Russell Moore Leaves the Southern Baptist Convention

Southern Baptists are to a large degree a proxy for Christianity, at least the conservative branch. This includes conservative Catholics. Because of declining birth rates and the exodus of young people Southern Baptists have been declining at a rate of ten percent per year for several years. Now the more rational and moderate leader of the ethics organization within Southern Baptists and largely the face of the denomination has resigned to work for the magazine Christianity Today. 

This news comes the same week as the announcement a large group of prominent Republicans is leaving that party. Popular speaker and best selling author Beth Moore left the Southern Baptists. Why would all that be happening at once?

It's more complicated than this I'm sure, but at its core I believe is lying. Politics and religion require some shading of truth and some outright lying. So it will always be. But there are those who have a line they cannot cross. The line is now there for both some Baptists and Republicans.

Let's start with lower level lies. There is the one that says science agrees one fertilized cell is a human being. Aside from a small number of religious people in science this is not true. The one cell human being is a religious not a science idea, period. 

Also included in the lower level of lies involves gender. First is was the lie homosexual people had a goal of converting others. That was followed by the lie marriage between homosexual people harmed straight people and straight marriages. The current lie is allowing a person who is certain he/she is of a different gender than the one assigned at birth to change their gender is harmful to those people and to everyone else. In all of such lies there is a premise these are secular not merely religious matters. Secular laws are needed, it is said, to protect the public. When these laws are based on lies it is the lies themselves government should be protecting the public from.

For years life has gone on with so called moderate Republicans, Baptists and Catholics telling these lower level lies and thinking it was just fine. But then a lie came up they could not repeat: Trump won the election in 2020. 

When Trump repeats this lie a majority of Republicans and perhaps Baptists believe it is not a lie. The momentum of previous untruths swept them up in this one as well. But, a large swath of  Republicans and Baptists decided this last whooper was "a bridge too far." They looked for the door.

While Russell and the Republicans now exiting may think of themselves as more principled and martyrs for truth, they helped to set in motion the train of lies that is rolling over them. They did this by promoting the lower level lies about when a human life begins and that homosexuality is harmful to society. 

Shame on those who continue to promote the big election lie. Shame on those who promote the lower level lies as well.