Pastor and outspoken Oklahoma state Sen. Dusty Deevers says he plans to nominate Tennessee Pastor Jared Moore for president of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States.
Deevers conveyed his intentions in comments given to Baptist Press, the convention’s official news service. He said Moore, the pastor of Cumberland Homesteads Baptist Church in Crossville, “loves Christ and, therefore, loves Christ’s Word unashamedly.”
“Jared faithfully represents salt-of-the-earth Southern Baptists,” Deevers said in remarks published Wednesday. “He is a faithful husband, father and pastor who serves the Lord dutifully at his local church without the need for fanfare or attention.”
Deevers believes “the world and our own nation need a thriving and faithful SBC to proclaim the Gospel without embarrassment.”
“Sadly, though, our prophetic voice has been stifled in recent years because of infighting, self-dealing and worldly compromise. God’s Kingdom will go on with or without the SBC, but we know the Devil would love nothing more than to destroy our long and faithful cooperative mission,” he added.
“On the flip side, our adversary fears a convention that is united around God’s truth. You have a man in Jared Moore who loves Christ, His Church and the SBC and wants to see the SBC using all of its tremendous resources to accomplish the Great Commission faithfully.”
Moore has been involved in SBC ministry since 2000, having previously served as second vice president of the SBC in 2014. He has served as senior pastor of Cumberland Homesteads Baptist Church since 2016.
He received his bachelor’s in biblical studies from Trinity College of the Bible in Indiana, his master of divinity in Christian ministry from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kentucky and a Ph.D. in systematic theology from SBTS.
He authored The Lust of the Flesh: Thinking Biblically About “Sexual Orientation,” Attraction, and Temptation and the The Pop Culture Parent: Helping Kids Engage Their World for Christ.
Moore has also authored a handful of columns published by The Christian Post from 2017 to 2018. He argued in a 2017 piece that it was heretical for Christians to identify as pro-choice, given that Jesus was identified as Lord even when Mary was early in her pregnancy.
“If the pro-choice movement is correct about when personhood begins, what does this say about God the Son Incarnate at conception? Was he something less than human from conception to late in the 2nd trimester or birth? If so, what was he, and how does this fit with orthodoxy?” wrote Moore at the time.
“[I]n order to affirm the pro-choice argument that a baby is less than human until late in the 2nd trimester, pro-choice advocates must also argue that God the Son Incarnate was less than human until late in the 2nd trimester. To argue that God the Son Incarnate is less than human at any point in His life is heresy.”
Moore is one of multiple SBC pastors announced as likely nominees for convention president at the June SBC Annual Meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana.
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