SoBapts were wondering why the ERLC with its $13M budget could not be heard in Colorado when that state just passed legislation requiring parents to affirm any sexual-ID choice of a child in their home. And some (Teetsel) think the office has become more of a PR-shop than an effective policy. Little wonder that about 40% of the SoBapts voted to disband the ERLC last June.

It’s fairly well known that Southern Baptists have been fighting for the soul of their church for the past decade. Evidently, that war also has to be waged against salaried denominational bureaucrats. It’s one thing to have opponents; it’s another to pay for friends to wage war against friends in the pew.

The Rod Martin Report featured a piece by the Jenny Geddes of Baptists, Megan Basham (not spelled “Bash ‘em”). In her “Too Busy With Woke Stuff,” she takes on the target, which has made itself an easy target—The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC). The ERLC, which she seems to think almost as full of sound and fury, signifying nothing (her subtitle is the “All too (In) Visible and Inconsequential ERLC”), is the DC-based lobbying arm for Southern Baptists. When first formed, it was a soldier in Ronald Reagan’s culture war.

Of late, however, Basham sees the ERLC as claiming much success but being expensively ineffectual—except to aid and abet Woke causes, which are hardly the values funded by typical SoBapts.

She begins by chronicling how the ERLC had been effectively and energetically involved with many other conservative groups to pass the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act. This pinnacle—complete with a hand-written note of thanks from President Clinton, a Methodist—was attained by prayer, hard work, coalition-building (dialoguing with both the ACLU and the Home School Legal Defense Fund), and an ideological edge. Basham thinks those activities have virtually disappeared.

The ERLC was effective precisely because it was working FOR SoBapt ideas (not against) and participating in every possible public forum. According to the feedback of twenty SoBapt staffers and former leaders from 1993, now the ERLC advertises itself as a player in these policy debates but can hardly be found. She quotes a former participant who criticizes that the ERLC will “write that they are involved, and they’ll take credit when an issue they’re supporting prevails. But they really are not viewed as being actively helpful on advancing conservative politics on the Hill.”

Moreover, Utah Sen. Mike Lee, who has been quite involved in these issues doesn’t remember seeing the ERLC leaders, unless they are meeting with down-the-line staffers. Odd, if the lobbying arm is so active and visible. Another key leader reported that, “In 12 years on the Hill, I don’t ever remember hearing from the ERLC.” Other than being “actively counter-productive, SoBapts will be unhappy to learn that their salaried leaders are seldom seen or heard.

Eric Teetsel noted: “As a Southern Baptist who happens to be an expert in what they’re supposed to be doing, I can tell you, they’re completely and entirely worse than useless,” he told Basham.

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