Meet ERLC President-elect Dr. Evan Lenow

On April 13th, we were excited to announce that Dr. Evan Lenow was unanimously elected by the ERLC’s Board of Trustees to fill the role as the Commission’s next president.

On today’s episode, Dr. RaShan Frost, ERLC director of research, speaks with Dr. Lenow about his vision for the ERLC as he steps into his new role on June 1 and how his Southern Baptist background has shaped him personally and professionally. They’ll also discuss Dr. Lenow’s passion for building relationships across the convention and equipping churches to address complex, cultural issues from a biblical worldview.

Episode Transcript: Meet ERLC President-elect Dr. Evan Lenow

Narration:

Welcome to The ERLC Podcast, where our goal is to help you think biblically about today’s cultural issues. I’m Lindsay Nicolet, and today we’re talking to the ERLC’s newly elected president, Dr. Evan Lenow. 

On April 13th, we were excited to announce that Dr. Evan Lenow was unanimously elected by the ERLC’s Board of Trustees to fill the role as the Commission’s next president. On today’s episode, Dr. RaShan Frost, ERLC director of research, speaks with Dr. Lenow about his vision for the ERLC as he steps into his new role on June 1 and how his Southern Baptist background has shaped him personally and professionally. They’ll also discuss Dr. Lenow’s passion for building relationships across the convention and equipping churches to address complex, cultural issues from a biblical worldview.

Since 2012, Dr. Lenow has served as a research fellow in Christian ethics for the ERLC. He also serves as associate professor and chair of Christian Studies and director of the Institute for Christian Leadership at Mississippi College in Clinton, Mississippi. In addition, he directs the Clinton extension of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary on the Mississippi College campus. Before joining Mississippi College, Dr. Lenow served at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, where he was associate professor of ethics, director of the Land Center for Cultural Engagement, director of the Center for Biblical Stewardship, and held the Bobby L. and Janice Eklund chair of stewardship. 

Now let’s turn to Dr. RaShan Frost’s conversation with President-elect Dr. Evan Lenow.

RaShan Frost:

Well, welcome to The ERLC Podcast. I am with no stranger to the podcast, but our guest for today is in a new capacity with the ERLC, the one that we are extremely excited about. Dr. Evan Lenow will be taking over and has been elected as president of the ERLC. And so I, like many people, we are excited about your appointment as president. And people want to know about you. Will you just share a little bit about your background, what shaped your professional work and your ministry up to this point?

Evan Lenow:

Sure. Thanks, Rashan. It’s good to be back on. I guess the last time I was on this, I was just a regular guest, so just a little bit of background about me. I grew up in a Southern Baptist church, grew up at Bellevue in Memphis. My dad grew up in Memphis, grandparents grew up in Memphis, long time family connections in the Memphis area. Grew up there at Bellevue and spent, you know, many of the most formative years of my early discipleship there at Bellevue under the teaching of Adrian Rogers. I’ve got a bunch of fun Adrian Rogers stories that maybe we could tell another day or something. I was educated in Southern Baptist institutions after graduating from high school, I went to Mississippi College here in Clinton, Mississippi and did a B.A. in communication at MC. I met my wife here. 

In fact, where I am right now recording this, right upstairs from my office, I’m in our chapel that opened in 1860, right upstairs in the chapel upstairs is where my wife and I got married. We’re the products of a Southern Baptist institution. From there, went to Southeastern Seminary and we both graduated with our master’s degrees on the same day, and I got my M.Div. in advanced biblical studies. My wife got her M.A. in biblical counseling, and then I went on to pursue a Ph.D. in theological studies with a concentration in Christian ethics. And so that was kind of my educational journey to get to where I am. Much of my career has been spent in higher education, teaching at Southwestern Seminary for a little over 12 years and then having been back here at Mississippi College for the last seven years. And in my most recent role here at MC, in addition to teaching in the Christian studies department and being chair of the Christian studies department, I’ve also been responsible for building and maintaining relationships with the churches across the state and throughout the region, so that’s one of my responsibilities is to be in those churches and help the university connect the dots between these churches that are giving to the Cooperative Program that in turn are funding through the Mississippi Baptist Convention, the work that we do here at MC.

And so that’s been one of my main responsibilities here. And in addition to also being the director of the Institute for Christian Leadership, which oversees the campus ministries and chapel here at MC. Now, although most of my career has been spent in academia, I really do have a love for the local church. I laugh that I’ve served in pretty much every capacity of a local church from a lay perspective, and I served as a deacon. I’ve served on all sorts of committees, search committees, and all different types of things in the local church. I’ve taught everything from Children’s Sunday School all the way through adults. And in fact, one of my favorite activities that I’ve ever done is I actually taught senior adult VBS last summer. And I got to spend a whole week, and I’m here to tell you, the senior adults know how to do VBS.

Those ladies bring baked goods every morning. And by the time VBS is over around lunchtime, you’ve already eaten enough for about three days. The next day they bring more food, and it’s fantastic. That’s actually one of the sad parts. I had to tell them that I couldn’t come back this coming summer because of my new responsibilities. I’ve done pretty much everything in a local church setting. I do a lot of pulpit supply and preaching in churches, enjoy doing that. And so that’s kind of a little bit about me, a little bit about my background and how I got to where I am today.  

RaShan Frost:

So as you step into your new role as president, what is your vision for the organization and what priorities will guide your leadership in this next season?

Evan Lenow:

Yeah, so one of the things I want people to understand and to see for the ERLC moving forward is that we are here to serve the churches. The ministry assignments given to the ERLC by the convention all start with the words “assist churches.” And so one of the things I really want to do is to bring the work of the ERLC into the local church. And here’s what I mean by that. I want to see us empower and equip local churches to communicate and live out the truth and the principles that we see in God’s Word related to the ethical issues of our day related to religious liberty. I want to see them be the primary spokespeople, for example. So in your local community, who better to address these issues than the local church. Now, sometimes there’s churches across our convention that are fully equipped and fully prepared to do exactly that, and then there’s others that don’t feel adequately prepared for that.  

And so what we want to do is come alongside those local churches, help them understand what the big issues are that we’re facing in our particular culture. And with recognition on our part that you’re in Charleston, and what you face in Charleston might be different than what I’m facing here in Clinton, Mississippi, which may be completely different from what one of my friends who pastors in Oregon is facing. Those issues are going to look different. So we want to be here to listen, to then prepare and equip and empower the churches to address the issues that they are facing in their particular culture.

RaShan Frost:

You know, as you were saying that what came to mind is actually something that you just do well, intuitively. I remember the conversation that we had last year when we were in Mississippi at a conference and we did a session together on gender and sexuality and life. And you had received a phone call from a pastor that was dealing with the situation in their church. If I’m not mistaken, I think you even said about how they were on a tractor when they were calling you, and right after that you’re in their church helping to equip them to navigate this issue. And so without going into too many details about that, but knowing that’s your heart, can you just share a little bit about your heart and that particular situation?

Evan Lenow:

So I did, I got a call from a pastor as he was on a tractor in rural southwest Mississippi and doing what a pastor in rural southwest Mississippi would do, which is not just preparing sermons, but helping folks in the community with their land and on their farms. So yeah, I had a conversation with him. The short version of that is that they’d had a situation in their VBS where they had a child who showed up at their VBS in their little, small, rural community who claimed to be the opposite gender. And so they’re trying to think through it. This is a situation that you wouldn’t have expected in that particular context, but all of a sudden, they see it on the news, they read about it on social media, and then all of a sudden it is in their face, what do we do when we have a child who biologically is male, but wants to be viewed as female and wants to present as female?

What do we do in VBS with that? And so, yeah, I had an opportunity to go down and help that church think through the issue and think through how the biblical principles that we talk about related to gender and sexuality, how those actually apply in their particular context. Which again, there’s a lot of common features for something like that across whether you’re in a rural setting or an urban setting. But there’s also some things that are going to happen in a particular community like that that are going to be different if you’re in the big city. And so, you know, my heart for these churches is to say, listen, you’re the one that’s going to have to deal with this on a daily or weekly basis. We can be there to help train and equip, but we want to empower you to do the work because, you know, somebody from the ERLC is not going to be able to come down all the time, and the next time this happens, help you. We want to train you so that the next time this happens, you know exactly how to respond. Whatever the church setting is, I want to see us serve all of those churches.

RaShan Frost:

Like I said, seeing that up close and personal and hearing you tell that story, and it gives the local church an opportunity through understanding these ethical issues to be able to share the gospel with them and to share the love of Jesus with the truth of the gospel into their local context. And so that vision, to be able to help empower local churches to do what local churches are called to do, or not necessarily empower, but equip in certain aspects, I think it’s an awesome task. It’s an awesome opportunity. 

With that being said, many Southern Baptists may be less familiar with the work of the ERLC. There have been a couple times I know where they say, “Well, ERLC, what’s that?” Or, they have questions about our work. And so what would you want them to understand about the mission and role of the ERLC?

Evan Lenow:

So I think the first thing that I want them to understand is what you talked about RaShan, what the ERLC actually is. There’s been a number of times that I’ve heard people say that the ERLC is the lobbying firm of the Southern Baptist Convention, or is the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention. But the reality is, go back to the ministry assignments that the ERLC has. They all begin with assisting the churches. And there’s four different ministry assignments. The first one is to assist the churches in applying the moral and ethical teachings of the Bible to the Christian life. Then we assist churches through communication and advocacy of moral and ethical concerns in the public arena. We assist churches and their moral witness in local communities, and we assist churches and other Southern Baptist entities by promoting religious liberty.

Those are our primary tasks. And so what that means is that we are here to come alongside the churches and to really address these ethical concerns and help churches, even as I said before, to help them understand what that looks like within their particular context. You have to understand there are plenty of opportunities and applications of applying the biblical principles to these moral issues that have public policy implications. And so this is not an abandoning of the advocacy for public policy. Now, we’re certainly not a lobbying group. In fact, we can’t be, we’re prohibited from being a lobbying group by our affiliation under the Southern Baptist Convention. However, we do have times where we advocate on behalf of Southern Baptists related to public policy and related to legislation. And so when we do that, we’re doing that on behalf of the 40,000 plus Southern Baptist churches that are spread across the country. And so just know that while there is this element of public policy advocacy, that’s really not the only thing we do. We’re primarily about equipping and training churches and pastors to address these moral concerns within their own local communities.

RaShan Frost:

So, we have a couple fun questions, if you will. And so I know we’ve spent time dialing into your vision as the incoming president and the role of the ERLC in serving our churches. But along those lines, before I go to the fun questions, along those lines, what gets you most excited as you begin this new role?

Evan Lenow:

For me, it’s all about building relationships, building relationships with folks across the convention. I’m coming into this job with my eyes open. I was there at the last couple annual meetings when there were concerns and votes even related to the ERLC. And I know that relationship building is going to be an important part of this role. And honestly, I love doing that kind of stuff. I love meeting pastors. I love sitting down and talking through theology, ethics, the application of Scripture to our lives and to our ministries. That really excites me. I get pumped up about doing that kind of stuff. And I laugh, I go to the Southern Baptist Convention every year and have been doing that for a couple decades now. I’ll go with some friends who walk away from the Southern Baptist Convention, and they’re kind of exhausted.

And I walk away from the Southern Baptist Convention energized because I’ve gotten to see all these people and see the work that we are doing as Southern Baptists around the world. And so I’m excited about building relationships. I’ve heard from a lot of folks across the convention that want to sit down and talk and see how we can partner together with the ERLC. And that really excites me. So that’s what I want to do. And I want to see this on a national scale. I’ve been doing a lot of that across the state of Mississippi for the last seven years. And so this is really just an expansion of that to a national level.

RaShan Frost:

So now, what are some everyday things about you that would be fun to know? Those random questions. I’ve got one that I would like to ask you, but I want to let you dial in one first.

Evan Lenow:

Okay. Probably amongst my students that are here, they’re aware of this because they can see it every time they walk into my office. My family and I, we’re big baseball fans, specifically Texas Rangers fans having lived out there for 12 and a half years. And I have, they’re sitting just over here to my left, I’ve got about 25-30 baseball bobbleheads sitting on my shelf. And it’s the first thing people see when they walk in my office. The beauty of it now is, now I have people, I have students, who bring me bobbleheads. In fact, I got a text message earlier this week with a picture of a bobblehead that said, “Would you be interested in this one?” And my answer’s always yes. And the majority of them are Texas Rangers, but I’ve got a few others. 

I’ve got Queen Elizabeth II over here. I’ve got the Bucky’s beaver over here, and I’ve got a couple others. But yeah, big baseball fans. And then I guess the other one is I have a little bit of a problem with shoes. I like shoes, and I could probably spend way more time and money than is healthy on shoes. So my wife helps me not do that. And so my favorite pair though is a pair of custom Nike Air Forces that my wife and kids got me for my birthday two or three years ago that I like to wear on a regular basis. But yeah, those are probably a couple of fun little things about me. 

RaShan Frost:

Nice. Now here’s my question. Okay, I’m going to tee it up for you. So every time we are in Nashville for usually a research fellow gathering or something, and I’m going down to go work out, you’re there already. You beat me into the fitness center. And so knowing that you like to workout and things like that, what is your favorite thing to do in your workout?

Evan Lenow:

Oh yeah, that’s a tough one. I can tell you it’s not leg day, but if anybody ever says leg day is their favorite workout, you know they’re lying to you. And so my favorite thing I guess right now is, and maybe it’s just because it’s the area where I’ve seen the most progress of late, is especially working on my shoulders and triceps. I enjoy that. You’re kind of setting me up for a little bit of failure here, RaShan, because first of all, when you and I are in the fitness center together, there’s a vast difference in the amount of weight being pushed between you and me. I did not play Division I football like you did. And so I’m pretty sure my max out is about where you start with your warmup.

So I don’t want anybody to get confused. What I joke with my students all the time is when I’m here at home, I work out in our fitness center on campus. And so I see students in there all the time, and they’re always giving me a hard time about putting more weight on here. I said, listen, I’m here for two primary reasons. One is I’m trying to avoid becoming the old fat guy in the room. And so I can’t do anything about the old part, but the working out is trying to prevent the other side of it. And second, I want to eat ice cream. And so if I’m going to eat ice cream, I’ve got to do something to eliminate the problems that come with eating ice cream. My students laugh all the time. I have very specific thoughts about appropriate flavors of ice cream, and a hierarchy of ice cream flavors. 

And they don’t always agree with me, but it’s fine. They can be wrong. It doesn’t bother me at all. So those are the two reasons. I’m trying to do the best that I can to steward my physical body for the Lord, and then also because I want to eat dessert. And that comes with consequences if you don’t do something else. But the reason I beat you into the weight room when we’re at the same place is because I am a morning person. And so I have a tendency to get up pretty early, and I figure if I’m going to be up that early, I might as well get my day going. And so I try to beat you down there.

RaShan Frost:

There you go. Well, you’re undefeated. And I always encourage people, you know what? Something’s better than nothing. And so it doesn’t matter what you put on to keep the body moving. Because I’ve heard it said, “Motion is lotion.” And to a great point that you made, it is about biblical stewardship that we are to glorify God with our bodies. And part of that is taking care of it. 

So on a serious note, as we’re about to close, how can our listeners be praying for you and the work of the ERLC in this new chapter?  

Evan Lenow:

Yeah, so, obviously this is a big transition for us and my family. And so, pray for us. We’ve got four kids. I’ve got two in college and two in high school. So it’s a different transition for our college girls versus our high schoolers. And so pray for us and our family. And, honestly, it’s been a little strange from the standpoint of I’ve spent most of my career working in relative obscurity, and now that’s not true anymore. People know my name. So seeing that transition, to stay grounded in all of that as I come into this role that has a much more public face. And also, pray for the staff of the ERLC because, again, it’s a transition for them too for me to come down in this role.

But we’ve got some great people on staff at the ERLC, and there’s some great work being done, and we want to continue that work, and we want to build on that work. And I want us to see the ERLC become a trusted resource and a trusted voice among Southern Baptists and beyond that truly attempts to represent not just Southern Baptists, but represent our Lord in the public spaces that we find ourselves, so that we can truly live out our faith in such a way that people will see our good works and glorify our Father who’s in heaven.

Narration:

As Dr. Lenow begins his new role as president of the ERLC, our goal remains the same. To assist your church by helping you understand the moral demands of the gospel, apply Christian principles to moral and social problems and questions of public policy, and to promote religious liberty in cooperation with churches and other Southern Baptist entities. 

We’ll continue doing this by providing practical and theological resources and by advocating before our lawmakers for the things Southern Baptists care deeply about.

Thank you for listening to this episode of The ERLC Podcast. Join us next time as we hear from the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina.