Open Letter to Southern Baptist Executive Committee & ERLC re: Russell Moore
DIRE WARNINGS FROM THE PEW: SOUTHERN BAPTIST HAVE GROWN WEARY OF RUSSELL MOORE AND FOR GOOD REASONS
In February, the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention leadership voted to form a “task force” to look into the ERLC (AGAIN) regarding how the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission’s actions in relation to its ministry statements are affecting the Convention and its relationships with local churches, local associations, and state conventions.” The ERLC responded in an open letter calling the investigation “unwarranted, divisive, and disrespectful.” The EC responded to the Open letter saying “We respect the right of the ERLC trustees and chairman Prince to respond to the SBC Executive Committee’s formation of a study task force,” the EC officers wrote in the response. “It was never our intention to communicate disrespect or seek to divide. This is not an attempt to remove Dr. Moore or to direct his staff.”
In the midst of all these assurances and standard Baptist niceties in this exchange Executive Committee and ERLC Trustees need to face the facts. Russell Moore is the source of much of the issues/division facing the SBC. Cooperative Program giving is impacted by Moore as it was in 2017 when 14 of a reported 75 churches withheld a confirmed $1.5 million in giving over Moore’s hateful anti Trump rhetoric and pro Democratic party alliances.
Today his politics are more out of the closet than they have ever been as he works openly with organizations funded by activist billionaires like Paul Singer and chums like “Obama Foundation Ambassador to America’s Believers" Michael Wear. A Democrat at heart with the soul of a change agent and loyalties divided across a spectrum of non Baptist persons and organizations, Moore may have been allowed to be a fringe Southern Baptist but he is hardly fit to lead the ERLC and be our chief lobby and ethics representative and spokesperson in DC or the National Media. GUYS- Russell Moore does NOT SPEAK FOR US.
(Background for those reading this open letter who are unaware of the events addressed in it)
The Task Force.
http://www.bpnews.net/54345/sbc-executive-committee-creates-erlc-study-task-force
More BP coverage of the events.
http://www.bpnews.net/54362/erlc-ec-trustee-officers-respond-to-task-force-announcement
ERLC Trustee Open Letter.
https://erlc.com/resource-library/articles/letter-from-the-erlc-executive-committee
8 REASONS WHY THE ISSUES WITH THE ERLC ARE ABOUT RUSSELL MOORE AND WHY IGNORING OR WHITEWASHING THESE ISSUES WILL FURTHER HARM THE SBC.
Consideration 1
Russell Moore is a self indulgent contrarian to the Southern Baptist identity .He knows it – likes the position and is proven to enjoy being controversial since his first Wall Street Journal interview article in October 2013 where he informed fatigued Baptist early in the second term of the radical Obama administration that “The culture War is over and that it had been “Lost” by Christians.
This was not merely the voice of fatalism but the jubilant chorus of talking points from Frankfurt School inspired Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture / James Davison Hunter who coined the very phraseology echoed by Moore who was a CLOSE FRIEND of the Obama administration. Moore frequented the oval office even as he relentlessly accused Southern Baptist politics and as he leveled assault after assault against Candidate now President Donald Trump. We have not forgotten that the Executive Committee did take note of Moore at the time and shortened his leash. Make no mistake ,neither he, his loyalties nor his politics have changed. Russell Moore has made that abundantly clear.
Consideration 2
Russell Moore and the ERLC have been doing public binge drinking at the trough of progressive political ideologies shamelessly since the 2018 MLK/50 Conference they co- hosted with The Gospel Coalition. Current concerns surrounding this event gave rise to the Dallas Statement and the very real push back against Resolution 9 going into SBC 2020 meeting in Orlando. MLK/50 is likely the turning point that has now birthed the Conservative Baptist Network even if many in it do not realize the fact. Baptist know our seminaries are in trouble because of Social Justice and Critical Theory and other ideologies which have bought their way in. Moore and his staff are products of those very problems within the Seminaries like SBTS where Moore has held positions for over
2 1/2 decades. SBC churches arrive at these disturbing realities in the Seminaries when they hire some students or recent graduates who are indoctrinated with them and are usually avid devotees of Moore.
MLK/50 was dancing on the fringe of heresy due to it’s embrace of “White Privilege” and the King legacy as orthodox Christianity. While Moore’s ongoing appearances with John Perkins who openly advocated Wealth Redistribution and Economic Justice gives the impression Moore is simply one more guy out to drive race as a wedge to fuel white guilt and separate Baptist from their money.
Guilt as a DRIVER or motivator is a common theme in Moore’s daily narrative against Southern Baptist. It is exhausting and he needs to be reminded he was not hired to be our conscience or our mother. Stop Russell Moore from thinking his job is to “peck on the heads of Southern Baptist“. Enough already.
Consideration 3
Russell Moore is way too cozy with Catholic leaders during the time many Catholics are concerned about their own Latin American Marxist Pope. Moore’s close relationship with Acton Institute, it’s longtime founder radical gay activist turned Catholic Priest Father Sirico. Moore’s ERLC hiring of Acton’s (and TGC) editor Joe Carter to be his ERLC message man was over the top coordination with non Southern Baptist power brokers. Among his other close Catholic ties we find Robert George who spoke at Moore’s “inauguration” for some odd reason into the leadership of an SBC entity.
Ryan Anderson is another of these disturbing Moore associates. So are the many Catholic publications who promote Moore’s articles and at whose events Moore speaks.These together make the impression that Moore is far more at home among his maternal Catholic heritage than his Baptist position of responsibility and JOB.
Moore picked an ERLC Fellow who teaches at Jesuit institution Georgetown to provide the 2020 ERLC “civil political engagement ” whitepaper. Moore sees himself as a “Uniter not a Divider ” as he plays with and tweets pics of his bobble head doll between those of Pope Francis and Luther on the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. Perhaps he is better suited for the Vatican than Nashville. Given the grave heresy and “Extra Biblical doctrines of the current Pope and much of Catholic doctrine- this humor is hardly becoming an SBC leader on the 500th anniversary of the Reformation which was sealed with the blood of many who enjoined its Biblical stand.
Consideration 4
Russell Moore makes no secret that he is a Democrat or that he aspired to a political Career. Many Baptist observe that he is using his position at the ERLC to enjoy a virtual political career at the expense of both Southern Baptist giving and the expensive losses
Baptist are incurring on his otherwise preoccupied “watch ” as our lobbyist and chief ethics spokesman.
Moore looks to have lost his way or was never pointed in the Southern Baptist direction to begin with. At present Russell Moore is working in VERY close ALLIANCES with the political partners of the & Campaign .One partner Justin Giboney is a Democratic Party Strategist and former Obama and Hillary Delegate. While the other & Campaign leader Michael Wear is the former faith outreach and faith based partnership coordinator for the Obama Administration and is now ,as pointed out above, is the “Obama Foundation Ambassador the America’s Believers.”
Moore has worked with Giboney since at least MLK/50 and will again in March at the anti Trump”Just Gospel Conference” near DC to be held in an SBC church whose pastor is an ERLC Fellow. This church also held the Radical LGBTQ Inclusion Audit for Churhcesin 2018.
Moore repeatedly appears with Obama’s Michael Wear in the Soros funded National Immigration Forum’s “Evangelical Immigration Round Table”.
The & Campaign where these two Moore associates are doing their political pitch of “Biblical Values & Social Justice ” is in partnership with Billionaire LGBTQ funder Paul Singer and his American Unity Fund. Singer funds, along with the LDS (Mormons),ended opposition to gay marriage in the 2012 election cycle when Singer donated massive amounts into the Romney Campaign and the GOP national convention. & Campaign also boast several ERLC leaders in it’s ranks as well as NAMB Send Network urban activist pastors. Russell Moore’s continued work with & Campaigns executive leaders gives SBC pastors to whom he serves as a mentor that the false impression that these contradictions of loyalties are good for the Gospel and the SBC. Far from the truth.
Consideration 5
Russell Moore and his ERLC are repeatedly aligned with LGBTQ activist . Since his 2013 WSJ interview Moore has been out to persuade Baptist that they are homophobic. He introduced an entire herd of speakers to echo gender ,feminine and queer theory rhetoric in nonstop conferences and interviews since 2014. This is in spite of the reality that LGB represent only 2.3% of the population according to the US Census .Also Trans is a non measured minority (which will change in the 2020 Census for political reasons) Moore even met behind closed doors with Human Rights Campaign (another Paul Singer funded organization ) whose radical political agenda has us facing the REAL Religious Liberty threat known as the “Equality Act” which will make LGBTQ equal to race and offer total protections against discrimination without any religious exemptions.
& Campaign is also promoting the Paul Singer hedge bet to the Equality Act called “Fairness for All” which the LDS drafted in 2016 as the “Utah Compromise ” of “Religious Liberty and LGBTQ Rights”. No such possible compromise exist as LGBTQ activist view religious exemptions for Religious Liberty as “License to Discriminate ” and wish to force churches to hire LGBTQ staffers, promote the normalization of LGBTQ identity and sexuality and redefine Christian Faith to affirm their political agenda.
By 2018 multiple ERLC Fellows ,staff , and consulting partners were endorsing the radical Revoice LGBT+ Thriving Conference in St Louis. In private interview at SBC Dallas June 2018 Russell Moore denied Knowledge of Revoice Conference in spite of his ERLC cohorts who endorsed it the months prior to SBC 2018 .By the next day of the convention Moore stood up to field questions including about Revoice and again denied any knowledge of the movement to “promote LGBT+ Flourishing in historic Christian tradition” when he had been involved in discussions about it the previous day.
Russell Moore stood up and lied to over 9000 SBC messengers and defended his ERLC fellow who had endorsed Revoice and had been literally “hit by a bus in Nashville”. Meanwhile the Revoice BUS has gone on in the SBC unchecked as Moore’s SBTS friends hide its origins at SBTS in the Resolutions Committee 2019 who buried a resolution from Oklahoma pastor Steve Kern denouncing Revoice. Multiple strong associations to Revoice and its leaders by ERLC staffers hired by Moore include Andrew Walker who tag teams with Revoice leader Matthew Lee Anderson at conferences on LGBTQ issues. Nice right? Very cozy ties to the pro LGBT+ Flourishing movement that is splitting the PCA denomination as the SBC task force looks into the ERLC whose leader Russell Moore “knows nothing about it”.
Consideration 6
I attended the SBC Dallas 2019 meetings as a reporter for World View Weekend and to represent the Revoice story which I had broken to the public 5 weeks prior .When I personally sought an interview with Russell Moore his staffer (a recent hire who was chased out of the GOP TN offices for subverting conservative leaders) physically grabbed my arm to force me away from speaking to Moore . This unwelcome and unwarranted contact constitutes a class C assault by TX law but was overlooked by me as I did obtain a brief off the record discussion with Moore. By 2:00 the next day the same ERLC staffer glared across the SBC expo at me just before two armed and uniformed Dallas Police approached me saying someone was claiming I “threatened them” ( threatened the person who made the complaint). Though the officers would not identify the person who complained to them the ERLC staffer Brent Leatherwood was waiting outside the expo door on the phone as the officers escorted me from the building BEFORE Russell Moore was to take the stage for the ERLC report and Q and A.
Leatherwood hung up the phone and joined the right side officer taunting and seeking to escalate the situation until the officer made him cease. The police had been told I threatened to “kick someone ***” exact wording – which was a complete fabrication by the ERLC. The resulting press stories are now part of SBC annual folk lore but at NO POINT did the ERLC own up to the fact they lied to the security team of Dallas PD at the convention in 2018 on the day security was very high due to the VP Pence appearance at the Convention. All these lies placed myself and SBC Convention goers at risk .This endangerment to SBC Annual Convention goers was risked simply to have a reporter removed for asking questions about Revoice and SBTS/ERLC ties to it.
The FULL story is told in detail here which thousands of Baptist have read and dozens of interviews have been covered .
https://thirtypiecesofsilver.org/2018/06/18/living-like-a-refugee-in-the-sbc/
Many are still shocked by the reality that Russell Moore and his ERLC team would resort to lying to Dallas police / their own security team and even send out a young blonde girl to deny the Dallas Police had been involved and lie to the Christian Press. At present there are three CONFLICTING ERLC and EC stories about this as yet unresolved situation concerning my removal from SBC 2018 and none of them square with the Dallas Police Report on file at Dallas City Hall PR department. I have the Dallas Police Report and the 3 false versions from the ERLC in writing should the EC or Trustees wish to look into these shameful actions of Moore’s ERLC staff whose salaries we pay.
I was soon being sent report after report of Russell Moore’s DISHONEST HISTORY INCLUDING HIS FALSE CLAIMS OF ABUSE and threats as a Baptist Press reporter himself in 2000.
(History of Russell Moore’s dishonesty recorded in 2000 when he was a reporter for Baptist Press)
” In 2000, many general assembly attendees accused BP writer Russell Moore of inaccuracies and blatant fabrications in several stories— most notably a report where he claimed that a former missionary attending the meeting physically assaulted him. Moore is now a dean at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.”
Consideration 7
Russell Moore espouses orthodox theology and doctrine while actively behaving as a change agent in the SBC/ERLC. He wears a face of a Southern Baptist but shows his alliances to politics , policy , people and progressive social positions counter to Southern Baptist . His convictions displayed in his activist culture at ERLC show he is contrary in many if not most ways to the Baptist Faith and Message though, like his mentor Albert Mohler, Moore can always be counted on to make public position statements to maintain plausible deniability which is a skilled way of being dishonest. Moore is out to bring social change to the SBC a.Al the while Moore is echoing orthodox positions- he is busy countering them in everyday reality.
