PHOENIX (BP) – Protection of human life and preparation of parents have been among the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission’s priorities during the last year, Russell Moore told messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention June 14.
In his annual report to the convention, Moore, the ERLC’s president, said the entity’s efforts during the past year have included:
- Defending life primarily by seeking federal defunding of Planned Parenthood, the scandal-ridden, leading abortion provider in the United States.”And over the last year, if there is one thing that has become more clear, it is that Planned Parenthood is no friend to women, no friend to children and no friend to life and human dignity,” Moore told messengers.
The ERLC launched a national campaign to persuade members of Congress that Planned Parenthood should not receive “a single cent of taxpayer money now or ever,” Moore said. Also in defense of life, the ERLC has continued to host the Evangelicals for Life conference in January and to proclaim the “liberating word of the Gospel,” Moore said.
- Equipping parents who must address complex questions in child rearing.Parents now have to answer questions from children about their gender, Moore said. They also must speak to children “who sometimes seem powerless before the technological pull of screens, of social media and of a weaponized pornography industry,” he said.
The ERLC has partnered with LifeWay Christian Resources to develop a unique curriculum to help parents, Moore told messengers.
- Investing deeply in the SBC’s seminaries. The ERLC has doubled the size of its ERLC Academy, week-long ethics training for seminary students and others, he said.
- Preparing for MLK50, a racial unity conference scheduled for next April in Memphis on the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
The ERLC is devoted to speaking to Southern Baptists, while also declaring a message to the world, Moore told messengers.
“[W]hat unites us as a denomination is the truth that all of us are the evangelism department of the SBC,” he said. “We can speak in the public square on all sorts of issues, but until we can point people to the ultimate good, the atonement and resurrection found in Jesus Christ alone, we do not have a distinctive word to say.”