Abolitionism in the SBC

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: It’s Thursday, June 29th, 2023.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Paul Butler.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

First up on The World and Everything in It … abolitionism at the SBC.

Earlier this month in New Orleans, the question of female pastors took center stage at the 2023 meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention.

But some conversations highlighted ongoing tension between individual churches and denomination leadership over the issue of abortion. That tension has led some churches to cut their funding to certain denomination entities. Here’s Leah Savas with our story.

LEAH SAVAS, REPORTER: On the second day of the SBC meeting, SBC president Bart Barber made an announcement.

BARBER: Floor’s now open for questions. Microphone 1-A, can you state your name, your church, and your question?

SAVAS: Pastor Brian Gunter was the first in line. A year ago, he had asked the denomination’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission president Brent Leatherwood a question and now was his chance to follow up.

GUNTER: Dr. Leatherwood, you previously stated that you do not believe a mother should be criminalized if she chooses willfully to have an abortion while that child is in the womb. So my question for you today is, should that same mother be criminalized if she willfully chooses to murder that child after that child is born?

Leatherwood’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission is an organization within the SBC that helps the denomination articulate its policy positions in the public square. But when it comes to fighting abortion, the ERLC and SBC pastors like Gunter don’t see eye to eye.

Gunter is one of a growing number of Southern Baptists who call themselves abortion abolitionists. They oppose abortion but also disagree with the mainstream pro-life movement’s incremental legislative strategies. Abolitionists want laws that would treat the killing of an unborn baby as homicide. That would entail punishments for mothers who willfully get abortions.

But the ERLC openly opposes legislation that would make that possible. Here’s part of Leatherwood’s response to Gunter.

LEATHERWOOD: We have to make sure that we’re not doing the bidding of Planned Parenthood—of achieving their goal of casting the pro-life movement and our churches, with our gospel convictions, as anti-woman rather than about being saving babies and supporting mothers.

Before the last election, pro-abortion groups worked to turn voters away from pro-life candidates by sowing fears about women getting arrested for abortions. Mainstream pro-life groups don’t want to legitimize those fears.

Gunter himself used to work for Louisiana Right to Life. But that was before something changed two years ago.

BRIAN GUNTER: I became an abolitionist at the Southern Baptist Convention in Nashville in 2021.

That year, a majority of the SBC delegates voted in favor of a resolution abolitionist pastors brought forward that called for “the immediate abolition of abortion without exception or compromise” and “equal protection” for unborn babies. Gunter voted for it.

BRIAN GUNTER: And they convinced me. And I'm looking at the language of the resolution. I'm like, Yep, this is good. And so literally, on the spot, I realized these guys have the right approach.

Because of his experience, Gunter sees the annual meetings as a crucial time to tell more Southern Baptists about the abolitionist position.

But after that resolution passed in 2021, the ERLC came out against abolitionist legislation. Since then, some Southern Baptist pastors have started using their SBC donations to protest the ERLC. Pastor David Rhoades in Lubbock, Texas, is one of them.

DAVID RHOADES: And so we as a church unanimously decided to defund or no longer fund the ERLC…

Rhoades acknowledged the effect will be minimal. His church only has about 100 people on a Sunday. Plus, the ERLC receives less than 1.7 percent of all money that comes to the SBC through the denomination’s general fund, fueled by individual churches and state conventions.

DAVID RHOADES: And so in the end, it's certainly not going to bankrupt them. But it's a message that we sent.

Other churches have rearranged their giving to send a similar message. Rhoades hopes more messages like that will eventually have an effect on the denomination.

DAVID RHOADES: Because the Southern Baptist Convention is a bottom up organization, it’s controlled by the churches. The churches, if they don't like something, they can show up to the annual meeting and start to make changes. And so I think there's still hope with the abolitionist movement gaining steam in the SBC.

Brent Leatherwood said he’s noticed the overwhelming number of Southern Baptists who are raising these questions about how to end abortion.

BRENT LEATHERWOOD: Pastors across the Southern Baptist Convention want that. We all read the same Bible. And we all adhere to the same statement of faith.

But he cautions pastors to consider the significant losses the pro-life movement has suffered at the ballot box since the overturn of Roe v. Wade last summer.

BRENT LEATHERWOOD: The American public has not been persuaded by much of those views. And so that's why I think the best way forward right now is continuing to help our culture see the humanity and dignity of each preborn child and developing laws that go after those who would take preborn lives: the abortionist, the abortion mills that support them.

While the mainstream pro-life movement tries to persuade the secular world, abolitionists will continue to speak up in settings like the SBC meeting to persuade more Christians to join their side.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leah Savas.

HOST WRAP: To read more of Leah Savas’ reporting on the abortion abolitionist movement, check out the June 24th issue of WORLD Magazine.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.