The Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC)–formerly headed up by far-left racial agitator, Russell Moore–is continuing in its mission drift to advance leftist political ideologies that undermine the actual mission of the organization which was originally to defend biblical ethics in the world.

If you’ve followed politics, particularly on social media, over the last several years, you’ve noticed an alarming trend of one-sided Big Tech censorship against conservative political and religious views. While you’re free to advance trash conservative politicians, defend abortion no matter how grotesque, and speak ill of anyone who believes marriage is between one man and one woman all you like, refer to a biological male who thinks he’s a woman as “sir” and you’ll land yourself a nice ban from social media.

Even worse has been the advent of “fact-checkers” who now dictate to the world what social media users are allowed to read. These so-called “fact-checkers” have been given the sole authority–without recourse–to label anything they don’t like as “misinformation” and reduce or remove its distribution on social media platforms. Facebook has been among the worst to allow these “fact-checkers” to roam free.

There is no question about it–these “fact-checking” outfits are almost entirely far left.

The United States, which was once a free world that progressed through the open debate of ideas in the public square, has now become a world of totalitarian information control on par with the harshest of Communist regimes like China. Go against the narrative and lose your ability to speak at all. This publication has seen its distribution on Facebook trickle to near zero.

But what we wouldn’t–and shouldn’t–expect is that an ethics organization funded by the largest so-called “conservative” Protestant denomination in the nation to join the ranks of the totalitarian elites to advance the cause of tackling “misinformation.” Just to be clear, what these folks refer to as “misinformation” isn’t actually false information, it’s information that they don’t want you to see. It could be facts and statistics about the coronavirus and treatments or it could be negative information about a left-wing political candidate. It simply doesn’t matter–“misinformation” is information they don’t like. Period.

Yet, the ERLC is accepting a grant from Facebook to fund a research project into the control and spread of “misinformation.”

According to the Project’s website, Ethics for a Digital Age, “The project will focus on issues of Christian ethics — including the public nature of faith, religious freedom, hate speech/violence, sexuality/gender issues, pornography, objectionable content, misinformation, digital authoritarianism, and issues of discipleship in the digital age.” One of the project’s researchers, Jason Thacker, mentions “conspiracy theories,” which should be translated to mean “believing the election consisted of fraud.”

While the project claims to be pro-First Amendment, to understand what these people mean when they talk about “free speech” and “religious freedom,” you must toss out the idea of individual conscience and understand this in terms of the religious collective. In other words, your “free speech” or “religious freedom” is determined collectively by what those at the top ranks of your religious leadership have deemed appropriate for you to say or believe–and that’s what they’re willing to defend.

This is what you must understand–for the Marxist, everything is about the collective. There is no individuality.

We’ve seen this most recently with the ERLC’s guidance on vaccine mandates and religious exemptions. The ERLC recently denounced religious exemptions from vaccine mandates for Southern Baptists because they have decided that it is not truly a matter of religious freedom for Baptists–never mind your conscience. On the other hand, they defended vaccine mandates for Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Amish.

Unsurprisingly, Facebook is funding this research project. According to the Baptist Press, the funding comes without stipulations from Facebook:

“This research grant was provided on an unrestricted basis, meaning the grant monies will be used at [the] sole discretion of the ERLC leadership team and board of trustees without any direct or indirect oversight by Facebook in research efforts nor any influence on project outcomes or resources produced,” according to the answer to one of the Frequently Asked Questions on the website. “All materials produced in this research project will be copyrighted to the ERLC and/or the individuals contributing.”

Facebook and other technology companies have approached the ERLC for resources because “there is a dearth of literature in this area,” Thacker said to the trustees. “There’s been very little if any research done into the nature of religious freedom and religious expression in the digital age.”

However, again, we must understand the nature of this project. Facebook does not need to put stipulations on these funds because Facebook largely agrees with the nature and mission of the ERLC. Facebook knows that the ERLC’s perspective on free speech–which is collective–is identical to theirs because Facebook is also Marxist. So the problem here isn’t that the ERLC is being funded by Facebook in exchange for “control” over the research project. The bigger issue here is what Facebook’s decision to fund this project says about the ERLC.

Just like George Soros has funded Russell Moore’s Evangelical Immigration Table, one would ask why a far-left radical like George Soros would do this. Similarly, why would a far-left social media company want to fund a “conservative” religious ministry?