Simon Cox Blog: Russell Moore Still Has a Job, Though 100 Churches Have Threatened to Pull SBC Funds

Monday, 13 March 2017

Russell Moore Still Has a Job, Though 100 Churches Have Threatened to Pull SBC Funds

Meeting between ERLC president and Southern Baptist leader Frank Page results in ‘mutual understanding,’ not a firing.

Russell Moore still has his job, after today’s much-discussed meeting with Southern Baptist leader Frank Page.

“We deepened our friendship and developed mutual understanding on ways we believe will move us forward as a network of churches,” wrote Moore and Page in a joint statement. “We fully support one another and look forward to working together on behalf of Southern Baptists in the years to come. We will collaborate on developing future steps to deepen connections with all Southern Baptists as we work together to advance the Great Commission of our lord Jesus Christ.”

Today’s consternation on social media over Moore, the president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), came after more than 100 churches threatened to end their donations to the SBC’s Cooperative Program, which supports Moore’s ERLC but also the denomination’s six seminaries, two missions agencies, and other efforts.

The churches represent less than 1 percent of the 46,000 congregations that make up America’s largest Protestant denomination. But they also represent the most complaints on any issue “in recent memory,” according to the SBC’s Executive Committee, which is investigating the problem in search of “redemptive solutions.”

The highest-profile threat has come from Prestonwood Baptist Church, led by past SBC president Jack Graham, which stated it would escrow up to $1 million from the Cooperative Program. Such a sum would only represent less than 1 percent of the program’s approximately $190 million budget. But it captivated the Baptist blogosphere. (Ed Stetzer, past executive director of the SBC’s ...