“Hands Up, Don’t Shoot!” Ed Litton Plays the Race Card, Announces He Will Resign as SBC President After Eight Months of Disgrace and Shame

How stupid does Ed Litton think Southern Baptists are? Apparently, he thinks we are stupid enough to not notice the racial parachute he is using to avoid responsibility for his unrepentant sin and the shame he has brought to the SBC.

In an unlisted Youtube video on his church’s channel, current Southern Baptist President Ed Litton announced that a newly planned “racial reconciliation” initiative will necessitate him stepping down as president of the Southern Baptist Convention after only one year. The tradition is for an SBC president to serve for two years.

Litton’s announcement follows a tumultuous partial term as SBC president, which began with the plagiarism scandal now known as #sermongate, where Reformation Charlotte (followed by other websites) exposed the fact that Litton had been stealing whole sermons from other pastors – most notably previous SBC President J.D. Greear. Litton was found to have lifted dozens if not hundreds of sermons, and his church was found to have pulled 140 videos down from their YouTube channel to hide from further investigation. Litton’s Redemption Church (First Baptist Church of North Mobile before Litton changed it to a new brand name) was also found to have been advocating the trinitarian heresy known as partialism, which teaches that God exists in three parts rather than three Persons, although this may have been the result of Redemption’s statement of faith being yet another thing Litton clearly lifted from other sources.

Litton was also found to be co-preaching with his wife Kathy in clear violation of the biblical instruction to not allow women to teach or exercise authority over men in the church.

In subsequent investigations by Protestia in cooperation with many other discernment websites and ministers, it was discovered that Greear and many other well-known pastors (including several that Litton had stolen from) were buying sermons from Docent Research Group and preaching the sermons as if they had spent time in prayer and study themselves. This full expose can be found here, and a shorter summary here.

In his typically gospel-confusing fashion of mixing the great commission with the worldly definition of racial reconciliation, Litton revealed the false origins of his commitment to race-based gospel ministry:

And I want to share something else that makes me excited about our convention. Roughly eight years ago, God began doing something very special in my own life. After the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri leaders in my own city, Mobile, Alabama, which is the heart of the Deep South realized that the Christians in our community had not taken nearly enough action to bridge the racial divide that is in our city and has existed for many years. So a group of us began meeting together. We did this twice a month having lunch at a local car dealership conference room. Pastors, business owners, community leaders, some black and some white, some Latino. And through all of that God birthed something very amazing. Not only has our group continued to meet together and added to our number, but we’ve begun to take the gospel-centered message of reconciliation into our community. We’ve had the opportunity to speak with one voice when tragedy has struck Mobile. And we’ve continued our efforts to shrink the racial divide that exists in our community.

As a reminder, the Michael Brown shooting was a result of Brown being caught in the act of robbing a convenience store and attempting to take a police officer’s gun when the officer questioned him. Due to false statements (including the infamous “hands up, don’t shoot”) that were later proven to be blatant lies, Ferguson was beset by months of violent unrest that resulted in civilians and police being injured, millions of dollars in damage due to looting and vandalism, and needless racial animosity all over the country.

This incident, which Ed Litton experienced entirely through false news coverage and Democrat political opportunism, convinced him racial reconciliation was a primary component of the Great Commission. Litton linked himself to racial reconciliation based on an event that was proved to have nothing to do with racism.

Litton made a small admission of guilt for his unabashed sermon stealing, before downplaying the unrepentant sin as a mere distraction:

As I have previously stated, I take responsibility for my own failures and shortcomings, for mistakes I’ve made in the preparation and delivery of particular sermons. But we are at a critical moment. And I believe that nothing should distract us from what lies ahead.

Before yet again characterizing the SBC as a haven for sexual abuse and racism:

We must not fail to reckon with our past mistakes, but we must commit to seeking for a better future where racism and prejudices are relics of the past, and our churches are safe places for survivors and welcoming and wanting people of all ethnicities.

Ed Litton is not qualified to be the president of the SBC, much less a pastor. His election was a result of political chicanery like Cooperative Program funds being used to import SBC employees to vote for him in 2021, “October surprises” like the ambushing of Mike Stone in the halls of the Music City Center, and bolstered by SBC seminary presidents actively campaigning for him during the voting process. His tenure has been a perfect encapsulation of everything worldly, cowardly, and corrupt in the Southern Baptist Convention. While we are glad to see him leaving the position, the fact that it is happening absent any real repentance indicates nothing will change within the severely damaged and corrupt Southern Baptist Convention.

About Author

David Morrill

See author's posts