NASHVILLE (BP) — The trustee board of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) heard a variety of updates, conducted business and took time to remember their ultimate mission during their spring trustee meeting on Thursday, April 10.

Meeting via zoom, the trustees heard reports from the various committees as well as from ERLC leadership. Business during the meeting included the approval of a new officer and nominating committee as well as approving recipients of the entity’s 2025 awards.

ERLC President Brent Leatherwood welcomed trustees by speaking to the importance of these meetings.

“I always cherish these times because it allows us to showcase the work of this incredible team and the way we are engaging the various aspects of our ministry assignment,” Leatherwood said.

He took a moment to remind trustees of the ultimate purpose of the ERLC.

He referenced a letter that Beth Harwell, his former coworker and former speaker of Tennessee’s House of Representatives, wrote to him when he joined the ERLC in early 2017.

“In that note, which I keep framed, she wrote this: ‘I truly believe, unless someone has been involved in the political sector on some level, it is difficult to understand how politics touches almost every aspect of our lives. It has been said that government and politics can be viewed as a mission outreach. You can unite those two worlds.’

“Isn’t that an interesting statement,” Leatherwood posed to trustees.

“Did she mean in that last part that those two spheres should actually be one? That somehow politics should commandeer the church or vice versa? What she was actually saying and recognizing is that this organization uniquely has the opportunity to work between those two spheres to help them understand one another, the unique challenges that both face and the opportunities that lie ahead for both.

“But don’t miss how she prioritized these. She said it is the world of government and politics that needs to be viewed as a mission field. That is exactly how we at the ERLC view Capitol Hill and the wider public square.”

Leatherwood proceeded to give various updates on the entity’s public policy work that has taken place since the September 2024 trustee meeting.

Those updates include:

• Communicating with President Trump’s transition team on the ERLC’s policy priorities (including supporting the Hyde Amendment and revoking Biden era executive orders).
• Releasing the ERLC’s 2025 public policy agenda and other physical resources and guides for churches to utilize.
• Participating in continued efforts to defund Planned Parenthood (including an ERLC petition that has gathered more than 10,000 signatures to date).
• A recent pastors’ advocacy trip to Washington that included meetings with Speaker of the House Mike Johnson as well as Senators Ted Cruz and James Lankford.
• Five Supreme Court cases the entity is engaged with, including filing two amicus briefs (Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic and Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton).
• An emphasis on strengthening church engagement.

Trustee and officer appointments, awards recipients and other business

Trustees were introduced to recently-hired staff, elected a new officer, selected award recipients and conducted other miscellaneous business.

Trustees approved Matthew Morgan (Mississippi) as new vice chair of the board and Eric Costanzo (Oklahoma) as chairman of the administration and finance committee.

Trustees also approved a new nominating committee for the 2025 year.

The nominating committee will consist of:

• Traci Griggs (North Carolina)
• Matthew Grove (Tennessee)
• Hannah Hunter Pounds (Louisiana)
• Jaime Massó (Kentucky)

Trustees heard reports and approved recommendations from the Administrative and Finance Committee and the Research and Public Policy Committee.

As part of these approved recommendations, trustees selected two recipients for the ERLC’s 2024 awards.

Christians in Nigeria were chosen as the recipients of the John Leland Religious Liberty Award. This honor is awarded to a person or a group that has been “a courageous champion of religious liberty both in the United States and around the world.”

Nigerian Christians were selected because of their strong faith in God in the midst of extreme persecution in their country.

Jonathan Skrmetti was chosen as the recipient of the Richard D. Land Distinguished Service Award. This honor is awarded to someone who has made an outstanding contribution in the field of Christian ethics over a longer-than-one-year period.

Skrmetti, attorney general of Tennessee, has long worked to protect preborn lives and promote justice in the law, and most recently is known for his role in defending Tennessee in its Supreme Court case regarding the state’s prohibition of “gender-affirming care” for minors.

Miles Mullin, ERLC vice president and chief of staff, gave a brief report to the board, assuring trustees that the entire ERLC team is committed to the entity’s values and is heavily prioritizing church engagement, just as the board asked them to.

Mullin then had two of the ERLC’s new staff hires, Director of Communications Lindsay Nicolet and Director of Research RaShan Frost, introduce themselves to the trustees.

Trustees also heard an update about the entity’s Psalm 139 project from Rachel Wiles, deputy chief of staff.

Board Chairman Scott Foshie closed out the meeting by sharing a written report from the board’s executive committee.

“The state of the ERLC is both fruitful and strengthening, but it does need your continued prayer, encouragement and oversight,” Foshie said via the report.

“We implore you to pray for wisdom for Brent and the team. Pray for strength and protection for their families. In our tumultuous culture and political climate, the ERLC is a loving, faithful, refreshing voice that Satan would love to silence. The entity needs trustees who are highly engaged, ready to offer sound governance and accountability and spend time on their knees praying for those this entity commissions in various aspects of important ministry.”

The ERLC’s next trustee meeting will take place this fall in Washington, D.C.

(EDITOR’S NOTE — Timothy Cockes is news editor at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.)