Rice continued, “We need leaders who are not ashamed of Southern Baptists and who understand their role to faithfully represent us and our convictions. We need a leader at the ERLC who understands our pastors and our churches and has both the skills and the heart to serve them.”
“Much work remains to overcome the divide that has emerged in our Southern Baptist family,” Rice added. “This is not an end, but we pray it is a beginning or at least an important step in that direction.”
William Wolfe, founder and executive director of the Center for Baptist Leadership (CBL), told ChurchLeaders that he wishes Leatherwood “well in his next steps.”
However, Wolfe said, “Leatherwood’s resignation is a long-overdue yet crucial opportunity for a major course correction. It is time to put the theology and tactics of the Moore-Leatherwood era firmly behind us.”
“The last decade of the ERLC’s divisive posturing has strained its relationship with the churches it is meant to serve,” Wolfe said. Wolfe believes that the “next president of the ERLC must be someone who understands his role as advocating for Southern Baptists in the public square, not advocating for elite sensibilities to be imposed on Southern Baptists.”
Tom Ascol, who is an active voice in the SBC, is the pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Cape Coral, Florida, and who sits on the advisory board member for the CBL, told ChurchLeaders, “I am glad he resigned. It is best for the churches of the SBC and it gives the ERLC the best opportunity to become the kind of representative of Southern Baptists that we deserve to have in the public square.”
“We should all pray for the trustees to find the right man to lead the entity on to its greatest days,” said Ascol.
 Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), saying it was “time to close this chapter in my life.”){kind=link}