Does the Southern Baptist Convention Even Need the ERLC?

For nearly a decade, Southern Baptists put up with the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), an SBC entity which Russell Moore led. Moore was a Democrat who worked for a Democrat politician prior to his role at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and the ERLC. Moore single-handedly turned the ERLC into a political lobbying organization that advocated for left-of-center policies at federal, state, and local levels as well as pushed left-of-center social ideologies.

Moore was good at manipulating Southern Baptists into supporting his causes as he was able to cleverly baptize them with Bible language and label them “gospel issues.” From movements like “racial reconciliation” to open-border immigration policies, Moore cloaked progressive political activism in the language of compassion and justice.

He championed amnesty for illegal aliens, led the movement to embrace critical race theory under the guise of “an analytical tool,” and routinely undermined conservative legislation that sought to address the mass killing of innocent children.

Under Moore’s leadership, the ERLC became a mouthpiece for the self-serving SBC establishment elites who were more concerned with the convention’s reputation in Washington and the New York Times than with the convictions of the churches funding its existence.

Russell Moore had manipulated more Southern Baptists into supporting him than any other entity head in history, and had become arguably the most influential Southern Baptist leader in modern times. But then things changed, and people began to wake up to what he was doing.

Thanks to the continual push of small-time but relentless “discernment bloggers,” slowly, Southern Baptists became increasingly aware of Moore’s tactics and the leftist politics he continued to push. People began to see that Moore cared more about flooding the borders with illegal aliens than he did the rule of law.

People began to notice that he was aligning himself with far-left activists, news anchors, and politicians to push anything from COVID vaccines to slave reparations, and that he was cloaking his concern trolling in the language of “loving your neighbor.”