Remember that joke about a wife riding in a truck and complaining to her husband about the distance between them? She noted how they once rode side by side in the truck and now it seemed like they were hugging their respective doors instead of each other. The punch line of the joke is the witty husbands question, “Who moved?”
I feel a bit like the husband in that joke after this political season. I’ll state it again as clearly as I can. My position and issues have never been with those who held their nose and voted for Donald Trump because he wasn’t Hilary Clinton. My position has always been with those evangelicals who were Trump enthusiasts. I just didn’t see how enthusiastically supporting someone like Donald Trump fit with the gospel. Nor, could I see how changing the gospel in order to slide him in as a “baby Christian” did the church any favors. That is always where my issue has been.
Here we are looking at 2017 when Donald Trump will take office and a certain constituency in the SBC is calling for the head of Dr. Moore, head of the ERLC, mostly because of his position against Donald Trump. The chief argument has been that Moore does not represent a majority of the SBC. He is no longer speaking for us and therefore he needs to go—and I must assume be replaced by someone who more aligns with our support of Donald Trump (supposing that you cannot trust statistics and a majority of evangelicals did vote Trump).
But again I have to ask, “Who moved?” I have two questions I’d like to consider in the case of Russell Moore.
Is “representing a majority of Southern Baptists” the role of the head of the ERLC?
There is a bit of talk about the original intention of the CLC (Christian Life Commission) and what is now the ERLC. So I figured the best place to look for purpose wouldn’t be the present administrations definition of purpose. Instead I went back to 1995 when the ERLC was formed and found this:
- Assist churches in applying the moral and ethical teachings of the Bible to Christian life. (Research and provide resources to help Christians apply biblical principles in our everyday living and public life)
- Assist churches through the communication and advocacy of moral and ethical concerns in the public arena. (Represent Southern Baptists in communicating the moral and ethical positions of the SBC to the public and to the public officials).
- Assist churches in their moral witness in local communities. (Provide resources to inform and equip churches for active moral witness in their communities).
- Assist churches and other SBC Entities by promoting religious liberty. (Represent Southern Baptists in communicating the positions of the SBC on religious liberty issues to the public and to public officials).
So it does appear that at least one of the purposes of the ERLC is to represent Southern Baptists by communicating the positions of the SBC.
How is the ERLC to determine the position of the SBC?
But my next question, I believe gets to the heart of the matter. How is one to know the positions of the SBC? One could look at the Baptist Faith and Message, perhaps the various position statements, or more importantly for our question the history of resolutions. When you look through all the resolutions one in particular stands out to me as it relates to the Southern Baptist position on the importance of the morality of our leaders.
As you might remember Bill Clinton was in office at the time and had come under fire for accusations of sexual immorality. The SBC took a firm stance and said morality matters. Read it and apply it to Donald Trump (forgetting all the spin for just a moment) and tell me what the historic position of the SBC is on the morality of leaders.
Now, I ask “who moved”?
Granted, times are different in 2016 than they are in 1998. There wasn’t a lesser of two evils argument at the time. Things were more black and white. This election season was tricky because for many to not vote for Trump was to pave the way for a Clinton presidency. That was a tough pill to swallow. So I understand those who could say morality matters and also at the same time vote for Donald Trump because in their mind his immorality was less than the immorality of Hilary.
But again, Moore’s position (as he more clearly stated here) was not with those who held their nose but with those who were Trump enthusiasts. He was doing exactly what we had tasked him with doing—representing the SBC position on the character of leaders and not compromise even if it meant economic prosperity. He was following the SBC in her belief that “Tolerance of serious wrong by leaders sears the conscience of the culture, spawns unrestrained immorality and lawlessness in the society, and surely results in God’s judgment.”
Conclusion
I’m sure there are other issues at play in wanting to oust Dr. Moore. I’d love to hear them. And I’d love to hear a biblical case for them. After all we are supposed to be “people of the book” and not people of “majority rules”. Is it simply that some don’t like the way Moore is doing things? Fair enough. But build your case, but I fear siding too strongly with Trump against Moore is going to reap a whirlwind of consequences down the road.
There might be ways in which Dr. Moore could improve his rhetoric. As he acknowledged in a recent post he wasn’t as clear in areas where he should have been. Perhaps a case could be built that for this reason he has spread more disunity than clarity and should be ousted. I’d disagree—I think Dr. Moore is tremendously suited to be in this position, and we’d do better to give one another grace and stop all this stupid infighting. But I suppose a case could be made against him. But I don’t see the “He doesn’t represent Southern Baptists” to be one of them.
Make resolutions at the SBC that contradict the positions of Moore and then we can go from there. Pass those and then we’ll see what we are dealing with. But as it stands he has done nothing to not represent the SBC position. He hasn’t moved.
