Hello, fellow wayfarers … What the surrender of Ukraine to Russian aggression will cost us morally … How a poet who disagrees with me on religion and spirituality helped me through a tough time … Where I’ll be for the next little bit … A “Great American Songbook” Desert Island Playlist … This is this week’s Moore to the Point.
The Moral Cost of Murdering Ukraine
Over the past few weeks, the United States of America reversed course on the Russian invasion of Ukraine in multiple ways: siding with Russia in a United Nations resolution, freezing aid to Ukraine in its defense against Russian forces, and hosting a televised Oval Office repudiation of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.
As many have noted, the geopolitical, military, and diplomatic costs of attacking allies and appeasing enemies are incalculable. As American Christians, though, we should also consider the moral cost of surrendering Ukraine.
In most situations of foreign policy, the moral questions are usually debatable, if not murky. Hawks and doves usually agree on the underlying ideals and values to be defended but disagree on the best prudential way to achieve them.
Sometimes, however, those ideals and values are definitively tested. In those moments, what’s at stake is not just the survival of nations or even of the world but the consciences of those who align themselves with what is unquestionably wrong.
Through most of the first half of the 20th century, the American left—or at least its most fervent sector—defended, if not communism itself, then certainly the Soviet Union and its promise of a revolutionary utopia of equality and justice. Often, this was done with a “I don’t agree with everything the Soviets do, but they’re not as bad as they’re portrayed” type of waving away of reports of atrocities committed by the Soviet state.
George Orwell famously defined the ideology at work here when he wrote, “The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.”
Orwell was especially harsh on the communism of his fellow British. He noted that no real revolutionary feeling—an actual tearing down of the status quo—existed in the England of his time.
“It is only natural, therefore, that the English Communist movement should be controlled by people who are mentally subservient to Russia and have no real aim except to manipulate British foreign policy in the Russian interest,” he concluded. “The more vocal kind of Communist is in effect a Russian publicity agent posing as an international Socialist. It is a pose that is easily kept up at normal times, but becomes difficult in moments of crisis”—because the brutalities of the USSR have to be justified in ways that can make them seem morally consistent.
“Every time Stalin swaps partners, ‘Marxism’ has to be hammered into a new shape,” Orwell continued. “The unquestionable dogma of Monday may become the damnable heresy of Tuesday, and so on.”
The moral cognitive dissonance of all this was on display every time Stalin swapped partners. Those who were “heroes of the Revolution” were suddenly enemies in the show trials. Fascism was an evil—until the signing of the Hitler–Stalin Pact. It was then an evil once again when Hitler and the Soviets split.
In time, the facts many had always known became indisputable: about the Soviet starving of Ukrainians, for example, and the encampment and murder of dissidents. Those who were anti-anti-Communist had to find a way to either ignore these atrocities or to justify them, without repudiating previously stated ideals or admitting that they had been morally compromised by their own ideology.
In his analysis of the American religion of the first half of the 20th century, historian Martin E. Marty (who died last week) noted the anguish of Unitarian minister John Haynes Holmes in preaching a sermon in 1940 titled “Why We Liberals Went Wrong on the Russian Revolution.” Holmes, who was widely known in his day, was a “man of the left” and had defended for years the Soviet Union and its promise of a just society.
But the Hitler–Stalin Pact left Holmes shaken. He came to describe his defense of the USSR as “the supreme disillusionment” of his life. “I have been deceived, deluded and disgraced,” he said, “sold out by those I trusted most; and I am as deeply afflicted as I am utterly disgusted by what has happened.”
“[Holmes] faulted himself and his fellows for not having properly read the signs of the times,” Marty wrote. “Liberals, in their concern to fight economic injustice, he said, had permitted evils to go on which ‘in our own hearts we knew to be wrong.’”
“Sometimes ‘we’ had fallen to doctrines which hold that the end justifies the means,” Marty wrote of Holmes’s confession. “It was the Hitler-Stalin Pact which, as Holmes saw it, stripped away the last veils of self-deception from the eyes of liberals, and set them ‘steadfastly against the cruel and bloody regime which they should have uncovered years before.’”
Now here we are again—with another defense of a bloodthirsty, empire-seeking Russia, led by murderers and oligarchs in their illegal invasion of a neighboring country, kidnapping children and killing Ukrainians, with a Russian Orthodox Church cheering it on as a “holy war” of Russian Christendom against the decadent Western world.
Previously pro-Ukrainian voices now have to find a way to shift with the ideology, convincing others that something has changed beyond the price of tribal admission. Zelensky, they might say, was rude for wearing battle fatigues instead of a suit to the Oval Office (while not objecting to Elon Musk wearing a T-shirt and ball cap in the same place).
Or, they might argue, Zelensky is a dictator because Ukrainian law pauses elections during wartime (when one could just as fallaciously argue that the US is a dictatorship because there are no presidential elections in the four years between when the Constitution specifies they should take place).
Some Christians even suggest that Ukraine is opposed to religious liberty—when virtually every religious minority testifies that the reverse is the case, that Russia, in fact, is the persecutor of evangelical Protestants and even of Russian Orthodox clergy who will not toe the Putinist line.
Perhaps most dangerous of all, in terms of what it does to the consciences of those arguing this way, is the suggestion that Ukraine is fated to lose. They have no cards left to play, the claim goes, so the free world should side with the eventual winners—or at least do nothing to stand in their way.
Those who are now castigating Ukraine don’t even pretend that doing so is moral. Instead, they seem to argue for a worldview in which everyone is equally corrupt and murderous, so the US should simply divide the world up into spheres of influence, regardless of who is being plundered or murdered in the process.
Political scientist Mark Lilla recently explained the psychological state of this moral worldview in terms completely separate from the Russia-Ukraine war, through—ironically enough—one of Russia’s greatest intellectual and literary giants, novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky.
“In so many of his novels we meet seemingly wicked characters who are really only in despair, their original goodness having been robbed by someone or by circumstances beyond their control,” Lilla writes. “And to cope with the trauma, they convince themselves that there is no such thing as goodness, becoming prostitutes or rakes or drunkards or revolutionaries, reveling in their baseness. But then they are undone when they meet genuinely good people and grow to hate them.”
Dostoevsky was not the first to see this psychological dynamic. Millennia earlier, the Book of Genesis gave us the account of Cain and Abel. Cain, enraged that God had accepted Abel’s offering while rejecting his, murdered his brother. When interrogated by God, Cain believed his violence was hidden safely in the past. But God says, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground” (Gen. 4:10, ESV throughout).
The apostle John, one of Jesus’ closest disciples, explained to the early Christian church what was happening in this ancient account by saying, “We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous” (1 John 3:12).
Legally, Ukraine belongs to Ukraine. Morally, a people have a right to defend themselves from the extinction of their people and the taking of their land. The Bible tells us of another murdered man—Naboth the Jezreelite—who lost his land unjustly.
King Ahab demanded that Naboth sell his vineyard to him, but Naboth replied, “The Lord forbid that I should give you the inheritance of my fathers” (1 Kings 21:3). The king went home “vexed and sullen,” until his wife, Jezebel, worked to frame and execute Naboth on made-up charges so she could take his land.
It’s odd to me that some of the same people who will use the epithet Jezebel for women who wear yoga pants or teach Sunday school take no notice at all when they themselves defend the same sorts of real crimes that Jezebel actually committed.
Decisions about war and peace are often morally complex. But in this case, the defense of the indefensible is happening through a social Darwinist argument that is already hollowing out much of American life. Such a view says that the power to do something is itself a moral justification—or even worse, that moral considerations are themselves a sign of “virtue signaling” and weakness. We have seen before where this leads.
For Christians, it demands some questions: Who would you rather be, Naboth or Ahab? Abel or Cain? The answer to these questions might not solve the war in Europe, but it will reveal something about you.
A Conversation on the Conversational Nature of Reality
The spring of 2017 was the worst time of my life. I had to press forward with all my responsibilities but felt like a shell of myself. My faith was as strong as ever, maybe even stronger, but my hope was weak. I spent a lot of time walking and trying to get my mind off of what I now see as the psychologically disordered and spiritually abusive arena of denominational politics.
At some point along the way, I listened to an episode of the radio program On Being, in which Krista Tippett interviews a marine biologist turned poet by the name of David Whyte. After finding myself stopping the recording to play certain parts of it over and over again, I downloaded some audio collections in which Whyte reads and discusses his poetry.
One of the things Whyte wrote that stuck with me was this: “Nostalgia is not an immersion in the past; nostalgia is the first annunciation that the past as we know it is coming to an end.”
In this week’s episode of the podcast, I talk to Whyte about how he helped me from afar. We dialogue about the “conversational nature of reality” that Whyte proposes and how it resonates with and challenges Christian understandings of communion with God. We also discuss:
- How poetry gives language to experiences that resist explanation
- The nature of courage as vulnerability rather than bravado
- Navigating anxiety in a world that demands constant performance
- Approaching death, and whether that should be as a companion or an enemy
- The surprising spiritual journey that led Whyte from marine zoology to becoming one of our most vital poetic voices
- Whether the modern world is “disenchanted” and what difference that makes
You can listen to our conversation here.
Off the Grid for a Little While
Next week, I plan to get away with my family for a vacation—to a warm place far away from reliable Wi-Fi and cell service. Don’t expect a newsletter for a week or two. I’ll be back—rested and ready—for whatever craziness awaits us in the spring. That will give you time to submit your Desert Island playlists and bookshelves!
Desert island Playlist
Every other week, I share a playlist of songs one of you says you’d want to have on hand if you were stranded on a desert island. This week’s submission comes from reader John H. Alsdorf of New York City, who writes, “I’m okay with your using my name, should you choose to publish this list. You can refer to me as an ‘octogenarian friend.’” He continues:
As will be clear, I’m of the “older generation,” picking many of my songs from what’s called “The Great American Songbook,” a label I’ve discovered, to my dismay, that many under 40 don’t even recognize!! These are in no particular order of fondness, and truly do not exhaust the list of great songs from the Great Songbook.
Here’s his list:
- “Stardust” by Hoagy Carmichael: Hoagy’s melody is amazing on its own, but when Nat King Cole adds his voice to the lyrics, it comes in at the top of my list.
- “Laura” (or “Theme from Laura”) is such a lovely, haunting melody.
- “This Nearly Was Mine,” from South Pacific, speaks so beautifully of heartbreak.
- “Moonlight Serenade,” Glen Miller’s hit, recreated by many bands and pop orchestras since, always elicits a smile and a hum-along.
- “A-Train,” Duke Ellington’s hit, is particularly fun now, because it’s my ride of choice whenever I go from Washington Heights to midtown Manhattan.
- “76 Trombones,” the rollicking song from The Music Man, is always fun. I especially like Henry Mancini’s arrangement.
- “Dream Along with Me,” perhaps the least well-known song on this list, always evokes a smile and a sing-along. This was Perry Como’s theme song for his popular Saturday night TV show from the mid-’50s into the early ’60s.
- “Beyond the Sea,” another beautiful melody, is irresistible as another must-sing-along when performed by Bobby Darin.
- “Dancing in the Dark,” the most well-known of Arthur Schwartz’s many Tin Pan Alley compositions, deserves inclusion if only in recognition of the many varied instrumental and vocal interpretations.
- “Bring Him Home” is but one of the many hauntingly beautiful songs from Broadway’s Les Misérables, which itself is a riveting adaptation of Victor Hugo’s brilliant novel of grace received (Jean Valjean) and rejected (Javert). This song is a prayer rich with appeals for mercy and acknowledgement of mortality.
Readers, what do y’all think? If you were stranded on a desert island for the rest of your life and could have only one playlist or one bookshelf with you, what songs or books would you choose?
- For a Desert Island Playlist, send me a list between 5 and 12 songs, excluding hymns and worship songs. (We’ll cover those later.)
- For a Desert Island Bookshelf, send me a list of up to 12 books, along with a photo of all the books together.
Send your list (or both lists) to questions@russellmoore.com, and include as much or as little explanation of your choices as you would like, along with the city and state from which you’re writing.
Quote of the Moment
“There is nothing new about Christianity being a minority voice in the world. What is original is that, on a worldwide scale, there is a growing sense that it has been tried and failed, that it was established and now deserves to be disestablished.”
—Martin E. Marty (February 5, 1928 – February 25, 2025), in 1964
Currently Reading (or Re-Reading)
- Ray Ortlund, Good News at Rock Bottom: Finding God When the Pain Goes Deep and Hope Seems Lost (Crossway)
- Nicole Massie Martin, Nailing It: Why Successful Leadership Demands Suffering and Surrender (InterVarsity)
- Ethan Rutherford, Farthest South, and Other Stories (Deep Vellum)
- Vladislav M. Zubok, Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union (Yale University Press)
- Katherine Davey, ed., These Our Monsters: The English Heritage Book of New Folktale, Myth, and Legend (English Heritage)
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Ask a Question or Say Hello
The Russell Moore Show podcast includes a section where we grapple with the questions you might have about life, the gospel, relationships, work, the church, spirituality, the future, a moral dilemma you’re facing, or whatever. You can send your questions to questions@russellmoore.com. I’ll never use your name—unless you tell me to—and will come up with a groan-inducing pun of a pseudonym for you.
And, of course, I would love to hear from you about anything. Send me an email at questions@russellmoore.com if you have any questions or comments about this newsletter, if there are other things you would like to see discussed here, or if you would just like to say hello.
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Russell Moore
Editor in Chief, Christianity Today
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