing. That's
not a terrible thing. Brent has been a committe did
center right at best Republican for essentially as long as

(24:05):
he's been a political operative. He was involved back in
the Tennessee GOP in twenty sixteen. That's who he worked for,
and he was eventually essentially forced out of the Tennessee
GOP because he was trying to whip Tennessee electors to
the electoral College, i mean, to the primary, to a
post Trump. He was a never trumper, he's never not

(24:25):
been a never trumper. So after he got pushed out
of the Tennessee GOP, where did he land at the ERLCC. Yeah,
he was just not the right man for the job.

Speaker 1 (24:34):
With other never trumpers, that's right, who ended up going
to something today and it's not Christianity anyway. Yeah, So
we're discussing the kind of accountability and financial spending. What's
another issue within the SBC that really needs reform if

(24:55):
we're going to continue to exist as a cooperating body
of churches. Because what you just said was there's a
bunch of churches that have said, now we're not even
going to give to the CP anymore because we don't
we're not with you on these things. And even churches
that have left the SBC ironically praise MEO Baptist ironically

(25:19):
left the SPC. I guess what are some other issues
that really people need to be on the lookout for
and be aware of, especially if they're going to be
there with the ballot book in their hand and be
voting for things.

Speaker 2 (25:33):
Yeah, the last big one is law Amendment reducts once
more into the breach. Dear friends, once we vote on
whether or not the Southern Baptist Convention is going to
tolerate female quote unquote pastors. And our confession of faith
could not be more clear. We believe that the office

(25:53):
of pastor in the church, and you cannot separate office
and title without doing great violence to language and words
and their meaning. That the office of pastor and the
title thereof is reserved for qualified men according to the
scriptural standards found in One Timothy and Titus. And this
is what's articulated in our statement of faith. And yet

(26:14):
American Reformer, in advance of the first Law amendment vote
almost three years ago now, they published a piece asking
how many women pastors are in the Southern Baptist Convention.
They did a data driven analysis on a sample size
and then extrapolated it out and they said, we think
there are at least eighteen hundred female pastors in the
Southern Baptist Convention, which wouldn't surprise me, tim because what

(26:36):
do we know. Nate Schloman has done an excellent job
finding and highlighting these nam church plants and partner churches
with sen network that have the duo of husband and
wife as the pastoral planting and leadership team. So the
biggest church planting and pastoral training agency of the Southern
Baptist Convention, NAM opposes the lawmendment. Kevin Is says it,

(27:00):
Why would they oppose reaffirming our commitment to the Baptist
faith and message unless they're doing things that are outside
the boundaries of it, which is exactly what's happening. So
we are going to vote on the law amendment again,
and back to the phrasing of the faithful. Majority, well
sixty over sixty percent maybe eighty percent voted for this
to New Orleans, and then the Platform launched a year

(27:23):
long attack on it. It was empire strikes back. If
New Orleans star wars a New Hope, then then Indianapolis
was an Empire strikes back. And so maybe here in
or in Dallas it will be return of the Jedi.
And so Mike Law is not leading the effort anymore.
But Juan Sanchez, who worked with him on it is.

(27:43):
And after the Credentials Committee made some terrible decisions refusing
to disfellowship churches with blatant female pastors, and this was
reported and made public, Juan Sanchez and other pastors said,
all right, we need to do this again. We're going
to bring it back. So if you're there with the out,
be ready to vote in favor of Juan Sanche's efforts

(28:04):
to get a second a second effort on the Law
Amendment parliamentary. The parliamentary procedure on this will be he'll
offer it again, they'll try to revert to committees. So
we have to vote to bring it out of the
executive Committee. We have to win that vote so it
doesn't sit there for a year, and then vote to
affirm it right here in Dallas so we can ratify
it in Orlando and put this fight behind us, because

(28:27):
if we don't, more and more churches will leave. Southern
Baptist churches are complementarian churches. They're not a galitarian. They
don't want to send money to Nam if they're planting
a galitarian churches. This is so simple. As Willie Rice said,
we need ambiguity. Well, we see we have ambiguity.

Speaker 1 (28:43):
We don't need clarity.

Speaker 2 (28:45):
Yeah, we need we need we have ambiguity. We need clarity.
The Law Amendment provides constitutional, biblical clarity for where Baptists
stand on this issue.

Speaker 1 (28:55):
One of the things he said I really resonated with
because we had the same discussion in our association Pastors fellowship,
and me and two other guys were told, that's the
mountain out of a mohill. It's not that big a deal. Besides,
you know, if they're if they're doing all the things
a pastor can do all the time, saying we actually
agree with the Baptist Faith methage message. And that was

(29:19):
they were trying to make such a big deal about
churches that are kind of sloppy in their use of
the language, you know, children's ministry pastor Karen or whatever.
And the younger guy that was with on our side
of that, he says, why is it, why is it
uh contingent upon us to change what we believe concerning

(29:41):
women pastors because some people out there don't know how
to talk. And I thought it's exactly right, and Willy
said it much better than I just did. But it's
the same principle you know that needs education. There's where
you would come alongside and say pastor elder overseer, episcopus presbuteros,
you know, they're the poem on they're the same function

(30:02):
and office in the local church. Not complicated, No.

Speaker 2 (30:06):
It's it's not complicated unless we make it complicated, but
I will say this sometimes I've heard this quote before.
Strategic ambiguity is the fortress of heretics, right, so we
want there are many people who want strategic ambiguity is
the fortress of heretics. They want strategic ambiguity on this
so that they can duck and dodge and hide and say, well, no,

(30:28):
I I do affirm that the office of elder is
reserved for men. But this woman, she's a pastor, she's
not an elder, and she's under our authority. And it's like, brother,
what are you doing? Let's just have let's come on.
You think Billy Baptist is tracking with that?

Speaker 1 (30:43):
You lost it?

Speaker 2 (30:44):
Like men are pastors, Pastors are men. This is what
we believe for hundreds of years, and we have to
reaffirm it because of where we are as a culture.
The Southern Baptist Convention has done this previously. Whether you
agree with them or not on this, they they thought
that racism and abuse were so prevalent that we needed
to put that in our constitution, even though denying you know,

(31:09):
racism and abuse were in the Baptist faith the message already,
So we did it on those Why can't we do
it on this one. And and I'll tell you fundamentally,
the opposition is coming from guys who want a pan evangelical, squishy, complementarian,
half egalitarian, non Baptist future for the SBC.

Speaker 1 (31:29):
And I think they're also terrified of being referred to
as fundamentalists. Well, sure, that's that's going on there too.
So so when it comes to the to the new
version of the law amendment and and that vote, it's
interesting this year it's a little different than last year

(31:51):
because there's a certain person who sounds like they support
the new version, and that's the president of the SBC,
Clint Presley. Right.

Speaker 2 (32:00):
Yeah, I think Clint's been very open in his supportive
law man, and he was open in support of it
when he was running for president before we elected him
last year. I believe that he continues to support it
and thinks it's something that we need to get done.
And so that is true. I don't think Bart Barber
supported it, you know, Ed Litton and Jada Greer certainly
didn't support these efforts. But yes, we have we have

(32:22):
a president who is I believe, willing to defend our
confession of faith without crossed fingers, which is really important.

Speaker 1 (32:30):
Yeah, it just seemed to me. You know, I'm a
late comer to the SBC, I'm an older guy, but
I would I would watch from afar, you know what's
going on. I was interested in what Tom Askell had
to say back in the you know, nineties. That's about
the only Southern Baptist I knew, because he was you know, reformed.
But it just seemed like the momentum that was building

(32:52):
for that was definitely had cold water thrown on it
from from the institution, from the from the platform, from others.
And it was also this this weird issue of uh,
I don't know, just not wanting to rock the boat.
And I think every institution needs somebody to rock the boat, because,

(33:16):
you know, you get comfortable, you get used to your traditions,
and you get used to this. You know, a lot
of people treat the annual meeting as a that's their
getaway and they can reunt a hotel and go out
to eat with mama, and it's like, now you've got
stuff to do. You know, I'm gonna pay attention to
this stuff.

Speaker 2 (33:34):
Well, you're you're cheeting me up here for something that
I really am chomping at the bit to address, and
why don't you do it? All right? So go, We're
not here's the thing, Tim, we're not rocking the boat,
and we aren't agents of chaos, and we aren't sewing division,
and we aren't the problem. If you want to join
a group but you refuse to abide by the membership

(33:57):
rules of that group and you were going to actively
work to subvert them, you are the bad guy here,
not the members of the group who stand up and say, hey,
you're not abiding by the rules of this group. You
want the benefits, but you don't want the responsibilities. You're
the bad guy. So there's this guy, Andrew Orbay. He's
a pastor in the Southern Baptist Convention, and he's pretty egalitarian.

(34:20):
He opposed the law Amendment, he supports the ERC. He's
on the wrong side of all these issues. And he
reposted Chim Challis's article about G three where he used
this phrase agents of chaos. And Andrew, who is on
the left side of the line in Southern Baptist Convention life,
tried to apply that label agents of chaos to those
who like myself, who are defending our confession of faith.

(34:43):
But let me put it this way, if you are
part of the Southern Baptist Convention and you oppose defending
our confession of faith and you are actively subverting it
in your ministry and in your teachings, Brother, you are
the agent of chaos. Not me and not the people
that I work with. We are the agents of reform
and fail faithfulness. And if you don't want to live
within the boundaries of God's word and our confession of faith,

(35:05):
let me introduce you to the United Methodists.

Speaker 1 (35:08):
Go be Methodists somewhere else. That's right, Yeah, I mean
you're exactly right. The the idea that you know, you guys,
you troubler of Israel, right, No, he's the prophet trying
to bring godly sanity to King Ahab's court. You know

(35:29):
it's always that way though, you know you you're the
one that's upsetting people. Did you see they were crying
and their feelings were hurt, and you know, like they're
in the wrong place they need to be what CBL
is that the TBL Yeah, right right, not with not
with these other folks. And you need to have a

(35:50):
steal in your spine.

Speaker 2 (35:51):
Frankly, well, as Ben Shapiro said, facts don't care about
your feelings. So I would say, when it comes to
the Southern Baptist Convention, faithfulness doesn't care about your feelings.
We want to be faithful to God's word, we want
to be faithful to our confession of faith, and if
that hurts your feelings, then brother or sister, you are
just in the wrong denomination. You know, if we can't
draw clear lines where God has drawn clear lines, and

(36:13):
if we can't defend those clear lines through active measures
and votes and debate, then you just need to go
be Methodists somewhere else, or go be non denominational. You
can go be a non denominational soft egalitarian church. That's fine.
You don't have to abide by the Baptist faith and message.
But when you agree to join the Southern Baptist Convention,
you agree to abide by the standards of friendly cooperation

(36:36):
that we have set forward. And if you're undermining those
and opposing that people are trying to defend them, you
are the divisive one, not the person who's pointing it
out right.

Speaker 1 (36:45):
I would I would rather be a troubler in Israel
called that than one of the profits. That's line of
the king. I mean, that's real that's really what it is.
Are there any other things that you can think of
right now that that would that would really make our convention?
I mean again, nineteen early nineteen nineties, that was a

(37:08):
massive takeover of the Conservatives. I have a hymnal and
it's not here handy, but that was from nineteen ninety one.
Some of the editorial choices in the Hymnal are abysmal
because the Hymn Committee we're still those soft, egalitarian, squishy
liberals that got kicked out, so to speak, in the

(37:28):
early nineties. So we don't want to we don't want
to have to go through that whole process again where
the convention is so compromised, even at the seminary level.
You know, we're not really sure if Jesus was indeed
God in the flesh, all that kind of nonsense. What
are some other other ways that the average Southern Baptist
can help, Because we know there are organizations like the

(37:48):
Center Baptist Leadership, relatively new God bless you, good job,
William love it. We've got founder's ministries, they've been around
for a while. Some of the other men that sure
we could pay attention to and say, okay, They're a
voice of reason in this cloud of nuance. If you
want to see them that way.

Speaker 2 (38:07):
Yeah, sure. So again I would say the main way
that you can help make a change in the Southern
Baptist Convention is twofold. One take the long view, and
two get engaged. I think I think as over last
five to six years, this battle against liberalism and wokeness
and SBC has really spiked. I think some people thought

(38:28):
we were going to change it with an election, change
it with one year. That's not how it works. Our
brothers who led the Conservative resurgence labored for ten plus
years before they had enough presidents, who change enough boards
to get new leaders at entities and other institutions. So
get engaged and take the long view. Maybe we win
these votes to the SBC this year, maybe we don't.

(38:49):
That doesn't mean we quit fighting. But who can you
listen to? Well, yes you can, please listen to Center
for Baptist Leadership, subscribe to our podcast on YouTube, read
our articles. Support us financially. We hope that a program
where churches can partner with us as as ministry partners.
We plan to announce at our event. So partner with
us what we'll be doing for you is we'll be

(39:10):
equipping you not just to be aware of what's happening
in SBC. That's important, but that's not all the time.
We are going to be helping defend Baptist distinctives and theology,
and this is really important. And we're going to be
trying to cultivate and equip Baptist pastors and highly engaged
lay members to be good citizens and bold actors in

(39:32):
the public square. So if you want to be more
involved civically or in politics, or in the public square
in the culture, we're going to equip your church to
do that. Other organizations, like you said Founders Ministries, they're
doing fantastic work on the historic Baptist heritage, particularly on
the reform side of things. There's the Danberry Institute, which
has been launched to defend life and liberty in the

(39:54):
public square. They're not officially sort of Southern Baptists, though
they've got a lot of Southern Baptists folks with them.
People were part of the Conservative Baptist Network. There's the
Conservative Baptist Network that's still out there, led by Timothy Pigg.
Now they're focused on providing fellowship and you know, theological training,
church planting, equipping pastors to do the work of the ministry.

(40:16):
So they've taken what was you could say, sort of
a change agent in the SBC, and they've taken that
network and now it's a place for like minded conservative
Southern Baptist pastors to work together to advance good gospel ends.
So they're still doing great work. American Reformer got to
mention them. They're doing great work across the evangelical spectrum, Baptist, Pricebyterian, Lutheran, Anglican.

(40:37):
They're not a Pricebyterian org despite what some librarians like
to claim or say, they're a pan evangelical organization. But
they're they're doing really good work I think. I mean,
you guys at eschatology matters have been I think, really
encouraging and engaging on these things. Continue to read people
like Aaron Wren, particularly on institutional renewal. I mean that's
what this this this program is a is a pro

(41:00):
of institutional revitalization and renewal. I'm not trying to tear
anything down. I'm saying that there are cracks in the foundation,
and what I'm warning is if we don't address those cracks,
the building will come tumbling down at some point on
top of all. Let's not do that. And when it
does come tumbling down on top of all of us
as Southern Baptist, somebody's going to complant a rainbow flag

(41:21):
on top of the pile and then we're toast. And
that is not a good stewardship.

Speaker 1 (41:26):
You know that. I don't know who coined this, but
it's it's been making the rounds recently that any institution
not intentionally right wing.

Speaker 2 (41:37):
Oh yeah, here we go, We'll go left.

Speaker 1 (41:39):
And I I'll be honest, you know what, watching watching
some of this stuff play out, and I'm on X
and you know, try to try to pay attention to stuff,
and it's it's almost like it's, you know, two steps forward,
one step back, two steps forward. But that's how that's
how progress is made. It's it's not like and like

(42:01):
you said, I said in my video, not trying to
tear everything down. We need to start from scratch. Revolution. No,
it's called reform. Think about what the reformers went through
in the early sixteenth century against the entire enclave of
the Western Church, my goodness. And they were hounded, you know,

(42:21):
had to give up their lives some of them. Well,
this isn't the Roman Catholic Church, is the Southern Baptist Convention.
That's why we got a bunch of billy Baptists out there.

Speaker 2 (42:29):
Come on, yeah, okay, So what you're referencing this, this
is fantastic, Tim. What you're referencing are conquests. Three laws
of politics Robert Conquest. He was a British political thinker
and even a poet. These are what his laws are.
Number one, everyone is conservative about what he knows best.
That means what you're most familiar with, you will seek

(42:51):
to defend and conserve. So, for example, in the Southern
Baptist Convention, if you're most familiar with a sort of secret,
sensitive megachurch, maybe soft galaty model, that's which you will
actually seek to conserve and defend. Or if you're most
conservative with a elder led, congregationally ruled, biblically sound, complementary

(43:12):
in church, that's what you will seek to defend, you
will conserve that. So that's his first one, everyone is
conservative about what he knows best. The second, two, two,
and three applied directly to the SBC any organization not
explicitly and constitutionally right wing will sooner or later become
left wing. And that's what's happening.

Speaker 1 (43:31):
Now.

Speaker 2 (43:31):
We could argue, sort of stretching the language here a
little bit, is the SBC right wing, Well, it's certainly
on the right, it is if right wing means grounded
in nature and grounded in truth. Our confession of faith
does that. But if you don't defend it, if you're
not explicit about it, you will become left wing over time.
And then I love this third one. The behavior of

(43:52):
any bureaucratic organization can be best understood by assuming that
it is controlled by a secret cabal of its enemy.
The behavior of any bureaucratic organization can be best understood
by assuming that is controlled by a secret cabal of
its entities. So when we look at the end, the
SBC has a massive bureaucracy. We even have what I

(44:15):
would call an SBC deep state. It's called the Executive Committee.
You know, we appoint we elect these presidents every year
and they maybe get two years. But that guy we
elect as the Executive Committee president and CEO he is,
there's no tenure on his term. Those employees at the
Executive Committee, they just continue on in perpetuity. So we
have a bureaucratic, you know, apparatus at the Executive Committee.

(44:38):
We have bureaucracies across our different institutions. And if you're
wondering why they're doing things they shouldn't be doing, what
Conquest says is maybe you should assume they're controlled by
a cabal of your enemies. Right, and you can use
that term enemy loosely. I'm not saying there are spiritual enemies.
I'm not saying they're, you know, an enemy of Christ.
But if we have opposing viewpoints on how we should

(45:00):
need the Southern Baptist Convention, you sort of are you know,
a friend or an enemy there. So Conquest three's laws
of politics they apply to the SBC, Learn them, know them,
and spot them.

Speaker 1 (45:10):
Yeah, yeah, I think that's that's great advice. And uh,
you know, for those of us back to what you
said about taking the long view, Yeah, you can't just go, well,
we we lost the lad why why even try? You know,
don't polish the brass on a sinking ship or whatever.

(45:31):
God can do what he wants. And you know, Rod
Martin's famously said that God doesn't need the Southern Baptist
Convention but you do.

Speaker 2 (45:39):
You do, you do.

Speaker 1 (45:40):
We're the number one missionary sending organization in the on
the planet. Our seven seminaries train more pastors than anything
else as a as a group. So it's worth fighting
for it really is.

Speaker 2 (45:55):
Yeah, that's right, Tim, And and it's for the sake
of the gospel. Yeah, we do this not because we
just want to, you know, make the Southern Baptist Convention
more republican, although I think it's certainly important to consider
the fact that many powerful and well funded actors are
trying to make the Southern Baptist Convention more democrat and
more liberal. And if we don't want that, you have

(46:15):
to do something about it. You might not be interested
in politics as a Southern Baptist, but politics are interested
in you. That's why they've been funneling money into our
organizations and moving us to the left on climate change, LGBT,
immigration read Shepherds for Sale by None.

Speaker 1 (46:29):
Blessed Megan Ba. I'm just gonna say yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:32):
But even still, and this is really important too. The
way it's working these days is the political liberalism leads
directly to theological liberalism. Once you start going more politically liberal,
you do not maintain conservative or biblical theological commitments. And
so it's an entry way, the entry vehicle, the trojan

(46:54):
horse for theological liberalism, and the SBC this time around
hasn't been higher criticism, but critical that makes us much
more liberal. So we have to defeat that because we
want to preserve the Gospel, and because we want to
do Baptist things. I want to plant Baptist churches overseas
in appropriate contextual settings. I want to plant Baptist churches

(47:15):
in North America, not Pan Evangelical. If I wanted to
be part of the Pan Evangelical Convention, I would go
join that. It doesn't exist, right, Well, let's be Baptist
or be nothing. So we can defend the Gospel and
this rich tradition of our Baptist distinctives. And that's what
we're fighting for.

Speaker 1 (47:32):
Yeah, go be elevations somewhere else.

Speaker 2 (47:35):
That's right. It's all true right down the street from me.

Speaker 1 (47:41):
Oh it is. Yeah, that's right. You're in North Carolina. Yep, Oh,
my stars. The guy's a heretic.

Speaker 2 (47:48):
Come on, yeah, he's crazy, he's nuts.

Speaker 1 (47:50):
Yeah yeah, Any last words you have for our eschatology
matters audience, William you've been very encouraging. I'm'ouraged. We're glad
to support you guys. You know, we support founders, we
support the Center for Baptist Leadership, and we give to
the IMB. Plus we give the missionaries that just nobody's

(48:12):
but we know who they are. Any last words, any
last words now.

Speaker 2 (48:16):
I would just say that, as we prepare to gather
in Dallas, you know, pray to the Lord that he
would be gracious to our convention and that we would
have a spirit of unity. But that spirit of unity
would be grounded in the truth. That would be real
unity and substance, not in sentiment, because if we continue
to paper over real differences that need to be debated

(48:37):
and addressed and settled, then we're just gonna limp along.
I hope to see a glorious future for the Southern
Baptist Convention in the twenty first century. But if we
want to do that, we need to make some changes,
and we need to start making them now. So pray
that the Lord would enable us to do that in
a spirit of love and unity and truth, grounded in
God's word and for the sake of the Gospel.

Speaker 1 (48:58):
Amen. Very good, Well, thanks for coming on today. I
appreciate you taking some time out of your busy day.

Speaker 2 (49:05):
Absolutely, it's always a pleasure to join.

Speaker 1 (49:08):
And I'll be honest, I'm about two hundred messages behind
in my signal chat group.

Speaker 2 (49:13):
So we'll check those out. Come to our event June tenth,
the evening of June tenth, the Highatt Regency, Landmark Ballroom
and Dallas, Texas Register doors open at six thirty. Events
starts at seven are keynote speaker Steve Dace, who is incredible. Yeah,
that's a great kick in the pants to be bold
Baptists in the public square. We'll have three panels featuring

(49:35):
people like Dusty Devers, Chase Davis who led the fight
in Colorado.

Speaker 1 (49:39):
Against absolutely, and we're gonna.

Speaker 2 (49:41):
Have a conversation on working across the Calvinistic divide in
the SBC with people like David Allen and Tom Askell
and Lewis Richardson. And then we're going to address the
major SBC issues with Willie Rice and Rhet Burns and
David Shrock and others. John Whitehead give.

Speaker 1 (49:56):
Us my head. Yep, that sounds great. Well, Hey, everyone,
thanks for tuning in today. Tim Busch on for Eschatology matters,
and it does. Let's take the long view. Jesus is King.
Live like it, act like it, think like it. And
if you're a Southern Baptist, get on the ball. Amen.

Speaker 2 (50:14):
See you later, Sea