Your Questions Answered: Part 1

The ERLC was founded over 100 years ago with a dual mandate to speak into the public square while equipping our pastors and churches with resources to engage the culture on moral and ethical issues in areas such as life, religious liberty, marriage and family, and human dignity.

Welcome to The ERLC Podcast where our goal is to help you think biblically about today’s cultural issues. I’m Lindsay Nicolet, and today we’re answering frequently asked questions about the ERLC.

While we work on policy issues in our nation’s capital, much of our ministry also includes serving churches like yours with practical, theological resources, many of them available for free on our website. Our aim is to carry out our mission with the utmost integrity, which is why we’re answering some of our most frequently asked questions on our podcast. In additions, we’ve provided a more extensive list at erlc.com/faqs.  

On today’s episode, you’ll hear from Brent Leatherwood, president of the ERLC; Miles Mullin, vice president and chief of staff at the ERLC; and Bobby Reed, chief financial officer of the ERLC, about how we serves SBC churches, how we work with everyone from state conventions to our nation’s leaders, and how we are funded.

Episode Transcript:  Your Questions Answered: Part 1

Narration:

Welcome to the ERLC podcast, where our goal is to help you think biblically about today’s cultural issues. I’m Lindsay Nicolet, and today we’re answering frequently asked questions about the ERLC.

 Narration:

The ERLC was founded over a hundred years ago with a dual mandate to speak into the public square while equipping our pastors and churches with resources to engage the culture on moral and ethical issues in areas such as life, religious liberty, marriage and family, and human dignity. While we work on policy issues in our nation’s capital, much of our ministry also includes serving churches like yours with practical theological resources, many of them available for free on our website. Our aim is to carry out our mission with the utmost integrity, which is why we’re answering some of our most frequently asked questions on our podcast. In addition, we’ve provided a more extensive list at erlc.com/faqs. On today’s episode, you’ll hear from Brent Leatherwood, president of the ERLC, Miles Mullin, vice president and chief of staff at the ERLC, and Bobby Reed, chief financial officer of the ERLC, about how we go about serving churches, how we work with everyone from state conventions to our nation’s leaders, and how we are funded. Now let’s turn to my conversation with Brent, Miles, and Bobby as we begin with how the ERLC serves Southern Baptist churches.

Lindsay Nicolet:

At the heart of the ERLC is service to our Southern Baptist churches. So how are we at the ERLC connecting with our churches and how are we equipping pastors?

Brent Leatherwood:

Lindsay, that’s a wonderful question. I would say that of all of our entities, the ERLC actually pays the closest attention to what it is our churches are dealing with and wrestling with because it’s the very feedback that we get from our pastors and ministry staff, from our churches that it helps us to chart forward a path for the types of public stances we need to take, especially as it relates to public policy or things that are being talked about or wrestled with in culture. And so that plays out on a day-to-day basis with the type of interaction that we have with pastors, folks calling the office, emailing us, letting us know what they’re dealing with. Then we have events that we go to on the road speaking at different churches, going to different conferences. You know, I just spoke recently at a gathering of local associations where ministry leaders at the association level were gathering and receiving feedback there. 

Two things that are more formal in nature, such as the passage of resolutions at the annual meeting each year, we continually are paying attention to the actions of our messengers, which are representatives of our churches to see what it is that our convention feels about an issue at a, at a given time. And you know, some folks will say, well, the convention only exists for two days each year. Well, I guess if you want to get real legalistic about it, that’s true. But I do think that those resolutions and the fact that our convention comes together on an annual basis, and if you start looking at those issues that our convention talks about or deals with, you can definitely see a trajectory that our convention is on. And it’s a positive one, it’s a hopeful one, it’s one that is consistent with scripture and that is actually the way that we try and map out our stances to be consistent with that.

Miles Mullin:

In addition, one of the things that we’ve launched is the resourcing the church initiative, which is driven out of our research team, and the goal there is to address things in culture that are having an impact on the local church and pastors and other ministry leaders are dealing with in their ministry context. That initiative, it results in the publishing of church guides, which are on particular issues. We’ve published one on politics. We’ve published one on gender ideology. We just recently published one on the future of the pro-life movement and then one on gambling, which is called “Pay to Play.” And some people said, well, why did you publish one on gambling? But it’s precisely because we’re listening to our state ethics leaders who are bringing information to us about how insidious gambling has become across their states, and also to pastors who are in the nitty gritty of ministry every day who are saying like, man, we’ve got this real problem in our church with young men coming addicted to gambling and the dopamine effects that that has in a similar way to what we saw with porn and are continuing to see with porn actually. But it would be really helpful to have some sort of resource that would help us address that from a ministry perspective. I know a guy who’s in a ministry context who has a small group. There’s five guys in this small group, he says, two of them consistently talk about the way that they’re really struggling with gambling. And so we want to be responsive to what our pastors need as we engage that cultural aspect of our ministry assignment.

Brent Leatherwood:

Right. And so in addition to that, you mentioned the state ethics leaders, right? So that’s where we convene representatives from our state conventions to talk through issues that they’re seeing in their own states. And I think in a highly digital moment, like we’re in, we all kind of think, oh, this is nationally what folks are dealing with. Well, that’s not the case in every issue. These states in their own backyards have particular issues that maybe they’re dealing with, and that’s why we gather them. That helps us to keep track of state policy developments that are happening at the state and local level where we need to be active or we are engaging at the request of our state convention partners. And then it’s even more than that. We also routinely convene pastors for conference calls where we hear like, “Hey, this is what we are wrestling with in the pews at my church.” And so all of this helps to shape the stances that we take and the resources that we provide.

Lindsay Nicolet:

So we’ve mentioned state conventions. What is the relationship between the ERLC and state conventions and what does the process look like of working together?

Brent Leatherwood:

Well, I would say that compared to recent years, it’s probably closer than it has been in quite some time. That’s a group of leaders in the SBC that I would say often are underappreciated in many ways, overlooked. But they are incredibly important because they’re actually that first real line where pastors tend to turn to for help. If there is something that is going on in a particular region. A lot of times they’re not calling us, they’re not calling the other national entities, they’re calling their state execs. And so we view our posture towards our state execs as we’re here to serve them just as we are here to serve the local church and we wanna support them with resources or in some cases with action if it’s needed. But we want to help them serve their church as well. And they have a remarkably difficult job because they are oftentimes dealing with all sorts of variables at the local level that we just may not see or be aware of. And so we have tried to really invest in our state execs and especially just letting them know we’re here to serve them and they can call us at any time with feedback they’re receiving. And I think because of that, there’s been more robust lines of not just dialogue, but also partnership with our state conventions

Bobby Reed:

Going back three administrations even into the land era where I had the privilege of serving in that administration as well. We’ve had a posture at the ERLC that when we work on state level initiatives, we do that at the invitation of the state convention. And so we intentionally and very purposefully respect the boundaries of Southern Baptist polity and working with state conventions as being the front line of work, as Brent just said, and we’re able to go and help state conventions when they invite us to do so.

Miles Mullin:

I kind of summarize that as like, we’re not going to play in someone else’s backyard unless we’re invited over to their house. And you can see that last fall we got involved with several of the abortion ballot initiatives that were in 10 of our states, but we didn’t get involved with all of ’em because we asked the state conventions, Hey, would you like us to weigh in here? Is this something that would be helpful for you or would we be stepping on your toes because you’ve already got something going or there’s something that you’re working behind the scenes that we’re not aware of with state legislatures. And so we want to do that at their invitation and with their cooperation, which demonstrates the best of what it means to be Baptist is to cooperate together. And that we understand that may be frustrating to some people in a church somewhere who like, why isn’t the ERLC saying something about this? But we want to respect that state convention and the leadership there who have a better understanding of what’s going on in their particular locality than we would at the national level.

Brent Leatherwood:

Right. I mean, it’s a posture of deference towards our state leaders. They are in those positions of authority and I assume the best that they are monitoring things or they’re helping churches out. And so we want to be a partner with them and we’re going to act upon their request and look, Miles, pointing out the ballot questions that were before voters in those states. There were some states that said, “Hey, we, we actually feel like we’ve got a good handle on this. You know, if you could do maybe some analysis, that’s great, but otherwise we feel pretty good about our plan.” And other states are like, “Man, we just don’t have the bandwidth. Please lean in as much as you can.” And so it’s that sort of service and support that we provide to our state execs that I realize in a moment of social media where things get hot real quick online, that may seem old fashioned, but I think that no, that’s a posture of real service that we are trying to bring here at the ERLC. And I think all of our national entities to an extent are trying to do that. So a recent example of this also happened in the state of Colorado. There is a, I mean categorically heinous bill that steamrolls over religious liberty, parental rights, free speech with a threat that if parents don’t adhere to, you know, whatever the latest definition of transgenderism is, that the children might actually be taken away from them. I mean this, just in terms of scope, this bill was horrendous and it’s something that I think we were aware of, but the Colorado Baptist had not yet contacted us until it passed the State House. And the state executive there, Mike Proud, is doing a phenomenal job with the Colorado Baptist Convention. We had a conversation and he said, “Yeah, we’re pretty tied up in terms of our, our team right now. So if y’all can join us in this, we would love it.” 

So Mike and I real quickly worked on a, a joint letter to the state senate because it’s been up for consideration there, telling these state senators in Colorado that the Colorado Baptists first and foremost, but then us at the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission as the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, we adamantly oppose this bill for all the reasons that I said before. And that this is not something that needs to be voted on. It doesn’t need to come outta committee if it does come up for a vote, vote against it, because we know that that accurately reflects the views of Colorado Baptists, our pastors in Colorado. So we did that. We also provided a bulletin insert for our churches, and we’re continuing advocacy in our area because we realize that to actually work in this space, the public policy space, it’s not just about tweeting harder, you actually have to engage with legislators and do so in a way where they can understand where you’re coming from and that you have real credibility on this.

And so those are the ways that these kind of partnerships develop. And again, there may have been a point in that conversation where Mike, as the head of the Colorado Baptist, he may have said, “Hey, we’ve got this, we’ve talked with some legislators. We know that this actually isn’t moving, and so we don’t want to make it some sort of high profile event.” And I would understand that. And moreover, I would respect that because I trust him being a Baptist leader who is closer to the situation. I would trust that he’s got the discernment to know when we need to lean in, when he needs help from us, when he’s got it, when we need to, to call in other reinforcements. And I think that actually is the sentiment that the vast majority of Southern Baptists want out of their leaders, that we are cooperating and that we are deferring to those who are closest to the churches when action is needed or when we need to actually stand down. And so I think in that census relationships worked really well in this instance

Bobby Reed:

That would be very similar to when the North American Mission Board or the state conventions evangelism department might want to go in and do a church planting in a particular neighborhood in your city and a pastor or the group of pastors the association would wanna be involved in where they’re gonna do that and how they’re gonna do that. It’d be very inappropriate for the North American Mission Board or the state convention to come into your neighborhood and plan a church without engaging you as a pastor and letting you be involved in that. And we wanna respect that as well.

Lindsay Nicolet:

So much of the work of the ERLC is public facing on a national level. However, if you don’t live in the hustle and bustle of Washington, D.C., in particular, it might be difficult to see the work that we do on a daily basis. So what does the work of the ERLC look like in Washington, D.C., and what kind of access do we actually have?

Brent Leatherwood:

Well, our team in D.C. generally will start the day just kind of mapping out the various meetings that they have to go to. Some of those meetings are coalitional in nature, which if anyone tries to tell you that, oh, you shouldn’t be a part of coalitions, then they truly don’t understand how Washington works. Washington works in many ways through coalitions, whether that’s coalitions that are assembled on the US house floor or the U.S. Senate floor all the way through organizations like ours or to professional lobbyists. So that’s the nature of the work. So you’ve got, you know, what sort of coalition meetings do we need to be attending on that day, or what sort of meetings do we have on Capitol Hill or with the administration? And then of course, on top of that are team meetings, you know, so what is it internally in the ELC that they need to figure into that?

So a lot of those involve meetings with me just because of my public policy background. That’s an area of interest and passion for me. Sometimes it’s larger gatherings, like our staff meeting, update the entire team on some of the ways that our priorities are advancing in Washington. So that’s generally what it looks like, but that’s just more of the public facing side of things. Our team, I would say, does an incredible amount of work of just analysis on pieces of legislation, whether we should publicly support them, whether we should publicly oppose them, or whether we just need to have an awareness of these proposals that maybe our peer groups or partner groups are looking at engaging with. So that’s generally what the day-to-day work within our Leland house office in Washington, D.C., looks like. And those meetings folks might say, “Ah, well, you know, they’re just attending those meetings for photo ops or whatnot.”

That couldn’t be further from the truth. The meetings that our team are involved with generally are at the ground level conceptualizing bills or providing real time feedback to elected officials or how these proposals may affect our church, or maybe ways that maybe they just haven’t even considered that there is a religious liberty implication for a particular bill or proposal or rule that the administration is thinking through. And so every day is a little bit different. So it’s hard to say that there’s like a template for each day just because, you know, if anybody’s paying attention to the news every day, there’s something new going on in Washington or coming out of Washington and our team tries to be very responsive to that so that we are on top of the things that our churches are asking about. And you know, as far as access, I feel really good about the types of relationships our team has built. And I would’ve said that at any point in recent history, but especially now, we have a new administration that’s in place. We have new leadership on both the house and the Senate side, and the team feels like at any point if we need to find out something, if we need to engage with something, we’ve got the contacts to make sure that a distinctively Baptist voice is brought into those conversations that are going on across Washington.

Miles Mullin:

I remember one of the first meetings I was in on when I began as vice president, chief of staff here at the ERLC was with a legislative director from one of the senator’s offices. And this particular person expressed an appreciation for the way that our team actually gave them feedback and dug down into the bills that they were considering ahead of time because they had a particular frustration that sometimes they wouldn’t get any feedback from groups, that they sent it out to advocacy groups, but then they would get scorecarded or they would get negative commentary after the fact. And so it was a real compliment to the nitty gritty work that our team does to try to shape bills from the beginning in a direction that represents the things that Southern Baptist care most about.

Brent Leatherwood:

And I’ll say sometimes our work gets noticed from one area because we’re doing something in another area. Perfect example of that is the partnership that we’ve had with our two state conventions in Texas to draw attention to a case that is now before the U.S. Supreme Court, where we teamed up with both conventions in Texas to put a specifically Southern Baptist brief before the justices arguing that an online age verification law that helps protect minors from accessing harmful pornographic websites. We put that before the justices and after we submitted that, our team got a call from Sen. Mike Lee’s office. Why? Because one of his senior staffers noticed our work there, is himself a Southern Baptist, and said, Hey, that law that y’all are advocating for, and rightly so, we have a proposal to bring a federal equivalent of that law. And so would y’all be interested in, in just engaging with that, providing some analysis and feedback, and ultimately would you be willing to support that? The team did, it’s normal.

Kind of run the traps on it. And guess what we’re supportive of the screen act from Sen. Mike Lee. We’re grateful that he has proposed that law because we think that of course states need to do this as soon as possible, but we also, we think that pornography is such a harmful and disastrous stain on our society. We think that lawmakers need to take a stand on it to protect children, to protect families, to protect marriages. And this is a good way of going about that. Is it the only way? No. Is it the end of the story if it were to become all? Absolutely not. Porn is so insidious in our society right now. We think more needs to be done. But this is a great first step, particularly online. And so we’re happy to support that. But again, it’s because of the relationships and the reputation that our organization has where a brief that we have authored and devoted resources to is placed before the justices and an influential office over in the US Senate has seen that good work and said, “Hey, can we partner together on this over here?”

Bobby Reed:

That a relationship is built on not just the last few years that we’ve had as an organization, but an organization that dates back over a hundred years old and has had a reputation in Washington, D.C., as being a reputable and solid organization that can be dependent on for decades.

Miles Mullin:

That’s a great point that Brent makes because that’s just real day-to-day relationship building spade work that goes on a lot of times behind the scenes that our staff in D.C. has built up over time. And so it’s trustworthy. These are people, integrity. Our people in D.C. are not gonna take a private conversation that they’ve had with someone and then turn it around or our grandissement online or something like that. And so that relationship is in place and the work gets done of influencing the direction of particular legislation in such a way that we are representing Southern Baptist quite well. But that’s not something that you go around touting because it actually does damage to the relationship if it appears that you’re doing that only for the sake of what you can say publicly or online or in a newsletter that’s trying to raise funds.

So there’s a place for being very public about your opposition to something or your support for something. That’s why we go to March for Life. That’s why we show up on the steps of SCOTUS when there’s a case that’s of particular interest to us. For instance, we went to the rally on the Supreme Court steps in this Skrmetti case to advocate and to show our support publicly and visually to the nation that Southern Baptist as represented by the ERLC in this amicus brief that we filed before the Supreme Court of the United States, which Brent had a chance to sit in on the oral arguments, which is a great thing that we are there publicly taking a stand, that the state has a responsibility to step in and protect children from harmful gender ideology that’s doing permanent damage to their bodies. So there is a place for that, but there’s also a place for that quiet work behind the scenes of relationship building that is influencing things and that accomplishes what we wanted to accomplish and creates a situation in which we are a trusted voice. A voice of integrity that operates on the highest level of ethical standards to influence lawmakers and others in D.C. on behalf of Southern Baptist.

Brent Leatherwood:

Miles, you know, looking back on just the last year or so, you know, I’ve been able to be in some rooms that I never would’ve fancied that I would be able to be in, right? So I mean, meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, attending the oral arguments for that US v. Skrmetti case, which is a, you know, a law that’s right out here in my home state of Tennessee, or you know, just recently, being able to walk into the speaker’s personal private prayer room alongside a group of Southern Baptist pastors where we were able to take them and, and meet with the speaker. And you know, we did that on a day where the speaker was incredibly busy. Speaker Johnson, fellow Southern Baptist. I had a sense that if he knew that there were a handful of SBC pastors walking around the capitol, that he might take a few minutes with us, but, and he did.

But he was, uh, just coming out of a meeting with his colleague, majority leader John Thune from the U.S. Senate, and they’re talking about the budget reconciliation framework. And it was just before a meeting he was having with the House majority leader Steve Scalise. And so the fact that he was able to make time for us in such a busy day and walk us out onto the speaker’s balcony and just talk through some of the very big issues that the speaker is having to deal with right now, but then invite us into his private prayer room and just talk to us about the very fact that he has that office, the issues that he brings before the Lord, just some of the things that he was able to share with. That’s such a meaningful moment. That’s not something everybody gets to do.

And that whole trip that those pastors are able to be a part of. I mean, the main reason we brought him up to DC is because we’re in this big push right now leading the effort to defund Planned Parenthood. And obviously probably most listeners of this know about our petition that’s attracted tens of thousands of Southern Baptists signing it. We presented that to the leaders in both the House and the Senate, but we were bringing them up there to amplify that so that these leaders like Speaker Johnson, like Sen. James Lankford, like Sen. Ted Cruz, Congressman Kevin Hern, we wanted them to see that it’s not just us at the ERLC that believe this is important. We do. But this is actually reflective of what our pastors at the local level are preaching about. The way that they feel about the destructive actions that Planned Parenthood takes, the ways that the predatory abortion industry just annihilates life.

And it is offensive that to this day, that taxpayer dollars continually go to this organization at least over $700 million per year, like that has to stop. And we felt it was appropriate to bring pastors to Washington, D.C., so that these leaders can hear firsthand from constituents around the nation who are leading churches and say, “this has to stop.” You know, the Republican party for years has made a commitment, a pledge to do this Well, in a time where Republicans control the White House, the House, and the Senate, it’s time to follow through on that. Even though it might be, you know, politically difficult, this needs to happen. Too many lives are being eradicated by the abortion industry. It has to stop. And our taxpayer dollars certainly shouldn’t fund it. So I mean, obviously we’re not content to just say, “Well, taxpayer dollars shouldn’t go to it.”

We want this ended entirely at the state level, at the national level. But walking into those rooms and being able to bring pastors in there to show that when we put something down on paper, whether it’s with a, a letter that we author, whether it’s with a coalition letter that we’re a part of, we are truly reflecting the will of our churches and our pastors. You know, that trip to D.C., it was just so meaningful, not only because of the rooms that these pastors got to walk into and the national leaders that they got to meet with, but just because I think they were able to see that there’s these other pastors in other states that feel just as strongly about these issues. And so in that sense, I think it was reflective of the very best of Baptist cooperation.

Bobby Reed:

We need to keep in mind the ERLC is a 501 C3 organization and not a 501 C4 organization. And that makes a big difference in how we posture ourselves in D.C. simply among other organizations, some of which who are paid lobbyists, that’s how they exchange their funds, that’s how they do their work. We are specifically an issues advocacy organization. And so we just have to approach things through appropriate tones in that way. That’s something that’s been very important to the Southern Baptist and very important to the ERLC for decades.

Miles Mullin:

Some specific ways in which we’ve done that recently have been in the Biden administration, obviously the context was very different. We were fighting kind of a rear guard action against the progressive aggressive ideology that was trying to press forward as much as they could to use the rulemaking process that gives guidance to federal departments for their progressive ideology. And we filed comments on those, which registers our opposition to what’s taking place. Some of these had to do with advancing transgender ideology. Some of these had to do with advancing abortion availability, those kind of things. And that has the effect of slowing down the process itself in hopes that it can maybe stall out and maybe a different administration will come into the Oval Office that will change the direction. It also, because the ERLC does have a good reputation, even among those that we find ourselves most often on the other side from, it also has sometimes the effect that they actually listen. And in addition, there were several other rules that were changed enough that it gave some additional religious liberty protections that we were very concerned about, which was precisely why we registered those concerns in the federal rulemaking process.

Brent Leatherwood:

That’s right, miles last December at the end of the Biden administration, because of our advocacy, not solely because, I mean, I don’t wanna say that just for, you know, our purposes, but we were certainly a very loud voice contesting various things that the Biden administration was doing as it relates to gender ideology and abortion. There were multiple proposed executive actions that were in the pipeline that were withdrawn. And I know for a fact, just based on some of the contacts that we had, our voice made a difference in that. And that doesn’t mean that we got everything we wanted, certainly with just all the harmful actions that we saw during the Biden administration, but I know that they were paying attention to what we said. And that’s because look, regardless of who is in office, we are consistently delivering a message that’s not based on partisan politics, not based on political ideologies, no, it’s rooted in scripture. It’s reflective of the Baptist faith and message, and it’s responsive to what our messengers do at each annual meeting. That is the foundation of the public stances that we take. And so we get credit for that from Republicans, from Democrats, from progressives, from conservatives, because they know that we are a consistent voice even when they disagree with it.

Miles Mullin:

So obviously when President Trump was elected in November 2024, things changed quite a bit. And so in light of that, we sent a letter to the Trump transition team highlighting five things that we thought were kind of things that they could do. And that represented things that Southern Baptist cared about most such as fully enforce the Hyde Amendment, such as reinstitute the Mexico City policy, which prohibited taxpayer monies from going towards any type of international abortion funding. Revoking the executive order 13988, which is preventing discrimination on the basis of gender ideology and sexual orientation SOGIE stuff, and undoing the anti-life, anti-religious liberty and pro gender ideology rulemaking that had been advanced by the Biden administration. And we’ve seen all those things accomplished. We also asked for one more thing.

Brent Leatherwood:

You’re right, we have asked the Trump administration to re-implement the regulations on the abortion pill. We know now that over half of abortions, they come from these toxic chemicals and it harms women. And obviously it takes the life of preborn children. So at a minimum, we want those regulations back in place to stop the spread of it. But ultimately we are seeking an outright ban of these harmful, dangerous, deadly drugs.

Lindsay Nicolet:

We mentioned coalitions when we talked about our work in Washington, D.C., and the importance of them. So how does the ERLC go about joining other organizations that are like-minded in certain issues? And these organizations aren’t necessarily Southern Baptists.

Brent Leatherwood:

As I mentioned before, this is reflective of really the very nature of Washington. It’s actually reflective of our nation, right? We are a democratic republic. Within that sort of system, you have to build coalitions in order to advance any sort of policy objective. And so I mentioned that’s the nature of things on the floor of the U.S. House. Same thing with the U.S. Senate. No one person gets their way. They have to broaden their appeal. And so sometimes our work is focused on helping legislators get co-sponsors for their legislation. Sometimes it’s helping them get the support of outside organizations. And the same thing happens for us, too. We will routinely get calls from our friends at Americans United for Life or Alliance Defending Freedom, say, “Hey, have y’all taken a look at this bill? What do y’all think about this case that’s working its way up through the system.”

So this is a daily part of the work that we do. And whether it’s in the pro-life space, whether it’s advocating for religious freedom, ensuring that the human dignity is respected, we work with all sorts of organizations to help build out these coalitions. So I mean, I mentioned a couple, obviously Alliance Defending Freedom. They are probably the largest organization that Southern Baptists and Evangelicals turn to for big legal actions. But at the same time, we have a partner over in the Becket Fund. Becket does an incredible job with their legal advocacy, and they invite us to be a part of Supreme Court amicus briefs. In the pro-life space we work with our friends at Americans United for Life. Right now, they are, probably along with the Susan B. Anthony List, our two peer organizations there. I would say the three of us, we are carrying the flag forward in terms of this moment right now. And the importance of defunding Planned Parenthood like that is a top legislative priority for all three of our organizations. And I would say that their advocacy very much compliments our own. And so we need to be a part of these coalitions, not only because obviously like we always do, we want to be in those rooms to advance a distinctively Baptist voice, but we want to amplify that voice. And the way that we do that is being a part of these coalitions and being aligned with our coalition partners.

Miles Mullin:

I think it’s really important what Prince said “We want to bring distinctively Baptist voice,” and these coalitions are based on issues. We align with folks based on issues. Now, there’s obviously some groups that we’re gonna align with more often than others, but if it’s something that’s rooted in scripture, reflective of the Baptist Faith and Message, and responsive to the actions that our messengers have taken at our annual meeting, we want to try to press that forward. We’re not going to say, “oh, well you know what? The screen acts really good because Mike Lee put it forward, but now that it’s got a Democratic sponsor in the house, we’re gonna abandon it because we can’t be seen aligning with them.” That’s tribal partisan politics. And our ministry assignment from Southern Baptist is to represent their positions and the things they care about on particular issues to look at the particular policy and then to decide based on that, not on who else might be aligned. Because you know what, even a broke clock is right twice a day.

Bobby Reed:

Also, another thing that’s very important on this particular issue is that while we join coalitions and work with other organizations, when we speak with those organizations, we only do it on very specific language and very specific policy issues. So just because we’re part of a coalition does not mean that we believe or agree with them on any other issue, much less all other issues. And so we will partner with other organizations because on a particular bill or particular policy or particular language, we have complete agreement on that one particular thing. And that’s very important because that’s just how it works in Washington, D.C.

Brent Leatherwood:

Right? And this isn’t unique to this moment. This has been the case for the ERLC since, honestly its earliest days, as the Temperance Committee constantly looking out and finding allies and folks that we can work with. Recently, I mean, I think this was kind of silly, but recently someone tried to say, oh, the high point for the ERLC was the passage of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act back in the nineties, it was signed by President Bill Clinton, a Democrat. But the reason that this individual says that that was the high point is because it was a law that the ERLC supported, it was signed into law by the president. I agree, that is certainly an achievement. The ERLC worked with the ACLU at that time. I don’t know the ACLU would work with me. I might be a little too conservative, but for an organization like that to see the ERLC as helpful in that, I agree, but that speaks to the coalitional nature of our work.

So I mean, I think some voices out there that critique coalitional work, one, if you hear those critiques, are obviously not revealing the whole truth, right? The reason that we’re a part of these coalitions, to kind of back up a little bit of what Bobby said, the reason we’re a part of these coalitions is because there’s a specific issue or a specific approach to an issue. And the reason we’re a part of that coalition is because it reflects the truth that we as an organization from the Southern Baptist Convention, we are supposed to represent that truth. And so that’s why we’re a part of that coalition on that specific issue. Moreover, and again, this goes back to something I said at the outset, you have to be a part of a coalition in order to achieve anything in Washington. Anyone that says, “ah, we’re just gonna go and commandeer Washington and and get our way,” they’re gonna find themselves on the outside looking in. And maybe that’s fine. If your world is totally shaved by being hyperactive online or, you know, doing emergency podcasts about an issue, that’s great. That’s also a seat in the peanut gallery. That’s not someone who’s actually in the arena actually shaping the ways that lawmakers are thinking on issues and drawing up and conceptualizing these proposals. And guess who’s in there? The ERLCs in there. And I think Southern Baptists, they understand that, and that’s why they’ve really appreciated the work that we do.

Bobby Reed:

I would also add, one of the things that’s been really interesting over the number of years that I’ve been here is that we’ve had the awesome privilege of working with these coalitions, but also I can think of many occasions where coalitions have had language that they were gonna propose. And we said, we can’t sign onto that letter if the language isn’t changed. And we hold the standards that Southern Baptist hold on those particular issues, and we say we can’t sign the letter and they will change the language of that particular letter in order for us to sign on, because it’s that important to have the Southern Baptist Convention and the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission representing them on that letter. And if they won’t make the change, we don’t sign onto the letter. And that’s the end of the day.

Miles Mullin:

This just happened recently. There was a, a group that we were working with, and they had some language in there and we said, you know, “hey, we get what you’re saying, but Southern Baptist would not appreciate that kind of language and it would not land right with our people, and so we can’t go forward with this.”

Brent Leatherwood:

And they changed it!

Lindsay Nicolet:

So one of our most frequently asked questions is about our finances. And as an organization that wants to be transparent, where does the ERLC receive its funding?

Bobby Reed:

Well, I would say not only do we want to be transparent, we are transparent with our finances. Our audit is done by an external auditor every year that’s selected and chosen by the trustees that Southern Baptist have put in place over us. We answer to them, our trustees and the auditor answers to them directly. So we are transparent completely with our trustees, and we have that audit that’s put online every year regarding the budget of the ERLC. 95% of the funds that are received by the ERLC are received through the cooperative program that is very, very important to us. It is the lifeblood of the organization is the cooperative program. That money is given by faithful churches across our denomination, around our country, through the cooperative program. The average Southern Baptist Church provides just under $65 to the budget of the year ERLC. And with that $65, it doesn’t seem like much, but we appreciate every penny that is given, and we steward every penny.

If you go to our audit that is published online, as soon as the audit is complete every year, it’s also in the Southern Baptist Convention Annual that is posted online as well. You can see the actual breakdown of the other gifts that are given, all the way broken down to each state and how much is given. And so you can see some of that money has come through state conventions and through the Southern Baptist Convention giving channels. And so, and then a little bit portion of that money comes directly to us. But again, you can go to that audit and you can see by state the amount that is given for each of those other gifts. And then there’s a small amount that are things like interest income and investment income and royalties and things like that that we receive. But we only have a, just over a $3 million budget. At the end of the day, our total receipts are right at $3 million. And if you take a $3 million budget and you take 5% of it, you get about $150,000 in those other areas of income. And then the vast majority of that is indeed interest.

Brent Leatherwood:

Right. I don’t like when I’m out talking to churches, when I’m speaking to, you know, different meetings or conferences. I will tout your work and the work of our teammate Stacy,  who works with you because I mean, you just mentioned our, our audit is online. We post that each and every year. We don’t have some gigantic budget. I’m not saying that, and I’m not like, oh, pity us. I’m just saying like we don’t have a giant budget. So honestly, it’s pretty easy to see where the source of our income, it’s from our churches, and we’re grateful for that continued sacrificial giving from Southern Baptist. And in particular, you know, like this, where we’re celebrating a hundred years of the cooperative program. Its through the innovative and ingenious nature of that structure that we’re able to fund the work of the ERLC and the other national entities and our state conventions.

And the list goes on and on of all the great things a CP has allowed us to do as a convention of churches, but particularly for us, we are grateful for it. And we want to make sure that folks understand the dollars that are received here, what they are put forward to. And I would argue that we are actually the most transparent of all the entities, and I want it to be that way. I want folks to know where we are receiving support from, how we’re utilizing it, and that it’s verified through a trusted third party like the organizations that are selected to do our audit. And so, Bobby, I just want to thank you publicly and show that, you know, our work is out there. We have the most public ministry assignment of the entities, and I would say that our finances are actually the most public, and we want people to be able to trust their eyes because they can go see this for themselves at our website.

Bobby Reed:

We also have designated income, and all of our designated income is going to the Psalm 139 Project, which the Psalm 139 Project is a wonderful ministry that 100% of every dollar that’s given to the Psalm 139 Project goes to either buy a machine or pay for the necessary training for that machine when it’s placed in a crisis pregnancy center or pregnancy care center across the country. Around the world, actually, we can say that now. The only funds we have received since Brent has been president of the ERLC, has been for the operating budget, which we’ve already talked about. And for the life work that’s done through the Psalm 139 Project and other life ministries, there are a lot of rumors out there that we’re receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars from large billionaire donors. And that’s just categorically false. The ERLC does not receive money from large outside donors.

There’s no exchange of money between us and coalition work. There’s no exchange of money between us and other organizations like that. That is just not how we operate. It is the work of Southern Baptist, the faith we’re giving of Southern Baptist that has sustained our work for decades. And it continues today. On the frequently asked questions page at the very bottom of the financial section. It has my email address, and I’ve had that on there since last summer when we posted the frequently asked questions page. And I am more than happy to answer questions compared to many other organizations that we work with in Washington, D.C., we have a relatively small budget with a very large assignment. Southern Baptist have called us, as I mentioned before, not just to our work in Washington D.C., but many other things that Southern Baptist have tasked us with being responsible for.

And the organizations we work with often have 10 times the budget and a very specific assignment. So the great partners that we have in D.C., they are very narrowly focused on the life issue or the religious liberty issue. And we love that that is their assignment, but ours is very broad and it causes us to have to be very judicious in how we spend the funds. Sometimes, as Dr. Land mentioned, at Brent’s installation, we don’t get the privilege of choosing between good things and bad things or not so good things. We have to choose between really great things and kind of great things, and we have to unfortunately not be able to do everything we’d like to do.

 Narration:

Under the Leatherwood administration. Our mission at the ERLC is carried out in a way that is gospel centered, church focused, and thoroughly Baptist. As we come alongside Southern Baptist pastors, Baptist State conventions and leaders in the public square, you can be confident we are doing so in a way that is faithful to scripture, adheres to the Baptist Faith and Message, and is informed by resolutions our messengers have adopted. Whether upfront or behind the scenes we are doing real work that gets real results, all in order that we might bring truth and hope to the public square. Thanks for listening to this episode of the ERLC podcast. Join us next time as we continue to answer your frequently asked questions about the ERLC.