Just weeks after his former board chairman tried to fire him, Brent Leatherwood kept his job as president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission yesterday.
ERLC trustees, who are elected by messengers to SBC annual meetings, issued a statement affirming Leatherwood’s “good work,” despite reports the board remains divided over his leadership. (For deeper history on this conflict, see today’s episode of BNG’s “Stuck in the Middle with You” podcast.
ERLC trustees also affirmed a document outlining the agency’s four main areas of acceptable work, which are:
Life: “We aim to promote a culture of life where our society sees immeasurable value in every person, from conception to natural death, because all people are created in God’s image.”
Religious liberty: “We work to protect religious liberty — a first freedom and Baptist principle rooted in the belief that a ‘free church in a free state’ serves our churches, provides for the common good, and allows believers to share the gospel freely.”
Marriage and family: “We celebrate God’s good design and desire to see policies enacted that allow men, women and children to flourish according to God’s plan for sexuality and family.”
Human dignity: “True human dignity, rooted in the Imago Dei, motivates the ERLC to honor all people as made in God’s image. We stand for the displaced, the trafficked, the preyed upon and the persecuted — wherever they might be.”
What’s not explicitly included in that description are gun control, school shootings and mental health — all issues related to last year’s shooting at Covenant School in Nashville, where Leatherwood has a child enrolled. Since the shooting, he has become a point person for parents.
What’s not explicitly included in that description are gun control, school shootings and mental health.
The ERLC website now includes specific information about that school shooting in its FAQ section. Some ERLC trustees and some Southern Baptist conservatives believe Leatherwood’s personal connection to the Nashville shooting has caused him to expand the agency’s work without trustee approval.
Southern Baptists, like most Republicans and conservatives, lean away from wanting to talk about gun control and gun violence. The ERLC’s “life” work is primarily about abortion.
The ERLC’s charter says its purpose is “to assist Southern Baptists to become more aware of the ethical implications of the Christian gospel with regard to such aspects of daily living as family life, human relations, moral issues, economic life and daily work, citizenship, and related fields; and by helping them create, with God’s leadership and by his grace, the kind of moral and social climate in which the Southern Baptist witness for Christ will be most effective.”
For several years, the ERLC has faced calls from some Southern Baptists for elimination or defunding. While those votes have failed, the share of messengers at annual meetings favoring such drastic actions has been growing.
After yesterday’s meeting, the statement issued by trustees noted: “We affirm that in a time of deep division in our culture, from polarization in our political environment, to falling trust in institutions, to the fracturing of families, the ERLC is needed now as much as ever both to serve in the public square in a manner consistent with the earthly ministry of Jesus and to be a consistent voice that continually points people to the salvation that can only come through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.”
Leatherwood presented trustees with a document outlining how the agency assesses whether to engage in an issue:
- Is this an issue for which we have a biblical basis to speak?
- Is this an issue on which the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 has a clear position?
- Have Southern Baptist messengers spoken to this topic, whether through actions on the floor of an annual meeting or resolutions?
- What has been the historic position of the ERLC/CLC since the SBC’s conservative resurgence?
- Will advocacy on this issue upset certain segments of the SBC? If yes, is it still necessary to take a position/say something?
- Does our advocacy have a chance to meaningfully advance issues of importance to the Southern Baptist Convention?
- How will this affect our relationship with non-SBC coalition partners?
With the former board chairman having resigned after failing to oust Leatherwood, the board elected new officers. New board chair is Scott Foshie, who is an employee of another Southern Baptist entity.
In addition to serving as pastor of Steeleville Baptist Church in Steeleville, Ill., he works as a ministry consultant for the Illinois Baptist State Association and as part-time associational missionary for Nine Mile Baptist Association.
In a portion of the meeting held in executive session, trustees reportedly discussed a policy on avoiding conflicts of interest.
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