As a symbol of SBC members’ distrust of ERLC leaders, Rice pointed to a former incident involving Moore. Wearing a tailored suit, the skilled speaker “dunked on” a country pastor who had asked an “honest question,” Rice recalled.
ERLC critic Megan Basham, author of “Shepherds for Sale,” posted that she’s seen the clip Rice referenced, “and the arrogance of it took my breath away. And that attitude continues with many SBC leaders today.”
Rice, pointing to Jerry Vines’ description of the ordinary “Billy Baptist,” told Wolfe that leaders “forgot who the people are.” He continued:
Doesn’t that [country] pastor matter? Shouldn’t his question be taken seriously?…We’ve got to get back to where that guy at that microphone matters. And that every entity head and every leader respects those Baptists. Because I don’t think they do now. I think [the ERLC] looked at that guy as…the enemy…who needed to be lectured to…But the people are leaders of our convention…We need to quit being ashamed of that.
During this week’s podcast, Wolfe also asked Rice about the Law Amendment, which would add language to the SBC constitution that bars women from serving as pastors. The amendment failed last June but will be up for consideration again next month. “I thought it should’ve passed last time,” Rice said. “Clarity is our friend here…biblical authority matters.”
ERLC Chairman Scott Foshie Responds to Criticism
In a statement to ChurchLeaders, Pastor Scott Foshie, ERLC Board of Trustees chairman, said:
Willy Rice is a faithful pastor, and like any Southern Baptist, he has the freedom to share his thoughts. Unfortunately, there has been a lot of misinformation about the ERLC. The ERLC has neither received nor solicited funds from left-leaning groups since Brent Leatherwood became acting president in 2021.
The ERLC has been faithfully focusing on connecting with pastors and equipping churches on tough issues that are prevalent within our society. They have also been fighting for conservative priorities like opposing radical transgender ideology, banning pornography, and protecting religious liberty, just to name a few. To effect this, the Leatherwood administration has engaged and met with the Trump White House and Congressional leaders, such as Speaker Mike Johnson, Senator Ted Cruz, and many others, to work on and advocate for passing Southern Baptist priorities into law.
Advocating to defund Planned Parenthood is a long-standing priority for the SBC; the ERLC is following through on exactly what the messengers have instructed this Commission to do. It’s disappointing that while the ERLC is fighting to defund Planned Parenthood, some people within the SBC want to defund the ERLC.
As I understand it, the Center for Baptist Leadership is legally the same organization as the Presbyterian-funded magazine American Reformer, whose governing board is composed almost entirely of non-Baptists. Historically, even when our seminaries were teaching literal heresies, the mechanism for reform was not to abolish those entities.
I hope the SBC annual meeting in Dallas will be more about a return to Baptist cooperation and improving our entity ministry assignments rather than tearing them down. The same people who want to abolish the ERLC will come after other entities next, and have already signaled their intention to do so. Southern Baptists have supported an ethics and public policy arm for over a hundred years, and now more than ever we need an effective, responsive ERLC.
Past SBC Presidents Offer Support for ERLC
On May 22, 10 former SBC presidents wrote an open letter to denominational messengers about the topic. “We remain unconvinced by the case for discontinuing the ERLC,” they wrote. “And just as our diverse coalition can find unity in opposing the abolishment of the ERLC, we hope that the messenger body can unify to oppose any such motion, too.”
In The Baptist Paper, the 10 leaders (Bart Barber, Ed Litton, J.D. Greear, Steve Gaines, Fred Luter, Bryant Wright, James Merritt, Tom Elliff, Jim Henry, and Jimmy Draper) distinguished between “refinement and eradication” of the ERLC, noting that “a sledgehammer is not the tool for adjusting a mirror.” The former SBC presidents continued:
For decades, the ERLC has steadfastly defended our Southern Baptist commitment to religious liberty. They forged a path forward fighting abortion, helping pave the way to see Roe v. Wade overturned and now Planned Parenthood defunded. They are continuing to battle transgender ideology and pornography and to promote biblical values regarding marriage, family, and sexuality. All Southern Baptists owe a debt of gratitude to the historical work of the ERLC.
Those of us who would have some measure of critique for the priorities or tactics of the ERLC still believe in the importance of its existence and in its mission. If this were not the case, we would not have such strong feelings about wanting it to get its mission right. Those of us who are more supportive of the ERLC as it currently stands also believe in the importance and mission of the ERLC. From these two different perspectives, we agree that the ERLC has an important mission and should be kept in place to pursue that mission.
 is “a mess” that has “lost the confidence of Southern Baptists” and “alienated lots of people.”){kind=link}