Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) President Russell Moore has clarified that he never intended to criticize all evangelical supporters of President-elect Donald Trump, noting many were motivated by “biblical convictions” and “voted their conscience.”
In a Dec. 19, 2016, blog post, Moore acknowledged “pointed conversations in my denominational family about the election” over the past month, “some of them … directed at me.”
“I remember one situation where I witnessed a handful of Christian political operatives excusing immorality and confusing the definition of the gospel,” Moore wrote. “I was pointed in my criticisms and felt like I ought to have been. But there were also pastors and friends who told me when they read my comments they thought I was criticizing anyone who voted for Donald Trump.
“I told them then and I would tell anyone now: if that’s what you heard me say that was not at all my intention and I apologize. There’s a massive difference between someone who enthusiastically excused immorality and someone who felt conflicted, weighed the options based on biblical convictions and voted their conscience,” Moore wrote.
Moore’s blog post was published the same day as a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article about the ERLC president with the headline “Baptist figure faces backlash over his criticism of Donald Trump.”
Moore, who provided an advance copy of his blog post to the WSJ, has voiced criticism of Trump’s candidacy since at least September 2015.
The WSJ article included critiques of Moore by former Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) President Jack Graham, Louisiana Baptist Convention (LBC) Executive Director David Hankins and former SBC Executive Committee (EC) chairman William Harrell among others.
Support for Moore
Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, and evangelical voter Ruth Malhotra, a millennial Republican who opposed Trump, expressed support for Moore to the WSJ.
ERLC trustee chairman Ken Barbic said Moore “is a gospel-centered and faithful voice for Southern Baptists.”
“He speaks with prophetic clarity to the pressing cultural and ethical issues of our time, with which every Christian must wrestle,” Barbic, a member of Capitol Hill Baptist Church, Washington, said in an email. “I am particularly grateful for his courageous and convictional leadership, under which I’ve observed, within our convention and beyond, significant newfound energy and excitement about the work of the ERLC the last several years. I have had the privilege of seeing up close the remarkable efforts he leads the ERLC to undertake here in Washington, across this country and abroad, all of which make me thankful for his leadership within the SBC.”
Alleged ‘disrespectfulness’
In the WSJ article, Graham, pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church, Plano, Texas, and a member of Trump’s evangelical executive advisory board, cited Moore’s criticism of Trump during the presidential campaign for alleged “disrespectfulness towards Southern Baptists and other evangelical leaders, past and present.”
“It’s disheartening that this election has created this kind of divisiveness,” Graham said, adding Prestonwood Baptist is “considering making major changes in our support of the SBC,” presumably a reference to designating financial gifts to specific SBC causes rather than giving through the Cooperative Program, Southern Baptists’ unified channel of supporting missions and ministries in America and worldwide, including ERLC.
Hankins told the WSJ he knows of churches that “have said they are going to” divert their giving away from ERLC. Messengers to this year’s LBC annual meeting referred to the convention’s executive board a motion regarding concerns with ERLC.
Harrell, EC chair from 2006 to 2008, made a similar assertion about churches potentially withholding funds from ERLC in a Nov. 15, 2016, blog post, stating ERLC “was never meant to be a political voice which would promote a certain candidate or … discourage people from voting for another one.”
As examples of allegedly inappropriate statements by Moore, Harrell, a retired Georgia pastor, cited a September 2015 New York Times op-ed in which Moore argued “evangelicals and other social conservatives” must “repudiate everything they believe” to support Trump and a January 2016 Roll Call article that quoted Moore as stating, “Ted Cruz is leading in the ‘Jerry Falwell’ wing [of evangelicalism], Marco Rubio is leading the ‘Billy Graham’ wing and Trump is leading the ‘Jimmy Swaggart’ wing.”
Former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee wrote in an email obtained by Townhall.com, “I am utterly stunned that Russell Moore is being paid by Southern Baptists to insult them.”
In support of Moore, Mohler told the WSJ in an email, “I know his heart and his character and his love for the SBC. I also have confidence in his ability to serve all Southern Baptists as president of the ERLC.”
Ministry assignment
Jason Duesing, provost of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri, and former SBC president Bryant Wright have expressed similar sentiments.
Duesing wrote in a Nov. 8, 2016, blog post that Moore and ERLC staff fulfilled their ministry assignment well during the presidential election season.
“While no leadership team of the convention’s public policy arm, past or present,” Duesing wrote, “can carry out this task with perfection or to the full approval of every member of the churches they serve — nor should they be held to that unassailable expectation — it is always right to express thanks to them and for them for their service, courage and efforts. Particularly that is true during this election year.”
Wright, pastor of Johnson Ferry Baptist Church, Marietta, Georgia, tweeted May 9, 2016, following criticism of Moore by Trump, “Coming from Trump, this is a badge of honor. Thankful for Russell Moore’s leadership.”
In May 2016, Trump mentioned Moore by name when he tweeted, “Russell Moore is truly a terrible representative of evangelicals and all of the good they stand for. A nasty guy with no heart!” to which Moore responded on MSNBC, “I am a nasty guy with no heart, which is why I need forgiveness of sins and redemption through the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
The WSJ quoted Malhotra, a 32-year-old Baptist, as illustrative of the “younger evangelicals” who allegedly support Moore and “who are becoming more diverse and [appear] to be turned off by the culture wars of their parents’ generation.”
Moore seemed to reference that supposed generational divide in an Oct. 9, 2016, op-ed for The Washington Post, in which he stated, “The [evangelical] old-guard is easier to engage in politics because they find identity in a ‘silent majority’ of Americans. The next generation knows that our witness is counter to the culture.”
‘Hoping for the best’
Moore called “reaffirmation of support for Trump” by members of “the old-guard religious right establishment … a scandal and a disgrace” but “not … a surprise.” His op-ed followed reports of “sexually predatory recorded comments” made by Trump.
In his Dec. 19, 2016, blog post, Moore clarified that “many Christians, including some of my very best friends and closest ministry partners approached the ballot box conflicted but felt compelled to cast a ballot for the ‘lesser of two evils,’ hoping for the best with a less than ideal president.”
Moore added, “We all owe it to our brothers and sisters in Christ to understand their convictions and be slow to judgment when biblical motivations are the primary motivators.
“In the heat of an extraordinarily divisive campaign, that is something all of us, myself included, are wise to remember.” (BP)
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