Leading US theologian, ethicist, and preacher Russell D. Moore has responded to the abuse scandal that has recently rocked the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). Moore resigned from his post as president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the SBC last summer and quit the denomination completely at the same time.
His response was prompted by the findings of independent investigators Guidepost Solutions into the culture of cover-up, retaliation and stonewalling by the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee over sexual abuse within the church and the mistreatment of sexual abuse survivors, and the advocates and whistleblowers who stood with them. It emerged that SBC leaders had a secret list of more than 700 abusive pastors, but chose to protect the denomination from lawsuits ahead of protecting those in their churches from further abuse.
A few months after Moore left, a reporter stopped him when he was defending Southern Baptists about something and asked why – to which he said: ‘I love them, and 90% of them are great people.’ The reporter replied: ‘I think your math is off.’
