April 26, 2024
ANAHEIM, Calif. – An organization created to speak on behalf of Southern Baptists about moral and ethical issues in Washington has survived an attempt to abolish it.
The Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission has stirred angst among some of the very people it represents by taking political stands they disagree with.
“I would love to live in a world where a bold and faithful ERLC advocates for just policies, but that’s not the world we live in,” said Joshua Abbotoy, a messenger from University Park Baptist Church in Houston, Texas, who spoke in favor of abolishing the organization. “Abolishing the ERLC is better than continuing to fund a compromised ERLC.”
Most of the 8,000 messengers who traveled from across the nation to attend the SBC annual meeting in Anaheim disagreed, defeating the motion made by Joshua Scruggs, a messenger from Bethlehem Baptist Church in Jacksonville, N.C.
Scruggs said the organization has caused “needless division” among Southern Baptists by taking positions on issues they “significantly disagree on."
Abolishing such an organization within the SBC would have required a second vote at next year’s annual meeting. Had Scruggs’ motion passed, the second vote have been automatically added to next year’s annual meeting agenda.
Abbotoy said the organization hasn't always represented the views of Southern Baptists well in Washington.
"Too often the leadership speaks for DC against the pews, not for the pews to DC," he said.
Brent Leatherwood, acting president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, told messengers Christians are charged with taking the gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth, including to the public square.
“We all know that that includes nations around the globe and cities and towns here at home,” Leatherwood said. “But it has been the case for decades now that the SBC counts the public square as a part of that. And you have charged this entity to be your representatives in the arena, bringing truth and grace to a world in desperate need of such.”
Leatherwood asked messengers to defeat the motion saying the organization is needed more now than ever before. He pointed to an expected U.S. Supreme Court ruling that could strike down Roe v Wade, shifting the fight over abortion to the state level.
“That is exactly what we have been doing at the federal level, and we look forward to doing it at the state level, as well as to defend religious liberty and, of course, spread the gospel of Jesus Christ,” Leatherwood said.
