Russell Moore, the new president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, is a traveling man.
In his role leading the public policy arm of the 16 million-member Southern Baptist Convention, he spends time every week visiting congregations around the country listening to their concerns. If he’s not in Austin, Texas, talking about marriage, you might find him in Atlanta discussing orphan care and adoption.
“Being with and in touch with local congregations is critically important to me because that is our primary responsibility - to equip churches to think through ethical issues, ranging from in vitro fertilization to divorce to [human] trafficking to a whole gamut of ethical issues,” Moore said.
When he’s not visiting local churches, Moore can be found in Washington pressing politicians to act on issues important to Southern Baptists.
Moore’s predecessor, Richard Land, held the job for 24 years before stepping down in June. Moore was dean of the School of Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., when he was elected as Land’s replacement.
His first two months as president have been busy. Less than a month after taking the job, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a portion of the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman. The ruling opened the door for partners in same-sex marriages to receive federal benefits. Moore called the court’s decision a “monumental shift in the definition of marriage in this country.”
For Southern Baptists, Moore said, the decision means coming to terms with what it means to be a Christian in contemporary America, at a time when views on marriage are rapidly changing.
“For years, we have spoken of marriage and called people to biblical passages about marriage and assumed that most people agree with us about what marriage is. Now we understand there is a more fundamental divide about what marriage is and whether marriage is a good thing at all,” Moore said. “Marriage is not seen in the outside culture to be the same thing Christians see it to be.”
Moore said Southern Baptists and evangelicals are not the “so-called moral majority we thought we were. We’re instead a prophetic minority in a culture that differs with us on several key points.”
Moore sees the decision as an opportunity for churches to reclaim their prophetic witness.
“The Bible Belt masked in many ways a nominal cultural form of Christianity that is alien to the Christianity of the New Testament,” he said. “We have the opportunity to have churches that reflect a way of life that may seem freakish to outside American society but not more than it did in the first-century Roman Empire.
“After all, we believe somethings that are shocking - that a dead man has come back to life, for starters. So the message we are giving, to ‘take up your cross and follow me,’ is by definition a shocking counterculture statement.”
After the court’s decision, Moore said the commission offered bulletin inserts to congregations that explained what the ruling means and called on Southern Baptists to remember that their gay and lesbian neighbors aren’t the enemy and deserve respect even if the two sides disagree on the definition of marriage.
Providing such resources to local ministers and churches is an important part of what the commission does, said Richard Piles, pastor of First Baptist Church of Camden and chairman of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission’s board of trustees.
“I am a small-church pastor and that is true for the overwhelming majority of pastors in Arkansas,” Piles said. “With that being the case, the pastor is usually required to wear a lot of different hats - choir director, children’s minister, custodian. The [commission] understands that an individual like that cannot be an expert in all things, yet that does not prevent all things from coming up in your pastorate.”
Piles said pastors of churches big and small are faced with a variety of ethical issues, including abortion, pornography, alcoholism and more. The commission acts as a resource in helping those pastors address issues from a biblical standpoint and provides guidance on how to respond when faced with questions about specific issues.
Piles said he thinks Moore will be a tremendous asset to Southern Baptists as president of the commission.
“First and foremost he is a Christian theologian,” Piles said. “Every life issue he is going to view and address by beginning first with the Bible. What does the Bible say? Secondly, he’s just an intelligent individual. He can represent Southern Baptists with the sharpest minds in the country. He will not be chased under the table.”
Although Piles expects Moore to be a staunch defender of Southern Baptists, he said he’s also a Christian gentleman.
“He understands that winning the argument doesn’t necessarily win the heart,” Piles said. “One of his catch phrases is ‘convictional kindness.’ What he means by that is his convictions are based on Scriptures and they are not going to change simply because of circumstances. However, he’s not interested in thumping you with his Bible or beating you over the head with it.”
Tom Hatley, pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church in Rogers, said Moore and Land, his predecessor, share the same beliefs on key moral issues but Moore’s approach will be different. Land was known for being outspoken and sometimes bullish and abrupt. Hatley said that approach was needed at the time.
“Dr. Land was known for being not just outspoken but creative in the way he dealt with an issue. It was pretty bold,” Hatley said. “When the bullet came out of his gun there was no doubt he was going to hit something.”
Hatley said Moore has a good personality for this moment in time. He’s tech savvy and will be able to reach this generation, Hatley said.
“He has a very winsome personality and like Dr. Land, is a great educator,” Hatley said. “He has the ability to take us to a level where we address issues even more creatively and start to build coalitions with like-minded groups.”
For Hatley, the work of the commission is more important than ever because he sees a moral decline in the country. He said moral outrage is needed to turn the tide or “we’re sunk as a country.”
“We want them to address the [U.S.] president and politicians on our behalf … and to do it forcefully as a voice for us,” he said.
As for Moore, his agenda is full and he has many problems to address, including immigration, orphan care and religious freedom. He recently joined with Archbishop William E. Lori, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, and other religious leaders in calling on the Obama administration and Congress to respect conscience rights and religious freedom in regard to a mandate by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on insurance plans covering contraception. They remain unhappy with the most recent modifications.
“We’re asking the administration to back off the contraception mandate and come up with a fix on that,” Moore said, adding that the religious groups working together on the issue range from Catholics and Southern Baptists to Hare Krishnas.
“These are groups who might not agree on most anything but we do agree the government has overstepped its bounds here. We’re not asking all Americans to agree with us on contraception and abortion - we don’t even agree with each other - but we do agree we ought to be respecting of conscience,” Moore said. “We think it’s good for American civil society to cultivate the conscience, not pave over it.”
Religion, Pages 12 on 08/10/2013