Russell Moore on the Capitol Insurrection and Why He's Willing to Put His Job On the Line to Speak His Mind

<p>Russell Moore is the president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, which is the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention. The SBC is the largest Protestant denomination in America, with 15 million or so members in its 47,000 or so congregations.</p><p><br></p><p>Moore was one of the most prominent evangelical critics of Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential campaign, but after Trump was elected president, Moore <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/03/13/could-southern-baptist-leader-russell-moore-lose-his-job-churches-threaten-funding-after-months-of-trump-controversy/?outputType=amp&amp;arc404=true" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">came under attack</a> from Trump supporters inside the SBC who wanted him out of his job, which he took over in 2013. Moore, 49, survived the challenge, but was less outspoken about Trump after that.</p><p><br></p><p>After Trump incited his supporters with two months of lies about the election, encouragement about a “wild” day on January 6, and a speech on that day exhorting them to march on the Capitol, Moore made a decision to speak out against Trump once again. He wrote <a href="https://www.russellmoore.com/2021/01/11/the-roman-road-from-insurrection/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">a 2,600 word essay</a> and sent it out to the ERLC mailing list.</p><p><br></p><p>Moore dismantled the arguments that led to the insurrection, stating clearly that “it is not true — and it never was true — that this election was stolen,” and said that the riot had been “incited and fomented by the President of the United States.”</p><p><br></p><p>Moore said that he thought Trump should resign, or be removed by the Cabinet and Vice President Mike Pence, or impeached and convicted by Congress. “If I were a Member of Congress, I would vote to impeach. And if I were a United States senator, I would vote to convict. And I would be willing, if necessary, to lose my seat to do so,” Moore wrote.</p><p><br></p><p>“As a matter of fact, I