MESQUITE, Nev. — President Biden’s sudden exit from the presidential race sparked 24 hours of controversy in an unlikely place: the Southern Baptist Conference, America’s largest Protestant denomination — usually an necessary voting bloc in shut elections.
Rev. Kevin Smith, board chair of the 13-million-member group’s Ethics and Spiritual Liberty Fee — its Washington-focused public-policy arm — mentioned Monday it had fired Brent Leatherwood because the panel’s president after lauding Biden’s exit as “selfless.”
A cryptic Monday afternoon assertion mentioned extra particulars could be launched in mid-September when the ERLC board meets in Nashville: “In accordance with our bylaws, the chief committee has eliminated Brent Leatherwood as president.”
Hypothesis swirled that Leatherwood, a former Tennessee Republican Celebration govt director, was sacked after publishing feedback praising Biden’s alternative in a column for the denomination’s information service and elsewhere.
Leatherwood mentioned Biden “made the appropriate resolution for the nation,” with dropping out “an acknowledgment of each one’s personal limits and political actuality.” On the similar time, the Baptist chief mentioned a Kamala Harris-led ticket would “be trigger for appreciable concern amongst pro-life advocates and those that maintain to a biblical definition of marriage.”
Leatherwood has three kids who attended Nashville’s Covenant College in 2023 when a former pupil who recognized as transgender shot and killed three kids and three adults. He later supported laws in Tennessee eradicating firearms from those that might hurt themselves or others.
On Tuesday morning, the ERLC issued a information launch stating Smith’s motion was invalid, taken and not using a board vote — and Leatherwood stays the ERLC chief.
For his half, Smith informed the denomination’s information company, “I used to be satisfied in my thoughts that we had a consensus to take away Brent Leatherwood because the president of the ERLC. It’s a delicate matter and, in an effort to take care of it expeditiously, I acted in good religion however and not using a formal vote of the Government Committee. This was an error on my half, and I settle for full accountability.”
An internet apology Smith tweeted Tuesday morning was subsequently eliminated.
Individually, Leatherwood posted his due to social media Tuesday: “I deeply admire everybody who has reached out, particularly our trustees who had been completely bewildered at what happened yesterday and jumped in to set the file straight.”
An ERLC spokeswoman informed The Submit Leatherwood was concerned in off-site conferences Tuesday and unavailable to remark.
Inside machinations in a church’s public-policy committee would usually be of little normal curiosity, however the Southern Baptists stay an influential voice in American Protestantism regardless of shedding 3.3 million members since 2006, when the rolls peaked at 16.3 million.
Within the swing state of Georgia, Pew Analysis Heart mentioned, 15% of adults are Southern Baptists, and 64% of adults say faith is “essential” of their lives.
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