Rice then shared a quote from Southwestern Seminary founder B.H. Carroll:
Upon his deathbed, [Carroll] spoke to his successor, Lee Scarborough, and said, “Lee, keep the seminary lashed to cross.” But he warned him that there could be drift and if problems come, he said, “Lee, you take it to faculty. If they will not hear you, you take it to trustees. If they will not hear you, you take it into convention, and if they will not hear you, you take it into great common people of our churches. They will hear you.”
“Well the time for that hearing has come,” Rice said. “We are not ruled by a college of cardinals, but by the convictions of our conscience…We must not allow our entities to function as though they are accountable to anyone but [the SBC’s] churches.”
RELATED: Willy Rice Calls the ERLC a ‘Mess’ While Past SBC Presidents Rally Behind It
Rice made it clear that his intentions to abolish the ERLC were not to “erase it” but instead to “restore it” and “to reforge it to a voice unencumbered by outside interests and uncorrupted by political agendas.” Rice said, “Send the message: This Southern Baptist division is not for sale.”
Former ERLC President Richard Land Speaks in Favor of the SBC Entity
Following Rice’s plea, Dr. Richard Land, former president of the ERLC, spoke in the entity’s defense. Land headed the ERLC for 25 years before stepping down in 2013 after making controversial remarks regarding the Trayvon Martin case.
The ERLC is an entity that has had some “remarkable victories,” Land said. “We all have had our disagreements with the ERLC. Many of you disagreed with some of the things I did.” Land joked, “I disagreed with some of the things I did. After all, we’re Baptists, and as Baptists, we’re going to disagree with one another.”
“The reality is that it would be particularly tragic if we were to contemplate defunding the ERLC at this particular time,” Land expressed. “We have more opportunity right now to influence public policy in our nation’s capital than we have had in my lifetime.”
Referencing Donald Trump, Land said, “We have a president who is more sympathetic.”
“We have more congressmen and senators who are sympathetic to what we as Southern Baptists are trying to do and to turn back the barbarians of the gate in our culture,” he added. “What a tragedy it would be at this particular moment to send an uncertain sound about our commitment to these issues.”
RELATED: ERLC Trustees Reaffirm Brent Leatherwood’s Leadership in First Meeting Since Firing Fiasco
The effort to abolish the ERLC ultimately failed, with 3,774 voting in favor of retaining it and 2,819 voting to abolish it.
 in Dallas, a motion to abolish the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) failed.){kind=link}