SBC Update: ERLC, Amicus Brief, & NAMB

Brent Leatherwood, the Nashville Shooting, and the ERLC’s Response

Well, hello again, welcome to the conversations that matter podcast. It's not normal for me to do podcasts this close together because I did one yesterday around lunchtime. And of course, it's the morning, it's 1030am where I am.

But you know, I was thinking this morning about this is Tuesday, normally I do truth script Tuesday, I think I'm going to do the true script stuff tomorrow, or at least I'll release it tomorrow. And I want to just, while this is still a discussion, I want to weigh in on the Southern Baptist stuff, because I know there's a lot of Southern Baptists in the audience.

And so this is an unannounced live stream, but I know many will watch it later today in the recording. And I, I saw yesterday was, I guess in the afternoon, and then there was a lot of analysis about it in the evening.

But Brent Leatherwood, who is the, the President of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission for the Southern Baptist Convention, we talked about him a little bit yesterday, he decided to do a press conference.

And the press conference was allegedly in representation of the parents of the victims of the Nashville shooting. And I mentioned yesterday that when this initially happened, Brent Leatherwood in a story in the New York Times had said that he was going to use all the resources at his disposal essentially to attorneys that is to suppress any revelation of the Nashville shooters manifesto.

And I said, that's a curious thing, because this isn't something that I've seen the ERLC get involved in before, as far as with other shootings and trying to suppress the revealing of whatever the shooter's motives were.

This is the first time I can remember that happening. And of course, this is a personal thing, though. I mean, his, I don't know if it's daughter or son, but at least one of his children go to Covenant School where the shooting took place.

And so I thought, well, maybe there's personal things at play here, who knows, but, but that's what he said. And of course, he joined the left as, at least he carried water, I think for the left's narrative going right after that into, we got to push for red flag laws in the state of Tennessee.

And meaning we need to limit those who can purchase or own firearms based upon testimony of family, that kind of thing. And this is, I don't want to get into the red flag issue deeply, but this has been a concern of pro-second amendment and pro-gun rights organizations for a long time, because they, what they see is, you know, situations where you might have a divorce or something, or, you know, family feud, whatever it is.

And you have people that are close to you that try to take away your ability to defend yourself. And, of course, nothing related to the taking of hormones, which probably, well, I shouldn't say probably, but it possibly could have contributed to this situation.

When you have a female biologically taking hormones because they think they're a male, I mean, that, that produces some aggression when you get that testosterone in you and you're not used to it and your body's not made for it.

But you know, that's not part of it. That's not part of the equation. So I went over all that yesterday, and I know this is review for many of you, but, uh, Brett Leatherwood decided to weigh in today.

And so I'm going to play for you some videos of what he's saying. And this is the question for Southern Baptist. I'm going to get into a few Southern Baptist issues. This is the first one. Is this the kind of person you want representing you?

And if not, I would suggest, uh, in fact, maybe I'll pull it up on the podcast, going to the board for the ERLC, contacting them. I don't know exactly if that pressure is going to do much, but it's the only shot I think you have other than the annual meeting and trying to get, uh, some kind of a, uh, a censorship people were calling for, or, um, uh, censoring him.

People were calling for his removal, but you know, so any kind of pressure you can bring if you're still in the convention, I think that's the responsible thing to do. Uh, otherwise, you know, you don't want your money if you're going to this organization or, or, uh, Brent Leatherwood, if this is the kind of thing he does.

And so I'll show you what, what I'm talking about. Uh, I was going to distill this myself because I saw the video, but Megan Basham actually did a lot of the work for me. And I, so I'm grateful to her and people have asked me, by the way, you know, you're going to have Megan Basham ever on the podcast.

And the answer is yes, I will. As many of you know, I don't necessarily go for high profile guests. Uh, I am, I love having high profile guests, but I'm not, I don't know. I don't really make a distinction, uh, as to whether they're high profile or you've never heard of them.

I, I think through the way I, the metric I use when I invite guests is whether or not they are, um, the information they have is going to be helpful to you. So especially like people who have an expertise in a certain area or their firsthand witnesses of something, or.

Uh, especially people that you haven't heard of maybe, and you should have, you should have heard of them because they are being ignored by other media outlets. Those are the people I tend to go for. So anyway, that's an aside on how I think through who I have on the show, but Megan's got a book coming out at some point.

And when that book comes out, I definitely will have her on the show, but Megan put this out there and, uh, her reporting on this stuff has been invaluable. She said. Uh, Brent Leatherwood head of the ERLC who lobbied for gun control after the shooting called person, uh, who leaked the person who leaked the pages of the manifesto, a Viper.

So it's just interesting that the strong words that Brent Leatherwood uses, imagine that these pages show the killer using the N word and gleefully expressing hope of killing black children. Would he still frame the leaker as shameful and say, how dare you?

Or would he think leaker, uh, the leaker did something heroic in not allowing the authorities to cover up the fact that the killer was motivated by rank anti-black racism. And so if you put the shoe on the other foot, she's saying you would never see this kind of, uh, act this, this, uh, posturing.

And so I'm going to play for you that first clip, uh, from, it was about a 15 or 16 minutes, um, uh, press conference, but I'll play for you. This is the first clip that Megan's got.

And lastly, I want to speak directly to the person who took these images and released them. You are a Viper. You're a member of the law enforcement community and you have released evidence that was gathered in our most vulnerable moment.

You have now allowed this woman who terrorized our family with.

Why the ERLC’s Language and Motives Seem Disingenuous

All right. I'm going to stop there, uh, just because you can already see what's going on. And, uh, Peter Sawyer, I just gave it as you were here in the chat yesterday. It's funny to me showing up in the chat.

I wanted to remind you that she was born female. Yeah. That was like everyone yesterday after I corrected it, people kept saying that. Thank you, Peter. Thank you. Um, okay. So this goes on for a while, but essentially what it is is, uh, Leatherwood is playing, he is, even the way it comes across seems disingenuous.

It is. And I think being in SBC, uh, entities or working for SBC organizations, I saw this and I'm like, oh, I think I actually commented to someone. This maybe this is mean, I don't know, but I said, he, he seems like the SBC clone, like what meaning the, the, the way the SBC leaders act, they, they act very similar to each other.

And in situations like this, uh, where you saw it like it with the, uh, BLM stuff in 2020, you saw it with the COVID stuff, you saw it, uh, with the me too stuff, um, they have this, they can just whip it out this like very concerned, very emotional, uh, invested response that is, uh, these kinds of things are what you find in the church in, uh, altar call kind of scenarios, right?

Where the pastor's pleading and oftentimes that's authentic, but oftentimes, uh, it can be somewhat artificial and manufactured. And you see that same kind of spirit come out in these kinds of things.

And so I'm not saying it's wrong to be emotional or anything. I think it's somewhat expected in a situation where you have, you know, your, your children were under threat, but it's, uh, it's overblown.

It's overdone. It comes across as fake. It comes across as a politician, uh, looking to promote a cause of some kind. And in this case, Brent, you know, Leatherwood goes on and he, he basically asks for, uh, he, he thinks that whoever released this should be charged.

He thinks it's a member of the law enforcement community somewhere. And you know, he just wants them to be punished. Uh, it's kind of weird. I'll be honest. It is because you don't see this coming from the ERLC on, in, in other shootings or other scenarios.

Like, but, but they're very involved in this. And I, when I say they, I do mean they, and I'll show you why I say they in a moment. It's not just Leatherwood representing the parents and in his capacity as a parent, there's more going on here that is of concern for Southern Baptists.

So, uh, let's, let's just keep going with this, uh, thread from Megan. And then we'll, I'll play for you two more clips as we go along here. So, uh, Megan said further Leatherwood here admits the parents seeking to block the release of Audrey Hale's, uh, writings have not seen them.

How then can we know that we cannot learn anything we didn't already know from them? Which is one of the things he says, uh, the national association of police has called for these records to be released to aid them in profiling potential mass shooters to prevent crimes like this in the future.

If Leatherwood hasn't seen Hale's writings, how does he know they wouldn't be helpful to the national national association of police? This is actually a point that I made in a chat group yesterday. When I first saw this, I thought, my goodness, uh, how in the world does Leatherwood who has, he says in this presser that he's never seen and no parent has seen, uh, or read this manifesto, but he's also saying things like, well, I think this is the tip of the iceberg.

There's more to this. And, uh, and he's very positive as Megan just said that, you know, this would do damage if released and, you know, how does he know all of this? What's if he hasn't read it? It's, there is something odd going on here.

Um, either he's obviously relying on someone who's telling him all this, who has read it. Right. I suppose that's a possibility, but still he seems awfully sure about it. Uh, himself in his capacity as the representative of the parents or, um, and this is what I said, maybe this is my cynical side.

And of course, I'm going to tell you when I am speculating and I don't, it's, it's, I think an honest sort of speculation, but it's not a, uh, you know, I don't have primary sources to back it up right now or anything, but.

It would be the behavior I would expect of someone if they were trying to cover for someone. And I know a number, in fact, I just got a text from someone who's not even Southern Baptist doesn't follow these things just a few minutes before I started and basically said the same thing.

This guy's, uh, because this made national news, um, you know, this guy seems like he's covering for someone like, um, and there were theories floating around months ago that this, uh, and they haven't been confirmed, but that there was, in addition to all of this, the school at least, or someone at the school knew more, uh, could it, maybe this could have been uh, there was something making the school look, uh, bad in the whole situation.

Now, I don't want to go into more details on that. I don't know. That's, and these, this was all public. This was all stuff that was out there. I don't have it queued up for you, but, uh, but you know, when he acts like this, it makes me wonder if any of those rumors were true, I don't know, but it's odd behavior nonetheless.

So, uh, here's the second, uh, clip here.

No, no, no, I'm sorry. No, no, to my knowledge, there has been no parent that has been given any sort of access. No, we had parent briefings, uh, survivor, um, and victims briefings, uh, after March 27th, uh, where, you know, I think this is standard operating procedure, uh, Metro just kind of reviews.

Okay. Seems like he's at a little loss for words there, but yeah, it's an honest question the reporter asked and a good question, Hey, you're saying all this about this manifesto. And usually we should punish the person who released it.

And, uh, it's not helpful and it's, uh, it causes, uh, it can potentially cause violence and there's more to it. Seem to know an awful lot about this manifesto, but then again, you're now saying you haven't, you've never seen it.

You haven't read it. So, um, all right. So this is, uh, let's go back to the thread here. Make it, make some good points in this. Um, in the past, in the case of anti-black racism, the ERLC recognized that mass shooters motives matter and they can be motivated by racial hatred.

Why is this not relevant in the, in this case? So in 2019 ERLC posted, listen, this past week in the U S was hit with more tragic mass shootings and the shooter in El Paso claimed allegiance to the evil ideology of white supremacy as a motivation for his attack, David French, uh, Jeff Pickering and Travis.

Uh, I don't know if that's WUSO, uh, to join to discuss. So they, the ERLC posted or hosted a round table on this. The thing that's interesting to me about this is, um, number one, the El Paso shooting, if you actually look at what the, as I remember, the El Paso shooter said, a lot of this was related to climate change and he wasn't someone that was, uh, strictly of the, uh, of the rights and it wasn't strictly a racial thing.

I think it was, uh, if I remember correctly, I could be wrong about this, but it had something to do with, uh, he, I think he was in Texas, obviously El Paso, yeah, Texas. And there was, um, there, there was just, um, I think the immigration issue might've played into this.

There's just too many people coming across, but, um, either way, let's say it was totally a white supremacy thing. And, uh, we, we don't want any minorities in Texas or in El Paso, uh, which, you know, in El Paso, I think is like overwhelmingly.

Uh, Latino or Hispanic, if I'm not mistaken, but, um, but, but the ERLC his reaction is to kind of highlight that, to try to, uh, draw attention to it, to say that this is something worthy of discussion that we need to figure a solution out for this.

And when it comes to someone who's very, very, I would say in much stronger terms against, uh, white students specifically who go to Christian schools, uh, you don't see any of that there it's, we got to suppress this.

We can't talk about it. It is exactly the opposite of the way they treated that particular shooting. So, uh, so, so Megan goes on and talks about a little bit about the, uh, um, uh, the manifesto, what it said.

Uh, and then she plays this clip from Brett Leatherwood. Um, let's see here. She, she just says that Steven Crowder did nothing wrong. She, she doesn't believe in releasing this when no one else would.

Here's the clip.

Online shock jock who aired these images. I would challenge him and anyone who amplifies them online, just be a human for once, quit seeking clicks and retweets platform building.

Hypocrisy in the ERLC’s Treatment of Motive and Gun Control

Yeah, this is the most, it's so disgusting. It's so disgusting. Yeah. Don't, don't try to do the platform building. That motive is bad. Don't try to draw people to your, to your audience or seek clicks.

You know, the, the very thing it's like, do you see where you are, Mr. Leatherwood? Uh, you are, you are getting the attention of national media, uh, representing the parents here, but you are, I don't know if they're in an ERLC building, I would not be surprised, but there's ERLC staff around him.

I'll show you that in a moment, at least appears that way. Um, and, uh, he is, uh, you know, clearly grandstanding for that. I mean, this, this isn't just, um, this isn't just, here are some, some facts here, here are why the parents are motivated to pursue suppression of the rest of whatever might be out there.

This is much more than that. He is giving his opinions on all of these things. He is, uh, using very emotional language to Purdue. It almost looks like he's going to cry and break down at some point in this.

And he said in the beginning that he felt like he had been walking around, uh, the day feeling like he had been sucker punched or something. I mean, the whole thing is just over the top and it's, he wants to now call Steven Crowder, a shock jock who blame him for doing this.

This was wrong. When, uh, in previous similar circumstances, the RLC was the one that was signal boosting the, uh, high and highlighting the shooter's motives, uh, when it was against it or whether they could at least use it against, uh, quote unquote white supremacy, right?

So it's, it's just so rich. The, the hypocrisy is you, I mean, it, I don't even know if I have to comment. You just play the clip, see the ERL, see what they did before. And it's, uh, and it's just, just live through, honestly live through 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021.

If you just live through those years and you're a Southern Baptist and you paid even, you know, 10 of attention to what was going on, you know, that this is rank hypocrisy. So, uh, uh, man. All right.

So I think we're going to finish this thread and, uh, go from there. But the thread finishes with Megan saying, and again, as my colleague said, let's see, pointed out suppression of shooters. Writings has allowed the media, some politicians and gun control activists, including Leatherwood to turn this into a gun control issue.

Yeah. One of the things I said yesterday in the podcast, uh, that concealing the motives, um, cause you, what happens is when there's a shooting and the motives can fit the left's playbook or their agenda, what happens is they go after that thing.

Like we got to clamp down on white supremacy. So the DOJ has got to target quote unquote, white supremacy groups, something like that. That's what they do. More anti-Muslim hate or, you know, something along those lines.

But when they don't have a clear path to blame their political enemies, what they'll do is they'll blame the guns and they'll say, and so they still blame their political enemies. It's gun advocates at that point who are responsible and Leatherwood went along with all of that.

The person that your SBC money is going to, if you are in the Southern Baptist convention, uh, the lawyers that are hired by this organization, the material that's put out, uh, your, I can't decide, is it enough if you're in the SBC, some of your money, if you're a typical SBC church giving to the cooperative program, your money's going to this guy and going to support things that are the opposite of what you believe.

One more addendum. She says, based on a few confused comments, I'm seeing out there, Leatherwood is not the father of a victim. Most of the parents in this group are not parents of victims. They are a hundred parents of students who attend covenant and at least one member family of a victim, Reggie Hill.

So, yeah, I guess that's important to point out that he's not, he's acting like he is like his child. You would think his child died in this or something, and, um, maybe a friend of the child did. I don't know.

I mean, it's, it's a tough situation for sure. I mean, I've just experienced some loss in my own life and I, I get that, but, uh, but he, his, his children are with him. They did not perish in this. Um, when this first happened, I remember thinking that, you know, if covenant is like the typical, uh, middle-class Christian schools that, um, or, you know, seminaries is what I was spending a lot of time on, but, but I, but I knew, cause I was hearing the stories from people who attended private Christian schools that the same narratives were happening there.

Um, yeah, I think it was ACSI and they had Walter Strickland doing this, uh, diversity training stuff. And I mean, they were bringing in the same stuff that I was seeing in uh, into these schools. And I thought, you know, I wonder if the people, you know, that are at this school, that the parents of the children are in that group, a lot of them, that they are kind of in this, um, you know, kind of neo-conservative ish, but kind of like semi-woke social justice-y, uh, like a group of Southern Baptists, but also, you know, just broadly evangelicals who were going down this path, taking this narrative.

And, and I, I wondered, this was all speculation. Again, I'm telling you when I'm speculating, so, so you don't have to believe me, uh, but I wondered whether or not that factored into the reaction because the reaction has been the, uh, the parents and it's not all the parents, but enough of the parents have been active against, uh, guns and trying to support red flag laws and those kinds of things, lobbying for it.

But I just thought something's weird about this. You know, why in the world are they going after that? I mean, it's not, you would think it would be like, we need tighter security here. We actually need more guns.

We need the teachers need to be armed, or we need some way of protecting ourselves against people who don't like us, who are against us because of our Christian beliefs, or in this case, apparently because there's white people here, you know, that that's the kind of thing, um, that I, that I would expect from someone who is more conservative, but I would totally expect what you're seeing now from those who have been influenced by social justice thinking.

In the chat, if you have any questions, feel free to comment before we switch gears and start talking about, uh, this. Uh, issue, uh, well, uh, this, this apology from Bart Barber, uh, for joining an amicus brief on the abuse stuff.

The SBC Amicus Brief Against a Sexual Abuse Survivor

Um, so someone, someone is upset at me, I guess I'll, I'll, I'll put it out there. John puts out three pages from the sexual deviant Crowder doesn't wait for context. Doesn't mention the shooters. Uh, first target was a mall, which blows up the message.

Crowder was trying to push. Um, yeah. I mean, if you want to put more information in the comments, I'd be curious, uh, to know what you, how your thoughts connect, because I don't see any connection there.

Um, I, I mean, what you saw was hatred for white people, hatred for white people, white, white kids who attend Christian schools who might be fairly affluent. Uh, it doesn't mean that there couldn't be hate for other groups as well, but at least in this particular shooting, in this case, there was specific hate for a specific group.

And that's the only point I've ever made. And I think that was the point Steven Crowder was making. I didn't listen to his whole episode, but, uh, I listened to probably about 25 minutes of it and that's all I heard him saying.

So, um, so sorry, uh, uh, Leah, uh, Laughlin, uh, if you, yeah, if you, if you could explain to me what you mean by that, I'd be all ears, but, um, yeah, I don't see that, um, checked off, uh, asks, would Pharisee be an apt description straining at a gnat, ignoring the camel yet, perhaps I, I mean, I've said that for a long time, I think a lot of these social justice advocates in the Southern Baptist convention act like Pharisees, that the things that they want to be concerned about are things that if they even are problems are minor compared to much bigger problems and they will ignore much bigger things.

And it usually parallels, you know, the left is concerned about this. So we're concerned and you know, the right is more concerned about this, so we're not concerned. Um, okay. So let's move on then to the next thing here.

Um, I think that was it for Megan. Yeah. Yeah. I think that was your last tweet in that particular thread. So here's, Oh, before we leave the issue, I forgot about this. Um, so I was going to show you this.

If you, uh, if you go to Sean Graham is the one who posted this. These are two screenshots from the, now this, this press conference with Leatherwood. Uh, we, I don't know exactly where it was. I'm wondering if it was in a Southern Baptist building.

I don't know though. It may not have been, but when the cam the cameras, uh, kind of whoever was running the camera, uh, looked around the room briefly before ending the conference, uh, the press conference.

And you saw, uh, and it's a little fuzzy, but you saw this gentleman and you saw, uh, this particular, um, uh, lady here and, uh, Sean Graham pointed out something that this was pretty early on. He picked it up.

I was actually impressed that he picked this up, but if you look at the pictures, Elizabeth Bristow, who's the press secretary for the ethics and religious Liberty commission for the Southern Baptist convention, looks an awful lot like the person in this photo.

I mean, I'm pretty sure it's the same person. And then if you scroll down on the ERLC staff page, you'll come to, uh, this gentleman, Alex Ward. Alex Ward looks an awful lot like the gentleman in this picture.

Now, I don't think we're seeing everyone who is there, but you're seeing, um, there's enough there to make you scratch your head and say, why in the world are the ERLC resources like the press secretary and the research associate and project manager?

Why are they there? What's the purpose of them being there? Um, and why does it look like they're kind of, they're running things or organizing, whatever this is. This is not just a parents of the victims of the shooting or parents of friends of the victims of the shooting parents, uh, who had kids that went to the school, this is more than that.

This is a Southern Baptist, uh, activity of some kind. They're involved in this, this, the Southern Baptist convention is involved in the message that Leatherwood put out there. And that's the thing that I think should concern Southern Baptists.

Why in the world are, I mean, did, is this something you want to be involved in? Well, you're paying for it. If you're in the Southern Baptist convention that your money's going to this kind of thing.

So, uh, I wanted to show you that. Now let's, uh, move on. Let's talk about, uh, some other stuff we got. Um, oh, Steven Crowder. Okay. I forgot about this too. Steven Crowder actually, I'll show you this.

All right. Last thing, last thing before we, I promise last thing before we move on. So Steven Crowder put this out there. And, uh, and by the way, Steven Crowder, I don't listen to Steven Crowder. Um, uh, he's a comedian.

I'm sure he probably says some off color things. So I'm not defending any of those things. Uh, he just happened to be the guy who had the guts to publish this. And, um, he posted a screenshot from an Emily, uh, co-train, uh, New York times journalist.

My name is Emily Cochrane and I'm a reporter at the New York times. I'm working on a story. I'm Mr. Crowder's publication of the covenant writings and just left a press conference where one parent, Brent Leatherwood was critical of the decision to publish those photos.

He described it as chasing clicks at one point and said that proceeds from the video should go to the families of the six victims and, or the school. I watched the video earlier this morning. We'll incorporate some of that, but also wanted to make sure Mr. Crowder didn't have any additional comment in response to the pushback.

You know, where was Brent Leatherwood on all of the other shootings that the evidence of white supremacy or racial, you know, white nationalism or something along those lines, nativism. And they, uh, they never, I never, I don't recall any of this, you know, asking, well, all the major media that all that capitalizes on this, including us, we're donating to the victims.

Did they ever do that? Did the URLC ever donate any of theirs? I mean, what about, uh, you know, it should cooperative program money be given to victims when the URLC does panel discussions discussing the white supremacy of the shooting, uh, perpetrator and that kind of thing.

No, of course not. They're they're totally rank hypocrisy, but this just shows you the, uh, what the URLC, who the URLC is being used by the URLC, your Southern Baptist convention dollars are going to an entity that the New York times is using and weaponizing against, uh, someone who like Steven Crowder, who happened to release this manifesto and shine a light on the motives of this particular shooter, at least, at least some of the motives, uh, if not all, so this is, um, fascinating to me, uh, for those in the SBC, you see this, but for those outside, this can be, I think, confusing what in the world is going on.

Uh, I mean, and I think if you're not thinking too clearly or carefully about it, you will get sucked into the emotional response. You're like, of course, yes, this is so insensitive. The victims they're, they're reliving that moment of pain again, that kind of thing.

All right, well, let's now move on. We are truly moving on at this point, uh, to the next issue. I don't see any more, uh, relevant, uh, comments or questions about it, but you can always leave a comment or question in the chat, uh, if you are on YouTube or Facebook, I will see it.

Uh, don't forget, uh, to like, I never say this, but I, I need to more. Don't forget to like, uh, on YouTube and on Facebook, share around. Uh, if you feel that this is good information, especially for your fellow Southern Baptists and Christians of all kinds out there, and, uh, and if you like what you're hearing, um, feel free to support on Patreon, by the way, I should say this as I'm in the mode of my own self-promotion here, um, which I'm shameless about, by the way.

Uh, I think that's perfectly acceptable and fine. Um, the, uh, on Thursday evening on at eight o 'clock PM, Thursday evening, eight o 'clock PM this week, I'm going to be finishing our discussion with time and Klein, uh, and, um, uh, about, um, now I'm trying to remember what we were talking about classical liberalism.

That's right. Classical liberalism. Uh, but not, not just classical liberalism, also, uh, modern liberalism and any questions we've had for part series on this. Uh, so, um, time and Klein's going to join me also been Crenshaw from Hillsdale college is going to join me and we're going to take any question that you may have on the topic of liberalism.

And, uh, and it's fine to ask about Christian nationalism, G3, whatever you want to talk about where they're. And if you're a patron, you can call into the show. You can be part of the show, uh, and make your point or ask your question live in real time.

So that's, uh, eight o 'clock this Thursday night. Um, and, uh, the links, um, well, I don't know if I put the link in the info section for this video, but if you go to patrion .com, patrion .com, uh, forward slash worldview conversation, worldview conversation, you can join as little as five bucks a month.

And, uh, and you can be part of the discussion this Thursday night. Okay. Moving on. Let's talk about this amicus brief that caused quite a stir. Uh, this is a, uh, story from Baptist global news, Baptist news, global, very, I would say left-wing outlets.

I think they're even funded by a left-wing organization. Um, but, uh, they, I didn't see other stories out there about this particular issue. I I'm familiar somewhat with what's going on, but, um, I did want to read for you a new story about it.

This is, uh, a headline that says SBC executive committee members surprised to learn they filed an amicus brief against a sexual abuse survivor in Kentucky. This was more of a controversy two weeks ago last week.

Um, but it's ongoing. So when the Louisville courier journal reported yesterday that the Southern Baptist theological seminary lifeway, Christian resources, and the Southern Baptist convention, executive committee had submitted an amicus brief arguing against the rights of a sexual abuse survivor.

That was the first members of the executive committee ever heard of it, and some of them are furious. As our advocates for abuse survivors who have been working for years to get something done in the nation's largest Protestant denomination.

Uh, this is deplorable, uh, said, uh, Chris Davis, the SBC is lining its voice against a survivor in a case in which it is not named. This is legal cruelty. All right. So, so the typical things you'd, you'd expect, um, Adam Wyatt said we had a Mississippi Baptist pastor.

We had no working knowledge of this as a board, poor excuse. I know, but it's true. And a separate tweet. He said, I continue to grow very tired of seeking people, uh, letting people speak on my behalf, uh, without ever being consulted.

Okay. So it just as a lineup of quotes from Southern Baptists, uh, who are very angry that this took place and this is against abusers, um, Jacob Dellen Hollander and Kentucky pastor, whose wife has been an outspoken advocate against sexual abuse tweeted when the SBC and the Southern Baptist theological seminary raised their voice against the victim in the case that doesn't involve them because of potential lawsuits, they are acting on a selfish consequentialist ethic.

You notice this is the same kind of thing Leatherwood did, right? It's immediately questioning, uh, the motives and it's, I don't have a problem with reasonable, um, you know, coming to conclusions about why someone might be motivated by something publicly.

Um, but in the capacity, I guess the divide I see is like, if you're in an organization and your capacity is like, you're making, you're doing a press conference or you're interviewed by the media or you're, you're speaking as a representative of the organization.

Um, I mean, it's okay to have your own thoughts on what might motivate something, but what I find happening a lot in the SBC circles is they, when, when, when they're in a corner or when, um, when they have political opponents that they want to squelch somehow, they will often do this thing where they, they make it all about that person.

It's actually, it's a tactic that works. So often you, you question the integrity of the person who's bringing the information, uh, or, uh, who made the decision and you don't actually talk about the issues and in this case, I mean, it's, it's a smear, it's a complete, you know, they're selfish consequentialist.

I mean, uh, right and wrong is determined by its effect on us. So, I mean, it's so much beyond, you know, it's like they can't even conceive of maybe there was a legitimate decision to join this, uh, to make this amicus brief.

Maybe there was other, there was something legitimate here. Now there's no, even it's gotta be like some anti-Christian consequentialist ethic that's, you know, pervasive and must, it's going to color everything that person does, apparently.

I mean, it's a, it's a somewhat of an ad hominem. They wouldn't pass their own ethics class. He says gross. Um, all right. So there's so much of this. I'm not going to go, but, um, the case is, uh, it relates to claims by Samantha Killary, who alleges her adoptive father, a Louisville police officer, sexually abused her throughout her childhood.