In an open letter to Tennessee’s Lt. Governor, Speaker of the House, and every member of the Tennessee legislature released on or around April 17, 2023, Brent Leatherwood, President of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), expressed strong support for Governor Bill Lee’s gun-control proposal. Although the governor avoids using the term, many have called his proposal a red flag law and are sounding the alarm about the proposal’s threat to 2nd Amendment rights (go here, here, and here).
In the letter, which was printed on ERLC stationary Leatherwood wrote, in part:
Southern Baptists comprise over one-fifth of the population of Tennessee, and our churches dot its landscape. Each year, messengers appointed by such churches come together for our national convention. Last year, Southern Baptists overwhelmingly passed a resolution that, in part, states the following:
“We earnestly pray for our local, state, and federal leaders to recognize the seriousness of the ongoing threat of mass shootings throughout our society and to take concrete steps, towards solutions that uphold the dignity and value of every human life, especially the most vulnerable among us, and to minimize the threat of gun violence throughout our society.”
The 2022 resolution Mr. Leatherwood cites reaffirmed the SBC’s 2018 resolution “On Gun Violence and Mass Shootings” — and it also addressed the need for solutions in general terms. The 2018 resolution included this RESOLVED statement:
RESOLVED, That we call on federal, state, and local authorities to implement preventative measures that would reduce gun violence and mass shootings while operating in accordance with the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution…
Of course, Southern Baptists are united in their concerns for the victims of mass shootings and their families. Furthermore, what Christian in his or her right mind would not want “solutions that uphold the dignity and value of every human life, especially the most vulnerable among us, and [that] minimize the threat of gun violence throughout our society”?
This language, however [as I have noted], is very general. One would be hard-pressed to find any opposition to these statements as they are worded — but precisely what “solutions” best “uphold the dignity and value of every human life” and “minimize the threat of gun violence in society”? A great many clear-thinking people will contend that such “solutions” would not include red flag laws — laws that potentially rob citizens of their Constitutional right to keep and bear arms by assuming potential guilt (or effectively assuming outright guilt) even before a crime is committed.
Red flag laws not only infringe on 2nd Amendment rights, but also on due process rights because they operate under the failed premise that arbitrary and subjective judgments are omniscient. In reality, red flag laws have the potential to keep a law-abiding individual who actually isn’t a danger to others from protecting his own person and his loved ones from those who would intentionally act to inflict harm. This is patently unjust. Moreover, even the leftist news outlet CNN admits in the title of one of its articles, “Indiana’s ‘red flag’ law should have prevented the FedEx shooting” — yet it didn’t. No red flag law is the “be all, end all” solution to gun violence that the emotional rhetoric that so often surrounds it and pushes for its passage implies that it will be.
Abuse of Power
The primary focus of this article, however, is not red flag laws, but Brent Leatherwood’s misuse and abuse of his position as President of the ERLC. Let me clarify at the outset that I understand the Covenant School shooting of March 27, 2023 in Nashville — a horrific incident no matter how one looks at it — was very personal for Mr. Leatherwood, as he is father to three children attending the school. As a result of the shooting, three adults and three children lost their lives.
Nevertheless, Mr. Leatherwood pretends to speak for all Southern Baptists when it is obvious that many would disagree with him on the specifics of Governor Lee’s proposal to address the problem. In other words, the proposed solution Mr. Leatherwood supports is, for many, very problematic. There is no evidence at all that Tennessee Southern Baptist were polled on the the matter. Check out the responses @toddstarnes received to his question on Twitter by clicking on his tweet —
Were Tennessee Baptists or Southern Baptists nationwide polled to get their views on gun control legislation and red flag laws? If so, I'd be interested in seeing the results. I personally favor crime control. @randycdavistbc @merelyjwright @RodDMartin @CapstoneReport…
— toddstarnes (@toddstarnes) April 20, 2023
Instead, says Capstone Report, Leatherwood
cited a resolution passed by the SBC’s Annual Meeting. However, a resolution is a non-binding view of about those attending a meeting–typically about only 7-10% of churches attend those annual meetings and they are the most Woke of the churches.
Capstone Report is right about the nature of an SBC resolution, but this is just one of several points to be made. Reread the portion of Mr. Leatherwood’s letter I’ve quoted above. It’s a no brainer that the specifics of Governor Lee’s proposal were not in the in the resolution passed at the SBC meeting in Anaheim in 2022 — nor were the specifics that generally appear in most red flag gun control laws — yet Leatherwood pretends that all Tennessee Southern Baptists agree with him. I have news for Mr. Leatherwood. They don’t. In his tweet, Rev. Jeff Wright, a Southern Baptist pastor in Cookeville, Tennessee, is referring to the co-signers of yet another letter that Brent Leatherwood also signed.
🎯
Again, @LeatherwoodERLC knew he didn't represent Southern Baptists in any sense when he wrote the letter. But he wrote as if he did anyway.
He's a deeply morally compromised person.
And this also goes for the co-signers, if they knew they'd be presented as representative. https://t.co/Wk45dSRJ01
— Jeff Wright (@merelyjwright) April 20, 2023
Pastor Wright authored his own letter to Governor Lee, which you can read here. Here is more evidence that Brent Leatherwood is misrepresenting Tennessee Southern Baptists, along with reasons a great many Tennesseans — Southern Baptists included, oppose Governor Lee’s proposed red flag law.
Abuse by Silence
As we have seen, Brent Leatherwood is misrepresenting Southern Baptists in what he says — but he’s also misrepresenting them by remaining silent on other matters. The same resolution the ERLC president cited in his letter also addressed and upheld God’s design for human sexuality.
RESOLVED, That we uphold the beauty of the Christian sexual ethic in a world that promotes dangerous and dehumanizing ideologies such as those within the LGBTQ+ movement and other sexual perversions including abuse, pedophilic behavior, and the use of pornography, all of which are fundamentally at odds with God’s design for human sexuality; and be it further
RESOLVED, That we seek to love our neighbors as ourselves, standing firm on God’s created order which recognizes that any sexual desire or attraction outside of God’s design for human sexuality is sinful and is disordered regardless of whether or not it creates feelings of guilt, shame, or anxiety on the one hand or pride on the other hand; and be it further
RESOLVED, That we seek to proclaim to the next generation God’s love for all and his good design for human sexuality, modeling how to faithfully engage others with both truth and grace, and that we redouble our ongoing efforts to cultivate a heart of wisdom and discernment in the next generation especially in regards to various forms of entertainment and social media…
Southern Baptists everywhere — not just in Tennessee — need to know that Brent Leatherwood and the ERLC were silent during the debates over legislation in Tennessee that addressed issues relating to human sexuality, sexual identity, and gender as these apply to minors — innocent, impressionable children.
Megan Basham is trying to find evidence the ERLC spoke out to protect children, but apparently has not been able to uncover any.
Read this.
1. The @ERLC is corrupt.
2. Thank God for Megan Basham.
3. The SBC's Trustee system is a complete joke.
4. The only bigger joke? @LeatherwoodERLC. https://t.co/t2JsxJ4UUq— SBC Underground (@SBCUnderground) April 20, 2023
Megan Basham brings up another valid point, as well.
There have been FIVE resolutions related to gender ideology and transgenderism at SBC conventions. It seems Southern Baptists would like the ERLC to formally involve itself on this matter as well, if resolutions are the standard by which they decide to lobby for legislation. pic.twitter.com/Wzn8aVx0bY
— Megan Basham (@megbasham) April 20, 2023
In response to Capstone Report’s tweet asking, “Hey, has ERLC said anything about other major social issues?” SBC Underground responded, “Nope. Been silent as a tomb about transsexuals while Matt Walsh has been protecting kids in TN, even after one [transsexual] murdered his [Leatherwood’s] kids’ classmates at Covenant.”
SBC Underground also made the point that Leatherwood hadn’t honored, promoted, mentioned, cited, or otherwise spotlighted the resolution “On Abolishing Abortion” adopted at the 2021 Convention in Nashville.
What did Leatherwood do instead? Not a year had passed since the Nashville Convention when he signed a letter (dated May 12, 2022) that made the case that no law should hold women accountable for their abortions because women are victims. He was Acting President of the ERLC at the time. I wrote,
Southern Baptists should be, and are, angry that Brent Leatherwood, acting president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission [ERLC], the SBC’s own ethics and public policy organization, signed the letter on behalf of the ERLC. This occurred even after a resolution was passed by Southern Baptists calling for an immediate end to abortion rather than taking an incremental approach. The resolution was adopted in Nashville on June 16, 2021, at the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention.…
Even if the folks at the ERLC actually favor an incremental approach to ending abortion, Brent Leatherwood’s signing the letter opposing the Louisiana legislation because it held mothers accountable for ending their children’s lives flew in the face of the resolution that passed in Nashville last June. For whom does Mr. Leatherwood and the rest of the employees at the ERLC work?
Southern Baptists Must Hold Brent Leatherwood Accountable
Note carefully the title of this article: “Brent Leatherwood Is Misrepresenting Tennessee’s Southern Baptists, and Southern Baptists, Foolishly, Are Paying Him to Do It.” It needs to be said that Brent Leatherwood is faithfully following the path taken by his predecessor, Dr. Russell Moore.
It is beyond irresponsible that the person considered to be the chief ethicist in the largest protestant denomination in America is acting unethically in both what he is saying publicly, and what is not saying.
If the SBC is to survive and maintain its own integrity, it must fire Brent Leatherwood and appoint a president to the ERLC who will act with integrity.
Also, take note. Michael Guyer is a trustee at the ERLC and is essentially defending Leatherwood. At least some trustees, and probably many, are part of the problem, as well.
Please pray for the SBC to wake up and do the right thing…
…before we travel any further down this perilous road!
top image credit: Tennessee State Capital / Wikimedia Commons
Copyright © 2023 by B. Nathaniel Sullivan. All rights reserved.
Written for use by Exposing enemies within the church, LLC
Like usually your article is right on target. Well done, blessings!
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