Russell Moore’s departure from Southern Baptist Convention’s leadership prompts questions about its future
Published 12:00 am Friday, May 21, 2021
Southern Baptist leader Russell Moore, who criticized then-President Donald Trump and his supporters, announced this week that he will be leaving the leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention where he has been the president of its policy arm since 2013.
Moore’s departure from the convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission follows other exits from the group, including Bible teacher Beth Moore (who has no relation to Russell Moore) and Black pastors. Some evangelicals are wondering what their departures signal about the direction of the convention, which has included louder voices on the far right in recent years.
Russell Moore will be joining the staff of Christianity Today, the evangelical magazine founded by evangelist Billy Graham, where he will write content and help launch a “Public Theology Project,” hosting events and gatherings about theology.
Moore was an early critic of Trump and accused other evangelical leaders of “normalizing an awful candidate.” When other Southern Baptist leaders met with the presidential candidate at Trump Tower in 2016, Moore suggested that they had “drunk the Kool-Aid.”
Trump drew attention to Moore when he tweeted in 2016 that Moore was “a nasty guy with no heart!” Moore replied, “Sad!”
Moore was raised by a Catholic mother and a Baptist father in a working-class neighborhood in Biloxi, Miss. In the 1990s, before seminary, Moore was an aide to Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss.
During his time at the ERLC, Moore led the charge on key issues for Southern Baptists, including abortion and religious freedom. He also befriended several Black Christian artists, openly advocated immigration policy changes and led the convention’s response to allegations of sexual abuse within the denomination. In recent months, he has urged evangelicals to get vaccinated against the coronavirus.
Moore became a symbol for many as someone who could be bold and speak truth to power, but after Trump won in 2016, Moore became quiet on many hot-button political topics. On Jan. 6, he called on Trump to resign over the riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Beth Moore said Russell Moore won her respect when he became outspoken against Trump.
“It was 2016 and the evangelical world was turning upside down and he had the guts – or the gall, depending on how you saw it – to (call out Trump),” she said.
Beth Moore, who also received backlash for speaking against Trump, said they were “reeling from what appeared to us a profoundly compromised witness playing out on a global stage. The backlash Russell received for speaking out was swift, severe and unrelenting.
“If he would not bow – and he wouldn’t – there were some who’d do their best to cut his legs out from under him,” she said. “He is one of those rare leaders who can live without public approval but not without his personal God-given convictions.”
Three people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid jeopardizing their jobs, said Russell Moore was ultimately not a good political insider within the SBC and preferred to steer his own ship at the ERLC. One observer who works for a Southern Baptist organization said he did not connect well with grass-roots Baptists.
But some Southern Baptists said he tried to provide a middle ground for the convention, pushing it toward a modern approach on topics such as immigration and race while maintaining his conservative Baptist theology.
Brent Leatherwood, a spokesman for the ERLC, said Moore was unavailable for comment. Leatherwood said Moore attends Grace Community Church, a Southern Baptist congregation in Nashville, where he is expected to remain a member.
Before he became head of the ERLC, Moore graduated from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and became dean of the school of theology there. For the past several years, the ERLC has been put under more scrutiny, and some were worried it could lose funding, essentially rendering it powerless.
Moore’s move to Christianity Today, which is seen as the flagship publication of all evangelicals, not just Southern Baptists, is expected to be mutually beneficial. Christianity Today President and CEO Timothy Dalrymple said the flagship magazine has 90,000 paid subscribers, and the company, which has other products and websites, reaches 4.5 million people per month on its various platforms.
Christianity Today has been perceived as more moderate for several years because it features and publishes female preachers and has been more liberal on social justice issues than most Southern Baptist churches. Some evangelicals note Christianity Today has drifted to the political left, and a 2019 editorial in Christianity Today calling for Trump’s removal after his impeachment caused a huge stir.
Trevin Wax, an editor for the SBC’s publishing arm, LifeWay, said Moore will probably pull Christianity Today in a more conservative direction without being too fiery.
“One of the things I love about Russ Moore is, he’s comfortably orthodox, he’s not cantankerously orthodox,” Wax said. “I think Russ has a comfort and confidence and winsomeness that will serve CT well.”
Many younger evangelicals are trying to find ways to move forward in a modern world, where LGBTQ issues and the Black Lives Matter movement have been at the forefront of social conversations and can make them feel uncomfortable. Many young leaders in the SBC are attempting to chart a modern path but remain conservative theologically, and Moore gave them an example.
Joash Thomas, a 28-year-old seminarian and aspiring public theologian who lives in Atlanta, said he joined the SBC because of Moore’s influence. Thomas, who grew up in a house church in Mumbai, came to the United States at 18 to work for a ministry.
“I was oblivious to what the SBC was apart from caricatures about Baptists that I had coming in as an immigrant,” Thomas said. “We started to look for an SBC church because quite naively I thought that the ERLC was the perfect representation of the SBC and everyone would be like Dr. Moore.”
Thomas worked in Republican politics and was impressed with Moore’s familiarity with issues such as immigration, but he quickly learned that many of the people he went to church with were not fans of Moore.
Thomas’ SBC church closed permanently during the pandemic, and he no longer affiliates with the denomination. “It’s given us great respite to know we’re not in the SBC anymore. If there isn’t a place for Dr. Moore in the SBC, I don’t think there’s a place for me as a person of color.”
Thomas subscribed to Christianity Today on Tuesday night after he saw Moore’s announcement.
Barry Hankins, chair of the history department at Baylor University and a writer who focuses on culture and Christianity, predicted Moore’s exit will “liberate him to do what he’s been constrained to do” by SBC leaders who oppose him.
Hankins said it’s significant that Moore is joining Christianity Today, a publication that hosts writers from opposing perspectives on women’s spiritual leadership. Moore must have “some degree of toleration” for egalitarian views, Hankins said.
During Moore’s tenure, the SBC, like the GOP and evangelicalism, has seen the “mainstream” shift to the right, Hankins said. But the Trump years escalated things. Moore, he said, is the public face of the younger faction of the convention, people who don’t want the SBC to be essentially a wing of the GOP.
Jenny Yang, vice president of advocacy at the humanitarian group World Relief, said Moore’s exit will allow him to reach a broader audience – not only Southern Baptists and not only on priorities presented by the convention.
“Russell will continue to have a large impact on the church,” she said. “I feel he’ll be able to speak in a nuanced way to help the church respond” to issues, including racial justice, immigration and religious freedom.