Russell Moore is the head of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and a political change agent. A former Democratic staff member, Moore has taken his leftist political ideology and transformed the Southern Baptist Convention into a progressive organization wrought with anti-Christian ideologies such as Critical Race Theory. Putting a Christian facade over these progressive ideas and cloaking them in Bible verses, Moore has been able to turn a large portion of the once conservative denomination into a religious organization that now largely elevates social issues such as financial and economic equality over and above biblical issues such as abortion and homosexuality.
Russell Moore has also been an outspoken defender of Beth Moore (no relation) who has, on the other side of the social justice aisle, made her mission in life to advance feminism and abolish biblical complementarianism.
Beth Moore calls herself a complementarian. Of course, she isn’t, as she regularly disobeys the Scriptures and assumes the function of pastor and elder and preaches to mixed audiences — even on Sunday mornings.
Some conservative leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention have been adamant about holding fast to the biblical complementarian position. On May 7th 2019, Dr. Owen Strachan of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary published an article Divine Order in a Chaotic Age: On Women Preaching, where he called Beth Moore and SBC president, JD Greear’s endorsement of women preaching into question. Beth Moore responded angrily on Twitter, stating she would be “terrified” to be a woman that Strachan would “approve of.”
Strachan is not the only conservative leader who has taken issue with Moore’s position. In a podcast by Founders Ministry, a conservative Reformed group within the SBC, leaders Tom Ascol and Jared Longshore discuss Beth Moore’s preaching to mixed audiences and asserted that not only is it unbiblical for her to do so, but the pastor who allowed it needs to be rebuked.
One unlikely leader who has stepped in to defend the biblical complementarian position is Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and one of the original leaders of the Southern Baptist “conservative resurgence.” Mohler, who generally waits until the fire is blazing to comment, tweeted the following:
Interestingly, it is Al Mohler who created this firestorm and continues to support Russell Moore, the very one who has turned the SBC into a progressive-leaning denomination.
Russell Moore, in a panel discussion at the Southern Baptist annual convention meeting yesterday, along with Beth Moore, and sex-abuse survivor, Rachel Denhollander, asserted that “An SBC that doesn’t have a place for Beth Moore, doesn’t have a place for a lot of us.” To this, I would say that he is absolutely right. The same people who hold to the biblical position on complementary gender roles also hold to biblical conservative positions in other areas — those of which he continues to fight against.
Whether it be Moore’s breaking bread with the gay community, his softening tone on homosexuality, referring to Jesus as an “illegal alien,” promotion and teaching of inherent “white guilt” by sole virtue of skin color, yoking with Democrat and socialist groups, serving as an editor for a Catholic magazine, coddling the transgender community, partnering with animal rights groups and referring to animal rights as a “gospel issue,” fighting for the right to build an Islamic mosque, or accepting donations from billionaire leftists like George Soros to advance open-borders and amnesty, one thing is for certain, Russell Moore’s positions are not Christian.
The healthiest thing the Southern Baptist Convention could do at this point is split. Conservatives need to come out.
