A former executive director of the Tennessee Republican Party has been named to lead the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.
Brent Leatherwood, who has been serving as interim president, was elected to the official post in a unanimous vote of ERLC trustees Sept. 13. He succeeds Russell Moore, who became a lightning rod for the far-right wing of the SBC and was accused of being “woke” and not loyal to former U.S. President Donald Trump. Moore now serves as editor in chief of Christianity Today magazine.
Brent Leatherwood (right) with ERLC staff members Hannah Daniel and Elziabeth Graham outside the U.S Supreme Court on the day in 2021 when the court heard oral arugments in the Dobbs case, which the court later used to end the right to abortion in America.
A Baptist Press story about Leatherwood’s election noted he led the Tennessee GOP from December 2012 to December 2016. “There, he managed the organization’s campaign apparatus at the federal, state and local levels. Under his guidance, the Tennessee GOP helped elect more than 800 candidates, including several to statewide offices — believed to be the most in any four-year timeframe in the organization’s history.”
When he first was hired to the ERLC staff as director of strategic partnerships in 2017, Leatherwood was quoted in a news release explaining: “For years, I’ve worked in the political arena alongside some very good men and women. But I’ve come to realize that politics flows downstream from culture. So, if I truly want to make a difference, I have to be active upstream. That means engaging the culture with gospel principles and Christian conviction.”
Three years later, he became chief of staff at the ERLC. He has served as acting president since September 2021. Moore left the ERLC at the end of May 2020, and trustees at first named staff member Daniel Patterson acting head. However, he left the agency three months later to join a church staff.
For decades, the ERLC and its predecessor organization, called the SBC Christian Life Commission, have been in the crosshairs of denominational conflict.
For decades, the ERLC and its predecessor organization, called the SBC Christian Life Commission, have been in the crosshairs of denominational conflict. Purging the ERLC was the first order of business for the so-called “conservative resurgence” led by Paige Patterson and Paul Pressler in the 1980s and ’90s.
One of the chief complaints of the old CLC in those days was that its leaders refused to take a strong stand against abortion. When conservatives gained control of the agency in 1988 and installed Richard Land as president, they signaled a clear intent to focus on abortion as a key issue.
Land led the CLC, later renamed the ERLC, for 25 years, and solidified the SBC’s alliance with the Republican Party, not only on the hot topic of abortion but on virtually all other issues.
Whatever Land lacked in finesse, Russell Moore made up for with youthful charm. But despite being conservative in every way, Moore soon became a punching bag in the new internecine wars inside the SBC — between the very conservative and the even more conservative.
So vicious is the current internal battle over the vision and values of the ERLC that some have advocated to close it down. As recently as this summer, those efforts failed. However, Leatherwood takes the helm at a time when Southern Baptist conservatives are as divided as conservatives nationwide about how to deal with the Trump wing of the Republican Party — and the church — as well as the traditional wing of the party and church.
Another difference between today and when Land was elected and turned the old CLC to the right is that there is a vast number of parachurch ministries now plowing the same ground the denominational ethics agency used to dominate — only with sharper instruments of war. Those nonprofits are unmoored from the restraints of denominational unity and tend to focus on issues of direct legal aid and advocacy without regard for controversy.
“Rooted in Scripture and guided by the Baptist Faith and Message, this team will remain fervently committed to carrying out our ministry assignment.”
Leatherwood said of his election: “Rooted in Scripture and guided by the Baptist Faith and Message, this team will remain fervently committed to carrying out our ministry assignment — faithfully serving our churches and growing our convictional presence in the public square on behalf of our convention. That means speaking with biblical clarity about the issues that matter to Baptists: the inherent value of life, religious liberty at home and abroad, human dignity and the flourishing of families.”
He added: “We have made it a priority to come alongside and equip our churches, partner with our state conventions, and support our sister SBC entities, he said. “This Commission will continue to do so in this new season because we know the Southern Baptist Convention is stronger when we are cooperating on mission together.”
Leatherwood is a deacon at The Church at Avenue South, which is one of eight congregations in a local network of churches based out of and connected to Brentwood Baptist Church. He earned a bachelor of arts degree in political science and government from the University of Central Florida in 2003.
He will be the youngest head of any of the SBC’s dozen agencies and institutions.
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What’s old is new again: Conservatives threaten funding over SBC’s ethics agency
Attempt to dismantle SBC Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission fails