Brent Leatherwood, trustee of the Southern Baptist Conference’s Ethics and Non secular Liberty Fee (ERLC), all of a sudden misplaced his job Monday in a historic and unprecedented transfer.
A short assertion from the ERLC provided no rationale for Leatherwood’s termination, which got here a day after he made feedback praising President Joe Biden’s resolution to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race.
Leatherwood has been with the ERLC—the general public coverage and advocacy arm for Southern Baptists—for the previous seven years and has been the entity’s president since 2021. Simply hours earlier than his termination was introduced Monday night, Leatherwood was nonetheless working and sharing ERLC property on social media.
A rising vocal minority of Southern Baptists has referred to as for the ERLC’s defunding through the years. A few of their anger was directed at Leatherwood, his reluctance to help an abolitionist place that may criminalize abortions, and his name for gun reform in 2023 after his kids survived the capturing at Covenant Faculty in Nashville.
But Leatherwood additionally gained a popularity as an efficient and revered chief for Southern Baptists in Washington, DC. At an ERLC luncheon final month, former Vice President Mike Pence particularly acknowledged Leatherwood, saying it was solely together with her help and partnership that the earlier Trump administration was capable of advance some pro-life and spiritual freedom measures.
In a press launch Monday night and a quick assertion issued to Baptist Press, the SBC’s information service, the ERLC, mentioned Leatherwood was eliminated by the chief committee of the board of trustees “in accordance with our bylaws.” The assertion mentioned additional particulars and transition plans is not going to be shared till their board assembly in September.
The ERLC bylaws enable its govt committee to “take away any officer of the fee (together with, with out limitation, the president/chief govt officer) and not using a full trustee vote.”
The final time—and the one time in latest reminiscence—that an SBC entity president was fired by trustees was in 2018, when the board of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary fired Paige Patterson after a 13-hour lengthy assembly.
The ERLC assertion was unsigned, and the ERLC didn’t reply to the Metropolis’s request for the names of its govt committee members who had been tasked with voting on Leatherwood’s firing.
Monday’s information stunned Southern Baptists, together with members of the ERLC’s bigger board of trustees.
“I’m deeply saddened by this growth. Please pray for Brent and the Leatherwood household,” tweeted Philip Bethancourt, a Texas pastor who beforehand served as ERLC vp. “I imagine the @ERLC nonetheless has an vital function to play on this hostile cultural second.”
The Middle for Baptist Management—a brand new, conservative group calling for “institutional revival throughout the SBC”—helps the choice to take away Leatherwood, criticizes the ERLC, and calls out Leatherwood’s latest feedback about Biden.
Leatherwood was quoted within the Baptist Press as saying, “Regardless of what some partisans will say, strolling away from energy is a selfless act—the sort that has turn into all too uncommon in our tradition.” He additionally wrote an article for the publication calling it “a beautiful second in American historical past”.
The Centre’s assertion referred to as on ERLC trustees to share their rationale in September: “This is a chance for them to articulate the explanations for Leatherwood’s removing and to decide on accountability and transparency about obstruction and spin. ERLC wants higher management. Southern Baptists ought to each demand and count on it.”
On the SBC annual assembly in June, Founding Ministries president and Florida pastor Tom Askle made a proposal to dissolve the ERLC because it grew to become “more and more distant from the values and issues of the church buildings that fund it,” however this proposal—like earlier proposals to abolish or defund the entity— Didn’t get a majority vote on the ground.
The ERLC obtained greater than $3 million from the SBC’s cooperative program final fiscal yr, about 1.6 % of the $191.8 million given by Southern Baptists that was distributed to denominational entities and actions.
In Leatherwood’s speech on the annual assembly, she mentioned, “The work of this fee is just not solely rooted on this conference, it’s aware of this conference,” highlighting the ERLC’s sources for its advocacy round gender confusion and political engagement and pro-life. Coverage, worldwide help, and the proper of conscience.
Leatherwood succeeds Russell Moore, who led the ERLC till he steps down in 2021.
Moore additionally confronted backlash for his advocacy and messaging, notably round Donald Trump. Moore now serves as editor-in-chief of Christianity Right this moment.
It is a breaking information story and can be up to date as extra data turns into accessible.
