Southern Baptists dumping their Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission because it's "Never Trumper" [View all]
https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2025/05/move-to-defund-and-disband-ethics-and.html
Led by Bush ally Richard Land, renamed the "Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), the organization pushed hard to become an anti-abortion activist organization and to drag the SBC into Republican right wing extremist politics following the "Conservative Resurgence." Neither Land nor Paul Pressler, the Texas appeals court judge who was one of the major "architects" of the resurgence, were ever able to push the SBC to the point of outright endorsements of GOP Presidential candidates, but that was not for lack of trying.
Then Land stepped down in 2013, due to a shift in denominational politics, and Russell Moore became executive director. Moore's legacy at the ERLC looked to be more bland, conservative extremism, until the election rolled around in 2016 and he became an outspoken right wing Evangelical opposed to Trump's candidacy, because of his disgusting immoral behavior and crude, worldly attitude. Moore, now editor of Christianity Today , never backed down from that perspective, so the Trump machine within the SBC went to work to try and bring the whole organization down.
And that's what's happening now, with the involvement of the great Southern Baptist pontificator, Dr. Al Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.
Mohler wasn't a Trumper in 2016 either, but he's a "lick your finger and stick it in the air to see which way the wind is blowing" kind of Baptist leader. So he eventually changed his mind. But Moore never did. He managed to make an exit and land on his feet in a more sympathetic, more moderate, less politically insane branch of Evangelicalism. His successor failed to denounce him or trash his reputation or behave in other un-Christ-like vengeance, and so, jiggling with rage, Southern Baptist Trumpers are now pushing to simply shut down the whole ERLC to hurl their hatred and get back at the remaining leadership for not bowing at the feet of their political enamorata and favorite ungodly idol.