Russell Moore's False Gospel and Political Maneuvering Strikes Again

Conversations That Matter

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Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. For those who follow the social justice battle, if you wanna call it that, and evangelicalism, if you're watching, you recognize,

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I'm sure, the face that is before you, that is Russell Moore. We haven't talked about Russell Moore, I don't think, in a little while.

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It's been a few weeks. I mean, Russell Moore is kind of a, you know, he produces material that regularly, myself and others who are challenging this narrative of social justice and all the things that fall under that.

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He comes up regularly, but it's been a little while. It's been, really, since, I think, before the Southern Baptist Convention, like the week before, when he was causing all kinds of mayhem for Mike Stone.

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And he just did an interview a few days ago. Someone sent this to me, and I thought we would go over it. And I haven't watched,

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I watched, like, maybe 30 seconds of it, and I thought, just in the 30 -second clip, I thought, this is good. This is good stuff to react to and to kind of get behind, to try to explain what he's doing, what his strategy is.

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And since I've watched Russell Moore and read Russell Moore for so many years now, I thought this would be a good opportunity.

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By the way, I should probably, at some point, show you. It won't be this episode, but I should show you the letter, or the email

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I wrote to Russell Moore, like, I wanna say, in 2010, somewhere like that.

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It was, like, 11 years ago. I wrote an email to Russell Moore, and it was not a critical email. It was not, it was thanking him for helping me kind of see the light on some things.

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And I actually went to Southern Seminary, and Russell Moore prayed with me. Many of you don't know this story, and so I'm giving you a sneak peek.

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I'm gonna share this at some point, because I think it'll intrigue a lot of you. And I don't think, I went back, actually,

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I read the email not too long ago, and I thought, am I the one that's changed? And I don't think so.

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I think Russell Moore, I don't think, actually, either of us have changed that much on the issues we were writing about and talking about.

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I've changed in other ways. He's changed in other ways, I'm sure. And we both changed here and there. But I think, fundamentally, we were probably misunderstanding each other.

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And I was thanking him for calling someone out for something that I probably misunderstood, but I also misunderstood his critique of that.

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It's just a confusing scenario. Anyway, and I was also, how old was I, like, so 11 years ago, I would've been 20 years old.

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I might've been 19. I think I was 20 when I wrote it. But anyway, I've been watching

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Russell Moore for a while. That's the point. And so I actually sat in his class, too. I just remembered that.

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I sat in his theology class when I visited Southern, and met Al Mohler there, as well. So that sounds, it seems like a different time.

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But I feel like I understand, at least to some extent, the way Russell Moore operates. I didn't 11 years ago.

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I think I do now. And so that's one of the reasons I think it's good to talk about him, just to kind of understand, because he's not the only one that operates this way.

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But the subversive nature, all the hidden assumptions that he reveals in his talks and his articles,

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I'll try to catch them if I can, and we'll focus on them a little bit here. But one of the reasons I'm also doing this,

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I should note, for those who do pray for me and everything, I am moving right now. In fact, I kind of conveniently moved everything out of the way in the room, so you don't know that I'm moving, but if I picked up right in front of me, this is the tape that we're using to put boxes together to put stuff in.

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So I still have my little sort of studio area in my wife's laundry room, but you don't wanna see what's behind me or what's on the other side of me.

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It's a mess right now. And so, yeah, it's crazy.

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We're moving in a little over a week, and I'm also writing a lot.

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I'm trying to get the book done, and I think realistically it'll be like Tuesday probably, when

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I'm like actually, Tuesday or Wednesday, when I'm like done, done. Like maybe there'd be things here or there.

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The editor's gonna say, hey, go correct this or something, but I've been doing the book.

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The book is called Christianity and Social Justice, Religions and Conflict, and I've been doing it piece by piece with the publisher, because I told them

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I wanna get this out ASAP. And there's so many other things, projects that I don't even talk about on this show, but things that I'm trying to also do.

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And so when I get a chance to write, like today I had about half a day to write, I get in the mode and I try to write as much as I can, and then

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I'll send like a chapter to the editor. And then the editor will edit it and send it back to me.

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And then so we're like kind of editing as we go to try to speed up the process. Anyway, today was one of those days.

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So I didn't really get a chance to look at other things. There's like a whole list of things I'd like to talk about. I mean, there's so many things going on right now.

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You have David Platt's church, McLean kind of just blowing up right now. And that really it's been happening for over a year, but things are becoming more public now.

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You have what's going on even at John Piper's church or the church John Piper used to pastor, and that's blowing up.

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Both of them, issues related to social justice, playing prominent roles. CREW, of course, by the way,

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CREW, I should say this. I did an episode yesterday on the Lenses Institute shutting down. And since then, someone sent me a screenshot from,

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I don't know if it was the direct, it was someone high up at Lenses saying, we're not shutting down in, I think it was like Australia and South Africa.

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It's just the US. And I have a sneaky suspicion this is a political move on the part of Lenses and the progressives in CREW.

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They want to point a finger at conservatives and say they're the ones causing the division when it's them. But, so I don't know exactly what move is being made right now.

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And I hope that Lenses in the US is being shut down. But just know, if you're giving to CREW, it's still going to Lenses. It's just not in the

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US. So I guess we're teaching that kind of stuff, that social justice and critical race theory and standpoint epistemology stuff to people in South Africa and Australia, et cetera.

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So that's not very encouraging. It needs, if they're gonna end Lenses, they need to end it all over the world.

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It's not right to just end it in the United States, in my opinion. But CREW's blowing up over this stuff.

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If I thought about it, I could go further. Obviously, the Southern Baptists are blowing up over this. So Russell Moore, where does he fit in all this?

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Well, Russell Moore left the Southern Baptist Convention. He was the head of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. And kind of in what seemed like a political move, right before the convention, he kind of took one of the main issues conservatives had with progressives or social justice advocates in the

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SBC away from them, because their issue was him. And when he's gone, they can't really bring him up or complain about him or use him to point to, to say, hey, here's the problem.

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He left. And one of the things he did was, while he was walking out the door, he basically threw

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Mike Stone under the bus and released information or had people release it.

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We're not exactly sure exactly what happened, but it just created all kinds of mayhem.

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And now he's working with Christianity Today as, what was it? I think he's a public theologian or something like that.

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So he recently went on PBS, public broadcasting, right? Not exactly conservative at all.

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Public broadcasting. I mean, what media is not progressive at this point, but public broadcasting is,

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I mean, you're basically going on like MSNBC at that point. I mean, that's kind of, maybe like a little more of a, their tone is more like, shh, you're in the library.

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It's like NPR, right? You ever listen to NPR, that NPR voice? It's just, you know, welcome to NPR.

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It's just so, it's like, why are you doing your show in the library? And then they'll bring in some kind of, you know, music background and interlude.

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And anyways, I just think PBS and NPR, I mean, they're both national, funded by,

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I guess, our taxpayer dollars to some extent, media companies. But that's where, and this fits

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Russell Moore. In my opinion, Russell Moore belongs at PBS or NPR. That's who he is. It's kind of that like elitist kind of, you know, dress nice, very intellectual sounding, kind of, you know, soft hands, modicum of respectability, and your tone is always like you're in the library.

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I don't know how else to say it. And then you can say like the nastiest things though, but in the most like couched, intellectual sounding ways.

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And so anyway, Russell, this is just his environment, in my opinion, that's who Russell Moore is, in my opinion. So let's watch this.

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Let's see what, how Russell Moore, Russell Moore is always talking about, or he has in the past, being a public witness, being a prophetic voice.

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Let's see how he does it. Because usually it's like from the pages of the Washington Post condemning Christians. Let's see, and I haven't watched this yet, so I don't know, maybe he will.

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Let's see if he preaches the gospel, and let's see if he calls the world to account for sin at all, or if this is just using their platform to throw

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Christians under the bus once again. He's so used to doing that. So we will start it off.

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And I don't know, I don't know how far we'll get, but we'll see. It's about 16 minutes, so we should be able to do the whole thing.

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Theologian Russell Moore is one of the most influential figures in evangelical Christianity today.

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But back in May, he sent shockwaves through his community after resigning his leadership in the

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Southern Baptist Convention. A leaked letter alleging raw racist sentiment was one of many damning reasons he walked away.

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And here he is speaking to Michelle Martin. Pastor Russell Moore, thank you so much for talking with us.

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No, thanks for having me, Michelle. Obviously many people are familiar with your work, but for those who are not, you have been one of the most high profile evangelical leaders in the country for many years now.

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For some people, you probably are the face of the evangelical movement. When did it start to go wrong for you?

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When did things internally start to change? When did you start to notice some sort of friction there? Just noticed this.

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She's from NPR. So I didn't know that that was coming, but she's an NPR, I guess,

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I don't know, host. But she sees Russell Moore, this is how insular this group is.

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She sees Russell Moore as perhaps the face of evangelicalism. Yeah, we're all familiar. I mean, people are familiar with Russell Moore, right?

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That's actually really not the case when you're thinking about popular Christianity in the

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United States. A lot of people have never heard of Russell Moore. It's more the Southern Baptists who probably know who he is.

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But it's interesting, I'm just showing you, look, this is who he plays to. This is his audience.

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These are the people that know him. NPR radio host or contributor who just kind of like, oh yeah,

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Russell Moore. Some people would consider you the face of evangelicalism, right? Because they consider him the face of, or they want to consider him the face of evangelicalism.

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They see him as such a prominent person. These are the people that give him accolades more than anyone else. Well, I don't think that things went wrong.

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I think in some ways things went very right in that I came to see new ways to equip

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Christians and God doing a new thing. And frankly, within the

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Southern Baptist Convention, the people in the Southern Baptist Convention were overwhelmingly, not just supportive, but beyond supportive and loving and affirming.

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My board was as well. I think that what I was... This is actually pretty fascinating to me because the story that he told a week or two weeks before the

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Southern Baptist Convention met this year was that there were basically all these racists running around and defenders of sexual abuse running around the

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Southern Baptist Convention, especially on the executive board for the convention. But that he couldn't be part of this group of people or couldn't stand this group of people that...

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He was a strong word. I'm trying to remember if it was terrorized. I think it was. His family, and this is who they were.

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So now he's saying, well, the people supported me. But in reality, like you and I both know, he's talking to a fellow elitist here.

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And they know Russell Moore. Do they know the average Southern Baptist? No, and the average

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Southern Baptist did not care for Russell Moore. So this is kind of a warped reality almost.

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In his mind, here's what social justice advocates do. This is the lesson here. They look at themselves as speaking truth to power, the underdog, the oppressed, the marginalized, the minority.

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They're misunderstood. They're persecuted. They have like a persecution complex. It's kind of a martyr cult.

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And they look at themselves that way. And no matter what happens, they could be praised by all the elites, all the people with the money, all the people with platform and prestige and power can praise them to the hilt.

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But they're still gonna act like they're this kind of martyr victim representing the people, representing the common folk against the elites who are on the executive committee for the

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Southern Baptist Convention. You and I though both know the truth. The truth of the matter is that's not who they actually are.

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That's a fantasy that they live in. It's the common people by and large who actually were concerned about Russell Moore.

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And even those on the executive committee, the stated reasons that many of them had for concerns with the

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ERLC or concerns with caring well came back to flack they were getting from the common people in the

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SBC. So it's actually reversed. It's flipped from what

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Russell Moore actually thinks it is. And this is just very common. So I just want you to recognize it when you see it because you can call it out.

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You can say, well, who are you talking about? What do you mean the people like you and represent you? From where I sit, the common people don't tend to care for you.

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And you're always getting these prestigious places like in this case, PBS or Washington Post or New York Times to write from.

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Most of the conservatives so -called that you say have power and they're not getting these opportunities.

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So what are you talking about? So anyway, just thought

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I'd point that out. Starting to see was the same thing that virtually almost every pastor

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I'm talking to right now is seen, which is a congregation where the vast majority of people really wanna love each other, really wanna follow

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Christ. And sometimes there's a very small group within that congregation that doesn't want to.

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And this is actually pretty serious. So what he's doing is he's minimizing. So what he did before the

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SBC convention was there's this horrible conspiracy of people and there's so many people terrorizing my family and the racists and defenders of sexual abuse running around the

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Southern Baptist Convention, et cetera, et cetera. This is just, it's so pervasive. And now what he's doing is he's saying, oh no, no, no, he's actually, he's marginalizing them.

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He's putting them in a corner and saying, no, there's not too many of them. They're just, most people wanna follow

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God. But look, this sounds so respectable. Listen to though how,

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I don't know, mean sounding that this actually is. If you just, if you read the transcript and you didn't hear his tone, he is saying that there's people who wanna follow

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Christ and then there's these evil people who didn't like him. And they're the ones who don't wanna follow

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Christ. He's basically accusing them of not being Christians. That's kind of like what he's saying. So the people who, there's the people who want unity and then the people who don't.

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And they're the evil people. This is kind of like there's this us versus them kind of thing going on in their minds when everyone else just really wants unity.

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But actually what Russell Moore is doing is he's making a distinction in his head. He's separating people along the lines of,

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I guess, whether they supported him or not. And so he's saying it's just, it's a small amount of people who are these horrible, you know, racist, et cetera, that didn't like him.

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Creates a different kind of temperature in the room. And so what a pastor has to decide is, do

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I continue working toward change in this congregation? Which is usually the way to go.

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Or in other ways to say, maybe I should be doing something different. So why'd you resign? Because I started to see

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God doing something new in terms of - That's actually such a good question.

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She's saying, hold on, wait a minute. You're saying there's this just minority of people that have this issue.

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And it's not pervasive. And, you know, pastors should probably in most instances stick around to try to change things.

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If it's really not that bad, then why did you resign? Because this is a different tune than the one he was singing before he left the

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ERLC. Or in the letter that was revealed about why he left. Putting people together from multiple denominations who have the same concern.

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So I was having conversation every single day with Anglicans and Presbyterians and non -denominational people and others who were saying, it seems to me that we have a moment where we need to put the gospel first and we need to put the kingdom first and we need each other to do that.

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And so Christianity Today being the way that the evangelical movement essentially launched in the post -war era.

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I think we have a very similar moment right now. So you're focusing very much on what you're going to or not what you're leaving.

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You perfectly understand. I think it's interesting. He's talking about like talking to Anglicans and then he's saying, but like this is, it said like evangelicalism has been broadened because Anglicans, I guess, are not fitting that.

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You know, I'm going to do something broad. I'm going to talk to the Anglicans and the Presbyterians, et cetera, and all of evangelicalism.

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It's just interesting to me because evangelicalism didn't really start that way. But I have to say your resignation letter landed like a rocket.

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It was leaked. I don't know who leaked it. I know that we've all read it. You've not denied that it is your words.

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It's blistering. It's absolutely blistering. You say that the presenting issue, you said it's not the former president.

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You say the presenting issue was the way the denomination itself or the leadership was dealing with sexual abuse, thing one.

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But you also say that you and your family face constant threats from white nationalists and white supremacists, including within the convention.

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Do you want to talk about that? Yes. Yes. Well, that wasn't a resignation letter. It was a letter that I had written to my board members.

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Just, they pray with me and I was helping them to see some of the things that were going on.

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Yes. I mean, I think that there are very real issues within the church in almost every denomination or communion or setting right now.

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When it comes to these issues of racial justice and reconciliation and sexual abuse.

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I mean, I'm finding this as recently as just right before this interview, talking to a pastor who's combating this within the congregation.

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You know, I was listening to a Roger Scruton. Was I listening? I think I was listening. Cause I'm going through one of his books.

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I can't remember if it was a reading or listening, but anyway, Roger Scruton said something about, it was an interview, it was on YouTube.

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How the left is, when they, all the things that they vaguely say that they're about and that they portray the conservative side as saying they're against, are things that no one really disagrees on.

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Hardly anyone. Like who would be against racial reconciliation? Who would be for sexual abuse?

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These are things that universally, just about like 99 .9 % of people all can come together on and say, we are like hearing just those terms.

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They all say like, we're with you on that. But then when you unpack the meaning that someone like a

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Russell Moore is giving to them, he gets, they play with definitions so that they can use language in such a way that they claim the high ground.

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It's kind of like the wellness for all act or something like that. Like who would be against wellness for all or healthcare for all or something like that?

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Well, we're, because of the devils in the details, it's not that that anyone's against.

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It's the actual plan that slides right underneath that term. And Russell Moore does that too.

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So another thing to watch that progressives do. And it can be exhausting. It can be demoralizing.

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But it also means that there's an opportunity for the people of God to do what's right. I hear you, but it is disturbing.

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I mean, when did you start to see these things? I mean, has this been kind of a little hum all along, like sort of like a pilot light in your furnace that is always there?

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This is his opportunity right here. He was criticized because he never shed any light on actual white nationalists, racists, et cetera, who threatened his family.

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He never named names. He just said that it happened. This is his opportunity right here to say, those are the guys, those are the people that threatened my family.

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And I mean, he should be, if that's true, then he probably should be calling the police. But he's not even revealing it to the people on his board in a letter that was leaked.

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So he has another opportunity right here. Is he going to name who these people are, or is it just gonna be a political tool that he uses to try to condemn this supposed minority of people who are causing all the problems?

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Or, you know, so here we go, let's see. Something that you became newly aware of, because of the prominence of your position.

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Well, I think that issues of racial justice, particularly, had always been disturbing to me.

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It was one of the reasons why I went through a spiritual crisis as a 15 -year -old when

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I was looking at Bible Belt Christianity and seeing a lot of very blatant racism and wondering how can these two things go together?

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I mean, one cannot read the Bible and see the actions of Jesus and seeing the sort of church that Jesus puts together and come to this kind of conclusion that racism is anything other than morally wrong.

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And so that's been a concern for me for all of my life. I think there are many people who are rattled by some of the things that we're seeing in terms of sexual abuse and the treatment of sexual abuse survivors and cover -ups taking place.

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Again, not just in one setting and not just even within a church setting, but within multiple settings in the

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United States right now. But the church is called to better. And so we ought to be the place that is the toughest on sexual abuse and the place that is the most caring for survivors and victims of sexual abuse.

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I think that is something we must do better. And I don't know. So there's so much he just said.

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One of the things, though, I'll just note this. The place where people should be the toughest on criminals like that would be the civil magistrate.

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That's their job. And this is where the social justice movement sometimes goes off the rails is they forget the church is a ministry of justice.

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I'm sorry, ministry of grace. And the government bears the sword. It's a ministry of justice.

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And sometimes those two things get conflated a little bit. I remember having a conversation with a group of evangelical women a couple of years ago.

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And one of the women there said, it seems to me that when you're seeing some of these revelations that are taking place with some high profile scandals, some high profile coverups, it seems that you're rattled by that.

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And we want you to know that none of us are surprised by this. And the entire room full of women were nodding their heads.

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And that was really a key moment for me in seeing just how deep some of these problems go.

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You said earlier that this is a minority of people within the convention, within the denomination, within the universe.

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And that sort of makes sense. I mean, Seraphim Baptists, at least to the current moment, have been the largest

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Protestant denomination. So we're talking about millions of people. On the other hand, the areas in which you have constantly faced criticism within your movement have been when you've surfaced these issues.

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I mean, when you have publicly called for more diversity in the leadership of the convention, you were criticized for that.

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When you have showcased women who have wanted to speak about their experiences with sexual misconduct, you were criticized for that.

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In fact, you say in your letter... It's actually not... See, here's where she's getting it wrong. That's not what he was ever criticized for, at least not the main people criticizing

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Russell Moore. They were criticizing him for the assumptions behind why he was doing that, for the reasoning.

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For instance, with the Caring Well stuff, it's not so much that you're platforming people who have abuse stories.

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It's where you're doing it, and it's how you're doing it, and it's why you're doing it. So sort of making them epistemic islands, like they have so much to teach pastors without...

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Like, look at the speaker list for Caring Well. Where are the pastors? Where are those who are known specifically as pastors and speaking in their capacity as pastors, people who understand the word of God and know how to apply it?

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Or is the emphasis on survivors can... Pastors need to sit at the feet of the survivors to understand how to really deal with this issue, because you need these perspectives.

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So it's that kind of thing. It's nothing against, quote -unquote, survivors.

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And so this is where, again, who could be against healthcare for all, right?

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Well, no one is. It's just who's gonna pay for it, and then you start having disagreements. Yeah, from the very beginning of my service,

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I've been attacked with the most vicious guerrilla tactics on such matters and have been told to be quiet about this by others.

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You said that you've heard just the most vicious racist comments behind the scenes.

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So if that's the case, then how can you say... I mean, forgive me, that it's not somehow defining or pervasive within the movement?

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You seem to say, how can both of those things be true? Well, I think both of those things can be true because if you look at what the denomination as a whole would do when they would come together in their annual meetings, they would not be in any way in the direction that you just mentioned.

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As a matter of fact, I was often surprised at just how strong the

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Southern Baptist Convention would end up being in their June meetings in terms of support for racial reconciliation and justice and standing up for sexual abuse survivors.

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That wasn't the problem. The problem was what was happening between meetings. And I found that that's the case in a number of institutions right now where sometimes the people who are the most obsessed with the politics, the internal politics, tend to be the least healthy people and vice versa.

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Would Russell Moore be kind of like the most obsessed with the internal politics of almost anyone?

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Look at the columns he wrote, look at the videos he put out, look at the interviews he's done. His job was to be the director of the

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Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. And it's like he couldn't hardly do it. Go look back to COVID and see like how he even, how slow the

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ERLC was. I mean, if anything, they were even damaging the response of churches in the

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United States by trying to show their solidarity with the government and with stopping the spread and all these kinds of things and the mandates to lock down churches and all of that.

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That's where the ERLC was at. Russell Moore spends a great deal of his time.

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And you would think, you would think that wasn't his job if you followed him. You'd think it wasn't being the head of the ERLC. You would think it was probably being what he just said, obsessed with the internal politics of the

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SBC and condemning Christians that he didn't like. You'd think that was his job. But this is like, he's a master at projection, which is, it seems like what's going on right now.

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He's accusing others of the very thing that he does himself. Paul, do you think race plays in this?

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I mean, is it possible that race has become more important than the gospel?

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Is it possible? In some sectors, I think it certainly has. And this is not new though.

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If you look back at the New Testament, you're going to find so much of it has to do with this very question, whether or not people are going to idolize the flesh and exercise dominion over one another, or whether or not people are going to be part of one body and one fellowship.

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This is a repeated issue in the New Testament. And it's been a repeated issue throughout history.

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This is so vague. I'm assuming he's talking about the Jews and Gentiles and the laws contained in ordinances that stood between them because it was a law issue.

30:26

It really wasn't a race issue, but I mean, what else, what is he talking about? Oh, if you notice even what we tend to think of as the contemporary evangelical movement happened in the 1940s and 50s with a diverging of those who wanted to be separatist, fundamentalist, and those who wanted to be gospel -focused, gospel -centered evangelicals.

30:50

That is very telling. That is very telling right there because the fundamentalists split off because primarily things like modernism, evolution, higher criticism, that was a big part of it.

31:06

Was there a culture element? Yeah, there was to some extent. Nah, I don't wanna go on a whole thing about that.

31:14

Actually, it's funny. Someone, I think it was Edward Ramirez asked me a question the other day about fundamentalism.

31:20

And I was like, you know, I'm just gonna record my response. And like 20 minutes later, I looked, I was like, oh my goodness. Poor guy's gonna have to listen to like,

31:28

I gave him his own personal podcast on what I thought of fundamentalism. But primarily it was modernism.

31:35

It was higher criticism, evolution. These are the kinds of things that ripped apart or made fundamentalists kind of become more insular.

31:45

And they, you know, ended up in the Bible college or Bible Institute movement was started in these kinds of things.

31:53

And evangelicals, neo -evangelicals were in 1947 onward, I guess is the date usually assigned to that.

32:01

They wanted to be global leaders. And Russell Moore's still part of that stream. They wanted, and they compromised real quick because of it.

32:09

But they thought, you know, the Bible Institute thing. No, we're gonna create seminaries that we have like psychological leaders and sociologists and all these kinds of things.

32:19

Yeah, that didn't work out too well. And Russell Moore looks at that and he says, though, they're about the gospel.

32:25

He's making a split here. One side's about the gospel, the neo -evangelicals who basically, they look at Fuller Theological Seminary.

32:32

How long was it quote unquote gospel centered? And then the fundamentalists who don't have the gospel, why?

32:38

Why don't they, I mean, they could be wrong about some things culturally, but why don't they have the gospel? So what is

32:44

Russell Moore's gospel is the question here. This is very revealing. In many cases, they agreed on all the fundamentals of the faith, but they disagreed very much about the ways that culture can shift and can take any religion captive.

33:01

I mean, that's really the issue. If that's the issue, then why is that? Why does it mean they don't have the gospel if they disagree on that?

33:09

It's really, really clear. Russell Moore is showing his cards right now. He does, this is another gospel, guys.

33:15

This is a false gospel. Social justice movement, nine out of 10 times. It's probably more like 10 out of 10 times.

33:22

Like you start looking under the hood at some of these guys and they start making comments like this, especially in interviews that are, they're offhanded where,

33:31

I mean, Russell Moore hasn't just done it in interviews. He's done it in like speeches he's vetted, but they start saying things like this.

33:36

Oh, they don't have the gospel. If what, you disagree on some cultural thing here, that means you don't have the gospel.

33:42

So what is the gospel to you? You have to have some kind of work of reaching the world in a certain way to have the gospel?

33:50

Like I didn't think works was part of it. But notice that white evangelicals were among the former president's strongest constituencies.

33:59

They are among the most hesitant right now to embrace public health measures to contain the coronavirus.

34:06

And it's all the more noteworthy because these are folks who espouse an ethic of being, of protecting the sanctity of life.

34:15

And yet they have proven to be among the most unwilling to take measures to protect the sanctity of some lives, of vulnerable lives.

34:24

And why is that? Why is that? I don't know. I think we're in a moment of a kind of crisis of credibility.

34:34

That's one of the things that I've been speaking to repeatedly. And frankly, what takes up most of my time and energy right now is -

34:43

Let me explain it. Christians believe that thou shall not murder is one of the 10 commandments.

34:49

Murdering is evil and wrong. Christians also believe that adults can take certain risks and that's on them.

34:57

It's within their jurisdiction. It's not up to the nanny state to dictate to them what kind of risks they should or should not take.

35:04

Taking a risk and murdering someone are very different things. That's what

35:09

Russell Moore, the head of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission formerly, should have been able to articulate in about 0 .2

35:15

seconds. To young evangelical Christians who are disillusioned and who are fighting against cynicism, usually not yielding to it, but fighting against it.

35:27

And they have every reason to in many cases. So we really have a long project ahead of us of rebuilding evangelical credibility on the basis of being the people who are what we say we are.

35:41

How about we assume for a moment that this is true? Evangelicals are a bunch of hypocrites. Their ethics are all off.

35:49

They don't even quite have the gospel and they call themselves evangelicals. They're the most terrible people. Let's just assume that that's true and there's a crisis.

35:56

Now, it's funny, because at the beginning, he said, oh, it's just a minority of people. And now all of a sudden, it's a crisis that young people are justified in struggling in and reacting to this.

36:05

So which is it, Russell Moore? But here's the thing. If that's all true, which I don't grant, but let's say it is, why do young people still have a right or they have every, what did he say?

36:18

Every right is to have this crisis of credibility and to shake them, et cetera.

36:24

How about you just say, you know what? There have been many false converts, many false churches, many people who say that they're one thing and they're not.

36:36

The foundation for the Christian faith is in Jesus Christ. It's in the word of God. That's what you say.

36:42

You don't give people, you don't justify that they're, oh, you have every right to struggle with your faith because of this minority of people,

36:52

I guess, who aren't doing everything ethically the way that social justice activists would like them to do it.

36:58

If that's what your faith is built on, then, look, and look, I'm not taking anything away from it being understandable.

37:04

I get that. But even if it's understandable, you don't say that, oh, someone has the right to kind of have a crisis of credibility or a crisis of faith.

37:20

That's what doesn't make sense to me. No, if your faith is rooted in Jesus, then it's firm, it's solid.

37:26

You don't need the affirmation of false converts. So, look,

37:31

I understand this to some extent because I think we've all gone through this, those who understand Russell Moore is a wolf and so many that are pushing a false gospel, as Russell Moore even just kind of let out are.

37:44

We have struggled to some extent with, wait a minute, like I thought all these people were Christians. Look, I wrote a letter, what, 11 years ago to Russell Moore praising him for things, sort of,

37:53

I don't know if I wanna be too, I was very thankful for him, we'll put it that way. And I realized this is the guy that I wrote that letter to, oh my goodness.

38:01

And I could see how it sort of could shake someone a little bit, but at no point does it take away the fact that I have a relationship with Jesus.

38:10

God is real, I know him. The truth of the scripture is real.

38:16

And yeah, you work through it. I would never tell someone, well, you know, you gotta, you have the right to have this crisis of faith over it or something like that or to shake your faith.

38:26

No, that shouldn't shake your faith. I mean, I could see how it could, but I wouldn't, you know, lending credibility to it, it's just weird, it's just a weird move to make.

38:35

And you wonder who he's talking to here, who, like he's on NPR, is he being a prophetic voice to NPR yet?

38:42

Or is this still about the internal politics of the church, which he says that people that are obsessed with it are the problem with, that's what he's talking about.

38:51

That's what the questions are being asked about too. That's what he seems to wanna talk about. And so his message is to,

38:59

I don't know, this is strange. His message is to people that are on, I think, more the social justice slash progressive side and kind of like affirming them and affirming even people at like places like PBS, NPR, the viewers that would be there and affirming them in their struggle with viewing conservative

39:18

Christianity as legitimate. This is someone that was paid, his salary was paid by little ladies in the

39:23

Southern Baptist Convention, giving him money. And now he's throwing them under the bus. Anyway, I should stop just because it's, it makes, it does make me irritated.

39:31

It's, you know, Jesus said that it would be better for a millstone to go around your neck and to be cast into the sea than to make one of the little ones to stumble.

39:39

And what I see in Russell Moore right now is he's saying, you know what, you know, little ones, you have a little bit of a right to stumble here because of the way conservative

39:46

Christians are acting. It's just disgusting to me. Leave what we say we believe.

39:52

I mean, this is one of the things that's interesting to me is that when I find this sort of disillusionment taking place among younger

40:02

Christians, it's usually not for the reasons that people assume, that they can't believe what the church teaches.

40:09

It's instead just the opposite. They fear that the church doesn't believe what it teaches. So we need -

40:15

That's the same thing the progressive evangelicals of the 1970s said. The Marxist evangelicals said, you can get my book, Social Justice Goes to Church, socialjusticegoestochurch .com,

40:24

same talking point, exactly. They said, oh, where are the biblical ones? You know, Christianity got it wrong for hundreds of years.

40:29

Where are the biblical ones? Be the people who are consistent, who are working to maintain integrity and consistency across the board.

40:37

And that means loving our neighbor when it comes to public health measures.

40:43

And so forth. And what I would say is, what I find often with secular people is that they assume that the problem here is pastor, is the pastoral leadership.

40:55

And I have found that not to be the case. There are some high profile sort of pastors who are on television telling people not to be vaccinated or that the blood of Jesus will protect you from COVID and so forth.

41:08

That's very rare though, from what I'm finding on the ground. In most cases, pastors are leading kind of heroically in their communities and not just with their own churches, but many of them are facing really significant backlash from, again, often small groups of people within congregations, but a small group of people can change, can change the entire dynamic.

41:34

So that's - Sadly, I'm gonna say this, and I don't say it often, I think Russell Moore's probably right about that.

41:40

It, pastors primarily have been the ones who were like, let's shut it down.

41:47

You know, let's just comply with what the government says, you know, misapplication of Romans 13. And the ones who, a lot of the ones who have changed their position, like totally, like 180 changed their position, won't admit that they changed their position, which is not good.

42:01

You should at least admit to your congregation. Be humble. I've been wrong on things and I'll admit it.

42:08

I just, actually last week that just happened. I had to retract something. Just admit you're wrong, but he's right,

42:14

I think, that a lot of pastors, it's very telling because it's taken sometimes the discernment of congregants who are probably have a little more political savvy and see kind of the move that's being made to realize what's actually going on.

42:28

And there's probably a whole bunch of reasons for that, but I think he is right. Of course, we would view that from probably an opposite end, most of us, that this is a bad thing, that it took pastors so long to kind of catch on to what's actually going on.

42:43

And many of them still haven't. That's a challenge and a crisis for us right now. Is the former president a symptom or is he, forgive me, the disease?

42:53

Was he the symptom or was he the cause? I think he was in some ways a symptom and in some ways a driver.

43:02

And by driver, what I mean is sort of the mode of discourse that now seems normal to us, including in terms of church life.

43:13

I don't think he created that, but I do think that the last five years have normalized that.

43:18

So I'll often talk to pastors who will feel as though they're failures because they look at Facebook feeds of their members and they see people using language and sarcasm and personal attack in ways that aren't consistent with the

43:36

Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes. And they say to themselves, where did I go wrong? Quick distinction here.

43:44

Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is setting a high standard for the

43:50

Pharisees or for the people, but he's saying, your righteousness has to surpass the scribes and Pharisees here. And everyone's kind of like, wait a minute, what?

43:58

Like they're the ones that we look to as the ones that can keep the law. And Jesus says, no, it's so much more deeper.

44:04

Sermon on the Mount condemns people. It shows people how high the standard truly is. And it's about personal jurisdiction.

44:11

It's about the way you conduct your life personally. For instance, a soldier should not be applying, turn the other cheek on the battlefield.

44:19

That would be a misapplication of the Sermon on the Mount. He's in the wrong jurisdiction.

44:24

He has a job and it's to fight and he's a representative of the government, which bears the sword. And Jesus affirmed that.

44:31

So you're not finding Jesus telling soldiers, go turn the other cheek. He's saying though, in general, when it comes to personal insults in your daily life, turn the other cheek, right?

44:42

So what often I see this with leftists, they love to wield the Sermon on the Mount to say that government should abide by the

44:49

Sermon on the Mount. Everyone should just abide by the Sermon on the Mount and be gentle. And they kind of miss the point of what it's doing.

44:56

It's showing that in your personal life, if someone's going to personally insult you, that you turn the other cheek.

45:05

And it's showing you, you can't really even meet that standard. Most people aren't gonna do that.

45:12

And so that's something that Jesus was able to do. He exemplified that.

45:20

And I don't know what Facebook post he's talking about, but when you're at war, and I'd like to suggest we're in a weird state because of our technology, we have kind of like a civil war going on right now without the bloodshed.

45:33

Yeah, there was some bloodshed last year. Yeah, someone got killed on January 6th. And there was way more bloodshed last summer.

45:39

And there was hundreds of businesses or thousands of businesses really destroyed and monuments down and all the rest of it burning, things burning up.

45:50

Yeah, that's a symptom of something deeper going on. But there is kind of, we are in a wartime type scenario right now.

45:59

And so, yeah, are there people that say things on Facebook they shouldn't? Yeah, I'm sure there are. But I do think that you have to take things in context.

46:09

And I'm just telling you, I can't, because he's being kind of like general here, but a lot of the times when

46:16

I see that kind of rhetoric coming from people, I mean, look how condemning Russell Moore is in this whole thing.

46:21

I mean, is he following the Sermon on the Mount, right? I guess he is because he's in an air -conditioned room with a suit jacket speaking slowly and calmly, right?

46:29

But that's not really, that shouldn't be the metric you use to figure out whether or not you're in keeping with Jesus's teaching or the

46:36

Sermon on the Mount. Jesus himself became aggressive at times and said very cutting things at times.

46:43

There are times and places for those things. And oftentimes, progressive or social justice activists, pastors, social justice activists in general, on the

46:54

Christian side don't seem to be able to see that. They're kind of blind to it in themselves.

47:00

And when they look at others who say things like, I don't know, our country's being destroyed, or this person's ruining our country or things like that, they tend to think, well, that's wrong.

47:12

You shouldn't say that. That's not respectful and stuff. And I think they're missing what the context is, how the world they're actually living in.

47:21

Like, if you're really living in a world that you believe and you think that the election was rigged, that China is subverting us all over the place and Joe Biden's in bed with them, if you think that this coronavirus stuff is a sham to take away our freedoms, or at least the reaction to it by the government, if you think that the white privilege stuff being promoted is all a bunch of Marxism and it's gonna undercut the entire framework of the

47:48

Constitution. I mean, if you believe all these things, and I could go on, then you're kind of like, it makes sense why you'd say maybe like, our country's being destroyed, or this person's doing that or that kind of thing.

48:02

So it's not necessarily like a disrespectful thing to say, to just point out the truth of the matter.

48:08

It's more like calling out what many would now consider to be, I guess, a false religion, because I think the social justice movement is a religion.

48:16

And there is a place for mockery in that. There is a place for calling out the prophets at Mount Carmel and mocking their gods, mocking the state.

48:24

There is a place for it. Now, do you have to be careful? Yes, you have to be careful. Should you be praying for your government officials?

48:30

Yes, you should. Does government have a place? Yes, it does. Realize what you're dealing with.

48:35

You're dealing though with a political religion. You're dealing with a false god as well.

48:41

You're not just dealing with government staying in its lane, following what God thinks of justice.

48:48

All right, so I've said enough of that, but I just wanted to point that out. It's an opportunity too, because Russell Moore kind of, he gave me that opportunity.

48:55

All right, we have four minutes left. Let's get through this. Well, we're living in a cultural ecosystem where things that would have been shocking to us just a few years ago have now become routine and have become normal.

49:08

I think that that's - Like, I don't know, transgender library hour, would that be one of those things?

49:15

No, probably not. Probably not. He's probably talking about Donald Trump still. A big, big part of this. As we've discussed, the

49:21

Southern Baptists have been the country's largest Protestant denomination, but as you know, the convention saw its largest single membership drop from 2018 to 2019.

49:32

It's like the 13th straight year of decline, as I understand it. Why do you think that is?

49:40

I can answer that. What did Randy Adams say? 20 churches a month are leaving the denomination.

49:46

This was before the convention because of social justice primarily. Let's see what Russell Moore says. Of reasons for that.

49:53

And I think one of the reasons is, somebody who's growing up at a time when

49:59

I was is somebody who is really taught that one's denominational identity is one's identity almost.

50:11

Secondary to identity in Christ, but certainly present there in a way that's.

50:17

Now he's right about this, but he's right about it in the South primarily. This isn't the, and it's the

50:22

Midwest to some extent. This is not the case out West. It's not the case in the Northeast.

50:28

It is not the case probably even in Florida quite as much, depending on where you are. Or in many urban cities now in the

50:36

South, where they've had so many Northerners move down. It is the case in the South. So it's not a time thing in my opinion, as much as it is probably a regional thing.

50:44

And it's still like that to some extent. It's not the case now. So there will be people who will move from Presbyterian church to Methodist church, to Baptist church, to Anglican church.

50:55

He's right, that is more pervasive. With relative ease in a way that never would have happened before.

51:01

Now Russell Moore is an example of this because he just joined a church that actually practices paedo -baptism, as I understand it.

51:08

So Russell Moore is an example of what he's talking about here. Then you add to that some of the things that we've been talking about earlier with the sort of crisis of credibility and cynicism and the sort of despair that is coming toward institutions that sometimes people feel have failed them.

51:28

And all of that adds up to the moment that we find ourselves in now. Do you see your movement as being one that can?

51:38

Did that answer her question? Maybe he knows the answer and he doesn't want to say it. I don't know.

51:44

People jump from denomination to denomination and they're cynical, okay. Recapture prominence.

51:53

By the way, that would have been the point to share the gospel. Because you could have said, we're losing the gospel and we're getting involved in all these pragmatic things.

52:04

We're getting involved in all these social justice things. Here's the gospel and all the PBS viewers could have heard it.

52:10

I don't know how else to describe it. Because one of the things that you wrote about in one of your earlier books, Onward, where it was engaging the culture without losing the gospel, was really about accepting, if I can put it as bluntly as possible, accepting the fact that some of the core principles that evangelicals adhere to are not shared by the broader society.

52:29

It's just not the majority view. Some people see the way our politics is unfolding as a way for a minority of people to try to dominate the majority with their views.

52:42

Do you think that's fair? And do you think that that's possible? Well, I don't think that evangelical

52:51

Christianity should be seeking to dominate anyone. The gospel does not come through coercion.

52:58

It comes through persuasion and the power of the Holy Spirit. I think one of the problems is that sometimes there's a tendency to try to find a golden age in the past.

53:09

Hold on though, the law is a curb and a guide. The law, the civil magistrate must have the law in order to exercise authority.

53:15

So if you have a vote in a country that lets you have a say in your government, there should be, you better believe there should be some influence from evangelical

53:23

Christianity, even in force. Because someone's morality is gonna be making that decision.

53:30

Where evangelical Christianity was dominant and prominent. And that's not what

53:35

I think we need to be looking to. Instead, I think we need to be looking to following Christ, which means having confidence in the gospel.

53:44

That's like saying, your house is burning down. You know, that old house that's burning down right in front of you, getting a fire hose, that's not what you should be focusing on right now.

53:58

Saving that old house by getting a fire hose. You know, people think that fire hose is kind of mean, actually. What you should do is just look forward.

54:05

You know, what's your next house gonna be like? That's kind of what, that's like what he's saying.

54:11

That we don't believe that we need to seek prominent sort of coerce people or to be some sort of a political movement at the table, but instead be the sort of people who can bear witness to the grace of Jesus Christ, and then to embody that and to show that.

54:27

What does that look like? Well, I think it looks like churches that hold to their convictions and love one another and are able to deal with kindness toward those who don't understand them and who don't get them.

54:45

And I think you see that in communities all over, not just all over North America, but all over the world right now, with Christians who genuinely see the people around them who disagree with them, not as people to be attacked or in some sort of war with, but as people to love and to serve.

55:08

And we can talk honestly about where we have disagreements, but do so trying to persuade each other, not trying to shut one another down.

55:16

Russell Moore, Pastor Russell Moore, thank you so much for talking with us today. It'd be kind of good if you follow that advice with Mike Stone, I feel like, but that's it, that's it.

55:26

And I've reached my limit, I think. I can't do it anymore. There you go, that's what

55:32

Russell Moore is up to, I guess, right now. And this is the last podcast of the week,

55:38

I believe, or what's today? Today's Friday, tomorrow's Saturday, so I'm recording this the evening before Saturday. You're hearing this probably on Saturday.

55:45

There will be more next week. I'm gonna try, I don't know how it's gonna work, I'm gonna try to record a bunch of podcasts.

55:50

If possible, before I leave, because actually what's happening is

55:56

I'm moving back to New York for, to the home we have there.

56:05

And right after, like it's like two days after that, my wife and I haven't gone on a vacation for since COVID at all.

56:13

So we're going on a vacation for a week, and then we're visiting family for a week. And so I'm gonna try to line up as much as I possibly can.

56:22

I don't know how far I'll get, but I'm gonna do my best. And so you don't have to miss

56:28

Conversations That Matter. I know some of you really enjoy some of this stuff, and it's different.

56:34

And maybe we'll put together some just different stuff. We'll talk about some things. I actually wanna talk about some fun things too, not just the social justice stuff.

56:42

But maybe we'll get some people to talk about cuisine and other things. I know some of you, you don't like that. You wanna keep on the trail,

56:48

John, but we need a relief from it sometimes. And so anyway, I just wanna let you know kind of what

56:55

I'm planning. And yeah, God bless. Hope that was helpful. Until next time, bye now.