Christian conscience has left the SBC

The departure of Russell Moore — the most definitively Baptist person I’ve ever known — from the Southern Baptist Convention means that Christian conscience is no longer welcome at the top of the United States’ largest Protestant denomination.

Until recently, Moore was president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, the policy arm of the SBC. Two leaked letters written by Moore outline the reasons for his outrage and his resignation — a catalogue of racism, misogyny and cruelty by members of the denomination’s executive committee that confirms every stereotype of evangelical hypocrisy and bigotry.

Moore accuses SBC leaders of covering up cases of sexual abuse, of mocking Baptist women making claims of abuse, of trying to block the hiring of minorities, of making viciously racist comments, and of harassing and pressuring Moore to secure his silence. One incident provides the flavor: When Moore proposed that White Christians join with Black protesters in opposing police violence, Moore was told by an SBC leader that “only those with guns would prevent Black people from burning down all of our cities.”

We have Gospels written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. This is the gospel according to the Proud Boys.

Moore’s charges are serious and specific. The responses from the accused have been vague, smarmy and blustery. In a contest of credibility, there is no contest. Moore is a man of faith and conviction who spent years trying to defend a tradition he loves before feeling compelled to leave it. His opponents have betrayed the denomination and the Gospel they claim to serve.

As Moore notes, this sort of thing has produced a lot of exSouthern Baptists, as people have moved to other denominations or fallen out of faith entirely. But my main concern is not the attendance figures of a denomination. It is the role that Christians should be playing in our broader society, and the consequences when that is lost.

During every generation across two millennia, Christians have faced the question: Do they oppose and confront the worst elements of their culture, or do they reflect and amplify them?

In our time — and in just about every time — the most dangerous human failure is the dehumanization of others. To justify our callousness and cruelty, we tend to diminish the value and dignity of their object. It is dehumanization that results in racism. It is dehumanization that leads to sexual abuse and exploitation. It is dehumanization that breaks the bonds between citizens and turns disagreement into hatred and violence.

People of faith are not the only source of humanizing morality in our society. But they are called to stand for the idea that every human being is created equally valuable in the image of God. And when Christians cease to take this commitment seriously — when they give in to tribalism and prejudice — one major support beam for a just society is removed.

When the belief that all human beings bear God’s image is set loose, it introduces an unpredictable element in human affairs. It inserts a force from outside the normal churn of political interests — a conviction that can ricochet in unexpected social directions. It can turn an aristocrat into an abolitionist, or lead singing protesters across a bridge defended by police dogs, or cause a child to speak against a racial slur in a schoolyard.

This is what leaders of the SBC are squandering and dishonoring when they embrace bigotry, when they mock and betray the vulnerable, when they drive better men and women out of service to their denomination. When Christian leaders give in to their anger, ignorance and intolerance — as some leaders of the SBC have done — it dishonors their faith, disillusions the young and makes them contributors to our social crisis of denied humanity.

One of the best things about the Baptist tradition — especially as it rapidly expanded out of the Great Awakening in New England, and then the American South — is that it stood up for the dispossessed. While sharing the theological views of their neighbors, Baptists were often social outsiders, looked down upon by Congregationalists, Anglicans and Presbyterians. This led them to take the part of religious minorities, oppressed by state religious establishments, in demanding freedom of conscience.

Now, the SBC leadership seems to be embracing the worst of their tradition. And everyone is poorer because of it.