Russell Moore, the head of the Ethics and Religious and Liberty Commission (ERLC) who recently took a personal hit when he was torched by the SBC’s Executive Committee for the way he runs his organization, summarized by the phrase, “The direction of the ERLC is a significant source of division and creates a very real challenge to reversing CP [Cooperative Program] decline,” has left the ERLC and joined forces with the paragon of liberal virtue, Christianity Today.
Moore, fresh off the heels of trying to form a “serpent mating knot” (click at your own discretion) will lead a new ‘Public Theology Project’, according to President and CEO Tim Dalrymple, where he will be “devoted to cultivating a forward-looking, joyful, consistent gospel witness.”
It’s to the great shame of the Southern Baptist Convention that the devil went on his own accord, rather than being run of town on his ear. So long as they employed him, the SBC continued its woeful theological ineptitude, moral cowardice, and spiritual blindness as it kept on sliding deeper into spiritual destruction, rank heresy and (ironically considering its apparent goals) cultural irrelevance.
For years SBC cooperative dollars were used to platform Moore and false teachers like him. He left on his own terms rather than being tar and feathered (in the spirit of, course) and given over to public scorn by being made an example of what it means to be marked and avoided.
Of his new role, Moore said in a statement:
“Christianity Today has meant a great deal to me in my faith journey. I am thrilled to join the team and lead the Public Theology Project. We need to recover a theologically orthodox, intellectually credible, socially engaged, missiologically holistic, and generally connected witness for American evangelical Christianity. This is a critical moment, and the Public Theology Project is devoted toward that goal.”
Of course, the reason he’s going to Christianity Today is that he fits right in with them.
They released editorials calling Trump voters “jobless” and “uneducated,” with that same Editor-in-Chief writing that he didn’t even know any Trump Supporters (yes, he was the same guy who was a Roman Catholic for the last two years and no one there even cared).
Russell Moore, the head of the Ethics and Religious and Liberty Commission (ERLC) who recently took a personal hit when he was torched by the SBC’s Executive Committee for the way he runs his organization, summarized by the phrase, “Thedirection of the ERLC is a significant source of division and creates a very real challenge to reversing CP [Cooperative Program] decline,” continued his trend of sowing discord and division with a tweet about the Derek Chauvin guilty verdict.
Because Moore is a progressive and a Democrat he can’t help but bring race into it, even though the trial itself did not touch on it or make that a factor in the death of George Floyd.
In fact, by all accounts, there was absolutely nothing racist about the entire encounter, which would not stop him from noting in a later post that Floyd is a “symbol of the quest for racial justice in this country,” and that because Chauvin was found guilty, we can “work together for a new era of racial justice.” And yet we ask: what was racial about this justice?
We haven’t forgotten about this statement Moore and the who’s-who of SBC leaders signed back in 2020:
Furthermore, don’t believe Moore will make it a habit of celebrating our judicial system as ERLC head or supporting various jury decisions. He only celebrates certain kinds of decisions. He would never dare being caught speaking on cases like the Michael Brown or George Zimmerman case and declaring that “justice was rendered.”
You think the cowardly Moore, author of the laughably ironic The Courage to Stand would say that justice was rendered if Chauvin’s conviction is overturned on appeal – an act that ought to happen based on his lack of fair trial?
Appearing on PBS News hour, Russell Moore, President of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, explained that hesitancy over whether or not to take the vaccine yet, or even at all, is driven by conspiracy theorists on social media who are propagating disinformation.
In the brief interview, host John Yang asks Moore whether he himself is vaccinated- Moore confirms that he is- and is then questioned over whether or not the polling skepticism of white evangelicals to embrace the vaccine is the result of religious beliefs
“No. This doesn’t have anything to do with religious beliefs. It’s instead about the mistrust and distrust that’s evident in American society right now.
And plus I think some of it has to do with the fact that we’ve been isolated from one another in lots of ways for over the year, and much of the way that misinformation and disinformation gets combated is with people in conversation with one another.
And that’s why a lot of us are doing what we can to say a vaccination is not only something that’s acceptable for Christians, it’s something we ought to thank God that we have the technology for because it’s going to get us back to doing the things that we need to do quicker.”
"A vaccination is not only something that's acceptable for Christians. It's something we ought to thank God that we have the technology for because it's going to get us back to doing the things that we need to do quicker." —@drmoore
Pivoting to whether or not pastors should encourage congregants to get the vaccine, Moore explains some of them are, but that they ought to do more to help people understand what can be gained by getting an AstraZeneca or Moderna shot. Using it as a carrot to coax the evangelical turtle out of its shell, Moore suggests bytaking the vaccine pastors and congregants will be able to have all sorts of ministry opportunities they haven’t been able to have this past year.
“So, for instance, many evangelical churches have vacation Bible school every summer. To say “we will be able to gather together for vacation Bible school, to do mission trips, to do youth community outreach, and so forth.” And to minister to the elderly among us, who are often the most isolated in assisted living facilities and nursing homes and other places.
We want to get those grandmothers and grandfathers together with their grandchildren. And so I think talking about the positive aspects of vaccination is the way to go, rather than seeking to scold people.
A prominent Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) leader has garnered criticism for a selfie he took and posted to social media, with opponents describing the photo as a shameful act of self-promotion and an instance of “virtue twerking” – a term used to describe the most obscene and transparent cases of “virtue signaling.”
Russell Moore, the head of the Ethics and Religious and Liberty Commission (ERLC) recently took a personal hit when he was torched by the SBC’s Executive Committee for the way he runs his organization, summarized by the phrase, “thedirection of the ERLC is a significant source of division and creates a very real challenge to reversing CP [Cooperative Program] decline.”
Now, not content to merely note that he received his vaccine or perhaps show a picture of his paperwork, Russell Moore tweeted out a picture of his new prize. From inside his parked car. All alone. No one around. With the windows probably rolled up. In the image Moore wasn’t just wearing one mask but rather two – a necessary accessory if one is to properly broadcast evidence of one’s moral goodness.
This hobbit is vaccinated (round one, anyway).
Thankful for the astounding skill and speed of medical science to help rid us of this plague. pic.twitter.com/gNHelHmqfN
This is nothing surprising coming our favorite progressive Democrat. After all, there’s some virtue to signal, and it ain’t going to signal itself.
Moore also uploaded one of his WaPo articles, where he wrote last month:
We have all lost much during this pandemic. For Christians, one of the most awful aspects, apart from the deaths of those we love, is the isolation we have had from one another, along with our feelings of powerlessness to change the situation. The vaccines change that equation.
By getting vaccinated as soon as our time is called, we can actively work for what we have been praying for — churches filled with people, hugs in the church foyer, and singing loudly together the hymns we love.
This, of course, is only true for those who have been shut down like Moore’s church and other disobedient shepherds and congregations. For many, their church has been filled with people, hugs, services, and public worship this entire time, or with very brief intermission over the last year. For this reason, the vaccination has no role in determining whether not a church opens up and worships God, doing absolutely nothing to change any equation.
But if by doing so Moore can get a few eyeballs his way, signaling his virtue and ethical virtuosity with all the subtlety of a man running naked across a football field during halftime, then we expect he will do that very thing. We await the next picture of lying in bed at home, triple masked, with a newly installed particle air filter in the background that’s hashtagged #SafeAtHome and #GospelIssue.
(Ref. Char.) Reformation Charlotte has consistently argued that the Democrat party of Satan’s one and only purpose is to destroy morality rooted in a biblical worldview. The Democrat party’s platform reads like the antithesis to the Ten Commandments and there is nothing the party stands for that a Christian in good conscience could support. Nothing.
Yet, the never-Trump Christian “thought leaders” found in progressive outlets like The Gospel Coalition (TGC) have been relentless in their anti-Republican rhetoric arguing that the social justice promised by the Democrat party is well enough reason to vote Democrat and that faithful Christians can disagree cordially.
No, they can’t. And today, they are seeing why.
Joe Carter, a prominent contributor to The Gospel Coalition, a former staff member of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), and an associate pastor at David Platt’s McLean Bible Church in the Washington D.C. area has been nothing but clear in his anti-Trump rhetoric over the years.
Carter, like his former boss at the ERLC, Russell Moore, has spent countless hours trying to convince Christians that Donald Trump’s personal immorality gives Democrats — who want to murder children, force the celebration of homosexuality, and strip the Church of her religious freedoms — the moral high ground.
Russell Moore, before Trump was elected in 2016, spent an entire year writing, tweeting, and speaking to Christians about how immoral it would be to support Trump.
In an act of cowardice and pure hypocrisy, the head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s (SBC) Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), Russell Moore, recounts how in 2018 he uninvited Ravi Zacharias from speaking at MLK 50 on account of concerns that the late apologist had acted inappropriately in 2017 with Lori Anne Thompson after allegations emerged.
Moore explains that he initially invited him to speak on the implications of racial injustice for Christian apologetics, but when allegations against Zacharias emerged, he rescinded his offer.
When the first reports of the allegations about correspondence between Zacharias and a woman in Canada surfaced, I was alarmed not just by the allegations but by Zacharias’ response to them. He told me that he was falsely accused, and that these allegations were false—in general terms.
But I said to him and to his team that I failed to see how, if that were so, he could not definitively state that he had not had any sexual conversations in this way with a woman not his wife, and that he had never, as reports suggested, pleaded with her not to tell her husband or that he would kill himself. We canceled Zacharias from speaking at the event.
He was angered by that and made that very clear. He then had mutual friends call to seek to get me to change my mind. I said no. They assured me that time would show that Ravi was innocent of these charges—and I said that certainly could be true, and that I hoped it would be, but that I would not share a stage with him with what seemed to me to be evasive responses to very serious allegations.
Unsurprisingly, Moore and the ERLC don’t see the irony that the conference they uninvited him from was in support and celebration of Martin Luther King Jr., a notorious sex pervert, sex trafficker, and serial sexual abuser.
But in typical Russell Moore style, the man who wrote the book Courage to Stand doesn’t care about any of that. Instead, he leverages the recent revelations to say, “Look how awesome we were, when we uninvited him in secret and didn’t tell anyone about it. Aren’t we brave and courageous?”
We are a little surprised he hasn’t broken his hand already, for how often and how hard he’s patting himself on the back over this one.
Russell Moore had the courage to uninvite him privately and not tell anyone about it, but not the courage to stand with the victim and tell the world about it publicly. This would have given it more scrutiny and attention, and stop Ravi’s sexual predations far sooner, as he was sexting women and soliciting right up to his death. Moore writes:
It’s a bit surreal to be angry at a dead man, but many of us are—as well as at those who empowered him. We have seen so often this pattern, with lives destroyed all along the way. But it’s not enough to be angry. We should ask why this continues to happen.
Moore and the ERLC did in fact empower and enable him. They could have used their clout to expose him and bring it all to the forefront while he was still alive. These things “continue to happen” because people in power like Moore do nothing to stop it when given the opportunity.
In many ways, he is like the Levite in Luke 10. He believed the Canadian woman on the side of the road was beaten, that there was credible evidence of the injuries, and he even had the opportunity to directly question the “thieves” about it. He noticed the blood on their knuckles and the extra weight of their coin purses. But he chose to leave her and her reputation for dead and resolve not to associate further with the thieves.
If they had any true leadership and intestinal fortitude, they could have made a statement back in 2018 which said:
Given the very serious allegations against Ravi, we have uninvited him from MLK 50. It is very clear to us that his recounting of events do not make sense and are not internally consistent.
Furthermore, when we questioned him about it, he ‘gave evasive responses to our questions’ and ‘could not definitively state that he had not had any sexual conversations in this way with a woman not his wife.’
For these reasons and others, such as the ‘suicide email,’ everything about the story indicates the allegations have weight and merit, and are worth pursuing. We call upon RZIM to do a full, independent investigation to respond to what are very serious charges, and until they do so, we encourage all Southern Baptist churches to refuse to work with or partner with him or his ministry.
But that would have been too much, and may have highlighted the record of the sexual deviancy of one Martin Luther King Jr., which they do not want to talk about. One cannot be seen taking a stand and going hard on Ravi and not King himself, especially at a conference honoring the latter.
Instead, we get multiple articles and Moore high-fiving himself for doing the bare minimum.
Actually, no. The bare minimum would have been reaching out to Lori Anne Thompson.
Moore did the bare minimum to protect himself and the reputation of his conference.
(Reformation Charlotte) The stupidity of the woke movement is boundless. It’s a movement rooted in anti-white culture and is designed to destroy Western Civilization by assigning ill motives to “whiteness” and then labeling “whiteness” as the enemy of all other cultures. It’s a demonic movement that only those who are bound in slavery to an ideology apart from God can embrace. It’s absurd, to say the least.
But, where one would not assume that this ridiculous chicanery would be found would be in the Church, particularly, a supposedly conservative denomination like the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). But we all know the SBC is, for the most part, no longer conservative, thanks to the likes of Russell Moore, head of the denomination’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC).
Recently, a video surfaced from a panel discussion — featuring Trillia Newbell of the ERLC and others — that was held a few months ago sponsored by the ERLC where Jesus was praised and the conservative culture, like the anti-abortion and pro-family movement, was lauded.
No, just kidding. That wasn’t discussed at all. What was discussed…
The Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee task force charged with studying and reviewing the effectiveness of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) released their findings yesterday, damning the embattled organization with faint praise for a bit of support (or at least tolerance) engendered to them by a handful of churches, but overall noting them to be “a source of significant distraction from the Great Commission work of Southern Baptists.”
The full report can be accessed here and all the appendices here. In the report, the committee describes how the ERLC has been by and large obstreperous and uncooperative throughout the review and investigation.
Commissioned early last year, the task force sought to assess “whether the actions of the [ERLC] and its leadership are affecting Cooperative Program giving or the further advancement of the Cooperative Program” by seeking to discover to what degree the ERLC’s positions and President Russell Moore’s statements and actions have been the cause of Churches withholding their funding, which has been in decline. (In SBC Churches, they all give a portion of tithes and offerings so that they can be pooled together in a way that maximizes their impact, with some doing to their missions board, some funding ERLC, some helping fund post-secondary education, etc.)
Mike Stone, chairman of the task force and former Executive Committee chairman explained that the report was not “based on anecdotes or third-hand reports. It is based, almost exclusively, on documented facts received from the chief executive officers of various state conventions.” He further writes:
The task force sought to find objective verifiable facts…and based on the statistical information we received, the direction of the ERLC is a significant source of division and creates a very real challenge to reversing CP decline.
This sentiment is echoed by leader of a large state convention who explains that “The ERLC has been a stumbling block not worth the mission dollar investment.”
The task force sent out a host of questionnaires to all of the SBC’s state conventions, and while a minority of them responded, those that did represent 60% of the SBC’s 47,000 churches that gave 74% of Cooperative funds.
While some of the state executives who responded “reported little to no negative effect from the ministry of the ERLC,” the report notes that “No state convention reported data that any church had verifiably increased Cooperative Program support because of an appreciation for the ERLC.”
In contrast, several state executives reported many instances of churches either reducing their giving or flat out refusing to give any funds at all, along with withdrawing from the state and/or national conventions on account or the ERLC, citing the actions and directions of the ERLC and Russell Moore as a reason for doing so. They write:
One state convention reported that more than 250 churches are considering withholding or negatively designating funds or have already done so. This number represents a significant percentage of the churches currently in friendly cooperation with that state convention.
Some churches are considering a complete withdrawal from the SBC because of the belief that the national convention is moving in a liberal direction. The ERLC is listed as one of those concerns. The state convention reported that serious concerns about the ERLC exist with 10 of the top 30 CP-giving churches, potentially impacting a total of $2,448,000 from those 10 churches alone.
and
Another state convention verified that $1,147,000 has been withheld due to the ERLC. Based on communications with other churches considering the same approach, the state executive estimated that $1,500,000 of Cooperative Program giving is in jeopardy in the state.
As far as what exactly the ERLC and Russell Moore has done that has the people so vexed, they cite these concerns:
The open opposition of a candidate for president of the United States
The accusation of receiving funding from an organization with ties to George Soros
Amicus brief in support of a New Jersey mosque
That the ERLC is not available or responsive
ERLC stance on immigration
Silence on certain issues including timely public support for the religious liberty of California churches during the COVID-19 pandemic
The appearance by a recently departed senior staffer on an online panel sponsored by the Joe Biden campaign, contributing to perceptions of a leftward political drift.
Dr. Moore’s stated support of attending homosexual wedding showers and receptions
Disrespectful and condescending responses to the questions of messengers. Repeatedly noted was the response given to Pastor John Wofford of Armorel Baptist Church at the 2016 annual meeting.
That conservative political figures are criticized more frequently and more harshly than moderate to liberal figures
These of course are all true and we have covered them at length here.
The report also dedicates a large portion to the amicus brief in McRaney v North American Mission Board – how it was botched, was unacceptably handled, was the source of friction between the ERLC and the task force, and was cited by many pastors as a cagey, stupid thing that was done that contributed to the breakdown of confidence and trust in the ERLC.
Summarizing their findings, the task force writes:
…that the current perception of the leadership and direction of the ERLC by many Southern Baptists is a substantial impediment to the growth of the Cooperative Program. Without quick and significant changes in that perception, the findings suggest the potential for a measurable decline in the near future and beyond.
They conclude with a series of recommendations, which amount to “tell Moore to stop popping off about his never-Trumpism or publicly opposing political candidates for office. Focus your message on where the SBC and BF&M2K has already spoken.
Stop lying, stop being so secretive, inaccessible, and hard to reach. Come up with a plan to understand how you’re contributing to disunity within the ranks and what steps you can take to mitigate that, and let us vet your amicus briefs so that you don’t embarrass us again and show you don’t know what you’re doing.
As the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) grapples with sex-abuse scandals and pledges to do more, the SBC Credentials Committee is in the process of botching a high-profile case right before our eyes, behaving in a scandalously uncaring way, outright lying, obfuscating, and making further victims of the people they are supposed to be investigating.
THE BACKROUND
In 1998, a 17-year-old teenager named Jules Woodson was sexually abused by 22-year-old Andy Savage, the former youth pastor of Woodlands Parkway Baptist Church, now known as StoneBridge Church. This occurred after building up a relationship with her and grooming her to be receptive to his sexual advances. (Longer story here)
After the incident, she reported it to the Associate Pastor Larry Cotton. He tried to gauge how ‘complicit’ she was in the abuse, suggesting she may have been a willing participant in it, but ultimately chose to tell Senior Pastor Steve Bradley, about it and that the church would handle it.
They never did.
No further action was taken by the Church. Bradley did not go to the police, seeking to handle it “in house” and did not report it, as was his legal and fiduciary duty. Because of this, Andy Savage remained on staff and still lead Youth group for months after that.
Seeing that nothing was being done and no further actions were being taken, Woodson told her story to her female discipleship group, at this point emotionally distraught and hurting badly. With the information now out, it resulted in Savage leaving, with rumors swirling that perhaps he kissed a girl, but that it wasn’t that big of a deal and many were upset that he was going.
Woodson explains, “The church, however, never came out with an official statement addressing what had happened and/or what was being done about it. Instead, they held a going-away reception for Andy at the church in which he was allowed to simply say that he had made a poor decision and that it was time for him to move on from our church.”
In fact, years later the pastors and the deacons at the church, including Steve Bradley, contacted Woodson’s parents and asked if they would be ok to bring Andy Savage back on staff – a request the parents patently refused.
Lest anyone doubt the veracity of the story, the associate Pastor Larry Cotton eventually moved on to a new church. After allegations of his involvement in mishandling the case, the church took the allegations seriously and put him on leave. He resigned from the pastorate shortly thereafter, releasing a statement, confirming that the events happened as described, and expressing regret at how it was handled and that he should have gone to the police.
Facing his own pressure, Savage was forced to address the sex crime from the pulpit at the new church he moved on to, Highpoint Church, where he minimized his actions, exaggerated his response, and kept on framing it as “an incident that happened 20-plus years ago.” Because of the statute of limitations, he cannot be charged. Facing sustained pressure, he later resigned from the church, eventually acknowledging that his actions in the non-consensual sexual encounter were an “abuse of power.”
THE UNCARING SHEPHERD
Now comes the time of reckoning for Senior Pastor Steve Bradley, still the pastor of Stonebridge Church decades later.
Woodson has reached out multiple times to Bradley, who has steadfastly refused to respond to her or even acknowledge her.
The only public statement Bradley has ever made is a comment in the Houston Chronicle, saying that the Church was “heartbroken 20 years ago when this happened and we remain heartbroken,” but was clear that it is “simply not accurate” to say “that I or anyone else on the staff at StoneBridge Church participated in a conspiracy to cover-up this sexual misconduct.”
So heartbroken that he has refused to talk to her or contact her in any way, shape, or form, despite her reaching out to him multiple times across multiple channels?
Again, he did not report it to the police, did not tell the congregation the nature of it, sought to keep him on, and sought to bring him back after he acts were exposed.
In 2019 she sent this letter to Bradley, which he has not responded to or acknowledged (please click the link to read in full), where she details the hurt she’s experienced that he’s never once contacted her or responded to her, despite the story going national. She says:
Your lack of compassion towards me as I have tried to seek closure and healing for the physical, emotional, and spiritual abuse I suffered as a member of your congregation has been reprehensible. This was my church and you, Larry, and Andy were my pastors and spiritual leaders…I trusted you all. You have no idea the despair, isolation, and self-devastation I’ve experienced because I was thrown under the bus, not just for Andy’s sake, but for your sake, and the reputation of the church.”
She asks him some questions that she has been struggling with for for a long time:
Why did you not immediately call the police when you learned of my abuse?
Were you/are you aware that in the state of Texas, clergy are mandated reporters of child sexual abuse?
Why did you not immediately pull Andy from his position on staff when I first reported my abuse?
Why did you allow Andy to resign instead of firing him?
Why were you not transparent and honest with the congregation that Andy had sexually abused a minor in the youth group?
Why did you, nor anyone on staff, ever reach out to me after I reported the abuse to offer support, help, or to ask me what I wanted and needed?
Why did you allow and/or think it was appropriate to throw Andy a going away party at the church?
And then she makes one final plea:
Though you have refused to respond to other people’s attempts to dialogue with you regarding the ways you have mishandled my abuse, my prayer is that by reaching out to you personally, you will finally choose to handle things differently. I have been deeply wounded by your words and actions from 20 years ago and continuing to this day. I sincerely request that you respond to my inquiries not only with honesty but with empathy as well.
Bradley never answered.
THE CREDENTIALS COMMITTEE
In 2019, the Southern Baptist Convention put on the Caring Well conference. This was done with the stated goal of responding to and hearing from sexual abuse survivors, along with announcing the formation of a new branch of the Credentials Committee (CC) dedicated to dealing with allegations of sexual abuse. JD Greear wept tears from the stage, his voice shaky, promising to do better.
They told survivors they wanted to hear their stories, and that they could trust the SBC would respond accordingly, with the ERLC’s Russell Moore saying, “We think this is going to be a hugely beneficial move in terms of empowering Southern Baptists to act with accountability and transparency on these matters.”
Despite Jules Woodson being arguably the most well-known face of abuse in the evangelical church and in the SBC, she was not invited to speak.
Instead, in keeping with the SBC’s 11th Commandment, all the women brought on stage did not report their abuser and did not name them. One wasn’t even a member of the SBC, but rather the OPC. In short, they didn’t invite anyone who reported their Baptist abuser.
After the announcement of the new committee, Woodson submitted her case, being one of the most visible SBC victims. After all, two pastors had to resign over what happened to her, with one of them acknowledging his complicity in the cover-up. For this reason, she was sure they would look into it. She got an email back saying that they had received her email, and inquired if she had further questions.
Upon hearing that the CC was investigating 16 Churches, Jules Woodson asked if Stonebridge and Steve Bradley were on that list. She received a response back from Christy Peters, telling her that the CC isn’t designed to “investigate” but rather “inquire,” and that the status of an ‘investigation’ was private, even to those reporting. It ended with Peters inviting her to submit any churches she feels she must. Which she had already done.
This revelation confirms that the Credentials Committee is a bureaucratic nightmare, with the one submitting not even being told if they plan to do anything with his/her information, or to what degree they have or will follow up. Furthermore, they are essentially toothless when it comes to what power they wield and what change they can bring about, due to the constraints of their purpose. In an article on the ERLC website: A guide to understanding the Credentials Committee proposal, this is made plain.
A year passes.
Nothing.
She does not hear from them and no one contacts her about it.
Woodson assumes that nothing came out of it, with no much time passing and no follow-up. It wouldn’t take a whole year to ascertain the truth here, would it, with so much ink being spilled about it?
THE DAMNABLE LETTER
On November 16, a year after her submission, 2020, Jules Woodson received the following letter from Mike Lawson, chair of the Credentials Committee.
Parts bolded by us.
Dear Ms. Woodson,
The Credentials Committee desires to reach out to you personally and inform you of our decision regarding Stonebridge Church. As we have not been able to connect via phone or Zoom, please receive this letter in the spirit from which it was drafted: to sincerely thank you and inform you. Thank you for your patience as we have worked and prayed our way through this process.
First, we wish to thank you. Thank you for being willing to share your story and for drawing attention to the need for churches to make an intentional effort to prevent abuse and to care well for victims of sexual abuse. Thank you for the effort it took to provide us with all the information regarding your abuse. It helped provide an understanding of what you experienced and continue to face as a result. We want you to know that we read and grieved over the information available to us including: your blog, articles, and your interview with the New York Times that we watched in its entirety. We prayed for you and all the victims, and, more recently, for you and your mother as you care for her in these difficult days. Thank you, for your boldness and courage in coming forward with your story.We believe that you and others like you are making a difference in how churches respond to reports of sexual abuse and helping them create intentional policies and practices that will help prevent such things in the future.
Your story has been a particular force in transformative change at Stonebridge Church. In recent years, they have taken significant and extensive steps to improve policies, practices, and procedures to better serve their people. These steps are set up to offer increased protections and improved responses to reports.
Our committee has considered the information available to us regarding StoneBridge Church’s relationship with the Southern Baptist Convention. Our committee’s assignment as outlined in SBC Bylaw 8[1], is to consider the current relationship between a church and the Convention. Neither our committee nor the Southern Baptist Convention has any authority over another Baptist body as stated in Article IV [2] of the SBC Constitution. This committee’s role is to determine if a church is in friendly cooperation with the Convention and make a recommendation to the Executive Committee when we determine a church is not currently in friendly cooperation with the Convention as described in Article III [3] of the SBC Constitution. At this time, we do not have any information that causes us to conclude that the church does not have a faith and practice which closely identifies with the Convention’s adopted statement of faith, and we have determined that StoneBridge Church be removed from inquiry.
While the nine of us on this committee have a very limited and specific task, we care about you and other survivors. We requested and have been granted access to trauma-informed counselors. If you think they might be of any help to you as you continue your healing journey, we will gladly connect you to them. We know that receiving this information may be difficult, and we are sorry for any pain it may cause.
Sincerely, The SBC Credentials Committee
We here at Protestia see a few things worthy of mention. The CC claimed to have “tried” to contact Jules Woodson via phone and Zoom, yet Jules has NO record of any such attempt. No one called her. No one questioned her further. No one called to get more details or information. Nothing.
Furthermore, the committee had her email address from when she submitted her grievance and corresponded with Christy Peters, and yet Woodson received no emails. That they would not speak to her about this at all is unconscionable.
The Committee further stated that they read her blog, yet she has no blog.
They affirm that Stonebridge has been “transformed” due to her story, and yet the Pastor has refused to talk to her or acknowledge it and the SBC’s most famous victim. All this while protesting they did not cover up the sexual abuse, despite that being both demonstrably and factually false. How is refusing to speak to or acknowledge victims evidence of “transformation”?
Why should anyone believe Stonebridge would handle new sex-abuse claims in a serious manner, rather than just cover them up, if to this day the Senior Pastor insisted that they did nothing wrong 20 years ago? He was legally obligated to report it to the police and he buried it instead.
Ultimately the Credential Committee is saying that one can be in “cooperation with the SBC” despite having a proven track record of permitting and covering up sexual abuse, so long as they affirm the Baptist Faith and Message 2000. At this point it seems clear that there is no sexual abuse case that could be reported to the Committee that would result in a church being declared not in friendly co-operation with the convention.
THE NEWEST INFORMATION
Jules Woodson shared this on Twitter last week., about her ongoing issues with the Credentials Committee.
I am so livid at the SBC Credentials Committee right now I could scream!!!
Yesterday, a fellow advocate and friend, @writer_dee, spoke with Mike Lawson and Stacey Bramlett via a Zoom meeting on my behalf. One of the purposes for the meeting was to address their massive failures regarding my submission…Specifically their lack of communication and failure to speak with me.
Stacey made a point to say that their decision is final…that it’s too late to go back and change anything. I find this to be extremely disturbing considering they really don’t seem to know what they are doing. Remember, they never once made an effort to speak with me regarding my submission even though they claimed to have done so!!!
What training and/or guidance do they have in evaluating abuse in the church and cover-up, and how it relates to a church being in good standing with the SBC, as well as communicating/listening to survivors?
They then proceeded to tell Dee Ann that the reason they had such difficulty in making a decision regarding Stonebridge was because they never received an actual submission from me, it came from someone else so their hands were tied, so to speak.
This is completely false as well. I personally sent a submission by mail and received an email a short time later that confirmed they received my submission. [Editor’s Note. See included picture.]
After the call Mike sends a short email to Dee Ann stating…’Thank you for your time. I spoke in error. It was in fact Jules who submitted to the Credentials Committee. My apologies.’
Is this a joke?!?! They had just spent all this time explaining to Dee Ann about how they were put in an ‘awkward position’ regarding Stonebridge yet their entire statement was based on erroneous information as it WAS me who presented the request.
They further admitted to basing their decision on the information they received after speaking with the church, yet they never once made an effort to speak with me!! Are you kidding??? They trust the church and pastor that covered up my abuse when I originally reported and who continues to deny wrongdoing or respond to my questions to this day???
Even after the Associate Pastor has admitted it was abuse – that it should have been reported to the police, and has since stepped down from any position of authority in his current church?
In summary, the SBC Credentials Committee is a total sham. They are NOT a safe resource for ANY survivor!!! They have lied on multiple occasions. They don’t know their head from their ass and certainly can’t keep their stories straight. They have ZERO training in how to do their jobs in any capacity and perhaps don’t even know what their job is. SBC YOU MUST DO BETTER!!!
This is a terrible injustice. The Credentials Committee has botched and mishandled this case for over a year now, and they are continuing to drop the ball. Not only dropping it, but punting it clear out of sight. We pray it’s out of incompetence and not out of maliciousness, but at the rate it’s going, we can’t be sure.
What we do know, is if this is how they are going to handle things they CANNOT be trusted with other victims and other churches and ought to be thoroughly and publicly repudiated.
We ask that you retweet this article and tag all these individuals, as well as anyone else you can think of, and keep on doing it until they listen.
Russell Moore is nothing if not predictable. Moore has never been one to pass up an opportunity to slander and deride the bride of Christ. We can further add his record of standing silently while the world attacks the church. But the trifecta comes with his efforts to elevate himself at the expense of actual Christians, solidifying his position as a false prophet – little more than a court jester for secular elites by claiming to speak for God when he clearly does not know Him.
A recent interview with the Christian Post cited an earlier Time magazine article where Moore claimed, “I don’t know a single family that’s not been divided over President Trump, and politics generally. I don’t know a single church that hasn’t been”. This son of the Devil followed this by claiming that “the church” needs to “recover the credibility of our witness“. One cannot help but speculate that this is due to their unwilling to support the baby-murderer currently residing in the White House.
Why? Because Russell Moore and his ilk are pariahs to faithful Christian families and churches. Simply put, Moore only hangs out with unfaithful, morally (or spiritually) bankrupt people like Al Mohler, Matthew Hall, or the “take the money and run” shakedown-clown Dwight McKissic. These chuckleheads are divided over Trump, Critical Race Theory, and the coronavirus-based persecution of the church because (like other unregenerate souls) of their inability to correctly divide and apply the Word of God (2 Timothy 2:15) as it speaks into the issues of the day.
Faithful Christians – under the ministry of the Holy Spirit – rightly understand that there is no comparison between the Trump and Biden platforms. One employs a crass, sinful man who happens to have actively and provably supported free speech and religious liberty, protected unborn life and the biblical understanding of biological gender, and advanced policies that left more money in the pockets of Americans to be used as our consciences and beliefs dictate. The other candidate – now “president” – leads a political party that loves what God hates and hates what God loves. And they have a good and faithful servant in lifelong Democrat and fake Christian Russell Moore.
In continuing to employ this servant of the devil, the SBC continues its woeful theological ineptitude, moral cowardice, and spiritual blindness as it continues to slide deeper into spiritual destruction, rank heresy and (ironically considering its apparent goals) cultural irrelevance. If you are a member of an SBC church, you must understand that your cooperative dollars are (sadly) being used to platform Moore and false teachers like him.
