Russell D. Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Conventions Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, announced the appointment of Andrew T. Walker as director of policy studies. Walker, 28, currently serves as policy analyst for the Heritage Foundation, one of the nation’s most respected conservative think-tanks.
Walker, a native of Jacksonville, Ill. has worked within Heritage’s DeVos Center for Religion and Society on issues of marriage, family and religious liberty. In his leadership role at the ERLC, Walker will coordinate strategies for equipping churches to deal with contemporary moral and policy concerns.
The New York Times featured Walker as one of the “undaunted” young conservatives working toward a meaning of marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Likewise, Focus on the Family’s Citizen magazine profiled Walker and his Heritage colleague Ryan Anderson as representing a new generation of pro-marriage Christian activist-scholars.
“Andrew Walker’s name was on my heart from the moment I was asked to lead the ERLC,” Moore said. “He is brilliant, activist, energetic and gospel-centered. He is one of the brightest young minds in evangelicalism, widely respected in Washington and brings with all of that the ‘Kingdom first’ vision that characterizes the new ERLC. Along with leaders such as Barrett Duke, Phillip Bethancourt and Daniel Patterson, Walker is part of a ‘dream team’ of co-laborers for which I am thankful to God.”
Walker said he was enthusiastic to join in the leadership team at the ERLC. He stated, “I’m honored to join the ERLC team under the presidency of Dr. Russell Moore, whose visionary leadership will set a new tone for Christian engagement in the public square.”
“American Christians are entering a new era in how they’ll relate to the broader culture. I’m excited about helping Christians in general, and Southern Baptists in particular, think through the dynamics of their faith on any number of contemporary issues,” Walker added.
Walker said, “We can’t just be a people who stand athwart history yelling, ‘Stop!’ as William F. Buckley once said, we must also be happy warriors for the Kingdom, yelling, ‘Come!'”
Walker earned a master of divinity degree from Southern Seminary in 2010 and is also a graduate of Southwest Baptist University. He is currently pursuing a master of theology degree in ethics from Southern Seminary. Walker will begin his duties August 1.
For more information, please visit Baptist Press at bpnews.net.
The Southern Baptist Convention is Americas largest non-Catholic denomination with more than 15.8 million members in over 46,000 churches nationwide. The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission is the SBCs ethics, religious liberty and public policy agency with offices in Nashville, Tenn. and Washington, D.C.
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