Willy Rice, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, is urging pastors to step into the political arena ahead of the midterms. He frames it as a return to historical precedent rather than a departure from it. Issues like abortion, the definition of marriage, gender identity, and immigration are not mere policy disputes, Rice argues. They strike at the core of Christian doctrine, rooted in Genesis and the nature of man.
“Should pastors engage in the political process? They absolutely should,” Rice told Fox News. “Because there are many political issues that are, at their heart, theological issues and moral issues that strike at the very center of what we believe to be true.” He notes that the theological and political left never withdrew from the public square, creating a vacuum that conservative Christians partially filled with silence in recent decades.
Rice’s call carries weight because of the context in which he leads. He won the SBC presidency with an explicit mandate to reform an institution that had drifted under years of liberal influence, much of it channeled through the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. The ERLC, once positioned as the denomination’s public policy voice, became a flashpoint for conservatives who saw it as captured by progressive priorities on race, immigration, and cultural engagement.
Russell Moore, who led the ERLC before departing under pressure, embodied that shift. His tenure drew repeated criticism from within the SBC for aligning too closely with left-leaning narratives on systemic racism and downplaying concerns over religious liberty in ways that frustrated rank-and-file Baptists. Brent Leatherwood, Moore’s successor, faced similar pushback and ultimately stepped down in 2025 amid ongoing distrust. Richard Land, an earlier ERLC president, had already established a pattern of accommodation that later leaders extended. Land even once counseled an abortion under dubious circumstances.
Rice himself moved against the ERLC in 2025, introducing a motion at the SBC annual meeting to abolish it outright. The effort failed by a narrow margin, but it signaled the depth of frustration among messengers who viewed the agency as unaccountable and out of step with the convention’s theological commitments. Evangelical Dark Web has long documented the internal battles over the ERLC’s direction, the loss of confidence among churches, and the repeated pattern of leaders prioritizing elite consensus over grassroots conviction.
Rice’s political exhortation now reads as the next phase of that reform effort. If the SBC spent years allowing its public policy arm to soften edges on moral questions, the correction involves pastors reclaiming their voice rather than ceding ground. The same issues Rice lists- life, marriage, sex, borders- were precisely the ones where ERLC messaging often diverged from the pews.
The left never practiced the quietism it preached to Evangelicals. Rice is simply refusing to let the right continue the experiment.
