ERLC Leadership Summit: How Should the Church and Local Congregations Respond to Today's Sexuality?
Those participating in the three-day Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission Leadership Summit beginning today plan to address the Gospel and human sexuality in an effort to equip pastors and church leaders on critical issues such as broken marriages, pornography, and homosexuality.
Joining ERLC President Russell Moore at the Southern Baptist Convention building in Nashville at the leadership summit will be more than 20 pastors and Christian leaders mostly from North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama to share their expertise on the intersection of sexuality and Christianity.
Moore, 42, a Johnny Cash aficionado, is set to deliver a keynote address on Tuesday entitled "Walking the Line: The Gospel and Moral Purity."
Get Our Latest News for FREE
His colleague, Trillia Newbell, who became a consultant for Women's Initiatives in the ERLC last year, and recent author of United: Captured by God's Heart for Diversity will speak during a breakout session entitled "Biblical Womanhood: June Cleaver, Claire Huxtable, or the Proverbs 31 Woman?" and offer a brief reflection on women and sexuality.
Other topics on the conference itinerary include pornography, homosexuality, and "biblical sexuality." A panel discussion on the topic titled, "The Gospel and the Pastor's Purity," with Moore, the Executive Director of Certified Biblical Counselors Heath Lambert, Boyce College professor Denny Burk, Hyde Park Baptist Church senior pastor J. Kie Bowman, and moderator Phillip Bethancourt, the executive vice president at the ELRC is scheduled.
Tony Merida, the founding pastor of Imago Dei Church in Raleigh, N.C., will examine sex trafficking, an increasingly salient issue among Evangelical millenials.
The ERLC is the public policy wing of the Southern Baptists, the second-largest Christian denomination in the United States after Roman Catholics. The commission was founded by Richard Land, who serves as The Christian Post's executive editor. The group "exists to be a catalyst to connect the agenda of the kingdom of Christ to the cultures of local congregations for the sake of the mission of the gospel in the world."
On its website, the ERLC lists religious liberty, human dignity, family stability and civil society as its four core issues.
ERLC is offering a live stream of the conference on its website.
