Editor’s note: This story was updated at 6:30pm central to include a statement from the Baugh Foundation.
Baylor University announced today that it has rescinded acceptance of a grant from the Eula Mae and John Baugh Foundation. This grant was intended to support a recently-announced initiative of the Center for Church and Community Impact within the Diana R. Garland School of Social Work.
The grant was specifically for the center’s work “aimed at exploring inclusion and belonging in the church, with a particular focus on LGBTQIA+ individuals in congregational settings.”
Baylor University President Linda A. Livingstone said in today’s release that the university remains “committed to providing a loving and caring community for all—including our LGBTQIA+ students—because it is part and parcel of our University’s mission that calls us to educate our students within a caring Christian community.”
Livingstone clarified later in the release that Baylor rescinded the grant due to concerns around activities the grant would require beyond the research—specifically, advocacy related to what she calls “perspectives on human sexuality that are inconsistent with Baylor’s institutional policies, including our Statement on Human Sexuality.”
Baylor’s statement, last updated in 2009, indicates the university’s belief that sexual activity should only occur within the confines of a marriage between one man and one woman.
“Temptations to deviate from this norm,” it says, “include both heterosexual sex outside of marriage and homosexual behavior.”
CBN reported Monday on the online criticism Baylor had received since the grant’s announcement.
The Baugh Foundation’s Board of Trustees released a statement later in the day, expressing its disappointment in Baylor’s decision to cancel the research grant, called “Courage from the Margins.”
“Our foundation is rooted in Baptist distinctives that include church autonomy and the priesthood of every believer,” said the statement. “Not all Baptist believers or churches are aligned on every interpretation of scripture concerning women or LGBTQIA+ individuals, but churches need evidence-based research. We believe that all humans are created in God’s image and deserve a loving spiritual home.
The purpose of this research was not to dictate theology, but to better understand the disenfranchisement that LGBTQIA+ individuals and women often face in the church. This research held the potential to speak to urgent challenges facing the Church today, such as the growing loneliness epidemic among young people and the steady decline in church membership, by offering insights rooted in compassion, community, and belonging.”
Good Faith Media will continue to monitor this breaking story and will update with any further developments.
https://president.web.baylor.edu/news/story/2025/addressing-recent-external-research-grant
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A bivocational pastor, writer and spiritual director based in Williamsburg, Virginia, she currently works as a Spiritual Director at Reclamation Theology. Cawthon-Freels is the author of Reclamation: A Queer Pastor’s Guide to Finding Spiritual Growth in the Passages Used to Harm Us (Nurturing Faith Books), and a contributing correspondent at Good Faith Media.
