I Love Russell Moore, and I’d Like All of You to Love Him Too
I remember my father talking about how much he liked the 1971 movie Brian’s Song. It’s based on the true story of a football player named Brian Piccolo who was diagnosed with terminal cancer after turning professional in 1965. The most famous line in the movie comes from Brian’s friend and teammate, Gale Sayers, who says, “I love Brian Piccolo, and I’d like all of you to love him too” (YouTube).
I feel the same about Russell Moore.
“I feel the same about Russell Moore.”
Dr. Moore has been in the news a lot over the last year, most recently as he transitioned roles in June from the president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) to Christianity Today where he will serve in the role of Public Theologian. To say that Moore is best known for his convictional, gospel winsomeness and his moral clarity around current events, might not be accurate. These are certainly the traits that I know of Moore and how I’d want you to know him. Still, it’s probably more accurate to say he’s more widely known for being controversial within his former denomination, The Southern Baptist Convention, and his critical political engagement of President Trump.
The winds of time have since blown away the Internet paper trail to all the hyperlinks, but I’ll recount for you one of my favorite Russell Moore kerfuffles. In the late spring of 2016, Donald Trump tweeted that Moore is “A nasty guy with no heart.” When asked on CNN about the comment, Moore replied to Anderson Cooper, “[This is] one of the few things I agree with Donald Trump on. I am a nasty guy with no heart. We sing worse things about ourselves in our hymns on Sunday mornings: we’re a wretch and in need of God’s grace.” Well played, Moore, well played.
During President Trump’s second campaign and after Moore’s widely shared article “The Roman Road to Insurrection” about the January 6 riots at the Capitol, I’m sure Donald Trump’s opinion of Moore didn’t change—but whaddya gonna do? A lot of people are on Trump’s naughty list.
Speaking of the controversy around Russell Moore, I suspect much of the angst exists because the polarization is not simply the standard divisions between the political and theological left and right, the standard divisions between progressives and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans. Rather, a polarization exists within the right itself. Because of this, Moore gets called names like “woke” and “cultural Marxist”—all labels that, in my opinion, seem to have the effect of shutting down thinking and discussion rather than stimulating them. During the recent approach to the annual Southern Baptist Convention, Moore’s departure as the head of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) and a leaked letter also created a lot of noise.
Opponents criticize Moore saying he cowardly capitulates to culture, whether in his insistence on racial equality in the church or that abusive men be brought to justice or for moral integrity in political leadership. But the criticism that Moore is capitulating to culture would ring truer if his positions were not so out of step with much of his own tribe, that is, his culture. You would think that the culture one could feel tempted to compromise toward would be the one that pays your salary, yet Moore’s courage to stand manifests itself in his critiques of his tribe, a decidedly not cowardly move. Still, if he is known for critiquing his religious support base, he could be described well with words from a book he and I both love: “prophets love the people they chastise” (Marilynne Robinson, Gilead, 142).
I’d prefer not to spend time writing about any of the labels Moore receives or a letter that was leaked. Instead, I want to encourage you to read and learn from him firsthand instead of imbibing the soundbites, even if you suspect that you’d see many political or theological issues differently than Moore sees them. The social media version of the children’s game “whisper down the alley” (aka “the telephone game”) tends to boil off any nuance until the final rendition only vaguely resembles a grotesque version of the original, if that. There’s more to Moore than supposed wokeness, whatever that means.
A great place to become familiar with Moore would be his weekly newsletters (subscribe). He started the newsletter during the pandemic, and few resources have pastored me as well through our cultural moments over the last year as each installment of 3,000 to 4,000 words, the length of my typical sermon. His writing is so rich, so pastoral, so winsome, so convictional, so, if you ask me, Christ-like. When I think of Moore’s writing, I think of Paul’s words about love: “it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
“When I think of Moore’s writing, I think of Paul’s words about love.”
In a newsletter this spring where he explored the troubles of pastors and pastoring in our current age, Moore shared that someone complained to him that pastors are cowardly not speaking out enough about current events, especially political ones, with the same passion and clarity that Moore does. Defending us pastors, Moore responded, “But that’s my literal job, to speak to ethical and cultural questions; and I’ve kind of been doing it for the last thirty years” (“Are Our Pastors in Trouble?” Moore to the Point, May 10, 2021).
In a sermon this winter, as we were preaching through the book of Acts, I quoted to our church a line from another newsletter. Moore was addressing the conspiracy theories over Q-Anon, but I related Moore’s comment to the headstrong, jealous, and sometimes irrational opposition the Jews had against Paul. Moore wrote this sober warning: “one cannot reason someone out of something one was never reasoned into in the first place” (“Christ Over Q-Anon,” Moore to the Point, February 1, 2021). Read it again slowly: one cannot reason someone out of something one was never reasoned into in the first place. A month after I preached that sermon, a member of our church came up to tell me how much he continues to think about that line.
I also appreciate the other resource he started during the pandemic, his series on YouTube and Instagram called “Reading in Exile.” Every few days or so, Moore grabbed a book (or several) off the shelf of his home library and talked for ten minutes about why the books and authors matter. I saw many of the videos when they were released, but over the last few months I have been going back through the playlist on YouTube. I’m on video number 35 of 51.
Moore has written several books, including most recently The Courage to Stand: Facing Your Fear without Losing Your Soul (B&H, 2020); as well as The Storm-Tossed Family: How the Cross Reshapes the Home (B&H, 2018); Onward: Engaging the Culture without Losing the Gospel (B&H, 2015); Adopted for Life (Updated and Expanded Edition): The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families and Churches (Crossway, 2009 and 2015); and several others. Over the last few years, I think I have read all but two of his books. He did is PhD work on aspects of the kingdom of God and the end times, issues I’ve thought and written about often and suspect we also see similarly.
The other pastors at the church office tease me that my growing love for Russell Moore might be in danger of bumping my other favorite evangelical writers off their “Top 3” rankings in my heart. My friends might be right. I had hoped to be able to bump into Moore at The Gospel Coalition’s conference in April to tell him how much I appreciate him, but I was disappointed when my coworker pointed out that the fine print in the conference program said Moore was only there “virtually.” They wheeled a giant TV on the stage during his panel discussion.
I love the way Moore writes about his own struggles with transparency I can hardly imagine imitating myself. And I appreciate the assumptions it would seem he makes about his audience, namely, that we are more weak, wounded, and wayward than our smiling faces in church pews belie. This assumption about the struggles of the average, storm-tossed Christian (and storm-tossed pastor!) has a way of breaking down religious stereotypes and keeping the ground at the foot of the cross as level as it really is.
I also love the way Moore can tweak a familiar phrase into something fresh, as in the chapter on sex in The Stormed-Tossed Family when he writes that “one’s life does not consist in the abundance of orgasms,” which of course tweaks Jesus’s words from Luke 12:15 about wealth. (I’m quoting the audiobook from memory, so I might have the quote slightly wrong.)
Rather than me telling you about his writing, here are the opening four paragraphs from his most recent book, The Courage to Stand, to give you a taste:
Whenever I lose my way in life, there are two maps on the wall that can help me navigate my way back home. That happens more often than I would like to admit, but whenever it does, the maps are always there. One of those maps is of the state of Mississippi, with a dot hovering over the coastline there where I grew up. The other map is of a land called Narnia. Those maps help remind me who I am, but, more importantly they remind me what I’m not, what I almost was.
And what I almost was is a teenage suicide.
That last sentence there I have written, and unwritten, at least a dozen times. I’m scared to disclose it, because I’ve never discussed it before, even with close friends. But that’s what this book is about: finding a way in the midst of fear, to somehow, having done all else, to stand.
Those maps are just scraps of paper, but, to me, they are almost portals to alternative realities, and in one of those realities I am dead. In the other reality, I found my way here, through a wardrobe in a spare room somewhere in England.
The Courage to Stand is in large part an extended reflection on the ministry of the Old Testament prophet Elijah and the surprising ways God deals with such a broken and disappointed prophet, which are the severe but merciful ways God deals with all his children in the gospel. As the back cover of the book says, “Gospel courage is nothing like the bravado of this anxious age. The call to courage is terrifying because the call to courage is a call to be crucified.”
“This spring, several times I sat down to write Moore a long, handwritten note to express my appreciation.”
This spring, several times I sat down to write Moore a long, handwritten note to express my appreciation for his ministry and the abundance of joy and biblical clarity he brings into my life. The Bible instructs us, “Let the one who is taught the word share all good things with the one who teaches” (Gal. 6:6). But I never did write the note. Life always seems to move too fast, my kids too young, and church ministry too all-consuming for the luxury of writing. For example, this post started as a quick, 500-word promo for The Courage to Stand that was supposed to take me ninety minutes. But here I am, two weeks later with nearly 2,000 words on the screen and having only said half of what I could say, half of what I want to say—and I’m only able to say this much because I’m on sabbatical and can afford a little extra time for reflection and thanksgiving.
Maybe someday I’ll write Moore that note. And maybe someday you will write Moore that same note because I nudged you in his direction. If that happens, I’ll be happy because I love Russell Moore, and I’d like all of you to love him too.
* Photo by John Towner on Unsplash