SBC to Take Out $3 Million Loan to Cover Legal Fees Amid "Sex Abuse" Witch Hunt

For years, the Southern Baptist Convention has been embroiled in a crisis of its own making, a saga of mismanagement, appeasement to cultural forces, and, ultimately, financial ruin. The seeds of this catastrophe were planted long before the latest revelations, and we have been documenting this decline for years. With the recent address from SBC Executive Committee President Jeff Iorg, it has become evident that everything that was predicted is now coming to pass.

The mishandling of sexual abuse allegations began long before the mainstream media turned its attention to the denomination. In 2019, the Houston Chronicle published a report detailing allegations against 380 Southern Baptist leaders and volunteers.

In response, rather than addressing the issue biblically and responsibly, leadership took its cues from the secular #MeToo movement, shifting its focus toward institutional appeasement rather than sound governance. Instead of keeping its focus on gospel-driven solutions, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission abandoned its original mission and devoted entire conferences to discussions dominated by social justice rhetoric.

This mission drift was less about genuine reform and more about optics—an attempt to pacify critics rather than implement meaningful, biblically sound accountability measures.

One of the most disastrous moments in this saga occurred at the 2021 SBC Annual Meeting. In a moment driven more by emotional fervor than wisdom, messengers voted to launch an independent, third-party investigation into the Executive Committee’s handling of abuse cases.

Even more recklessly, they voted to waive attorney-client privilege, a decision that no competent legal or financial advisor would have recommended. This meant massive legal vulnerabilities, opening the floodgates for lawsuits, liability claims, and—most predictably—massive financial hemorrhaging.

In 2021, I hosted a podcast with Rod Martin, who was on the SBC executive committee at the time, to discuss the ramifications of the decision to waive attorney-client privilege. You can view that segment here, starting at about the 55-minute mark.

However, the problems ran deeper than just legal consequences. The very decision to involve outside secular authorities like Guidepost Solutions—a firm with explicit ties to LGBTQ+ activism—revealed a profound lack of theological discernment. A denomination that had claimed to itself on autonomy and biblical authority had now handed over its internal governance to a secular entity whose values were openly opposed to biblical sexual ethics.

This was a dangerous capitulation to the world’s demands rather than a faithful adherence to Scripture.

As expected, the mainstream media latched onto the SBC’s failures, amplifying the narrative that Southern Baptist churches were infested with predators and that the denomination itself was systematically covering up abuse.

Denominational leaders like Russell Moore, the former ERLC president and SBC insider turned media darling, capitalized on this narrative by suggesting that the real problem was Southern Baptists’ conservative biblical theology. This absurd claim deflected blame away from SBC leadership and onto conservative doctrine, an attempt to reshape the denomination into something more palatable to the secular left.

The goal was not justice for abuse victims but rather a complete ideological transformation of the SBC toward egalitarianism.

Meanwhile, the SBC’s financial situation was beginning to reflect its deeper institutional rot. Legal fees skyrocketed as lawsuits piled up. At the same time, the denomination continued hemorrhaging members, with many Southern Baptists growing disillusioned with the leadership’s weak and politically driven responses.

Everything came to a head this week, culminating in current SBC EC President Jeff Iorg’s address to the SBC Executive Committee. The speech was a stark admission of failure:

The SBC had spent $13 million from its financial reserves just to cover legal costs related to the abuse scandal. The Executive Committee was now seeking a $3 million loan to keep itself afloat. Despite earlier promises, Cooperative Program funds—funds given by church members that are meant primarily for mission and seminary work—would now be used to pay legal fees.

The SBC’s Nashville headquarters was now on the market, signaling the denomination’s desperate financial state.

The financial bleeding is far from over. Iorg’s admission that the SBC is now borrowing money just to stay afloat suggests that this crisis is not just temporary—it’s existential. The decision to use mission funds to pay legal bills will further alienate many churches that were already considering withholding their CP giving.

Moreover, the SBC’s credibility is in shambles. By embracing secular investigative methods, hiring queer-affirming law firms, and allowing outside forces to dictate its policies, it has effectively abandoned its theological integrity.

The consequences are now unavoidable. More lawsuits are inevitable, meaning more financial ruin. More churches will break away, unwilling to fund this disaster. And more leaders will be exposed for their cowardice, further disillusioning the faithful.

The SBC’s failure to handle abuse cases with biblical wisdom, its willingness to bow to cultural pressures, and its utter financial mismanagement have led it to the precipice of collapse.

The unraveling of the largest Protestant denomination in America is now a reality.

What happens next will depend on whether faithful Southern Baptists finally wake up to the reality that their leadership has betrayed them. If they continue down this path—pouring money into legal black holes and allowing theological compromise to rule the day—then the SBC’s fate is sealed.

For now, the SBC stands on the edge of ruin, with no one left to blame but itself.