Todd Unzicker is the Executive Director-Treasurer of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, a role he assumed in May 2021. His professional career in the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has included a variety of roles such as the leader of a local Baptist association and an international missionary. He also served on staff at former SBC president, JD Greear’s Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham from 2012 to 2021, where he contributed to making it the top missions-sending church in the Southern Baptist Convention.

Unzicker has also worked on key Southern Baptist Convention strategies alongside J.D. Greear, the lead pastor at Summit Church. Unzicker holds a bachelor’s degree from the Baptist Bible College of Florida and a master of divinity from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. All in all, Unzicker makes for the perfect SBC Company Man™ and the perfect person platform during the annual meeting to scold anyone raising concerns about the direction the establishment leadership is moving the denomination.

And this is exactly what they did.

Either the entire leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention is brutally dishonest or an epidemic of cognitive dissonance has been unleashed among these people. Perhaps they are suffering from mass psychosis of some sort. But the prevailing theme coming from the collective leadership of the denomination is that there is no liberal drift and anyone who thinks there is should be ignored. During the 2022 annual meeting, SBC Platform pastor, James Merritt tweeted the following:

That was the direct message from James Merritt, anyways, at the 2022 Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting. Merritt, a former Southern Baptist Convention president who praised his openly-gay son for preaching a sermon that distorted the gospel and nature of Christ beyond any reasonable conclusion, wants us to believe that there is no liberal drift in the Southern Baptist Convention—a point that has been well refuted by actual conservatives both inside and outside of the denomination.

Yet, in 2023, Unzicker was platformed to do the same. In fact, the scold coming from Unzicker was so unbelievably hard that he actually implied that men—like Tom Ascol, Tom Buck, Voddie Baucham, the Conservative Baptists, etc.—who are raising concerns about the direction of the SBC are doing so out of a “spirit of fear” and that people promoting a “spirit of fear” are from Satan.

“We have a solidly orthodox, conservative statement of faith in the Baptist faith, the message 2000 that every single one of our entities follows, every single one of our seminaries teaches from, and this is what our mission boards and our church planning networks do,” Unzicker preached, which is a demonstrably false statement. “This is what your state conventions do. This is what the associations do, and anyone who tells you different is a liar.”

Interestingly, it was just last year that Southwestern Seminary president, Adam Greenway, incessantly defended Rick Warren and Saddleback Church’s decision to ordain women to the pastorate. Although Greenway was fired from the seminary, it wasn’t due to his poor theology, but rather his mismanagement of money.

“My question to you is, from this day,” he continued, “will we be on mission together to reach others? Or are we going to constantly fight and quarrel?”

“Are we going to give weight to people in this convention who give nothing? Are we going to give weight to people in this convention who tweet more than they tithe?” he said, with an obvious reference to several conservatives who have pulled funding from rogue SBC institutions like the ERLC that are wasting money on illicit campaigning for unbiblical policies such as gun control or opposing strong anti-abortion legislation.

Here’s where it starts to get really bad. Here, he impugns anyone who would question the status quo and raise any concerns about these issues and then implies that those who do are of Satan. He continues, “Who raise objections to reforms instead of raising protections for the vulnerable?” Please note that by “vulnerable,” Unzicker was not referring to the unborn. Rather, he was referring to women who claimed to be abused by “men in power.”

“Are we going to be a people who sue the saints, or are we going to be a people who sow seeds of the gospel? Are we going to be a people who are going to listen to the spirit of fear? By the way, the spirit of fear, what does our God’s inerrant infallible inspired all sufficient words say? 
The spirit of fear doesn’t come from God. So if somebody is peddling fear, where do they come from?”

He then directly attacks Tom Ascol, who published a documentary two years ago about the leftward drift of the Southern Baptist Convention after it adopted a resolution praising Critical Race Theory. “Are we going to continue to be shaped by divisive groups on social media?” Unzicker asked. “Tweets and blogs and videos and podcasts and cheaply made cinedocs? They have the sole purpose of discerned discernment and trust and discouragement.” But God’s in-game is clear and we get to join him on it, Baptist. We get to join him on it. Some Baptists want to dwell on decline. “

You may find what Todd Unzicker preached to be unbelievable and out of character, but make no mistake about it—this is the Southern Baptist Convention. It is a powerful machine, and it will crush you if you try to hold it accountable. Unzicker represents the establishment, and what Unzicker preached is what the entire establishment thinks of you. If you think you’re going to reform this organization and move it back to biblical territory, you have a tough hill to climb. It has no intention of changing. It will throw you a bone every now and again just to keep you quiet—it will sacrifice Rick Warren to keep the rest of you under their control. But don’t be fooled, the Southern Baptist Convention is highly compromised and they were very clear about it during Unzicker’s speech.