Russell Moore Loses His Religion

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We are live on the Conversations That Matter podcast. I'm your host, John Harris. Wow, it's been a while, huh?

00:09

It's been about a week since I podcasted, I think. I think, yeah, it was last, what, Thursday or Friday?

00:16

Usually I don't, you get a podcast from me almost every day. Usually I don't wait that long, but a little explanation is in order because my own mother even contacted me,

00:26

I guess it was yesterday, and she said, is there something wrong with my phone maybe because I'm not getting your podcast.

00:32

I said, mom, that's because I haven't made any. That's right, my mom is my fan and I am not ashamed to say so.

00:39

So anyway, how's everyone doing out there? I hope you're all having a good summer. Feel free to write in the chat box what you're doing and we'd love to know.

00:49

I'm having a good time for the most part. This week's been busy. I'll explain, I'll let you know what's happened and what's prevented me from podcasting a little bit here.

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First, last week, I went on a camping trip. The first camping trip, even though it's now August, but it's the first camping trip of the year with my wife.

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We went away to the Finger Lakes, which if you're in New York, you know where that is, but it's a beautiful area. We went to a place called

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Watkins Glen. And then we went to a few different waterfalls near Ithaca, New York. And my wife has wanted to see this band

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Nickel Creek for a long time. She actually bought tickets to see them at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville.

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And her brother lives in Nashville. We thought this would be a great opportunity. My brother lives in Tennessee. We'll go down, we'll visit family and we'll see them.

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And we got there and they canceled it because one of the singers, Chris Thilly, I guess, was sick, if you know the band, you'll know.

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He's a mandolin player. And so that was kind of a bummer. And so she found out though, they put more dates on their tour.

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And one of them was, I mean, it's still like three and a half hours from us, but it was at this apple orchard south of Syracuse, New York.

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And it was just spectacular. So anyway, yeah, it was really, really good. Oh, Trudle just put in the chat, he has not camped or smoked meat at all this summer.

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What are you doing, man? What are you doing? The weekend's coming. So maybe this weekend, smoke some meat.

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I made some really banger pulled pork, by the way, last week. My first time ever doing pulled pork with the smoker.

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And yeah, the people who had it said it was really good. My wife doesn't normally like it. And she even liked it, which

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I was kind of proud of. So I'm getting into that a little bit more. But anyway, we went on this little trip and we had a good time.

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It was like two and a half days. And then when I came back, we have a home inspection that happened today.

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But it was for, some of you know, my wife runs an Airbnb and there's some new regulations.

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I think this is happening everywhere. Regulations are just going in in all these little towns and counties because Airbnb, well, there's probably some legitimate reasons.

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Airbnbs are causing a ruckus. People are, especially in my area, from New York City are buying up properties and then using them as Airbnbs to renting them out like that and making money.

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And they're not there to see the kind of people that are throwing parties or, you know, whatever the noise pollution, whatever it is.

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But of course they, as the government does, they went to the extra step of putting in a whole bunch of regulations and they justified it under the

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COVID. They're still doing that under the COVID policies of healthcare. So they had to come assess our home for safety violations.

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And it's pretty crazy in my mind what they require. But anyway, that meant that most of this week

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I had to be up cutting down trees and cleaning out my basement and doing all kinds of things that I wasn't really expecting to do, but I'm doing it.

03:46

So it looks like AD Robles is stopping by. Hey AD, how you doing? Good to see you. I know AD's having fun this summer.

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He was fishing. I saw some pictures and that's one thing that I wish that I was doing more of.

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And I mean, it's already August, but I think I've only gotten my line wet like once and I didn't even catch anything.

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It's really bad. That used to be my summer was fishing, but smoking meat's also pretty good.

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So anyway, all right. Well, we do have serious stuff. This is the Conversations That Matter podcast.

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We're not just gonna talk about my summer and how it's going, but some of you, I think, find that interesting.

04:21

I would appreciate your prayers, by the way. I don't think I should probably share all the details of this, but I'll just put it this way, because I have said this on the podcast before, that my wife and I have been navigating some fertility stuff.

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And I'll just put it this way. We're at a point where we have to make some major decisions and there's just a lot of financial issues involved in all that.

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So I appreciate your prayers. I do want to say one thing that just to encourage you as well, because it encouraged me.

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One of the supporters out there, randomly, okay?

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One of the listeners, he's probably listening now, sent me some gold. And it's just some like, you know, gold to put away in a safe, like gold coins,

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I guess. And I was just, like, first of all, sending it through the mail,

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I was like, whoa. You know, that takes some guts. I guess some faith in our postal service.

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But he just wanted to do it. He doesn't know me, just wanted to bless me. And there have been a few times in my life, over the last few years, especially since I started doing the podcasting and the writing and the speaking and all that, it's not always a consistent income.

05:32

And I'm so thankful for the patrons. I'm so thankful for those who support it. And sponsors, if there's sponsors out there, you know, that helps, all that helps.

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But there have been times when we come up short and God always comes through.

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And in this case, I just see this as a connection. I mean, it's right when we were starting to discuss, okay, like, how are we gonna pay for some of these medical bills if we go down the road that we're probably gonna go down?

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And it's right then when someone sent me what will probably cover it, which

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I just, I'm amazed by that kind of thing. God does that kind of thing. And anyway, for those concerned about all that, you can pray.

06:10

I should probably let people know, some people get weird about that when I bring up things like fertility -related issues because they're thinking insemination, they're thinking

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IVF, they're thinking there's all these ethical concerns. And I just wanna let everyone know I'm very aware of all of that.

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So that's all I'm gonna say. I probably already said more than my wife would want me saying, but I just appreciate the prayer.

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So anyway, yes, AD. AD says, partner with John, this is huge. This work is huge. Thank you,

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AD. Thank you for that. So anyway, we got a bunch of people streaming right now. And yes, we gotta get to the serious stuff here.

06:45

Do we really want to talk about Russell Moore? Why don't we just take a vacation from that, shall we? No, no, we have to do it.

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All right, we'll start there. And then I have an announcement at the end of the podcast for those who wanna stick around.

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But I wanna get into the material because Russell Moore just came out with this new book and it's called,

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Losing Our Religion. Great title, Losing Our Religion, An Altar Call for Evangelical America.

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So you can tell already, like you don't even have to read the book and you can tell that based on the cover, he's insinuating that, look evangelicals, you must not actually have the gospel.

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You're not really one of us. You're not really Christians. You need an altar call. I mean, what's an altar call, right? That's when you call someone forward to get,

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I was gonna say get saved, but it's true. It's get saved, it's to receive the forgiveness that comes with believing in Jesus Christ, trusting in him for salvation.

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It's the gospel message and the response. That's the altar call. That's what at least traditionally it's supposed to mean.

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And Russell Moore saying this applies to evangelical America. They apparently need the gospel. And this is so boring to me in a way, just because I've seen, and maybe not to all of you, but it's because I'm immersed in this stuff.

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I read this stuff all the time and it's just such a constant theme. And it's been that way since like the early seventies.

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The evangelical leftists always want to insinuate that the side that they're politically against somehow doesn't have the gospel, right?

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And they do it in like vague ways. And sometimes they didn't as much in the seventies.

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Now they do, they do it in vague ways, in general ways. Russell Moore does give us some stuff to sink our teeth into, but honestly the book is kind of a word salad.

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It's what you would expect from Russell Moore. It's like his blogs. It's wrapped in this very pietistic sounding veneer, but then when you dig down, you're like thinking, okay, what are you actually saying here?

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And it's all these insinuations. It's honestly kind of effeminate. It's the way that like, like if I listened to my wife talk to her friends and this is a positive example, so I'm not making a complete parallel here, but I noticed the way that they talk to each other is different than the way

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I often talk to my friends, right? There's just a tendency women have to speak in more emotional language, okay?

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Not that men can't, I'm just saying that women in general relate to each other in emotional ways and they're able to communicate to each other sometimes in these.

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Now this is positive when I'm listening to my wife talk to her friends, but I've noticed though very often when there's gossip or slander or those kinds of things, men and women go about it very differently, right?

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And it may not even be gossip or slander. It may just be opposing something.

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It may just be communicating a problem, critiquing something. And men have a tendency to be more direct, to say, this is the problem.

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It's nuts and bolts. This is what we can do to fix the problem because this is out of whack here, right?

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It's very specific. Oftentimes, more so I would say. Women tend to think more in terms of, this is my observation, how they feel about it, the impact it makes on them.

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They will make more insinuations. Things can sometimes even be more extreme and more just, they'll use sometimes charged language.

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I'm not saying men don't use charged language. Sometimes men can be much more aggressive. That's also in the male.

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But women, I think, they tend to see themselves in the situation.

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They're not quite as detached generally from the situation. And so things become personal for them more so.

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Now, if you wanna contradict me, go to the chat section and let me know what you think and say,

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John, you're off. You've misdiagnosed this. That's just my diagnosis. That's just what I've noticed. Russell Moore, he is so, yeah.

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Someone says engineering versus nursing. Engineering versus nursing, yeah. Russell Moore is on the nursing end of it.

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He's on that more like therapeutic bedside, trying to have a good bedside manner.

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That's the whole winsomeness thing. And the way he communicates in his book is that way. And that's what annoys me, I think, as a guy reading it, not just a

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Christian, but a guy, just like, just say what you mean, just cut through it. And he could probably, in like one or two or three paragraphs, give us what he wants to say in the book.

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Instead, he stretches it out over this whole book. So what would he say?

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Like if he was going to write it like a guy, I think he would say something like, evangelicals have gone off the deep end because they've embraced a political gospel that's a false gospel.

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And they followed Trump to perdition and they got involved with online conspiracies. And I, Russell Moore and my friends didn't go down that path.

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We did the right thing. And as a result, we have more moral credibility and authority even with the world.

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And you should follow our example. We don't have a lot of hope for evangelicalism because this is part of the

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DNA in a way, but we do have hope that something can come and replace evangelicalism that we're a part of.

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We're gonna usher in a new thing, whether it's called evangelicalism or not, it's gonna be different.

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And that's what we need to do. We need to usher in this new formula, this new approach to Christianity.

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That's the book. There you go. You don't have to read the book. I am though going to go through a number of things in the book for you so that you know what's in there.

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And I'm also writing. I'm in the middle of writing. I'm actually probably over halfway done with a review of the book for True Script.

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And that'll be shorter and pithy and all of that. But if you want all the ins and outs and the rest of it, well, then you'll enjoy this particular slideshow.

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So let's start here. The purpose of the book. Russell Moore says that evangelical

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Christianity at its best is all about small solutions. Genuine renewal in the church comes one by one, soul by soul.

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The temple is built stone by stone. This book is a word of testimony. Testimony of what one fellow Wayfarer has learned about how to survive when the evangelical, when the evangelical and the evangelicalism seem to be saying two different things.

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That requires naming what we have lost, our credibility, our authority, our identity, our integrity, our stability.

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And in many cases, our sanity. This book will consider all the ways evangelical America has sought these things in the wrong way.

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So basically he's gonna say, I'm gonna highlight all your errors, evangelicals, and suggest that perhaps it's by losing our life that we will find it again.

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So you failed to take Jesus seriously when he said that you should lose your life. Instead, you are trying to do things like gain power.

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You're involved in political moves that just, they sacrifice your witness.

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Along the way, I'll suggest little choices that you can make, not just to survive this dispiriting time, but in order to envision a different future.

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Now, one note I wanna say, Russell Moore also thinks it's a dispiriting time, right? That should encourage you a little bit, right?

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So it's not just conservatives who are sitting around saying, man, I don't know what's going on.

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Trump was just indicted yesterday. I don't even know what my country looks like, what my church looks like.

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I think Quiana Shaw, she just put a comment here. Russell Moore is all about power. Yep, I think that's right. I think that's right.

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He's obsessed with it and he accuses, he projects, he accuses other people of that. But anyway, you're sitting there and you're bemoaning the situation we're in.

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Guess what? Russell Moore is doing the same thing. Huh, that's interesting, right? He's on kind of the opposite end of things, but he's also sitting there kind of bemoaning the situation, which tells you we're still in a culture war, guys.

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This isn't over. This is still ongoing. Keep your chin up. Keep yourself in the fight.

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It's the fight for truth, even if it's a rear guard action. And maybe in some ways, leftists are never really, truly happy.

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But Russell Moore seems to think that things are going in the wrong direction in evangelicalism. And I would say if he's right about that, that's an encouraging thing.

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He's jaded. And this is probably, I'm gonna start off with the most legitimate thing Russell Moore has to say.

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Some of you probably can't read this print because there was too much I was packing in. I had two slides on it. But let me just read for you some quotes.

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This is so interesting to me. He says, a friend and respected older Baptist leader called when I was at the lowest moment of all this psychological warfare.

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And he's talking about when, I guess the ERLC, when his job was in jeopardy at the ERLC, because basically some dumb things that he did over the course of years.

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He wants to make it out like it was just Trump. It was just, I supported Trump and the ERLC. He actually, in the book, this is what he says.

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He says at one point that it was a heresy inquisition. I think that's the exact phrase he used, something like that.

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And heresy trials, that's what he says. And then he says, I hadn't changed my theology or my behavior at all. What I had done as the president of my denomination's public policy agency was refuse to endorse

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Donald Trump. And so he thinks that's the issue, but really there was this report that the Southern Baptist Task Force put out.

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And they cited a bunch of stuff. They cited the fact that more participated in the evangelical immigration fund, which is partially funded by George Soros.

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He filed an amicus brief in support of a mosque in New Jersey. He failed to support religious liberty in California during COVID -19.

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There was just a bunch of stuff in that. It wasn't just, oh, you don't support Trump. That wasn't what it was.

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And even that was about mission drift more than it was about Trump. So anyway, getting back to the quote at hand here, this is the time he's talking about.

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So this respected older Baptist leader called when I was at my lowest point, I assumed he was to check on me or pray with me.

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Instead he acted as though I had betrayed a fraternity into which he had inducted me. This is not how you play the game, he said.

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You give them the 90 % of the red meat they expect, and then you can do the 10 % of the side stuff that you wanna do on immigrants or whatever.

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He was right. I had played the game poorly. I didn't understand the culturally conservative positions I took to be red meat.

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I was pro -life and pro -family for the same reasons I was pro -racial justice and pro -refugee. I didn't realize that we were playing a game.

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Now, this is interesting to me because this reminds me of David Platt. If you remember when David Platt left the North American Mission Board, David Platt said, basically, it's a den of corruption there.

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And I can't believe what Southern Baptists are doing. I can't believe how bad Southern Baptists behave behind closed doors.

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It's not what you think. And he never gave you any specifics. Really helpful, David Platt. Thank you for telling us how corrupt the domination is and you're just gonna wash your hands of it.

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And you don't even tell us where to look or who to blame or any of that. Russell Moore does something actually very, very similar here with these observations.

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He's saying, look, this is the way the game's played. And he was told this by people in his denomination that, hey, look, if you're gonna be a

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Southern Baptist, you're gonna play the game, you're gonna be part of this denomination, then really what you gotta do is give the people 90 % of what they want.

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It's a formula. And then you push that needle 10%. This sounds, I mean, he's giving away so much here. This sounds exactly like what the

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Gospel Coalition does. Let's give you 90 % of the good stuff and let's put the 10 % of the leftism in there or something.

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And that's what this guy's advising. And I don't know for sure, but I'm wondering if this guy's Al Mohler, saying, look, this is what you do.

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You give them 90 % of the pro -life stuff and all of that, and then give them that 10 % of what you wanna talk about.

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Push that needle. Yurter says for $4 .99,

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since we all know Russell Moore is watching this, I just want to challenge him to come down from lily white rich neighborhood and debate any of us.

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Yeah, that's a good point. I've heard that Russell Moore actually, that is an accurate depiction of where he lives.

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Through David Platt too, since we're on the subject. I mean, they talk a lot about being among the marginalized and being in the inner city.

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And then you look at where they live and it's like the whitest neighborhood around. But anyway, the next one is

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I've seen over and over again, people who cover their own internal shame and guilt with a seeming mission to shame others for the very things to which they are secretly in bondage.

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This is not irony or coincidence. It is a key aspect of how depravity works. That's why the Bible speaks of the mindset on the flesh, both in terms of sexual anarchy and envy and violence and quarrelsomeness and religious zeal apart from the gospel.

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The very active denunciation can feel like discipleship, at least for a moment, but it destroys the person doing this and often innocent others too.

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Some of the most ferocious of denouncers of sexual immorality in the culture are sexual nihilists inside. Now, here's the question

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I have. How does Moore know this? How does Moore know this? This is a guy who has lived most of his adult professional life within the

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Southern Baptist Convention, within church evangelical circles. And this is what he's saying about it.

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He's saying, look, the people who are the most against the sexual anarchy are the ones that in their own personal lives are living sexual anarchy.

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Again, it's like David Platt. He's not telling us who, where, how, why. He's just telling us that's what's going on.

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Not very helpful, but it's revealing. He says within just a few years, this atheist, and he's talking about James Lindsay here.

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He doesn't name him, but that's who he's talking about, found support with a Christian activist, end quotes, who ran cruises for Christian ministries.

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That's Michael O 'Fallon. And he's talking about Christian nationalism. This is hysterical to me. Actually, Russell Moore goes after,

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I'll just, before I finish the quote, Russell Moore goes after James Lindsay and Michael O 'Fallon for the way that they partnered with Christian nationalists when they are some of the most aggressively anti -Christian nationalist voices on Twitter.

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And yet Russell Moore, we've said this for a long time though, that look, the secular world doesn't see a dime's worth of difference.

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When you say like, I just want Christian values or I want Christian identity and Christian values, right? The world is just like, they don't want

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Christian anything. And so Russell Moore just doesn't even see, it's just funny to me, he couples them in with that.

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But he talks about them and he says, this Christian activist, James Lindsay was appearing on documentaries.

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So he's talking about Bioware Standard and invited to speak at Christian pastors conferences and on Christian media to attack as cultural

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Marxist Christians concerned about racial injustice or who called for reforms to deal with sexual abuse. The atheist had not changed his mind on God, was not a new

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Christian wanting to combat the error of his old ways. The atheist though, was able to tap into a market of professing

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Christians who are willing to see Christianity as a fundamentally an ethnic or national or political category and heresy as whatever deviates from that.

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Now, this is an interesting point, not because Russell Moore is right about this, but because Russell Moore, like he's looking at this situation and he's identifying something that I know

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I said and a number of people said at the time when James Lindsay was being platformed by G3 and by other

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Christian ministries. We were saying, some of us were saying, I'll just say in more so in back channels.

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I don't, I might've said something publicly, I'm not exactly sure, I can't remember. I probably would have said like, look,

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I tried to make a very clear line. Like, look, James Lindsay is someone that you, there's a limited amount of things you can go to James Lindsay for.

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You, if you want to understand kind of how critical race theory operates and you want to use James Lindsay's material, fine.

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All right. I have his book. I don't, I think it's in a box in my shed now because I didn't find it that helpful.

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I got, I got like two chapters in and it just, there's really good things and helpful things in it.

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And I'm grateful for the things Lindsay's done that's exposed some of what's happened. But he definitely does not write from a

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Christian understanding or even a conservative understanding at all. And so when you look at his material, you're reading an atheist who's pro -abortion, who's pro -homosexual, and that factors into it.

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And there was other things too, but one of the things that I know I had said and a number of people had made the observation at the time is, look, if we're critiquing critical race theory because we're saying, look, this rests on atheism, its foundations are atheistic and that's part of the problem with it.

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And it gets you off on the wrong foot in that way. And then it's an atheist that we're platforming to kind of combat it.

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Like, aren't people gonna see like, oh, that's kind of, there's some tension there. And I think my response to that concern, which

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I did have is that, well, as long as you make the lines very clear and it's very hard though for people to do that.

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And anyway, Russell Moore though is weaponizing this. He's using this and he's not the only one to have done this.

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A lot of people have done this. And so this is another way that Russell Moore's kind of jaded because he's thinking that this is just another manifestation of the corruption that these guys are hypocrites, that these guys are willing to, and he's talking about guys on the other side, politically from him, are willing to compromise.

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But he's saying everyone's willing to compromise, except him apparently. In our mythology, two men, he says, had saved the convention from liberalism.

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I'm pretty sure it's Al Mueller and Paige Patterson. They were in the way we told history as our Lutheran Calvin. They were revered by many.

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Though the higher one went into the nomination, the more one could see the respect evaporate and he replaced only by fear.

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No one wanted to get flowers delivered from one of them, said to be signed that one was dead to him.

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And if dead to him, then dead to Baptist life. More than that, one didn't want to get a fiery letter or a phone call from one of their wives.

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So anyway, he's basically saying this is the way the Southern Baptist operate. You have your elite figures and they control everything.

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And yeah, it stinks. It's corrupt. He's telling on the denomination here.

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Now, do you believe him? That's up to you. I've seen enough over the last few years that I tend to think this is probably one of the areas where Russell Moore is actually onto something.

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But again, it's Russell Moore. And most of what he says in here is just, it shows some bad judgment.

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When key leaders justify their complementarian views of male headship with positions, such as the rejection of the eternal generation of the sun and other aspects of Trinitarian dogma, those deviations were tolerated as inside the camp.

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So instead of James Lindsay, now he's using Owen Strand. And I guess Bruce Ware. He's saying that these guys have a

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Trinitarian heresy because they believe in eternal subordination of the sun, and yet they're platformed within conservative evangelicalism.

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So he's saying, he's trying, he's doing the same thing he did with James Lindsay there. Let's see, I could keep going here, but you get the point.

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He says, he talks about the 1990s boycott of Disney. And he talks about how

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Baptists, I guess, were hypocritical even on that. He talks about, he says,

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Jesus' point after laying bare the hands of the religious leaders were lifelessly mimicking religion, exploiting the piety of their followers, was that reviving or expanding such lifelessness makes a terrible situation even worse.

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So these are all things that I think as an insider, you have to wonder like, was

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Russell Ware being in this organization, the Southern Baptist Convention for as many years as he was in there, is he complicit in any of this?

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How does he escape the charge of being also at fault? I mean, he ingratiated himself this year.

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He ladder climbed in this organization. That was a stepping stone to his job at Christianity Today.

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And now he's gonna tell on all of them, but he won't name names. He won't tell you exactly where. And he'll just say that that's what's going on.

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So anyway, looking at the comments now, lots of comments coming in.

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Yeah, Mueller is a big time mafia boss, sending you flowers when you lost his blessing. I don't know,

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I don't have any primary source for that, but you wonder when Russell Moore says stuff like that.

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Okay, so this is a good comment too. Krianna Shaw says, yes, but he is just mad that he got,

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I guess, ridden, rode out of town. So now he is turning state's evidence.

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He is not sad or remorseful. He would still be in the game if there wasn't pushback. That's a really insightful comment, actually.

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I think that's probably true. This is just the, this is revenge. Russell Moore has been engaged in that for some time.

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Okay, now Russell Moore in all this positions himself as the underdog. He stood against Donald Trump and paid the price, he says.

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He compares himself, I won't read this long quote. It's actually very laughable. He compares himself, believe it or not, to outlaw country music artists.

27:16

He says, just like the outlaw country music artists like Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash and all of them,

27:22

Chris Gustafsson, they were bucking the Nashville formula. And Nashville didn't like them, but they were more authentic and real.

27:30

And so Russell Moore says, that's basically saying that's the kind of like me. You know, I, and I think that's what we need more of.

27:37

We need to, we need to start our own thing. We need to have a different form of evangelicalism that bucks the trends, that that's rebellious.

27:46

That's, and he sees himself this way. And he'd like, and anyone who listens to Russell Moore, you know, has to laugh and just be like, you're an outlaw country music.

27:55

I mean, those guys were kind of known for their masculinity, right? And Russell Moore is just, he's not exactly known for his masculinity, which is,

28:01

I think the thing that makes me think this is funny. But it just shows that he's so insulated. So he lacks the self -awareness to compare what he's doing and his friends to outlaw country singers.

28:13

I would say this too, about outlaw country singers, for the most part, they were, and Russell Moore even admits this, they were going back to a more traditional sound versus what was, and a look, to be honest with you, versus what was in vogue in Nashville at the time.

28:28

And so if you really want to go back to a more traditional evangelical Christianity, then it's not going to be in the direction

28:35

Russell Moore wants to take things, just saying. Hey, someone just said

28:40

Aaron Watson got rejected from Nashville, came back to Texas and wrote old fence posts. That's a good song.

28:45

And I'm surprised that someone actually put that in the chat because I know those obscure country references.

28:51

So I figure not many people probably do. I don't talk about it much. I actually, I've been listening to, what is it,

28:57

I'm going to talk about outlaw country, Coulter Wall, Will Middleton and Coulter Wall's album.

29:03

I mean, it's just like old cowboy music. That's, yeah, it's different than Nashville, but it's more authentic. It's more traditionally country.

29:10

And that's what Russell Moore thinks he is. He's the more authentic version of evangelicalism. Earl Starbucks says,

29:17

Russell Moore for $2. He says, Russell Moore is authentic as AstroTurf. So I don't know what this comment means.

29:24

So Moore is going to join Doug Wilson. I don't know what that means. Okay, so maybe Tara, you want to explain what you mean by that?

29:32

I don't get it. Jason O 'Brien says, tried that in a small town.

29:38

That's pretty fun. Okay, so this is how Russell Moore thinks of himself.

29:45

And he uses, he engages in a lot of projection, okay? He critiques and justifies the means thinking, yet supposedly thinks things like attending gay wedding receptions are important to be a witness, or you should do that to be a witness perhaps.

29:58

So he doesn't like this thinking of and justifies the means. And he has this whole quote from Eugene Peterson of all people, right?

30:05

Russell Moore hasn't drifted theologically. He hasn't changed. He's quoting Eugene Peterson, which is kind of weird. It's not on something heretical though.

30:11

I mean, the devil had, he talks about the three temptations that Jesus had and how they were about ways and means.

30:17

In other words, they do the right thing using the wrong means. And so he critiques this and it's like trying to get

30:23

Donald Trump in there and doing so though is wrong because you're making a deal with the devil to try to combat a greater evil.

30:33

That's what he's trying to say. And so he makes this argument. And if you think about Russell Moore, you wanna just say like, do you have a mirror?

30:41

Who are you, man? Because that's exactly what you've done. And that's just one example. You've said it's okay to go to a gay wedding reception to show love.

30:50

So you have this higher purpose of love and witnessing to your neighbors. So you compromise your morals.

30:57

Like how do you not see this? He accuses Trump supporting evangelicals of relativism when they justify their position using the lesser of two evils approach yet uses the same approach to justify prioritizing character issues over theological correctness.

31:12

So he says this, he says they engage in whataboutism and that he says one embraces moral relativism that would make a postmodern deconstructionist slink out of his faculty lounge in shame by embracing that logic of supporting

31:31

Trump because he's a lesser of two evils. And here's the thing, Russell Moore does the same kind of thing.

31:37

He uses that same kind of approach, something similar at least, to justify prioritizing character issues over theological correctness.

31:44

So it's just so important how we come across. I mean, you think of like even at MLK 50, the speech

31:50

Russell Moore gave where he even says at one point that basically evangelicals failed to preach the gospel the way

31:56

Martin Luther King Jr. did, even though Martin Luther King Jr. was a heretic and didn't preach the gospel, but we failed to preach the authentic gospel of King because we weren't as engaged in the civil rights stuff.

32:06

And so what does that mean for Russell Moore? Someone who's got character flaws like Martin Luther King Jr. is held in a superior position.

32:14

How is that any different? In fact, it's worse because the people that generally in Christianity justify voting for Trump, when they say lesser of two evils, what they're doing, they're not saying that we need to use evil to fight evil.

32:25

They're choosing to, they're saying that despite the evil of Donald Trump, it's still a better choice to get him in there than the alternative.

32:34

That's what they're saying. That's the lesser of two evils approach. They're not praising him. They're not saying that those evil things in and of themselves are actually good, or he does something that washes it away, that like he's so good that it just justifies himself and he doesn't have to answer for those things.

32:53

Of course he does. Of course he does. Okay. Other stuff.

32:58

He opposes conflict entrepreneurs, but so he talks about like talk radio hosts and politicians and social media combatants who are conflict entrepreneurs.

33:08

They are people who are going out there and trying to stir up controversy or take advantage of controversy for their own ends.

33:16

That's what Russell Moore does though. Like I'm just thinking Russell Moore does that same thing. He goes and stirs up conflict.

33:21

He takes advantage of conflicting situations and uses that as stepping stone to advance his own career. So that's not a, like he's critiquing the very thing he does.

33:29

Accuses evangelical opponents of normalizing craziness, like conspiracy theories, yet can't see the craziness he himself normalizes.

33:36

So he talks about conspiracy theories like regarding the COVID stuff. And he can't see the fact that he himself has normalized some pretty crazy things.

33:47

I mean, even the example I just gave about the going to a gay wedding reception. I mean, how is that not?

33:54

Can you imagine anyone 20, 30 years ago saying that? Any evangelicalism, let alone conservatism wouldn't say that.

34:01

But that's normalization. His stance on reparative therapy, normalization of these things, because it's an innate orientation.

34:09

I mean, Russell Moore can't see the way that he's damaged things theologically through his own normalization of evil.

34:17

Moore claims he never changed his theology, yet quotes Eugene Peterson and praises Beth Moore. There's a whole section in there.

34:23

That's the closest he gets to critiquing himself is by saying how wrong he was about Beth Moore and that she's great, basically.

34:30

And critiques all the people who are upset at her for preaching, mixed audiences. And that they're, basically he says that they are, well, maybe

34:40

I have the quote pulled up here. Do I have it pulled up? I don't know if I have that particular quote that I was thinking of, but I'll summarize.

34:47

He basically says that the people who criticize Beth Moore are engaging in like, what's the word he uses?

34:57

And I can't, now I'm blanking on it. It was pretty extreme. He spoke about it in extreme terms, like they're,

35:04

I think he says something along the lines of like, they're trying to frame

35:14

Beth Moore in a way that she's like some kind of a heretic. And they're, man,

35:21

I've lost it, man. I'll be honest. I've lost it kind of. It was such a good example. Let me see if I can find it real quick.

35:27

I hate to let you down like this. I have a copy of the book here. Let me see. See if I can search for it here.

35:35

Let's see. Man, I can't find it right now.

35:46

He does all these biblical imageries though. He talks about like, Beth Moore was like the

35:54

Priscilla who held his hands up. So he's Moses, I guess. Like that's the way he conceives of himself.

36:01

Yeah, that's, I think Trump's a narcissist. I don't know. All right, I can't find what

36:07

I was looking for, but that's okay. He says though, very strong terms that like people who criticize

36:14

Beth Moore are the problem. It's not Beth Moore who's the problem, it's the people who criticize Beth Moore. All right, moving on here.

36:20

Moore claims he never changed his theology. Oh, I already said this. That he quotes Eugene Peterson and Beth Moore.

36:27

And he talks about these flaws with conservative evangelicals. There's these flaws that exist.

36:33

They fail to oppose slavery and segregation, he says. Evangelicalism could reemphasize the sort of individualism individualized,

36:39

I can say Christianity that enabled generations of my ancestors to fight for the enslavement of human beings or to ignore the atrocities of Jim Crow.

36:47

All with an easy conscience that all was well as long as they repented of the sins that a preacher mentioned, like getting drunk or playing cards.

36:55

Now, here's part of the problem with it. I mean, not only does, Moore has a certain reading of history here too that I think

37:02

I would contest. But even if you grant, what are you saying here? There are things that the

37:08

Bible clearly says are sins. Playing cards isn't one of them, by the way. Gambling's unwise, but okay, getting drunk.

37:16

Yeah, I mean, he tries to pick the most tame among the vices, right? And they were real problems. There's a reason prohibition was passed, was because homes were being divided and ripped apart.

37:27

And I mean, it was terrible. Not saying prohibition, I'm just saying that there was a reason for it at the time.

37:34

And Russell Moore is trying to bring up these things to say that evangelicals were able to oppose that, but man, they weren't really able to oppose these social things.

37:43

And so they were focused on personal, they weren't focused on social. Now, part of the problem with this is that social arrangements oftentimes are not, and this is where I'll get in trouble with maybe some of the

37:55

Kuyperians, but they're not always directly addressed in scripture. In other words, the Bible doesn't give you an exact framework for what social arrangements should look like in every sense, labor relationships included, what to do with populations that exist within the boundaries of your,

38:14

I mean, you have Old Testament principles, right? But you don't, even those Old Testament principles show that there's different, the equity of the law applies to both the foreigner and the

38:27

Israelite, but they, there are different laws that apply.

38:32

For example, in the ancient Israel, like you could not, Hebrew slaves would be freed in the year of Jubilee, right?

38:42

You, when it came to pagan slaves, those who were from pagan nations, that didn't apply to them, right?

38:49

Inheritance laws only applied to people in Israel, that kind of thing. There were certain privileges when it came to the temple that Israelites could partake in and not foreigners.

38:58

So anyway, I don't wanna get into the weeds on this, but the main point I think I'm trying to make is that when Russell Moore and evangelical woke people do this kind of thing, they're trying to say that the social arrangements and the maintenance of more egalitarian social arrangements exist on the same level as 10 commandments violations.

39:19

And they don't, they don't. Now you can look at principles in scripture to say, I mean, you could look at stories and things to show like, look, it wasn't a good situation here.

39:30

It was, it wasn't good for society to be this way, to be set up this way.

39:35

This is a bad labor relationship, but we're glad it's over. We're going, like, you can look and you can critique these things, but without like actual

39:44

Bible verses that I'm not talking about principles, like love your neighbor. I'm talking about like actual Bible verses that address social arrangements directly.

39:52

It's not the same as a vice. It's not the same as a vice that the Bible does address directly in multiple places, right?

39:58

That's the difference. And this is a hard thing for even some people who consider themselves conservative evangelicals,

40:05

I think to swallow, because we're just so accustomed to thinking that things like even women voting and stuff, right?

40:10

Like that is, it'd be wrong if they couldn't, right? I remember when I was at Liberty University, we had an option to have these in our history department, we had these commemorative shirts and there were like two options.

40:20

And one was World War I anniversary, 100th anniversary. The other one was the anniversary of the 19th amendment.

40:32

And of course, a lot of the women in the department wanted that. And I just remember thinking like, you know what?

40:39

It was this big celebration. Like it was the best thing ever. And it's like, you're not gonna find a

40:45

Bible verse on this. You're not, this isn't like directly something, like you shouldn't expect pulpits to boom over something necessarily like that.

40:53

Like whether women should or should not have the, there might be some principles we can bring to bear. If we do from the

40:58

Bible, it's probably not gonna go in the way most people want, but it's not as direct as a vice in scripture.

41:06

So hopefully I've made that point. Justin Cabral says prohibition was definitely not based.

41:12

Yeah, yeah, you're probably right about that. It did work though, by the way, it did. There is studies out there that say everything one focuses on Chicago, but prohibition did work.

41:21

When the government bans things, it actually does reduce the amount that people consume those things.

41:28

But drunkenness, I mean, the Bible speaks against that. So anyway, let's move on here.

41:37

He talks about conservative evangelicals supporting abuse. They have an irrational fear, he talks about.

41:44

Over a decade ago, he says there was an individual who warned that American evangelical culture war engagement was based in a heightened sense of resentment.

41:51

So he psychologizes everyone. It's a combination of anger, envy, hate, rage and revenge.

41:57

That's great. In which a sense of injury and anxiety becomes key to the group's identity. So it's like middle school, you have this fear of humiliation and Donald Trump's gonna take that humiliation away from us.

42:11

So that's what drives us to make these horrible. So even our actions aren't the only things that are bad, our motives are.

42:17

He questions motives a lot. Even concerns over religious liberty are hardly ever articulated at the popular level in terms of genuine threats.

42:25

There are things like saying Merry Christmas. So I guess that's not a threat. He says that evangelicalism is fertile soil for conspiracy theories.

42:36

He says that they've embraced a false political gospel, which makes you wonder about Russell Moore's gospel.

42:43

He says, what we are bargaining away in the mild or severe cases of these nationalistic movements is the blood of Christ for blood and soil.

42:50

So we're saying that we're gonna get rid of the blood in Christ and only have blood and soil. I mean, who's saying that?

42:56

And yet in a world in which everything is politics, everything is culture war, everything is identity protection, religion becomes a useful tool to take all of that and make it seem transcendent.

43:05

So he's saying religion is just used for this blood and soil movement. And so that's a false political gospel.

43:12

I mean, he's just asserting this. He doesn't have primary sources. He doesn't have quotes. This is one of the things that frustrates me about Moore is he gets away with this kind of stuff with his audience.

43:21

When I write something in a book, it's gotta be tight. It's gotta be sourced. It's got like, there's this rigor.

43:28

And if you don't have that, you will be called out for it. And I guess I'm calling out Russell Moore, but in academic circle, he's not gonna be called out for this kind of thing.

43:35

There just isn't anything to substantiate this. He has a problem with evangelicals pursuing political power.

43:42

He says, Jesus rebuked Peter, seeking to adopt the way of Herod and Caesar in a bale, apart from the cross. As if that Jesus dying on the cross was a template for every political ruler to go and do what?

43:54

Pay for their own sin? No, I mean, is their sins paid for if they trust in Christ? So to be self -sacrificial, yes, but to wield that power in the right way.

44:03

And Jesus, of course, now is at the right hand of the Father in a place of power. The pastor went into ministry, he says, to teach the

44:10

Bible and to care for the hurting. Now he's shouted down over politics and conspiracy theories. So he's saying there's this toxic environment that evangelicalism has become.

44:19

It's all political. He's the one that helped make it that way, though. Evangelicals are too invested in this world.

44:26

I'm not even gonna read this. Well, actually I will. He says, an exilic identity does not mean, oh no, we're marginalized, how can we fix it?

44:35

An exilic identity asks, why do I not seem more marginalized than I do? Look at the piety there.

44:43

Why am I not more marginalized? Why am I not more persecuted, right? I should be,

44:48

I'm an exile. I mean, he goes on a long time about this exile identity that Christians, basically we shouldn't have these allegiances,

44:55

I guess, to our communities and our families and our nation and all that. It's gotta be, chief over all of that is this exile identity and it's this universal identity, this global Christian identity,

45:07

I think he calls it at one point, and that should kind of subsume, everything else should be subsumed to that.

45:13

And so when you have something like Christian nationalism come up, which we'll talk about in a minute, and people want

45:20

Christianity to be part of the identity and the values of a country, let's say, then that is a false gospel, that's wrong.

45:29

And frankly, his critiques don't sound a whole lot different than G3's critiques. I hate to say it, but like I was reading it and I was thinking like G3 writers could have written this.

45:37

So it is interesting because of that, but he is saying something, he is critiquing something that no one's saying.

45:45

No one's saying that, oh, we dumped the legitimate gospel so that we can have this blood and soil gospel.

45:51

And if there are people, I will say this, this is one of the things that annoys me about Russell Moore and not just him, but all the people who keep critiquing the evangelical conservatives and cultural

46:02

Christians and Christian nationals and all that. When they start going down this road of saying things like, you know, if evangelicals were serious about their faith, they would appeal, they would, and serious about being a public witness, they would try to appeal to people on the left because the reality is the people more right for the gospel are people on the political right.

46:32

And the evangelicals drop the ball. Can you imagine in 2020, if Russell Moore and all of them would have taken a strong stand, we're not shutting down the church.

46:41

No, we're gonna keep it open. We don't believe what you're saying. We're not gonna, BLM, we see right through that.

46:47

Can you imagine the credibility they would have with all the people who got red pills in that event? They lost it though.

46:55

And they think that in so doing they've gained credibility and the people who actually have, the people like myself who actually will interact with people who are more on the, some people will call it the far right,

47:09

I guess, I don't know, but people who even have adopted some of these conspiracies and so forth.

47:15

I have a heart for them. I just do. I have a heart for social justice warriors too, but I only see one heart that these people have and it's for people of their political variety.

47:25

And if they're not, they're enemies. They can't see the mission field in front of them. All right. Theologically sloppy, he says, he talks about how people on the evangelical right say spiritual warfare is part of like a political thing.

47:38

They apply it to cultural things. He says, no, it's not. And to which I say, why can't it be partially that? Why can't that be a manifestation of it?

47:45

Of course, it's not all, you know, it's not a one for one, but like comparison, but of course, spiritual things are going to have an effect in the real world.

47:57

You see that in Daniel, right? At the end of Daniel. So, and then Christian nationalism.

48:03

He goes on for, and this is where I think that it sounds a lot like you three. Christian nationalism is not a politically enthusiastic version of Christianity, nor is it a religiously informed patriotism.

48:12

Christian nationalism is a prosperity gospel for nation states, a liberation theology for white people. So now

48:17

Russell Moore has a problem with liberation theology. It's a liberation theology for white people. According to the almost gospel.

48:24

Now, let me just say liberation theology is just, it's very similar to the social gospel. It is this like, you know, the purpose of Jesus dying was to set this example to basically stick a needle in the eye of the authority structure, the

48:38

Roman authority structure, and to stand up and identify with the marginalized. And so that's what the church should do is identify with the marginalized and fight for them.

48:46

And that's what Jesus was doing. And so it's not the gospel at all. So where is,

48:52

I mean, everyone I know who says they're a Christian nationalist articulates the correct gospel and they don't confuse what they're doing in the political realm or the social realm with the gospel.

49:02

So what are you talking about, Russell Moore? According to the almost gospels, we've seen periodically throughout history, as long as one's country was

49:10

Christian, then one was a Christian too. So he's this whole critique about what Christian nationals are trying to say is like, well, as long as you have a country that's

49:17

Christian, you're also a Christian. And no one's saying that though. They're not saying you're a legitimate

49:22

Christian. You might be a Christian in culturally. In fact, that's why we say cultural Christian. There's legitimate

49:28

Christians who are cultural Christians. There are also people who don't have a saving relationship with Jesus Christ who have adopted the forms of Christianity, socially speaking.

49:38

And they become a law to themselves. They're gonna condemn themselves if they die in their sin. But hopefully it leads them to salvation in a way.

49:45

Hopefully it's the thing that provokes them to consider their own sinfulness because they violate their own standards.

49:54

All right, Christian nationalism and civil religion are a kind of great commission in reverse. I mean, look at the way he, I mean, at one time he talks about evangelicalism being

50:02

Mordor. I mean, he uses these extreme things in which the nation seeks to make disciples of themselves.

50:08

So he's basically saying it's just the world infiltrating the church, cementing bonds of cultural solidarity according to the flesh, but not according to the shared blood.

50:17

I mean, it's just pietistic nonsense. So what are the tactics so you can avoid them?

50:22

What are the tactics Russell Moore uses? He redefines terms. That's one of the things he does. Winsomeness.

50:29

So he talked about winsomeness and he says that it's critiqued by some, namely people like me.

50:36

The point was that winsomeness doesn't work in these times. Now the argument goes, the only effective measure is gloves off fighting evangelicalism of the sarcastic and condemnatory sorts.

50:45

The idea is that this figure and those who are similarly seek to treat outsiders in respect and gentlemen.

50:50

So let me just summarize. He's saying respect and gentleness are, that's what winsomeness is.

50:56

It's respect and gentleness. And he's saying that these evangelicals like myself are trying, we're coming along and we're saying, nah, we don't want any of that respect and gentleness stuff.

51:05

We want war. And so what we want is a bunch of sarcasm and a bunch of condemnation.

51:12

There's maybe a hint of truth to this, but that doesn't get at what winsomeness is about. He talks about the commands to gentleness and reasonableness.

51:20

That's part of winsomeness, as well as a personal to crucifying quarrelsomeness and a craving for controversy.

51:27

Of course, quarrelsomeness, the man of God must not be quarrelsome. It just means characterized by ready to start a fight at any instant.

51:35

That hot under the collar, that's what it's talking about. And of course that's wrong. Of course, no one's supporting that.

51:41

Who's saying that? No one is. The critique of winsomeness isn't that it's too biblical, it's too gentle, it's too...

51:48

No, the critique of winsomeness is that it actually in Russell Moore's conception, it categorizes things wrongly.

51:58

It puts things that are level 10 threats in the category of not really being threats. And it puts things that aren't really threats in the category of threat.

52:07

And so it caters to the leftists politically, the people who gatekeep for institutions and elite circles.

52:15

It caters to them. Winsomeness only goes in one direction. You're supposed to nuance the evil that they promote while trying to understand it, while just condemning those to the right.

52:28

That's what we don't like about winsomeness. So he doesn't actually get at what's going on.

52:34

It's like, he doesn't understand. I don't know if it's on purpose or not. Prioritizing public approval over theological consistency.

52:42

Most of the cultural projects in American history that one can imagine... Actually, we already read this, I think. Did we read this?

52:49

Okay, so he talks about prohibition failed, Christians fail in their political endeavors, except for the

52:56

Baptists and the Black Church. The Baptists got their religious freedom and the Black Church got their civil rights. And they did so because they were...

53:08

Let's see. What does he say here? Okay, so they lived the life that demonstrated the authenticity of their claims,

53:16

I guess. So anyway, those are the movements we should emulate. Now, it's interesting here. When you look at the second one here, the

53:24

Black Church, I mean, what's a group in America that has supposedly orthodox positions but really believes in abortion?

53:33

You could say the Black Church. I mean, a lot of them believe they support abortion. I mean, it's horrible.

53:38

It's murdering the unborn. I mean, this is what... Since we're using sociological terms, why not use it here?

53:45

Russell Moore seems to think that they're the example. They paved the way. They're better than us. This happens all the time.

53:52

And yet, these are the people that support abortion. These are the people that... I'm not saying all of them. I'm saying many of them.

53:58

I'm not saying this about... I'm not making an argument that because of some racial genetics, it makes you support those things.

54:04

I'm just saying sociologically speaking, the predominantly historic African -American churches tend to support leftist causes, including abortion.

54:12

So they have so much credibility though in Russell Moore's mind. And so there is this prioritization of approval.

54:24

This is the winsomeness thing. It's approval from the gatekeepers over even theological consistency.

54:31

There's a lot of bad theology. Supposedly, it's orthodox, but there is a lot of bad theology in those circles. And of course, I just think the abortion thing is enough for me to say, no, that's not a movement to emulate.

54:42

Cast doubt on conservative leaders' motives. So he does a lot of questioning of motives.

54:49

He says, the point here is not only that religious people, those entrusted to teach the law, were hypocrites, but that they were accusing others of doing the very things they were guilty of doing.

54:57

That's the thing Russell Moore does. That's the funny part. This is really low font.

55:03

Sorry about that. So I'll just read it to you if I can. Okay, no, I guess I have to display this so I can read it.

55:10

Neutralizing theological concerns by questioning motives. Let's see,

55:16

I'm gonna skip that. He pits two opponent goals against each other as if they contradict when they do not.

55:24

Says, white American Christians are actually not a moral majority or a silent majority or majority at all, unless we define our primary culture as the

55:30

United States. Instead, our first identity is part of the body of Christ, the global body. It's like, these things aren't in conflict.

55:36

Of course, you could be members of the global body, and you can be American Christians too. Like, why is that in conflict?

55:43

He frames opponents of supporting the opposite of what they think they're supporting. So he says that Christian nationals are basically pagans because they want political power.

55:55

They wanna be a hero. They wanna cosplay and go, I guess, January 6th insurrection stuff.

56:02

And that means that they're pagans. It's like, they're actually trying to stand against most of them, the paganization of the

56:11

United States. Convince the other side that they're fighting a losing battle. This is probably, this is the black pill strategy.

56:17

He says, the so -called great replacement theory is an example of the sort of conspiracy theory that can proliferate when longing for an idealized past is combined with anxiety about the future.

56:26

So this nostalgia is a problem, and the old order is exhausted and played out, yet prevents anything new from forming.

56:33

In other words, as Waylon Jennings saying, Lord, it's the same old tune, fiddle and guitar.

56:39

Where do we take it from here? So he's saying that, this is just, this great replacement theory is just, it's not true.

56:47

It's a myth, and it's not even like, it's longing for this past that doesn't really exist.

56:59

That's what he's saying. Scary times almost always evoke nostalgia in some and resentment in others. In frightening times, someone will always be there promising a way to get back to what was there before.

57:10

And he says, the lost cause, make America great again or revive us again. And these are all Christianity, but this is not the way

57:18

Christianity moves into the future, he says. So, that's the podcast.

57:24

That's the book. It's, I guess to summarize my thoughts on it, which my general impression is, this is

57:30

Russell Moore defending himself. This is Russell Moore seeing that there's been a split in evangelicalism and saying, it's not me, it's you.

57:37

It's you who caused this because of your ignorance and your conspiracy theories and your quest for power.

57:43

And you're trading in the true gospel for a political gospel. That's what you've done. Congratulations, conservative evangelicals.

57:51

You're a bunch of hypocrites. That's really what this book is. He doesn't give a lot of reasoning for it. There's a lot of hypocrisy in it.

57:56

It's a waste of your money, I wouldn't buy it. But that is what he says. And the reason it's important, I guess, is because I don't think

58:02

Russell Moore is unique. This is the blindness that so many of our leaders in evangelical institutions still have.

58:08

They really do think this way. That group think is really real. They really don't see their part in causing this division.

58:15

When people went home, let's say during their churches, when they were shut down during COVID, they would stream services.

58:23

And sometimes those services would have racial reconciliation sessions. Things that had never happened at these churches.

58:28

Their pastor was talking about getting vaxxed. I mean, these are the kinds of things that people reacted to. And the people who push that stuff don't see their part in it, many of them.

58:38

They think that, no, it's the people who changed. But yet they're the ones who actually changed.

58:45

And I think this is an admission that Russell Moore is blacklisted in that.

58:52

Now he left that for Greener Fields. I think that was strategic. Editor -in -chief of Christianity Today.

58:58

I mean, that's a good job. It's better than being the president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. But he's now thrown the ladder he's climbed up on away from him and burned it.

59:13

And he doesn't have the credibility and he has to account for it. And so he says that evangelicals are so driven by this.

59:20

They don't want to be ashamed. You wonder if Russell Moore has the same kind of motive. He doesn't want to, he's kind of failed and doesn't want to be ashamed.

59:29

Okay, let's go to the comment section here. The book is unreadable.

59:35

Oh yeah, it is. Yeah, the book is unreadable. And elites do speak an entirely different language. They can't, he can't write a book that common people can understand.

59:43

It's very annoying. Let's see here. If all this is true about Christians, why should we listen to Russell Moore?

59:52

I mean, he is still claiming to be one today, right? Yeah, I mean, he is, he is, and we shouldn't.

59:58

I mean, I don't know, part of me even debates. I'm like, I'm like, do I do a podcast on this? But then you think he is the editor -in -chief of Christianity Today.

01:00:05

He does have clout. He is giving insights about behind closed doors things. So yeah.

01:00:14

Okay, I want to just give you, if I can pull it up here, an announcement about the conference coming up, overcomingevilconference .com.

01:00:25

And hmm, it's not coming up. I don't know why it's not coming up. Okay, hopefully those who are listening to the recording, by the time you listen, this page will come up.

01:00:32

I don't know why it's not coming up right now. Overcomingevilconference .com though, for those,

01:00:39

I don't know, for some reason I can't, maybe someone else can get to it. I'm just curious if it's just not working. I have to contact my web designer.

01:00:46

It crashed due to popular demand. I hope that's true. It will be up and running hopefully later today because I'm going to make a,

01:00:53

I'm going to write an email saying, hey, we got to get this back up. But I guess I'll have more information next podcast.

01:00:59

I did want to say though, that if you go to overcomingevilconference .com when it's working, there is now a link on there for a carpool service.

01:01:09

So let me see if I can, can I pull that up? No, let's see if I can try to pull that up.

01:01:18

So it can at least show you that. Yeah, okay. So I'm going to pull that up for you. That's at least working here.

01:01:28

All right, let me show you real quick what we got here. All right, so as you can see, this is a carpool service.

01:01:38

I just put this up a few days ago for people coming to the retreat in the Adirondack Mountains.

01:01:43

There is, by the way, financial aid available for those who having trouble paying for something like this. But there are people coming from everywhere.

01:01:49

There's someone coming from Lynchburg and they got two people in there. So if you're in between Lynchburg, Virginia, and I think that's

01:01:56

Lynchburg, Virginia. If you're in between Lynchburg, Virginia and the Adirondack Mountains in New York, or you live in Lynchburg, or you live close to Lynchburg, you may want to contact

01:02:05

Robert Pfeiffer, right? And his contact details are right there. This is, I'll put the link right now in the chat for people who want to check this out.

01:02:15

There you go. So it's carpool .com

01:02:22

forward slash T forward slash Z W G Y U F. Yeah. And so if you're, there's someone else who's coming,

01:02:32

Evan Gerber from Seville. Now I'm not sure. Now if you click on it, it'll tell you, it gives you the phone number, it gives you the email address, and it's

01:02:39

Seville, Ohio. It tells you exactly where. And he's got three extra seats. You want to hitch a ride from Ohio with Evan Gerber?

01:02:45

What about Redding, Pennsylvania? Roy Tempe. What about Highland, New York? That's me.

01:02:50

I still got two seats. That'll probably fill up pretty quick from people that I know. But anyway, you can go, and if you want to be part of this.

01:02:58

So people have asked me, people who want to come from like Kentucky and other places, like, what about transportation? And so here's why we're doing this.

01:03:05

I want everyone to be able to come. I really do. I want everyone to be able to come. And this is such a fun time, but it's such a spiritually renewing time.

01:03:14

It's just, it's a great time. And it's a beautiful location. And we have an extra day. It's going to be all day

01:03:20

Friday, all day Saturday, and then Sunday morning. And so Thursday night through Sunday morning.

01:03:29

And yeah, I mean, I would just recommend trying to get there, trying to get there if you can.

01:03:35

If you're a man, I think you'll be very blessed by it. OvercomingEvilConference .com. And you can make some friends along the way if you want to carpool.

01:03:45

All right, so that is the end of the podcast. God bless. More coming later in the week. And appreciate your prayers.

01:03:51

And by the way, I didn't mention this to you. I'm going to try to get to the County Fair. We have a County Fair and we have an evangelism booth that my church has at the

01:03:59

County Fair this week. Pray that that would be successful, that people would hear the gospel and respond. And I should be going there probably tomorrow and helping out with it and giving people the good person test and sharing the gospel with them, the gospel that saves.

01:04:14

So the true gospel, not the political gospel that Russell Moore talks about, the true gospel.