Southern Baptists didn’t enact major reforms at their annual meeting this week.
They didn’t vote to shut down their long-standing public policy arm, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC). They didn’t go ahead with a constitutional amendment barring churches with women as pastors. They didn’t adopt sweeping new requirements for financial transparency.
Even with some of the same issues coming up year after year and a significant number of people calling for the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) to take action, the thousands of blue and yellow paper ballots across a giant convention hall in downtown Dallas didn’t add up to much change this time.
The SBC prides itself on cooperation across differences, so leaders say just being able to work through the proposals without too much antagonism can feel like a win.
“I think it shows the strength of our gospel unity that we can really talk about these things and it not turn into a brawl,” said North Carolina pastor and SBC president Clint Pressley, who presided over the two-day meeting in Dallas with a half smile and slick Southern accent.
But the outcomes mean some Southern Baptists are leaving with lingering questions and a sense of unfinished business.
This was the fourth year in a row that the convention challenged the ERLC and the first time that Southern Baptists got concrete numbers showing how many have lost confidence in the entity, which critics claim is no longer aligned with churches’ political interests.
More than 40 percent of those voting on Wednesday were ready to shut it down.
“I do feel like there is some misalignment between some Southern Baptists and the ERLC and that needs to be addressed,” said Dean Inserra, a pastor in Florida, during a panel on Monday night.
The sense of rift dates back at least to President Donald Trump’s first campaign and includes the ERLC’s advocacy on immigration, guns, abortion, and other topics over the years. The most vocal critics, including those with ties to the American Reformer–affiliated Center for Baptist Leadership, have reiterated calls for current president Brent Leatherwood to step down.
The chair of the ERLC’s board, Scott Foshie, said that the trustees “hear the voices of those who have concerns” and that they are committed to listening to “both those who support and those who question” their work.
Richard Land, a previous president who led the ERLC for 25 years, had urged the convention to continue to support the entity given the openness Christians have enjoyed under the Trump administration. “We have more opportunity right now to influence public policy at our nation’s capital than we have in my lifetime,” he said.
Most of the crowd at the annual meeting supported the amendment requiring only men serve “as any kind of pastor,” seeing it as a better way than just the faith statement to lay out requirements for affiliated churches. As in 2024, a majority voted in favor, but it didn’t reach the two-thirds threshold required.
Advocates for the measure—put forth by Austin, Texas, pastor Juan Sanchez—wondered what could be done next.
“The executive committee needs to do some work to build trust among our churches regarding our complementarian convictions,” wrote Adam Blosser, a pastor in Virginia and blogger for SBC Voices, adding that Southern Baptists “want doctrinal clarity.”
Ahead of the vote, Executive Committee president Jeff Iorg—who inherited ongoing abuse lawsuits when he stepped into the role last year—warned the convention that adding the amendment requiring male pastors puts the SBC at greater risk of retaliatory lawsuits.
In a current lawsuit, judges wouldn’t grant the SBC an ecclesiastical abstention, which allows churches to settle their own doctrinal disputes, and Iorg suggested the criteria’s place in the constitution rather than the faith statement was a factor.
Denny Burk, a biblical studies professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a pastor in Louisville, Kentucky, was among those who pushed back.
“The platform argued that if our constitution clarifies that the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture, then we would be at risk of being sued for defamation,” Burk wrote. “And yet, our constitution already says that cooperating churches must closely identify with our beliefs about pastors. Why would we be in more jeopardy for making it clearer?”
The convention has continued to navigate the fallout of its sexual abuse investigation, and Baptists approved without debate $3 million of budgeted giving to go toward its legal fees.
This is the first time Southern Baptists have appropriated giving dollars for the fees—up until now, the denomination’s Executive Committee has pulled from reserves. Before presenting to the convention, Iorg told the committee the allocation represented around 30 cents for ever $1,000 in tithes at SBC churches.
Other than discussing the ongoing costs of the lawsuits, Iorg emphasized the committee’s role developing training and resources around abuse. He didn’t mention the lapsed plans for a database of credibly accused predators.
Both divides around Trump and the abuse response have put more scrutiny on the SBC over the past several years. But the calls for reform largely haven’t advanced at the annual meeting, indicating that that those debating the issues online and demanding change may not be representative of the 10,000 voting messengers who show up at the annual meeting.
Or the smaller numbers that end up participating in a given vote.
Southern Baptists remind messengers to “be in the room” for major motions. The ERLC vote happened ahead of lunch on Wednesday, but the amendment vote on male-only pastors fell around 3 p.m., just a couple hours before the end of the meeting.
The levels of support for the amendment this year (61% in favor and 39% against) are roughly the same as in 2024 but represent thousands fewer messengers: 5,600 cast a ballot in Dallas compared to over 8,000 the year before.
Coming out of this year’s meeting, Georgia pastor Griffin Gulledge said he sees that “what Southern Baptists are excited about”—where they take the most eager stands and see the fewest divides—“is missions and ministry.”
Meanwhile, he said, “We are willing to endure talk of reform but can’t agree what on what that reform is.”
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