30 ERLC Summit Quotes from a Few of This Year’s Notable Voices

The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission is an organization that serves pastors and churches by helping them to engage with pressing issues they face such as religious liberty, racial reconciliation, and many other prominent ethical issues of our day. Because of this I wanted to provide some powerful ERLC Summit Quotes from their conference speakers this year to give you a way to engage with the content and share it with your network.

Their website contains this description: “The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission is an entity of the Southern Baptist Convention. The ERLC is 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.”

As such, they occasionally have conferences that address issues that have an impact on faith, life, and culture in America and around the world. These ERLC Summit Quotes are from some of the speakers at this year’s conference taking place at LifeWay in Nashville, Tennessee. (To look up the summit online, search #erlcsummit at Twitter.com)

ERLC Summit Quotes from a Few of This Year’s Notable Voices

1. “We will either lose ourselves to gain our lives or we will gain ourselves to lose our lives.” – Dr. Russell Moore (@drmoore)
2. “In order to get racial reconciliation right, we need to repent, not just rebrand.” – Dr. Russell Moore (@drmoore)
3. “Racial reconciliation is more than having mercy for minorities.” – Dr. Russell Moore (@drmoore)
4. “The Kingdom of God is not about coexistence, but reconciliation. And that reconciliation starts in the church.” – Dr. Russell Moore (@drmoore)
5. “In the church, a black Christian and a white Christian are brothers and sisters. We care what happens to the other, because when one part of the body hurts, the whole body hurts.” – Dr. Tony Evans (@drtonyevans)
6. “Rarely does racism walk alone. She dances with power.” – Thabiti Anyabwile (@ThabitiAnyabwil)
7. “When we got saved, we were baptized into the body of Christ. No matter what our race, gender, or class is, when each of us came to faith in Jesus, we entered into a new family.” – Dr. Tony Evans (@drtonyevans)
8. “There is a biblical command and a national command that we hold all people equal.” – John Perkins (@JohnMPerkins)
9. “To live above with those we love will certainly be glory. To live below with those we know, that’s a whole other story.” – Fred Luter (@FredLuter)
10. “In this new urban reality, we have to go from an ethnic missiology to a neighborhood missiology.” – Dhati Lewis (@dhati)
11. “She [racism] continues as power’s mistress, the unseen influence that poisons his heart toward his wife, justice.” – Thabiti Anyabwile (@ThabitiAnyabwil)
12. “God says we are to “preserve the unity of the Spirit” (Ephesians 4:3). The Holy Spirit has created our unity. It is our job to preserve it.” – Dr. Tony Evans (@drtonyevans)
13. “We still don’t meet the biblical requirement where God says, ‘If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land’ (2 Chron. 7:14). We have not repented deeply enough of the sin of racism.” – John Perkins (@JohnMPerkins)
14. “The goal of my life is not to extend my days by all means possible but to spend my days.” – Afshin Ziafat (@afshinziafat)
15. “We don’t have a skin problem in America. We have a sin problem in America.” – Fred Luter (@FredLuter)
16. “God made all human beings in His image with value and worth. Yet all of us are sinful and fail to display God’s image as we should.” – Trip Lee (@TripLee)
17. “If we don’t let the winds of justice blow then we cannot be surprised if cumulus clouds of racial hostility form overhead. And we shouldn’t be surprised when the rain comes and it’s toxic.” – Thabiti Anyabwile (@ThabitiAnyabwil)
18. “To be fair, we have come light years away from slavery, Jim Crow laws, and other overt displays of racial hatred. But tolerance is still a far cry from reconciliation.” – Dr. Tony Evans (@drtonyevans)
19. “Racial reconciliation and justice are fundamental aspects of Christ’s redemptive work.” – John Perkins (@JohnMPerkins)
20. “The reason white and black Americans often view things so differently is because white and black Americans often live and move in different places, with different cultural lenses. In the Church, however, we belong to one another. We are part of one body.” – Dr. Tony Evans (@drtonyevans)
21. “Racism is a Christian discipleship issue as much as a social justice issue.” – Thabiti Anyabwile (@ThabitiAnyabwil)
22. “The answer to racism isn’t sociological, it’s theological.” – Dr. Tony Evans (@drtonyevans)
23. “Our kids can never be what they have never seen.” – Fred Luter (@FredLuter)
24. “We are not the sum total of the sins of our fathers and forefathers.” – Jason Cook (@thelowercasejc)
25. “It’s tragic that the country’s biggest sin is racism and the Church’s biggest omission is racial justice.” – Thabiti Anyabwile (@ThabitiAnyabwil)
26. “In order to impact our society, we need to first model unity in the church.” – Dr. Tony Evans (@drtonyevans)
27. “God’s love for humanity is the motivation for redemption.” – John Perkins (@JohnMPerkins)
28. “The gospel changes people and people change the world.” – Dhati Lewis (@dhati)
29. “The roots of racism are as deep as the fallen soul. That’s bedrock. We’re going to have to dig that deep to eradicate this poisonous root.” – Thabiti Anyabwile (@ThabitiAnyabwil)
30. “I think the problem today is not the increase of darkness – it’s the absence of light.” – K. Marshall Williams

'The gospel changes people and people change the world.' - @dhati #Leadership Click To Tweet

Which of these ERLC Summit Quotes most impacted you? If you attended the event in person or online, what were some of the things you heard that stood out to you? Leave a comment below and let me know your thoughts on the ERLC Summit Quotes above and the conference in general.

(Note: Some of the quotes above are from the conference and others are front other events where the speakers have spoken. Our goal here wasn’t to provide an exhaustive list but to share some highlights of the type issues the speakers at this event have spoken on and the type topics covered during this conference.).