Following Russell Moore’s announced exit from the Ethic and Religious Liberty Commission, a letter he sent to their board of trustees was “leaked” to the pagan Religion News Service. Russell Moore has been the number one target of discernment blogs since around 2011 for being liberal on homosexuality, immigration, Critical Race Theory, and gender among other reasons. This mounted into an investigation by the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention. So Russell Moore writes a 4000 word self-indulgent letter patting himself on the back for what a swell job he has done.
Russell Moore attempts to frame the issue almost entirely around sexual abuse. The narrative he is trying to cast is that his speaking out on the issue of sex abuse rattled the cages and the powers that be wanted to drive him out for it. According to Moore, standing up on the issue of sex abuse is hosting the Caring Well Challenge, a conference where Moore touts the involvement of Rachel Denhollander, a notorious opponent of complementarianism. In the real world, hosting a Big Eva conference is not really an accomplishment for activism.
The last time they did this, I was “investigated” by a president of their body who was, at that very moment, using his pastoral authority to sexually sin. The “task force,” we were told at the time, is just about finding a way to “answer questions.” The headlines then were “Russell Moore and the ERLC Under Investigation for hundreds of churches leaving and defunding the convention.” Their own report showed that the claim was false, but there was no similar trumpeting of those findings. That’s because that’s the point — to keep a cloud over me, and to keep me self-censoring and silent about these matters.
Moore begins laying accusations of sexual sin against an unnamed pastor. Moore wants to frame his enemies as those in favor of covering up child molesters or child molesters themselves. He then shifts focus towards race where he makes numerous unsubstantiated race claims.
At the same time, the other absolutely draining and unrelenting issue has been that of racial reconciliation. My family and I have faced constant threats from white nationalists and white supremacists, including within our convention. Some of them have been involved in neo-Confederate activities going back for years. Some are involved with groups funded by white nationalist nativist organizations. Some of them have just expressed raw racist sentiment, behind closed doors. They want to deflect the issue to arcane discussions that people do not understand, such as “critical race theory.” There is no Southern Baptist that I know, of any ethnicity, who is motivated by any critical theory but by the text of Ephesians and Galatians and Romans, the Gospels themselves, the framework of Revelation chapters four and five.
Moore makes numerous nameless claims on race before arguing that people don’t understand Critical Race Theory, which is not hard to understand. He then lies to say that no Southern Baptist is motivated by CRT.
Another SBC leader used constant pressure against me in protest of our hiring of Dan Darling and Trillia Newbell, in 2013. At the time, this was, he said, because they did not have adequate Southern Baptist backgrounds. When I answered his concerns to his face, he said, “I was really just concerned about that black girl, whether she’s an egalitarian.” When I asked what possibly could lead him to think that a woman who has written complementarian articles for complementarian websites was an “egalitarian,” he responded: “A lot of those black girls are.”
This claim grabbed a lot of people’s attentions, but again, no evidence or names. The irony is that this fake person was correct to be concerned that this woke lady who happens to be black is an egalitarian. She’s good friends with Beth Moore. So even if this claim were true, the substance of what the person said was correct even if the delivery was offensive.
But the strategy here is clear. One of these figures told me in the middle of the 2017 debacle: “We know we can’t take you down. All our wives and kids are with you. This is psychological warfare, to make you think twice before you do or say something.” That’s exactly what it is.
I don’t believe any of this above quote actually happened. The way he sneaks in a compliment of himself that his enemy’s wives and children support him is too fake to be true.
Some people will say, after this or any number of the other similar moves, that “We do not want Dr. Moore to resign.” They are telling the truth. They do not want me to leave. They want me to live in psychological terror, so that I will not say what the Southern Baptist Convention has assigned me to say, much less to reveal what I know about what goes on behind the scenes. And they want me to do so while asking my constituencies to come in and to stay in the SBC, though as submissive and disengaged “numbers” under the rule of a toxic and abusive gerontocracy.
Russell Moore is clearly a man with a major ego and an inflated sense of his accomplishments and prowess.
He did not call me to provide cover for racial bigotry and child molestation. I will not do that. I love the Southern Baptist Convention, and am a faithful son of the Southern Baptist Convention. I do not believe the people of the Southern Baptist Convention want me to do that, at least that’s not how they have acted in their votes when they are assembled together in national convention. But a small group in the shadows do want me to do that. They want me to be afraid of them. They want you to be afraid of them.
Russell Moore employs of emotional unsubstantiated anecdotes to straw man his opponents as white supremacists and child molesters. All the while Russell Moore has grifted untold, perhaps millions, from Southern Baptists over the last several years, only to leave the ERLC to work for an apostate magazine. All the while, Russell Moore has not spoken up about the heresy in the seminaries or the corruption in NAMB. With regards to the latter, he has been a participant in lying before the Supreme Court.
Russell Moore’s unsubstantiated claims should be summarily rejected, as should an obvious wolf like Moore himself.
One Response
Neo-confererate white nationalists and supremacists. Just saying that in all seriousness, as if there’s large numbers of them walking around wielding power behind the scenes. Oh, but their wives and kids are on your side? This is typical CRT left wing ideological thinking. If you don’t agree and support him than you are obviously a white yada yada yada. They cheapen words to the point of being meaningless. Its actually somewhat effective, to a point, as it allows them then to create their own definitions for words that then allow them to win a logical argument. (only in their minds of course). Are you sure he doesn’t get to the “Jesus was an illegal immigrant Palestinian non-binary cross dresser” later in the email?