Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission

Southern Baptist advocacy group (1997 )

The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) is the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, the second largest Christian denomination in the United States. President Russell D. Moore left office on June 1, 2021. Brent Leatherwood was unanimously voted in by the board of trustees to be the next ERLC president on September 13, 2022 The commission is headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee, with additional offices in Washington, D. C., and Cyprus.

Formerly known as the Christian Life Commission (1953–1997), the entity with organizational predecessors dating back to 1907 received its current name in the course of a broad reorganization of multiple Southern Baptist entities in 1997. The Southern Baptist Convention terminated its participation with the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty in 1992 due to conflicts over separation of church and state and whether Baptist organizations should play a role in partisan politics. It was led by Richard Land from 1988 to 2013. Land announced his intention to retire effective October 23, 2013, after the uproar that ensued from his controversial comments about the Trayvon Martin case that resulted in an official reprimand by the ERLC's executive committee. Russell D. Moore filled the post afterwards. Moore is an outspoken critic of then Republican Presidential candidate, Donald Trump. His criticism of Trump has been controversial with several Southern Baptist leaders. The stated vision of the ERLC is an organization "dedicated to engaging the culture with the gospel of Jesus Christ and speaking to issues in the public square for the protection of religious liberty and human flourishing. Our vision can be summed up in three words: kingdom, culture and mission. Since its inception, the ERLC has been defined around a holistic vision of the kingdom of God, leading the culture to change within the church itself and then as the church addresses the world." At the Convention's 2018 annual meeting, a motion to defund the ERLC was rejected.