Praise for ‘selfless’ Biden dropping out of 2024 election sparks Baptist political brawl
MESQUITE, Nev. — President Biden’s sudden exit from the presidential race sparked 24 hours of controversy in an unlikely place: the Southern Baptist Convention, America’s largest Protestant denomination — often an important voting bloc in close elections.
The Rev. Kevin Smith, board chair of the 13 million-member group’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission — its Washington-focused public policy arm — said Monday it had fired Brent Leatherwood as the panel’s president after he lauded Biden’s exit as “selfless.”
A cryptic Monday afternoon statement said more details would be released in mid-September when the ERLC board meets in Nashville: “In accordance with our bylaws, the executive committee has removed Brent Leatherwood as president.”
Speculation swirled that Leatherwood, a former Tennessee Republican Party executive director, was sacked after publishing comments praising Biden’s choice in a column for the denomination’s news service and elsewhere.
Leatherwood said Biden “made the right decision for the country,” with dropping out “an acknowledgment of both one’s own limits and political reality.” At the same time, the Baptist leader said a Kamala Harris-led ticket would “be cause for considerable concern among pro-life advocates and those who hold to a biblical definition of marriage.”
Leatherwood has three children who attended Nashville’s Covenant School in 2023, when a former student who identified as transgender shot and killed three children and three adults. He later supported legislation in Tennessee removing firearms from those who could harm themselves or others.
On Tuesday morning, the ERLC issued a news release stating that Smith’s action was invalid, taken without a board vote — and Leatherwood remains the ERLC chief.
For his part, Smith told the denomination’s news agency, “I was convinced in my mind that we had a consensus to remove Brent Leatherwood as the president of the ERLC. It is a delicate matter and, in an effort to deal with it expeditiously, I acted in good faith but without a formal vote of the Executive Committee. This was an error on my part, and I accept full responsibility.”
An online apology Smith tweeted Tuesday morning was subsequently removed.
Separately, Leatherwood posted his thanks to social media Tuesday: “I deeply appreciate everyone who has reached out, especially our trustees who were absolutely bewildered at what took place yesterday and jumped in to set the record straight.”
An ERLC spokeswoman told The Post Leatherwood was involved in off-site meetings Tuesday and unavailable to comment.
Internal machinations in a church’s public policy committee would normally be of little general interest, but the Southern Baptists remain an influential voice in American Protestantism despite losing 3.3 million members since 2006, when the rolls peaked at 16.3 million.
In the swing state of Georgia, the Pew Research Center said, 15% of adults are Southern Baptists, and 64% of adults say religion is “very important” in their lives.