Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Sam.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: Doctor Willie Rice, welcome to the Code Red studio.
[00:00:32] Speaker A: It's great to be here. Thanks.
[00:00:34] Speaker B: You know, I was trying to figure out earlier and I still haven't put my finger on exactly where I first heard you at, but I knew your reputation. I knew the great things that Calvary's done and your tenure there. And I heard you. I think, I want to think it was at the state convention a couple of years ago, and I was instantly a fan of your ability in the pulpit. You're a great preacher.
You articulate your thoughts very well.
And, you know, that's. I'm sure you hear that a lot. But coming from another preacher, you know how it's not easy to always listen to people who do what we do. But that was very encouraging to me.
[00:01:13] Speaker A: Thank you. You're very kind. God be praised. And it's a joy to preach. And you're very encouraging. Thank you.
[00:01:18] Speaker B: Well, I can't wait for our people to hear you.
The reason I bring that up is we're in a trajectory as a convention, as a movement of churches.
And back probably when I began, I was saved in 94, called to preach 95.
Around that time you mentioned some of the names today. Dr. Rogers, Dr. Vines, Stanley.
[00:01:45] Speaker A: Yeah, I think, you know, I think the SBC is at its best when it's led by churches and pastors.
And when we've seen in the days of the conservative resurgence, in the days of, you know, when the SPC was just a strong force, it's been those kind of voices. Adrian, like you just mentioned, Jerry Vines, Adrian Rogers, Charles Stanley, the great leaders of the conservative researchers, Jimmy Draper and so forth.
And I just think that's if you really believe in the autonomy of the local church and if you believe in Baptist polity, then it's not top down, it's not even bottom up. It's local church out. And so it begins with pastors who are leading those churches and the voices of those churches that I think have to be and need to the strongest voices in the spc.
[00:02:31] Speaker B: Well, and for those who don't know, the reason that you're in this conversation right now is because you are nominated. You're going to be nominated to be the president of the Southern Baptist Convention. And it's the largest Protestant denomination, however you want to use that phrase.
Let me do this. I told you that many of our people did not grow up as native Southern Baptists.
What is a Southern Baptist? What is the Southern Baptist Convention? Wow.
[00:02:57] Speaker A: Well, the Southern Baptist Convention is the Baptists in North America. And of course, comes, you know, after the Civil War, there was a break between north and South. But the Baptists in North America who wanted to affiliate for missions and evangelism, they understood there's almost a tension in Baptist life. Baptists believe strongly in the autonomy of the local church. That church is not some denominational hierarchy out there somewhere. That a church is a local gathering of baptized believers who are in covenant together to worship the Lord, to do the work of the Lord. That's what a church is.
So your people, for instance, don't think of the church as somewhere out there. It's here in this city, and our people think the same. So there's that great tension. But Southern Baptists are Baptists who said, we are both independent and interdependent. That is, there are some things we can do better together than we can do alone. And so you saw Southern Baptists back, you know, when it was founded in the 1800s, uniting for the purpose of educating the next generation of pastors. They started seminaries and for doing missions together. And over time, that developed into our international missions, our North American missions, six seminaries, a publishing house and other entities that we have formed. But I think Southern Baptists are Baptists who unite together to do the work of the Great Commission.
[00:04:25] Speaker B: Okay, so if you. Tonight, we'll have the privilege of having you in our church.
I don't think we have any business on the table tonight, but even though you got a phenomenal congregation down in Clearwater, in that region of Florida, if you were in a business session in our church, you don't have the opportunity to vote. That's right.
[00:04:46] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:04:47] Speaker B: If you become president of the Southern Baptist Convention, you would not have the opportunity to vote in our church. This is something that our people may not be aware of.
[00:04:55] Speaker A: Your church is your church. The people who have covenanted together, baptized believers, confessing Christ, and each church may even have some particularities that is unique things in those churches. But we are united by a common doctrine and a common bound. So while there may be some unique things in the way you've organized yourself or how many business meetings you have and all there are things that are unique to every local church.
There are things that are different. But that's what makes Baptist Baptist.
[00:05:25] Speaker B: Right?
[00:05:25] Speaker A: It's like your church is your church. It's the people who have made a covenant together here in this local city.
[00:05:30] Speaker B: Well, that's the. To me, that's one of the beautiful things about the Baptist faith and message is it articulates what we Believe very clearly, but it doesn't over articulate in that, let's say, for the Holy Spirit. We've got members of our church who are probably more charismatic and more open in gifts. We have some that are cessationist. You can be both and be a Southern Baptist. It doesn't nail that down.
We have people who are different even in this room, probably people who are different when it comes to eschatology.
But you can hold different positions in eschatology and be a Southern Baptist. You just got to believe Jesus is bodily returned as King of Kings.
So with that said, if you consider what our Southern Baptist church looks like and what another one on the same island looks like, they may be quite different.
And we come together around that doctrinal statement of the Baptist faith and message and for the purpose of the Great Commission, educating pastors, all the things that go into that. And so as that happens, what is the role of the president of the Southern Baptist Convention?
[00:06:42] Speaker A: So the Southern Baptist Convention is actually the messengers of the churches that meet once a year.
But it has entities. It has an apparatus that exists throughout the year in terms of those mission boards, seminaries and so forth.
So the role of the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, I think there's the formal role and the informal role. And the formal role is to preside over the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention. And then there are some constitutional abilities, such as appointing committees. And, you know, there's a process by which you appoint a committee. I often joke only Baptists could have a committee on committees. But we have a committee on committees that appoints a committee on nominations that then appoints the trustees of those boards. So there's a little bit of an indirect process, but the president does have a.
I would say a indirect direct approach in making sure who gets to be trustees in the entities.
Then I think there's an informal role that president has in what sometimes is called the bully pulpit. Just the opportunity. I don't know that there's to speak. I don't know that there's anybody who can speak for all Southern Baptists. You shouldn't pretend to do that. But you do have an opportunity in a sense, to speak for Southern Baptists. There are going to be opportunities to articulate priorities, to challenge certain things in the establishment or in the flow of SBC life. And I think our greatest presidents have taken the opportunity to do that. Right.
[00:08:10] Speaker B: Well, you know, and the thing about it, as you said, the people who show up in that room are the ones who are going to make the decision on who the next president will be, who will represent them.
And, you know, we've got, at this point, two that are nominated, are going to be nominated yourself and then Josh Powell, and I've extended invitation to Josh as well. Both of you guys have a stellar reputation for being Christian gentlemen, solid pastors. There's not a liberal conservative dynamic. So there's some probably philosophical things about how you see the future of the SBC or course corrections that need to take place. But both of you have a great reputation.
But you never know, man, when you show up in Orlando, there is no way to predict which way it's going to go.
[00:08:59] Speaker A: There really isn't a way to predict these things in Baptist life. There are no polls, and I'm probably glad about that.
And you don't know what will happen between now and June. So we just have conversations. And let me just say, I'm so glad you brought that. Josh and I have talked. We talked before either of us kind of formally announced that this would happen.
And I boy, what a great guy. We prayed together.
We covenanted to be, to aspire, to be Christlike in everything that we would do. I remember us saying, hey, let's be better friends when this is over than we are even now. We didn't know each other that well. Our paths had crossed. But I really like Josh. I've listened to him on some things. A really solid guy. We probably disagree on some of our approaches to some things, but we have far more in common than we have apart. I have great respect for him.
[00:09:46] Speaker B: I thought this was hilarious. I sat down maybe a week ago. Our staff did brackets for basketball, and so I sat down. I don't know that much about basketball. I used to know NBA. I don't know college sports that well. College basketball that well. So I sat down and I asked. I think it was Claude. AI fill out my brackets, make me look like a prophet.
[00:10:08] Speaker A: How'd that go?
[00:10:09] Speaker B: Right now, I'm number one, and I'm still number one.
[00:10:11] Speaker A: Is that right?
[00:10:12] Speaker B: Still number one, but it's totally anthropic that did that. But so it gave me exactly a prediction of how that should look. I ask it, tell me who's going to win the SBC presidency?
[00:10:26] Speaker A: Oh, this is fascinating.
[00:10:27] Speaker B: I heard this. I don't have a clue.
You know, it was easier to predict the Final Four than who would win this election.
[00:10:35] Speaker A: That's just the nature of it. I don't know how you predict it. And, you know, I'm sure Josh is settled with that And I am. I pray all the time. Just my job is to speak what the Lord's laid on my heart, to be obedient to what I feel like he's called me to do, and then trust him with the results. And I'm sure Josh would say the same thing. And there's no.
There's no. Now. There have been times when an SBC presidential race has been somewhat heated and there have been some acrimony, but I don't sense that in this case. I don't want there to be. In this case, I think, you know, again, we're going to look at it a little bit differently.
And, you know, he's free to characterize his positions, but I think that we have far more in common than we have apart. And, you know, again. And I feel like it's my responsibility just to say the things that are on my heart and the burdens that I have.
[00:11:20] Speaker B: Well, hopefully we can articulate some of that through this conversation with the two perspectives.
You have written seven points that kind of are the driving thrust of your messaging, your platform campaign.
Walk us through those.
[00:11:39] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, I think the best question anybody can ever be asked, why are you going to do this? And, of course, you sense the Lord's leadership, as I've just explained. But. But I just felt like that was important. I think sometimes in SPC life, there hasn't been that kind of clear messaging. It's just the next guy.
And I thought, well, no, what do you want to do? Like, what needs to happen?
And one of the things that I think needs to happen, I think if I were just to talk in the biggest, broadest language I could, I would say I want to see a Baptist renewal in our time, in our generation.
I don't want to be part of a movement with declining impact and diminishing influence.
In the 20th century, we saw God work through Baptist people in North America in a profound way. And when you look at the data, evangelicals are the bulwark in North America against complete moral insanity.
You take evangelicals out of the equation, then it's, we're Western Europe, the only thing keeping us from being the UK that is evangelical.
[00:12:44] Speaker B: Let's say that one more time. I thought you said that earlier today. I thought that was a brilliant statement.
[00:12:48] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, there's some data that I've been reading, and it's like when you look at all the religious groups, you may think, well, Roman Catholics are going to help us, or our Jewish friends are going to help us or whatever. No, no, when you look at all the religious groups, it is evangelicals that are unequivocally the bulwark against moral insanity washing across our North American culture. It's evangelicals who have a biblical view of marriage, who have a biblical view of sexuality, who have a biblical view of gender and those hot button issues. You take evangelicals of the equation.
You know, there is no bulwark against the flooding tide of what is really neo paganism.
And the biggest bulwark in evangelicalism is the Southern Baptist Convention, just because of its sheer size. And so it is so important. And that gets to back again, why I wanted to see a renewal in Baptist life. I don't want to see a diminishing impact, a declining influence. I would love to see a century in which Southern Baptists are once again making a profound impact and growing in its influence. So what would it look like? That's what I asked. What would it look like? And I kind of came up with seven pillars.
These were just the convictions of my heart and the burden that I was carrying. What would a Baptist renewal look like? And I've written seven. And you know, the first one is convictional clarity. Convictional clarity. The idea is that if we're going to see a renewal, it's not going to be because of this fuzzy, evangelic, middle of the road pragmatism where people almost believe something, which has kind of come about because of church growth. Pragmatism that has really influenced us for maybe the last half century. Whatever it takes to grow, whatever it takes to reach people. And so there's been a kind of dumbing down or a de emphasis on biblical doctrine, on theological health.
And I think convictional clarity is what is needed. We're living in an age of apostasy, of unbelief. Even some of the great evangelical standards out there, not necessarily Baptist, some are non denominational.
We've even seen slippage and compromise in some of those great standards.
What we need is conviction, courage and clarity.
[00:15:13] Speaker B: What issues specifically would you.
[00:15:16] Speaker A: Well, I think one, you know, Baptists are struggling right now with a complementarian issue, which is who is a pastor and what is a pastor. And we've seen several streams that have contributed to that. First of all, I do think there is always a stream that is trying to push you to the left. Always. Secondly, I think a lot of it is just sloppy ecclesiology, getting very sloppy with our understanding of roles and titles and using titles in a way that is not what the New Testament says and certainly not what the Baptist Faith and Message says, the problem is, Zach, these are more than words. Words create realities. Words open the door to real directions.
So I think the complementarian issue is one of those areas. We've got to be very clear. We just got to decide what we think about the role of a pastor and whether we can have women pastors or whether we believe. The New Testament says that only men as qualified by scripture are eligible to be pastors.
[00:16:11] Speaker B: And you and I totally agree on that. I think the majority of Southern Baptists totally agree on it. The reason you're running for president and I'm not even praying about any office is because I don't know how to steer other churches toward what I believe is already very clear in the Baptist faith and message.
It's confusing to me. Why?
That they see it so differently. Or do they see it so differently?
I know you have ladies on your staff. I've got ladies that lead ministries on our staff that are not elder pastors, overseers. But how do you shape all of these thousands of churches and move them in a trajectory to where there's alignment there?
[00:16:55] Speaker A: Yeah, it's so important. We're not talking about vocational roles who serve in ministries. You have a lot of large churches. Your church is a large church. We have a lot of large churches that have multiple staff roles, people who work in finance and communications and video and people running these lights and all. You know, we're not talking about vocational ministry. We're talking about the office of elder pastor overseer, terms that are clearly interchangeable in the New Testament. It's a specific biblical office, and the Bible defines it, I think, very clearly.
And the Baptist faith and message says it exceedingly clearly. It is for men as qualified by Scripture. And this is not about how you think about men. Well, it is how you think about men and women, but it's not about how you value men or women. It's about understanding the creative, distinctive, genius of our Heavenly Father. You know, the gender distinctive is not a glass ceiling to be broken. It's a beautiful design to be embraced. And the New Testament speaks about the order of the church, the order of the family, and that is a beautiful thing that causes human flourishing. So this is very important. I don't. What I would say as you ask about the other churches is I think, what we need in a chaotic moment. And there clearly is a confusing, chaotic moment.
We see people using different words in different ways, using titles in different ways, and other churches use titles. So whenever you have chaos, what you need is clarity. What you need is clarity. This is what we mean. Now, you and I would agree it's very clear in the Baptist faith and message. I don't think we need to add to that. I think it's really, I would say, presciently clear. It was written brilliantly.
But I do think that over time, no matter how clearly a document may be written, over time there tends to be adrift.
And what you have seen is theological liberalism, which is kind of an old fashioned word now, but that's what we grew up calling it. You might call it compromise. Loves to live in ambiguities and gaps. So wherever there's an ambiguity and a gap, it kind of loves to find a place to hide in there. I just think we need a statement that says, this is clearly what Southern Baptist people mean when we use the term pastor. You can't use it in a way that is different than what the New Testament teaches or the Baptist faith. The message teaches. Why? Not because we're trying to be picky, but because we believe this truth matters.
So I think clarity will help those churches. Some of them will realize, well, they shouldn't be Southern Baptists. And others may realize, you know, I hold out the hope that there are some maybe who haven't really thought seriously about these terms and their ecclesiology that might, if we got clear, if we were clear, they might go, wait a second, okay, we weren't trying to do that. We weren't trying to say that. We were handing out, for instance, the title pastor in a very reckless and irresponsible fashion. Thank you, brothers, for the correction. Thank you for the clear statement. We will now operate in a way that is more clear and more scriptural.
I hold out hope that a lot would go, oh, thank you for that. At least you give them the opportunity if there's clarity.
[00:20:07] Speaker B: Right. Self select out.
This is not our team. We're not in alignment when it comes down to. I guess what I'm trying to ask is what are we not talking about? If there's a brother who's a little bit concerned that maybe you're coming after him, not you personally, but conservatives or the law amendment, different things that feel like, what are they coming after that they're not telling us?
So let's say, for example, where is there liberty within a Southern Baptist church?
And I would, I would say something to the effect of, like, for us, for example, I would not have a lady teach on Sunday morning. To me, that role should be at our congregation. That's a pastoral prerogative.
So I would not bring a lady to teach on Sunday morning.
Is that something that short of owning the title pastor, that a Southern Baptist church should have the liberty to make that decision per congregation?
[00:21:06] Speaker A: Well, this is why, again, I'm for a clarifying statement.
I talked to people who voted against the law amendment, good people who said, hey, I'm complimentary, and I believe them. I take them at their word. And they said, I was afraid of how it would be applied.
We heard a lot of, you know, some of it may be scare tactics, but some of it was very sincere. People said, we're afraid, oh, they're going to come after every woman missionary, every woman staff member, every woman teaching in Sunday school, you know, and so forth.
And this is. And I, when I explained, no, what we need is a clarifying statement to talk about. We're talking about the role of elder overseer, you know, pastor.
They even said, I've talked to several who said, oh, I would vote for that. Like, if you could clarify, I would be all for that. So I think we can get 80, 90%, maybe more of Southern Baptists saying, yes, I agree with that. And it will bring unity and clarity and help us deal with people who may be outside those lines. In terms of your question, I do think there's going to be some latitude. I agree with you. To us, we view that Sunday morning as an office of the pastor.
I think that's where most Southern Baptists would fall. But I do know there have been examples of churches that have occasionally let a woman teach on Sunday morning.
I don't. I think whatever statement we put together could address that issue. But I think it would leave a degree of latitude for churches who might do something that is a little different than other churches. So long as we agree on the role of elder, pastor, overseer. Now, now, if a woman is preaching every Sunday or regularly, then we have a form, function kind of conversation. But I still think clarity will help us in all of those situations.
[00:22:47] Speaker B: Well, and that's the nature, I think growing up in a Baptist context, in seminary, whatever it might be, getting clear on what we mean, what we don't mean, where there is liberty for congregations.
I would say it this way.
[00:23:03] Speaker A: Locally.
[00:23:04] Speaker B: We've got churches locally that are not sbc. I have no dog in that fight.
It's their congregation. They have a female pastor. They're not even sbc. But as I'm able, I want to influence them the best I can toward what I perceive to be a more biblical ecclesiology and have a more biblical form of Government. I believe that's in their best interest, and I would trust they would do the same for me if they see it differently. That's just what we do as believers. We have these conversations, and we talk through it. Are there any other issues where you think we need clarity?
[00:23:36] Speaker A: Oh, I think, you know, the wide range of, you know, issues in the sexual revolution, I think some of the have been very clear. I'm for adding a statement to the Baptist faith and message, which is a pretty dramatic statement. I call it the Jacksonville. I thought that was after the Jacksonville statement that they adopted on gender and sexuality. Our church adopted that following their model, and I thought they did a great job with it. I'd love to see an article like that added to the Baptist faith and message.
[00:24:02] Speaker B: That's probably time.
[00:24:03] Speaker A: It's not changing the Baptist faith and message, but I do think when you think of what's happened in the last quarter of a century, wow, the confusion, the changes, the legalization of gay marriage, the whole transgender debate, and all of these issues are causing pressure on our churches and on our people. I think a clear statement that this is what we believe. And the thing I loved about that statement, Zach, was it didn't list any sins, actually. It said, this is what we are for. It gave the biblical pattern of gender and sexuality. It's so well written. And I think a statement like that would send the right message to our people, would send the right message to people around America. This is who Southern Baptists are. They are a convictional people, and they are not going to change on these issues, no matter how much cultural pressure you bring to bear.
[00:24:48] Speaker B: Well, in the nature of what we are dealing with, it's not that we became less clear. The culture shifted. And a statement of faith is always reactive.
[00:24:57] Speaker A: It's always reactive.
[00:24:58] Speaker B: We're responding to what the challenges of the culture are.
[00:25:02] Speaker A: Statements of faith historically are attempts to clarify in the midst of.
Of a lack of clarity and things have. You know, 30 years ago, none of us thought we'd be having this transgender debate. Maybe there were a few people who could tell it was coming, but, I mean, even if you had told me 15 years ago, it would be this mainstreamed, this promoted, I would have thought. No, no, you're being an alarmist. It happened so fast. So now into that chaos, you know, we need to bring conviction and clarity, and I think there are ways we could do that. I just think, overall, when you look at what it would look like to see a Baptist renewal, it's going to be clarity and conviction. And courage that's going to bring it, not compromise and, you know, being co opted by the culture.
[00:25:48] Speaker B: Before we go to the second point, when you say renewal, first of all, give us your website.
[00:25:52] Speaker A: You've got a baptistrenewal us, okay? You can all learn more about these pillars and you can ask questions. We hope we put some podcasts up there that we've done so that people can hear us flesh out some of these a little bit more.
[00:26:03] Speaker B: When you say renewal, if nothing changes, if the trajectory stays the same, where do you see Southern Baptist, let's say in 20, 25 years, will we be faster?
[00:26:15] Speaker A: It's a great question.
It's a great question. I obviously don't know the future, but I'm concerned about a diminishing impact.
In 07 and 08, the amount of money flowing out of Southern Baptist churches to what we call the cooperative program was $548 million. Really extraordinary. $548 million. 16 years later, 23, 24, that number had dropped to $446 million. That's a drop of more than $100 million in 16 years flowing out of our churches into our cooperative mission strategy. We call it the Cooperative Program. It's the funding mechanism for all of those entities, including state organizations. Now that's an 18.5% drop in less than two decades.
That is precipitous, that is alarming. And I don't know that we are looking at that honestly enough and clearly enough now. It's not that we have seen an 18.5% drop in Southern Baptist churches. We haven't. We have seen some decline, but not in the number of churches, in the number of members, but we've actually seen growth in some giving in other areas. So it's not that our churches are fewer. It's not that our churches are poor horror. It's that they are obviously making some choices in their budgetary decisions that are showing up in that bottom line number. And my point in bringing that statistic up is I think if we don't deal with the underlying issues of why that is happening, then in 25 years, I don't know that our movement is as healthy and is as vibrant. Our funding mechanism certainly isn't going to be.
I think it is beyond time for us to have some really hard conversations about what is going on and what is the best way to fund our cooperative missions efforts into the future.
[00:28:08] Speaker B: When you mentioned one of your statements, one of your core statements is about the entities being transparent and clear on where they're at and what they're doing our church. One of the strengths of our church is generosity. They've been known historically as just a church that's very generous toward the mission, toward the local church as well.
And so you learn as a pastor to look for lead indicators, what may predict a good year, that sort of thing.
And so when certain baptism trends, attendance trends, things are. Or people are generally experiencing strong momentum, they tend to give better. And that year after year, when we go to the convention, I'll look at my wife and I'll say, something doesn't add up because I'll see all of the lead indicators going down.
But they tell us it's the best year ever, every single year.
And so my question is, is that church giving or is there funding sources evolving outside of the denomination that are coming into our missions, entities, or our seminaries, whatever it might be?
Are you concerned about that or do we have transparency in those areas?
[00:29:31] Speaker A: Well, I think there's two questions. There's two issues there. One is you're seeing a rise of some designated giving. For instance, the mission offerings have continued to increase, which praise be to God.
But that shows our churches are not poor, and it shows that our churches are not trying to pull away from cooperative mission strategy. They're still for it. Churches like yours still want to give in a way to impact the world for Christ, and they're willing to cooperate with other churches who are also trying to do that. So I don't think it shows they're running away from that value. What they seem to be running away from is that particular mechanism to express that value.
I do think on a second issue that you raised there, that there are concerns I have about outside funding sources that are now funding some of our Southern Baptist program in entities. We saw that with the ERLC that was actually written about, it was kind of exposed that there were some outside funding sources.
It is incredulous that someone would ask us to believe that those outside funding sources are not seeking to influence the direction of the organization. Of course they are. Like, you know, I heard a guy say the other day, I don't mind you lying to me, just don't think I'm stupid enough to believe it. So, you know, but we don't want to lie to anybody. But, you know, you can't say, oh, we're getting outside funding sources. It doesn't influence us. It absolutely is going to influence you. What I think people are concerned about is where are all those outside sources coming? Maybe it's beyond the ERLC and You know, I don't know the answer to that. That I think Southern Baptists deserve an answer to that. If there are outside funding sources that are coming in to influence our agencies and entities which we own and operate, I think we should be exceedingly transparent about that.
[00:31:25] Speaker B: Well, and transparency, that's the key to it. It's like, you know, if you look at relatively the numbers may be very small relative to the overall giving the intake of money that they're bringing in or it may be the kind of thing that, that, you know, this is the king of Sodom making Abraham Richard. That we don't want any of their money.
[00:31:47] Speaker A: Right.
[00:31:48] Speaker B: That we need to see it. But that's for Southern Baptists to decide.
[00:31:51] Speaker A: Absolutely.
Yeah. That is one of those areas where transparency I think is almost non negotiable like outside. And there are several people who believe that the business plan model we approved last year actually made it. Red Burns is making this argument very, very well as a pastor in South Carolina, that that business plan and model made it much easier for outside funding sources to.
And without being revealed. I think that is unacceptable. And I know that business plan passed, but I also know sometimes things pass without everybody understanding exactly what is going on when there's not a full clear debate.
I think if Southern Baptists were, if the question were posed to Southern Baptists, should you know about outside funding sources? I don't think there's any doubt how they would vote on that and it's just getting it to them in that form. So I think transparency is very important. Everywhere I go right now I'm talking to pastors. We had a group of meeting earlier today that you were at.
I'm meeting with groups of pastors. I'm listening to them, I'm taking questions. It's as important for me to hear what they have to say as it is what I have to say.
[00:32:59] Speaker B: I appreciate that.
[00:33:00] Speaker A: And I am hearing questions about the trust issue and the transparency issue and they're being asked in different ways, ways. But that trust issue is one of the highest.
You heard it today when brother ask it today and I'm hearing it almost every day.
There has been a loss of trust and I don't mean that to take a shot at anybody. There are a couple of things that have eroded that trust, I think, but there has been a loss of trust. And when I say when trust is low, transparency needs to be high.
If you're talking to a married couple and they're having problems, like they've gone through a difficult time and let's say they're trying to repair their relationship. Relationship. You might say to a guy, hey, I'm glad you're working. And trust can be rebuilt, but transparency has got to be high. No secrets like passwords.
[00:33:48] Speaker B: Everything's on the table.
[00:33:49] Speaker A: Everything is on the table. Why? Because you lost some trust, and now we got to get it back. And that means we're going to have to go the extra mile to earn that trust back. I want to see some of our leaders, many of whom are my friends and whom I love, but I would like to see them going the extra mile to earn the trust back. And I haven't seen that as much as I would like to.
[00:34:09] Speaker B: Well, and I think by nature, most Southern Baptists that I know, most pastors, we're trusting people. We give benefit of the doubt. You know, I probably don't verify as much as I ought to, you know, but I do. I just naturally presume somebody's shooting straight with me.
But in the last 10 or 15 years, there have just been so many, you know, either entity head say one thing, and then somebody who knows differently, I think, you know, it was mentioned earlier today, the trustees know what everybody makes. Well, not necessarily.
[00:34:45] Speaker A: They don't. They don't. You know, that's the whole 990 argument, which, again, some of your listeners may be familiar with, which is a particular IRS qualification for nonprofits to report. Report. It's just kind of like a standard. And we don't have to do that because they're church organizations and no one thinks they should have to do it. So there was a pastor in South Carolina who said, hey, why don't we use that as a standard?
And it ended up not being adopted by the executive committee.
And one of the responses to that was, well, trustees have that information.
And that's what got my attention. Like, I was barely paying attention at that point. I thought, well, maybe I don't know anything about a 990. And then I heard the response, and the response was, well, trustees know that. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. No, they don't. No, they don't. I'm not. You could even argue should they know all that. Okay.
[00:35:34] Speaker B: And you were a trustee?
[00:35:34] Speaker A: I was, and I had a great experience, and I probably didn't ask as much questions as maybe as I should have.
I think our trustees are very good people. They're very trust, just like you said, we're very trusting people. They don't go on these boards to be cantankerous and troublesome they don't want to be. I don't like troublesome people in our church. You probably don't like troublesome. I don't want to be in troublesome person. But you have to understand the role of trustees is accountability to a vast organization. And there's a lot of money and there's a lot of power at stake. We need transparency and accountability. So I just. My ears perked up when I heard them say, oh, trustees know all that information. And I'm like, no, they don't. And so that's a good place to start. You say, trust the trustees. I think that's a great idea. You go first. You know, that's what I like to say. You start and let's see how it goes.
[00:36:21] Speaker B: I had a similar experience when some of the.
The lawsuits and things that happened in the past few years, it was a statement that, well, this particular VP made however much money, 500,000, whatever it was, and they said, well, no, he didn't make that much. Then the individual came back and said, I asked exactly how much I made.
So it's like. Which is not.
And I tend to think. I don't look at the entity heads and go, well, they're just charlatans. I don't think that at all. I tend to think they're following best practices. And for most of our life, churches did not divulge how much the senior staff were making. And that was for their personal privacy and all that. So I tend to think that's the harder.
[00:37:09] Speaker A: I do, too.
[00:37:10] Speaker B: But we're in a different season right now. And if my salary came under fire and there were accusations made of mismanagement or whatever, then, yeah, you've just got to go above and beyond.
[00:37:21] Speaker A: Then you lean into transparency.
You just go, okay, maybe it's not the way you would do it. If trust. Again, if trust is low, transparency needs to be high. If trust is high, like, there's no problems, there's no problems in transparency. Can be a little low. You still need to have good processes in place. But if you found yourself in a moment in which, okay, there were serious questions being asked, then you lean into transparency. And that's what we need to lean into. And the other thing I like to make clear, whenever anybody uses that kind of comparison, entities are not transparent. Churches, they're not churches. And so we don't go, well, in our church, we do this. Well, that's apples and oranges. An entity is an organization with tens of millions, in some cases hundreds of millions of dollars of assets. And the trustees are more like the finance committee in your church or whatever committee.
They're the folks. They're the committee that the people have elected to make sure they're looking at it. And so the trustees need to act like, you wouldn't have a finance committee that, hey, we need some information about the finances. And you said, oh, no, no, of course not. So the trustees are the group that should get all that information. And then I'm willing to have the discussion about, hey, should there be more information made public? What information is it 990 level? Is it less than that?
But let's at least have that discussion and not shut it down.
[00:38:42] Speaker B: That's fair.
[00:38:43] Speaker A: Is where I would say, okay, Baptist renewal.
[00:38:45] Speaker B: Where would you go beyond that? Clarity, transparency.
[00:38:49] Speaker A: I've talked about missional integrity. You know this one, I don't know their president has anything to do with this other than use a voice and an example. I think the whole pragmatic church growth age led us to elevate size above substance and growth above health. Bigger was always better. And look, you want your church to be. You want your church to grow.
I'm pretty sure you're a Baptist. I want my church to grow. We want to reach people. We want to make a difference.
But growth and health are not the same things.
And when you equate growth and health, health, you will eventually elevate growth above health. And the reason is it's easier to fabricate, it's easier to manufacture. And once you elevate growth above health, you will eventually eliminate health in a pursuit of growth. And I think we saw a lot of that in the last generation in evangelicalism. Even after the church growth age, as you got into other next level movements, it still was the same thing.
I just would love to see us come back to this is what church health looks like. And let's remember those churches that are smaller churches, the rural churches, I don't think a spiritual movement looks like a few big churches getting bigger. It looks like a lot of churches getting healthier. And so I would just like to see a renewal of what I call missional health. And you know what we really think of in terms of our ministry integrity, Cultural accountability is another one, which is our voice in the culture, I think was weakened over the last 15, 20 years.
We had some wrong leaders in wrong places with wrong priorities.
And instead of speaking for us, they kind of lectured to us. And I think we had some leaders that were embarrassed by Baptist people. And our voice in the broader culture was muted at a time when it needed to be amplified.
And I think we need to prophetic mantle.
[00:40:41] Speaker B: When you speak the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, do you believe there's a future for that entity or.
[00:40:46] Speaker A: Well, I hope, you know, that's a question that gets asked, and I hope they're in a state of transition right now.
We actually had to, you know, made the motion last year on the floor to abolish it, but I said in my opening statement that I was able to make from the floor that the reason I think we need to move to abolish it is because it's how we speak.
I literally. That was my first. I remember that vividly because of the bylaw mechanism that put them on a kind of really what amounted to a performance improvement plan because it would have to be approved a second year in order to actually abolish an entity. And we all felt like that's how you get their attention. And by the way, it worked. 43% of the people, even though the motion didn't pass, it worked. 43% of the people voted by ballot for it. I was grateful for President Press especially calling for the ballot vote because it put it on record, it's undeniable, and it created changes in the erlc. Now what we've got to do is see where it lands. Do I think it can be a viable entity? Yes. I know some people think you ought to just do away with it, but, you know, it's hard to do away with an entity, as we found out. So I think probably the more realistic approach is how could we take it and use it? How can it be what it was intended to be? An equipping mechanism for our churches to help us deal with the cultural and ethics and religious liberty issues that we're all facing. And yes, be a voice to the broader square, but a voice that is consistent with what Southern Baptists believe and who Southern Baptist people are.
[00:42:12] Speaker B: Dr. Rice, I had a dear friend.
I'm thinking about what I say here.
[00:42:18] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:42:19] Speaker B: I had a dear friend who was
[00:42:20] Speaker A: always good, by the way.
[00:42:22] Speaker B: I should.
[00:42:23] Speaker A: More.
[00:42:24] Speaker B: He was hired by one of our entities, and he reached out to me.
Congratulations. They made a great choice.
There's just one issue. You're not a Southern Baptist. And he was aligned with a different movement.
Continues to be, as far as I know.
I see. With the.
I'm thinking of Brent Leatherwood in particular, when Brent was leading the erlc.
I don't know Brent. He and I, we were in Israel when the Hamas attack happened.
[00:42:58] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:42:59] Speaker B: And so we were trapped in Israel, we were reaching out to all of our different resources, from the governor's office to Georgia, governor, president, everything, and trying to get out of a war zone.
12 days, if I remember correctly, my numbers may be off.
The RLC has not said anything.
Now, by nature, I'm a team player. I'm not a critic of my own team. I'm just not. I'm not the one who's going to be constantly telling everybody what they're doing wrong.
But about day 10, I put something out and said, Erlc, would you please say something? You know, Brent reached out to me and we had a good back and forth on.
And it came down to, what would you like me to say? I said, brother, you shouldn't have to ask me that. You're in this role.
And so, you know, you're here for a reason. You were appointed. God's equipped you and, you know, just speak for our people. Now, it occurred to me in that conversation, I don't think he knows our people now, maybe totally off, but the mainstay of Southern Baptists that are in the pew week after week, I think there's become a little bit of a distance. Some of it's academic. Oh, you know, there was a day when we had more people that were pastors and preachers or laymen leading in these various roles. Something happened in the last 20 years where more of theologians began to lead and there began to be a distance between the pulpit and the pew that was unique.
And so when these entity heads would speak on behalf of Southern Baptist, the Southern Baptist I know were looking at each other going, who is that? Yeah. Who are these people?
[00:44:53] Speaker A: Yeah. There is an elitism that I'm sensing and that I know that people are sensing. I'm hearing about it. You know, here's the reason they should have spoken is because our pastors are looking for language. You know, our leaders are looking for language to address our people. Right.
[00:45:10] Speaker B: And.
[00:45:10] Speaker A: And by speaking, you help equip your pastors, your churches, your Sunday school leaders, all the rest. You're giving them language to address a very important global ethical issue. Again, you don't have to speak on every issue, but certainly that would have been one to speak on.
[00:45:28] Speaker B: Well, and those are the kind of things.
Ten days into it, most Southern Baptist pastors that I knew had decided where they were at on it.
[00:45:36] Speaker A: And I was speaking to it. I mean, we did a whole Wednesday night on it. We stopped everything and said, okay, we need to talk about, about Israel, what's going on, why there's always conflict. And we, in fact, I think we did too, Wednesday nights on it. It's like after the Iran conflict here, a few days ago, I saw my friend Jimmy Scroggins gave a statement, maybe you saw it to his church. We gave a brief statement, but he gave a really well crafted statement.
And the reason that's so helpful is it flows out, it flows down. People listen to that. That was something that got reposted a lot on X and so forth.
Again, that helped pastors. There were a lot of guys going, oh, that's exactly how I feel. That's what I want to say. The ERC should help us in these political cultural issues, have the tools and the framework to address these issues.
And that's, you know, the silence in moments like that is just inexcusable.
[00:46:30] Speaker B: The thing about something, I guess for our listeners to understand about the nature of the presidency of the SBC is no one man you can pick put Jesus in that role.
He's still going to need a little time to put the right people in the right seats.
You know, Willie Rice gets elected. We have confidence that you're going to do the right thing. But we need several.
[00:46:56] Speaker A: The conservative resurgence happened in the 70s and 80s. I was a boy, I was a child and not really a child. I became a pastor during that time, but it was in college, from high school to college, and then became a pastor all during that 12 year period or so that sometimes people refer to as the conservative surges. That's where the thing really turned. It took about 12 years to really turn it. And it was a series of successive presidents and it was a series of strategic appointments.
This is different in a way. It's a different kind of crisis we're facing. But we're going to need to make very strategic appointments and we're going to have to make a series of good decisions into the future to kind of get our feet back under us, in my opinion.
[00:47:38] Speaker B: Well, and one of the reasons that I'm very pro supporting you for the presidency is I think you're right. We're not dealing with hardcore liberals and hardcore conservatives. We're dealing with generally people who are on the conservative end of the spectrum that can be influenced and swayed if the concepts are articulated well. And that's one of the reasons I think that you could be the man for the hour is you do represent and you speak clearly on the issues in a way that's compelling.
So, you know, I don't, you know, the renewal that we need to have, that doesn't mean we need to clean the slate and get rid of everybody and start over. I think there's a lot of small changes that could go a long way for the future of our convention.
Tell me about when it comes down. We mentioned it earlier.
If you're on a X, you're going to get one messaging about what's happening in the sbc. It's going to be more edgy, it's going to be more, probably a little bit more from the edges of the spectrum when you show up at the convention.
Like, if I get on X, I look at it and I think, oh, wow, it's obvious which direction this is going. When I get to the convention, it never seems to go the way I predict.
And I made the statement earlier, I think our people that are going to the convention, that are voting are more millennials. They're on Facebook, they're on Instagram, whatever it might be.
And so what I would say to the people watching, you're going to have a few pastors watching this because you're on here. But I think a lot of our people that watch are your ordinary Billy Baptist kind of folk.
They're going to have to. If they really believe in what you're presenting and they want to support you, not only are they going to have to go and vote, they're going to have to talk to their friends who are members of Southern Baptist churches. And you take the people who are at the luncheon today, I don't know how many we had there, several dozen that were there.
Those men can show up and vote, but if they bring all of their messengers, that can make a real difference.
[00:49:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
The great thing about being a Baptist is it's set up in such a way that you can have a grassroots movement, but the grassroots, they got to show up. And each church can bring so many Messengers, up to 12. It depends on how much they give in either an amount or a percentage.
So again, smaller churches can have sometimes bigger, more messengers than big churches sometimes. So if a church shows up with 12 messengers, they can outvote 12 megachurches that only send their pastors. You know, so we need, particularly in Florida, because the convention is in Orlando. And by the way, it's not slated to come back to Orlando. It's not on the calendar.
[00:50:41] Speaker B: You mentioned that earlier. Tell me about that.
[00:50:43] Speaker A: Well, you know, it's something that I'm sharing out there, but it's. And there are reasons, you know, people will speculate as to what the reasons are. I've talked to the people who do this. And they have. They'll give you some logical reasons, but, you know, I'll speculate more than I'm trying to be careful.
[00:51:03] Speaker B: I'm looking at it. So you've got one time in the Deep south over the next decade that the convention will be here, and that's Orlando. And then we have New Orleans.
[00:51:11] Speaker A: We have New Orleans in 2034. It is the only time in the next 10 years that the SBC is scheduled to be in the Deep South. It's scheduled to be in Texas twice back to back years.
But three times in 10 years is it scheduled to be in the southern US twice in Texas, Only once. Not in Orlando, not in Nashville, not in Atlanta.
And look, regardless of the reasons why, the practical effect is we have a disproportionate amount of our Baptist footprint is in the Southern US and we're moving the convention most of the time outside of that footprint. I don't think that makes sense. And I understand there are. Listen, there are logistical issues. I get that, but I don't think that makes sense. I think you gotta. Where there's a will, there's a way. You gotta figure it out. And that means that it's gonna be harder in the next few years for grassroots Southern Baptists to be heard, which makes this convention in Orlando all the more strategic and all the more complex.
[00:52:08] Speaker B: I think that's important to camp out on a little longer, to be able to say to our average people who work at the paper mill who are having to take time off work to go to the convention.
It's the same week as our vacation Bible school. And so there's a lot happening, and we have all hands on deck for that. And I'm asking 12 people.
I'll go. My wife will be there. Some of our pastors will go.
But I'm asking 12 people to, you know, either take their vacation time or, you know, take time where they could be serving in the kids ministry. Go down to Orlando to make this vote. That's one of the. This is not an ordinary year.
[00:52:47] Speaker A: Right.
[00:52:47] Speaker B: And just because we don't have the threat of a far left, you know, coming up that may win.
This is a significant election that people. It's the people in the room that make the decision. You said it well earlier.
[00:53:03] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, it's very important. And people in Florida can drive there. You know, they can bring their people. And while it is a challenge and it is a sacrifice, you know, people in Florida could go and be there at least for a day, be there on Tuesday hopefully, they'll be there Tuesday and Wednesday.
We need them there. If this matters to your church, then it ought to matter, or you're going to wake up one day and you're not going to have the SBC apparatus to give to your grandchildren that your grandparents gave to you. And again, that is going to impact evangelicalism in America, and it is going to impact America as a whole. So it is an important issue. The Executive Committee is recommending in June that it is going to be held twice in Anaheim, California. So it is not coming back to Orlando, it is not coming to Nashville, it is not coming to Atlanta, but we are going to meet in Anaheim County, California, twice. And again, they'll give you logistical reasons for that, but I just. I find that untenable.
[00:53:58] Speaker B: That's going to make a cultural and a political shift over time.
[00:54:03] Speaker A: It absolutely is. And again, I'm all for going out west once in a while. I'm all for going up north once in a while. But it seems, it just makes sense that most of the time it ought to be where most of your people are, if, in fact, it's your policy that ordinary people can show up and be involved. Again, we're not like this hierarchical structure where, oh, the only ones we need there are the guys with the expense accounts, and they can fly wherever. No, we want ordinary churches and ordinary people involved. And I think some of these decisions are sending a signal. Maybe it's inadvertent. I hope it is. I hope it's not intentional, but it's sending a signal that we don't need you guys to be involved.
[00:54:43] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, this is not your first rodeo. You've been down this road before.
Previously, it got pretty personal in that people, whoever they were, I don't understand how it worked. I just remember things were looking pretty good for your candidacy, and then people started digging around and found things that would stick to kind of get you off track.
[00:55:06] Speaker A: Yeah. And I'm glad you asked about that. Nobody really wants to talk about that much anymore, I think, because the sexual abuse reform movement has.
I think it's kind of the whole momentum of that has turned and people have begun to see it for what it was. We dipped our toe in it, if you will, for about a month in a couple years back, back in 2022. And after about a month, I pulled out because there was a story circulating about a member in our church who had sinned in his past.
Before he had come to our church, it wasn't at our church. And before he had come To Christ. He had repented. He had owned that. And his life had been radically changed by the gospel, but through a strange set of circumstances that became known. And it was an egregious sin. He was not a criminal. He did not violate a law. He was not a pedophile or a predator. But it was a scandalous sin. And they kind of were going to make that an issue. And because. Because in that particular moment, the sexual abuse reform movement was white hot. It was white hot. It just.
The gaze was going to be turned on him and other people. And I was also, Zach, to be honest, trying to figure it out, because I ran then, because I was a supporter of the sexual abuse reform movement. I thought, like, who would be against that? Like, let's stop sexual abuse.
And I believed a lot of what I heard in terms of. Terms of, hey, we got to stop this. And some of it didn't seem right to me at the time, but I thought the end justified the means. So when I got in the middle of that, I had to figure it all out. And I found myself in a place I didn't know what was up or down, and it was just right to step out. And I'm glad I did. It was the right thing to do. But stepping away from that back then allowed me to look at that whole movement differently. And had I not stepped away, I would not have questioned like I did, and my views on that could hardly be different. Today, these years later, the sexual abuse reform movement is a social movement that overreached like most social justice movements do.
And we have gotten ourselves in a huge. This is one of the issues that a lot of people don't want to talk about, but it is still a huge issue.
Southern Baptists have spent now probably around $14 million, were enrolled in at least three lawsuits. None of these lawsuits have anything to do, by the way, with actual sexual abuse or actual predatorial behavior upon children. Now, one of them, there's an allegation, but all of these, all of them, the major ones, have to do with how. How we responded in the sexual abuse situation into what was, in essence, a kind of church version of the MeToo movement. And in every one of those cases, we have accused people, or at least publicly insinuated that people are guilty of criminality. And it comes to find out, when you accuse people of criminality, they don't like it if they haven't committed crimes. So in two of the cases, you're talking about conflicting adult relationships. You're not talking about children. You're not talking about predators. And in another, there's the accusation that we, in essence, made an accusation against somebody that is absolutely unfounded and untrue, and that person is suing us. Here's the real tragedy that very few people want to talk about. Had we focused on protecting children, that's what I thought we were going to to do. Like, when this started, I thought that's what I was signing up for. Let's protect children and stop predators. Who's against that? Like, I'm for that still. Right.
But instead of focusing on protecting children and stopping predators, it became a kind of feminist critical theory moment where we began to talk about adult relationships and adult behaviors. And we effectively got our eye off the Bible ball. And it has caused enormous, enormous problems. So my stepping away a few years ago was like, okay, what's going on here? I'm not sure how to handle this. I never saw that kind of thing coming to me.
But it gave me a chance to step back. It gave me a chance to reevaluate. And one of the things, again, I mean, not many people want to talk about it right now because I think they're embarrassed. I think they realize we made some huge, huge, huge, like, huge mistakes in this. And what we need are people who will say, hey, maybe I made some of those mistakes. I didn't see it right. Let's accept responsibility. I say, when people make a mistake, I'm looking for three things. As a leader, you have a staff. I have people work for me.
I want to know that they own it. I want to know that they fix it, and I want to know that they learn from it. I just want them to accept responsibility. If they.
If there's damage you can undo, fix it. Like, show me you can fix it and then learn from it. When we have leaders who don't want to talk about it and want to just, let's just move on down the road as if that didn't happen. Wait, wait, wait, wait. It did happen. You waived attorney client privilege. You indemnified guideposts. You made some decisions. Now I need you to own it. Like, I need you to fix.
And I need to know you've learned from it, or you're just going to go down the road and do it again.
[01:00:34] Speaker B: Well, let me say, on behalf of one, my trajectory in that whole issue is real similar to yours. Benefit of the doubt. You want to trust the accuser, the victim. You want to trust that they're shooting straight with you, they're telling you the truth and probably erred on that side quite often when you. You made some changes, when you dropped out of the race, for one. I get it, man. I get it. But for your church's benefit, you don't want to drag your church through all that stuff. They didn't sign up for that. They're good enough to let you make this run and sacrifice you for the convention. There's no need of making it worse for them.
But I deeply, deeply appreciate and I've heard so many people, and I hope people remember this, the fact that you acknowledge that, you know, you've evolved in the way that you look at some of those issues, and I think most of us have. There were a handful of people that they saw it from day one.
[01:01:31] Speaker A: They sure did.
[01:01:32] Speaker B: And God bless them, but we weren't all there.
[01:01:34] Speaker A: And I shake their hand and say thank you. I've said it publicly. I don't. You know, no one likes to say they're wrong, but, you know, just get it out, get off your high horse. And then it's easier to go, yep, yep, I've learned from that. For me, it was kind of like pulling a thread on a sweater.
Once I saw the overreach of the abuse reform movement, it led me back. I started thinking, okay, well, who called that? And then it led me back to the critical theory conversation. They were the same ones who were telling us, because then you begin to see how it's interrelated. And I began to go, wait, they were the critical theory, okay, that was a bigger thing than I realized at the moment. And then you began to listen to voices I had encouraged.
I began to go, well, if they were right about those things, what else were they right about? And then you see that they were right about several other things. So I think I've learned to listen to people, and I think that's, again, what people are looking for. Our leaders being willing to listen and being willing to learn. Everybody's going to make mistakes. Like, you don't know everything at any given moment. So we're always learning. We're always growing. There's no shame in that. In fact, you should be. Hopefully I'm learning. Hopefully I'll learn more in the next five years. And I know today, but I think I offer this as a way forward for all Southern Baptists, because I think the reason Southern Baptists got stampeded into this movement is because they're good people. And when they heard there was a problem, they wanted to stop it. That's what leaders do. And when people got up and said, here's the way you need to do it. We were like, well, okay, okay. You know, like, we were not lawyers. You're asked. Think about it. You were asked on the convention floor to waive attorney clause privilege.
Now, the long, sad history of bad ideas, that is going to be one of the worst ideas. Like when somebody writes a book one day, bad ideas in history, that's going to be one of them right there.
[01:03:21] Speaker B: When that was coming up, it's like, I've all my life heard, don't waive attorneys.
[01:03:26] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's like you're watching a movie and some guy's getting framed and he doesn't call a lawyer, and you want to go call a lawyer.
Attorney client privilege is not to protect the guilty. It's to protect innocence. It's to protect the legal rights of people. But we were convinced on the convention floor, messengers raise their ballot, Zach. Not because they're stupid, not because they're bad people. They're good people, and they're not stupid, but they aren't lawyers. They're not. I'm not.
[01:03:54] Speaker B: And the argument makes sense. It's like, if you don't have anything
[01:03:56] Speaker A: to do, don't hang it high. Just let it come in. Well, you know that. And that led to the indemnification of God posts, which is part of what's cost us a ton of money. And those are all some just really bad decisions that we got stampeded into. I'm not interested in sending people to the guillotine. That's the social justice crowd that does that. I'm not interested in that. I want people to learn from it. I want us to make sure we don't do it again.
And I want us to recognize where we went wrong and the corrections that we need to make.
And. And I don't want to do this again.
[01:04:29] Speaker B: Right. And the truth is, we don't know what's coming next.
[01:04:32] Speaker A: We don't. It'll be different next year.
[01:04:34] Speaker B: It will be different. We didn't see the transgender issue. We didn't see the Me Too movement coming. I didn't, at least.
And when it happened, you've either got a moral compass that's adjusted to the text of Scripture, or you don't.
And you're either willing to say, I've. I can grow through this. I can learn through this. I was wrong.
I see how we need to do it differently, or you can't. And so in selecting the next person to lead the SBC from this chair, that, to me, is critical because we don't know what we're going to deal with politically. We don't know globally what's going to be faced. But that camera will be in somebody's face.
And, you know, sometimes I'll tell the church this. Let me take off my pastor hat and just be a satisfied customer for a little bit.
As a Southern Baptist, man by choice, I want the person who's in that seat to believe the core elements of what we believe as Southern Baptists and to represent that on cnn, Fox News, whatever that camera is in his face, unashamed, unash, and on the convention floor, you know. So, Willie, I wish you the best, brother.
[01:05:54] Speaker A: Thank you so much.
[01:05:55] Speaker B: We're praying for you. How can people learn more? Give us the website.
[01:05:59] Speaker A: Well, the website is baptistrenewal Us. Baptistrenewal Us. It has the seven pillars. I don't think we got through all of them, but we got through most of them. Seven pillars of renewal. And there are, again, other podcasts on the. Maybe we'll put a link to this one on there. But there are podcasts on there that people can get more information. There's even a place people can submit questions. There's even a place where, if you want to know, how do I register messengers, like, how do I help you? How do I. Some churches don't know. I've even talked to members. Their pastors aren't necessarily active in it, and they're like, I want to go. I want to represent. How do I get it? So we wanted to put that information out there so that people know how to register how to. To go and how to learn more. And if they have a question, there's a place they can send us questions. We'll do our best to answer them.
[01:06:45] Speaker B: I want to encourage people who are watching.
When you're watching this podcast, if this intrigued you, if you got this far, you're intrigued to some degree, let me encourage you to share it with people. Specifically, if they're Southern Baptist, invite them into the conversation. Comment below.
Go to baptistreneal us.
Be praying for Dr. Rice. Pray for his family and everybody.
[01:07:10] Speaker A: Pray for Josh.
[01:07:11] Speaker B: Pray for everyone who's involved. Because, you know, we wish this could just be show up and vote on the issues, but it does get personal at times, and it certainly gets spiritual. And so we're in a warfare. You need to be praying for your leaders.
And with that said, brother, thank you for coming on today.
[01:07:29] Speaker A: Thank you so much for having this conversation. Yeah, thank you.
