On July 31, Brent Leatherwood resigned his position as the leader of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). He lasted about four years in all, which is pretty good for an SBC leader with as many hardliner enemies as he had. And oh yes, they wanted him gone. Just as they drove out his even-more-hated predecessor Russell Moore, they finally got their way. It’s a rare W for a faction that is struggling to maintain its control over a denomination whose flocks seem less and less interested in what their hardliners want.
Today, let’s check out Leatherwood’s resignation letter—and speculate about just what kind of victory his decision truly is for his enemies.
(This post and its audio ‘cast first went live on Patreon on 8/8/2025. They’re both available now!)
SITUATION REPORT: A rare victory for SBC hardliners as Brent Leatherwood resigns
On July 31, Brent Leatherwood stepped down from his short-lived role as the leader of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). Between his interim and official president roles, he lasted about four years. That isn’t too bad, considering the denomination’s hardliners wanted him gone almost from the start.
Those hardliners, of a faction I call the Old Guard, are celebrating Leatherwood’s departure. They’re falsely accusing him of being “progressive” and the lapdog of “DC elites,” as if their own leaders weren’t constantly currying favor and swanning around with Republicans in Congress. It’s an unseemly and shameful display of pure secular tribalism, especially coming from a faction that prides itself on being more Jesusy than any other group on Earth.
SBC hardliners keep asserting that Brent Leatherwood did not adequately represent the interests of SBC members. But nothing could be further from the truth.
The Old Guard used to love the ERLC
Once upon a time, the ERLC was an Old Guard playground. Started in 1953 as the Christian Life Commission, the denomination’s leaders renamed it in 1997 to be more in keeping with their culture-warrior ethos and political ambitions. It became the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, which is Christianese for abuse-shielding and religious overreach.
The ERLC’s best-known leader years ago was Richard Land. He served as its president from 1988 to 2013 (so they hired him before even the rename). Richard Land was a good ole boy who went all in on the Conservative Resurgence. He was even a “close friend” and colleague of Paige Patterson, one of that movement’s chief architects. In 2001, George W. “Dubya” Bush even appointed Land to his U.S. Commission on Religious Freedom!
It’s hard to imagine someone more “DC elite” than Richard Land.
But Land’s own inability to read the evolving political room doomed him. In early 2012, he publicly accused Barack Obama of using Trayvon Martin’s death for his own political ends. Perhaps even worse, those accusations weren’t even Land’s own words. He’d plagiarized them almost one-for-one. The entire affair became a huge scandal within the SBC.
Though Land apologized later on for “any hurt or misunderstanding,” the damage—to both him and the ERLC—was already done. After his so-called retirement in 2013, he immediately accepted a job with a non-SBC seminary. Finally, in 2021, he became the Executive Editor for Christian Post.
(I love the irony of Land losing his job over lies about Obama and Martin. He once supported evangelicals’ approved substitute for open, vocal racism, which they call “racial reconciliation.” Black Southern Baptists do not appear to be fooled by it.)
The ERLC goes for a rebound fling
After that utter fiasco, the SBC’s leaders wanted a replacement who’d undo Land’s wreckage. They chose Russell Moore. And my goodness, Russell Moore was a real rebound fling. He wasn’t what they wanted at all.
But the hardliners didn’t know that right away. They initially praised him for his theological training and media savvy. Alas for them, he almost immediately slammed their attempted redefinition of religious liberty. Then, even worse, he came out swinging in 2015 against evangelicals’ idolization of Donald Trump. He correctly identified that idolization as evangelicals’ very own version of moral relativism. Then for good measure, he correctly predicted that this love affair would end evangelicals’ credibility as moral authorities.
And worst of all, he refused to leave even after the Old Guard used its most potent Mean Girl ostracism techniques to drive him away. They tried everything, too, from public humiliation to condemnation by high-ranking Republicans to simply lying about him. When he finally left in 2021, it was on his own terms—and he fired some potent shots to cover his retreat by leaking confidential letters revealing those same SBC leaders’ hypocrisy.
So obviously, SBC leaders wanted a new rebound fling to replace their rebound-fling-gone-awry. This time, they wanted to do it right.
The Old Guard’s about-face with Brent Leatherwood
After Moore’s drama-filled, messy exit, Southern Baptist leaders clearly hoped their next pick would make everyone happy.
At first, the Old Guard was pleased as punch with Brent Leatherwood, too, just as they had been years earlier with Russell Moore. They must have had high hopes for him. After all, he had a perfect background. He used to lead the Tennessee Republican Party and held other Republican roles. He’d also previously served as the ERLC’s Chief of Staff.
Most importantly, at the time of his selection Leatherwood served as the ERLC’s interim president after Moore left. So the ERLC felt completely comfortable selecting him to be their next leader. When he offered a public statement about his selection, he stressed that his tenure would be “rooted in Scripture and guided by the Baptist Faith and Message.” The Old Guard must have been thrilled: they idolize this creed, abbreviated BFM or BFM2K (because SBC leadership adopted it in 2000). Russell Moore and Richard Land both praised him as “brilliant, godly, brave, and Christlike.”
That adoration didn’t last for the Old Guard.
Very quickly, they discovered that Leatherwood wasn’t all that different from Moore. Their praise turned to condemnation faster than a Nice Guy’s flirting turns to control-grabs and insults.
He immediately annoyed the Old Guard by refusing to explicitly tell Southern Baptists who they should vote for in the 2022 elections. Also in 2022, he refused to agree with Old Guard desires to criminalize abortion care for everyone involved, including any women seeking it. That refusal infuriated the hardliners. An Old Guard Leader, Tom Ascol, personally insulted Leatherwood as a “rogue entity” for not wanting to charge women with a crime for seeking abortion care. That’s an incredibly niche Old Guard desire, but one they hammered hard. Despite Leatherwood’s repeatedly-stated opposition to abortion care and access, he wasn’t extreme enough for them.
In 2023, they noticed immediately when Christianity Today ran a story highlighting his support for sensible gun laws in Tennessee, since state Republicans snubbed him hard at the time. Also, that magazine is where Russell Moore went after leaving the ERLC! The next year, Protestia (formerly Pulpit and Pen) gloated about the ERLC firing Brent Leatherwood, before backtracking when it came out that the person doing the firing had no such authority to do it.
By May 2025, even SBC flagship seminary leader Al Mohler wondered if the SBC needed the ERLC anymore. Mohler fretted that maybe it didn’t make sense for the SBC to fight their culture wars so very visibly. He’s Old Guard from way back. In recent years, he seems to have fallen out of favor with the faction’s extremists. He even disagrees with one of their key points, that somehow the SBC suffers from “liberal drift.” Still, he remains hugely influential with conservative-leaning Southern Baptists.
The problem isn’t that Brent Leatherwood didn’t represent the SBC. The problem is that he didn’t represent one faction within the SBC to their taste.
It’s a Battle Royale between the SBC’s hardliners and their slightly-less-extreme hardliners
Speaking as a now-outsider to both Christianity and the SBC, I can say that one truth seems obvious about this denomination:
As time goes on, the Old Guard faction finds less and less buy-in from the majority of SBC flocks. Those flocks vote overwhelmingly for the candidates and platforms of their opposing faction, which I’ve dubbed the Pretend Progressives. This faction wants sex abuse reform, real changes to the systemic racism of the SBC, and more. They also don’t get nearly as upset about women pastors as the Old Guard does. Though the Old Guard likes to claim that their enemies have lost touch with SBC pew-warmers, it really looks like it’s the Old Guard that has lost touch. (Every accusation is what, again?)
SBC members want what the Pretend Progressives promise. They don’t want Old Guard cronyism and abuse-shielding and extremist right-wing politics. They even consistently reject attempts to defund and disband the ERLC. Many of them, like North Carolina pastor Matt Carr, recognize that Brent Leatherwood was exactly what the Old Guard claims it wants—and that their dogwhistle of “biblical” just means “aligned with Trump/MAGA.”
That’s why the Old Guard has to celebrate this win with Brent Leatherwood. It’s a rare W in a sea of Ls for their faction.
If they really wanted what they say they want, “a man with conviction and courage” to lead the ERLC, as one Tweeter pined for, they’d never have driven out either Moore or Leatherwood. As the Harry Potter books could have taught them, one of the hardest things anyone can ever do is stand up to their mates when they’re doing something bad—and that’s exactly what both men did.
But the SBC is still a powerful moneymaker. The Old Guard’s leaders think if they can just force the flocks to accept their demands, that’ll magically make the sex abuse crisis go away. Yes, and it’ll also cause the flocks to stop wondering why Old Guard SBC ministers and leaders seem to get caught an awful lot in sex scandals and coverups.
In their dreams, they are free indeed.
But Brent Leatherwood read the room better than anyone in the Old Guard
The Old Guard can’t read the political room any more than Richard Land could. Some guy on Twitter/X even called for Tom Buck to lead the ERLC. Yes, because an alleged domestic abuser and betrayer of confidences is exactly who should be the public face of the SBC culture wars! (Unironically, this particular heathen agrees completely. Still, maybe he was being ironic. Poe’s Law remains unchallenged.)
What the Old Guard wants, really, is another Richard Land in the ERLC presidency. Richard Land himself can’t be it. His age and past prevent it. He seems to know it, too. He’s publicly declaring already that Yahweh has personally already prepared a new leader for the ERLC. That means the Old Guard still harbors hope.
But they can’t have a Richard Land without it ending in drama and a further tarnishing of the SBC’s image. There is no Richard Land-like ERLC president who is not a modern-age string of scandals, embarrassments, and ethical breaches. That is part of the legacy of the Old Guard’s beloved Conservative Resurgence.
So anyone even vaguely suited for the role of ERLC President is going to recognize that the Old Guard’s ambitions are a complete Titanic-level PR disaster for the SBC.
In the end, though, if the Old Guard can’t gain total control over the ERLC again, they’ll do everything in their power to destroy it. That way, at least their enemies can’t have it.
One thing’s for sure, though: It won’t be Jesus presiding over that Battle Royale. It’ll be plain old backrooms politics, backstabbing, rules lawyering, and power grabs. Whoever wins, the SBC itself will lose.
NEXT UP: The rest of the legacy of the Conservative Resurgence. See you soon! <3
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