Mission drift is a silent killer in any organization. What starts with noble intent can, without vigilant oversight, veer wildly off course. Like a ship’s captain navigating the high seas, an institution’s leaders must account for subtle pressures—chief among them, money. Cash flows into organizations like a gale, laden with strings, expectations, and accountability. Competing funding sources inevitably spawn competing missions, pulling the organization away from its core purpose.
The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) is tasked with speaking for Southern Baptists in the public square and to Southern Baptists on matters of moral importance. But the ERLC has stumbled into a decade-long storm of controversy. Increasingly, Southern Baptists do not believe the ERLC is speaking for them in our nation’s capital. Instead, they perceive the ERLC is speaking to Southern Baptists on behalf of Washington, D.C., and on behalf of the ruling class.
When an organization strays from its mission, the incentives behind the shift demand scrutiny—Why would they do that? In the 2024 book Shepherds for Sale, Megan Basham traces the money trail, exposing some of those incentives. For example, she traced the money from George Soros-backed foundations to the Evangelical Immigration Table, which has partnered with and influenced the ERLC. She reveals grants like the $50,000 from eBay founder Pierre Omidyar to combat “America’s white supremacy problem,” $220,000 from the Fetzer Institute, and $90,000 from Facebook. Basham, quoting Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald, concludes: “One’s funding sources are relevant to one’s mission. Liberal billionaires will only fund groups that advance liberal causes.”[1]
1. Megan Basham, Shepherds for Sale (New York: Broadside Books, 2024), 83. Greenwald was talking about Omidyar and not the ERLC, but the principle of donor influence holds true of any organization.
Advancing liberal causes is not a part of the ERLC’s assignment from the Southern Baptist Convention. Quite the opposite, actually. The ERLC’s acceptance of these grants has created the conditions necessary for mission drift. This is especially true if Southern Baptists are not aware of the funding sources that compete with the Cooperative Program, and, thus, compete with our mission to reach the whole world with the Good News of Jesus Christ.[2]
2. The Cooperative Program is a large financial holding account that Southern Baptist Convention churches give to annually (to the tune of almost 200 million dollars). This money is then disbursed in different percentages to the various SBC entities, including the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.
To be fair, the ERLC’s website features a Financial FAQ section addressing funding sources and ties to various foundations—a commendable step, but one that raises as many questions as it answers. Why did this FAQ drop the day before Shepherds for Sale hit shelves? Was it a last-ditch effort to shape the narrative? Why no pie charts detailing funding from the key period Megan Basham covers in her book? And why link to a Baptist Press article flatly denying George Soros funded the Evangelical Immigration Table, when Basham’s evidence shows otherwise? More crucially, what confidence can Southern Baptists have that we’ll receive a transparent accounting of the ERLC’s finances in the future? Will we be left waiting for the next investigative journalist to write a book?
It’s to be expected that any organization will put the best possible shine on the facts, and the FAQ reads like a spin room press release. Still, Southern Baptists can be appreciative of the effort, even while the above questions remain. At least the ERLC mounted a public defense amid controversy, a move more SBC entities ought to consider.
A Larger SBC Issue
Financial opacity is not unique to the ERLC in Southern Baptist life. It is a convention-wide problem. At every recent Annual Meeting, messengers have demanded financial transparency—calling for forensic audits, executive compensation details, task forces, and more. Each plea has been stonewalled: motions ruled out of order or buried in Executive Committee subcommittees. Yet each year the push grows stronger and the demands sharper.
In 2023, at the New Orleans Annual Meeting, I moved to amend the Business and Financial Plan to require SBC entities to “publish information in the same detail, scope, and quality as would be required to be disclosed to the public” on the IRS Form 990—think disclosure of top executive compensation, conflicts of interest, trustee transactions, program financials, and legal fees—without actually filing with the IRS.
That motion was referred to the Executive Committee, where the Committee on Convention Finances declined to bring it out for a messenger vote in Indianapolis. I refined and resubmitted it in 2024, only to face the same fate again. When they declined my motion, the Committee on Convention Finances promised to review the Business and Financial Plan to determine ways to enhance transparency and clarity of reporting.
But they ended up delivering a bait-and-switch: an entirely new Business and Financial Plan that reveals less, not more. The new plan, recommended by the full Executive Committee at their meeting last month, does not provide for the disclosure of any new information, and with regard to salary disclosure, the new plan is even less transparent than the current one.
Article 14 of the current plan states that members of SBC churches shall have access to information regarding salary structures, a rule some entities like the ERLC honor by sharing their pay scales. The North American Mission Board and the International Mission Board twist article 14 by only reporting a vague “process description.” The new plan codifies the mission boards’ reinterpretation and makes their incompliance the new rule for all. This plan slashes transparency where we were promised gains.
Executive compensation is a sensitive topic that sparks debate—some will gripe about high salaries, others about disparities. But the goal isn’t envy; it’s accountability. A laborer deserves fair wages, and leaders of large organizations should earn well. The point of executive compensation disclosure is to equip messengers to evaluate trustees, who must ensure that the CEO’s mission aligns with the entity’s mission. The way the IRS has determined to do this for regular non-profits is to disclose the compensation number for all to see. This means trustee boards have to set the number and defend the number.
Yet in most SBC entities, even trustees are kept in the dark, approving vague percentage hikes while only a select few know the full figures. This manner of handling executive compensation is precisely backwards. It is neither good corporate governance nor good baptist practice. Also, it creates the conditions for mission drift if the CEO’s incentives are not aligned with those of the organization.
When Trust is Broken
Opponents of my motion lean on the trustee system, employing the constant refrain, “Trust the trustees.” But if trust must be demanded, it’s already lost. A leader who incessantly asserts authority only reveals its absence. The demand to “trust the trustees” exposes a broken system running on a deficit of trust. Competent leadership would ask: Why?
I am grateful for and respect the faithful men and women serving on our SBC trustee boards, but the system is broken. Too often, trustees morph into unpaid entity ambassadors. Rather than represent the churches to the entities for oversight, they instead represent the entities to the churches for marketing. What else, besides lack of oversight, explains Southwestern Seminary’s $120 million, two-decade deficit? Or former Lifeway CEO Thom Rainer’s million-dollar exit package—approved by only one trustee—as Lifeway hemorrhaged millions? Where’s the oversight on behalf of churches for NAMB’s cash reserves, real estate deals, state convention influence, executive compensation, or church planting statistics? Who at the ERLC will shield the Cooperative Program from competing with leftist billionaire agendas?
The SBC needs trustee reform, and 990-level transparency is a critical tool. This level of public disclosure raises the standard for trustee action because it means they will have to defend their most fundamental financial decisions. This tool brings a measure of accountability for the large amount of authority messengers have invested in trustees.
The 990 plan is not a cure-all. My motion specifically excluded the donor schedule in order to protect private donors, even though this also excludes disclosure of large foundation grants that messengers deserve to know about. However, one could argue that Article 14 of the Business and Financial Plan currently allows members of SBC churches access to such data, a right the new plan threatens to erase.
The real issue is the erosion of trust. Transparency can rebuild it. If daylight reveals corruption, we can confront it with the Gospel’s power. Jesus Christ died so that men could be forgiven their sins, and Southern Baptists are a forgiving people. If suspicions prove baseless, we’ll move forward united and confident in the health of our institutions. Either way, trust wins.
But if we maintain our current course, we are not just looking at mission drift. We are headed toward mission failure. The Southern Baptist Convention, at its heart, is a financial partnership for missions and ministry. But people don’t continue giving indefinitely when they do not trust those they are giving to. The Cooperative Program has seen fifteen years of steady decline. Over 10,000 churches have disengaged from Cooperative Program giving over that time period. I fear many more faithful and generous churches will leave the SBC in the coming years if we do not course correct. This puts our Great Commission partnership in danger.
Conclusion
I served for seven years with the International Mission Board in Central Asia. Some of the best people I know spend their lives taking the Gospel to unreached peoples and places across the region, proclaiming Christ in dangerous situations. They are courageous, devoted to Jesus, and sacrifice much so that the people they serve might receive eternal life. Southern Baptists should not hang these faithful brothers and sisters out to dry just to protect the compensation figures of folks in Alpharetta, GA (the North American Mission Board headquarters).
Our Great Commission partnership runs on trust. Without trust, churches will disengage from Cooperative Program giving, and our collective ministries will suffer. If that happens, it will be tempting to blame those who left or stopped giving. You just took your ball and went home! But such blame shifting would be a mistake. Leaders bear responsibility. And if our leaders fail to lead with truth and transparency, they will shoulder the blame for any future mission drift or failure.
When Southern Baptists gather in Dallas in June 2025, we will be celebrating 100 years of the Cooperative Program. Messengers will have an opportunity to steady their sails amidst the gusty gales of financial entanglements and chart our course for another 100 years of fruitful Great Commission partnership. But it will take messengers showing up resolved to fix our transparency problem. We cannot just rubber stamp the Executive Committee’s proposed Business and Financial Plan. We cannot allow them to refer our motions to die in subcommittees as happened in Nashville. Instead, we must take decisive action. We must demand the light of transparency, reform our trustees, and steer our partnership back on course. It’s up to the will of the messengers.
