The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission will start a multiple-months-long search for a new president soon, messengers heard during the entity’s report to the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting on June 16.
The commission also announced that it had surpassed its goal of placing 10 ultrasound machines in crisis pregnancy centers in six months.
David Prince, chairman of the ERLC board of trustees, said the ERLC team is made up of “glad-hearted gospel warriors” who work diligently to “save lives, to uphold human dignity, to promote religious liberty and to carry the gospel into the public square with conviction and kindness.”
Prince expressed gratitude for Russell Moore’s leadership of “integrity,” “courage” and “convictional kindness” over the past eight years and said the board and search committee would “prayerfully and methodically conduct a national search” for his successor in the coming months.
‘Mighty force for gospel’
“In this time of ethical compromise, in this time of moral chaos and confusion, in this time of constant assault on religious liberty, we need the ERLC to be a mighty force for the gospel of Jesus Christ,” Prince said. “We are committed to identify the individual who is equipped and prepared to speak from the truth of the gospel to the consciences of elected leaders, public officials and the watching world.”
As for the ultrasound machine goal, ERLC has already placed 11 machines this year and is on pace to place 20 to 25 total by the end of the year, said Daniel Patterson, interim president for ERLC. In the past 20 years, the commission’s Psalm 139 Project has been able to place machines at a rate of one or two a year, two dozen in total.
“This means in one year we will have placed as many as we have placed in our entire existence,” Patterson said, noting that the commission has “absolutely no intention of slowing down.”
January 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, so their long-range goal is to place 50 ultrasound machines by then. The machines help bring a word of truth to mothers, Patterson said.
“I want to encourage you to join with us and consider how you could be a part of supplying this life-changing technology,” he said. “Southern Baptists, let’s stand for life, and as we do we remind ourselves of what we’re here to do all along — to share the hope and the mercy and the grace and the gospel of Christ.”
