Christianity Today is announcing the hiring of Russell Moore to serve as a full-time public theologian for the publication and to lead a new Public Theology Project.
“We could not be more pleased with the addition of Russell Moore in this role,” said Christianity Today’s president and CEO, Timothy Dalrymple. “Russell has established himself as one of the most significant evangelical voices of our time. He illuminates the relevance of the gospel to the whole of life, from everyday matters of faith to the great debates in our society and culture. Importantly, he does all of this in a voice that demonstrates what we at Christianity Today call beautiful orthodoxy, weaving together a deep commitment to the historic integrity of the church with a generous, charitable, and humble spirit.”
Moore, a native of Biloxi, Mississippi, was appointed in June 2013 as the eighth president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. Before taking that post he was the dean of the School of Theology and senior vice president for academic administration at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. He joined the faculty there as professor of Christian theology and ethics in 2001 and became dean in 2004. For four years of his tenure at Southern, Moore also served as preaching pastor at Highview Baptist Church.
Moore is also the author of several books on Christian theology, ethics, and living, most recently The Courage to Stand: Facing Your Fear without Losing Your Soul. His first book, The Kingdom of Christ: The New Evangelical Perspective, was adapted from his doctoral dissertation at Southern and examined Christian sociopolitical engagement especially through the work of Christianity Today’s first editor, Carl F. H. Henry. Moore has had a long association with Henry’s legacy; at Southern, for example, he served as executive director of the Carl F. H. Henry Institute for Evangelical Engagement from 2001 to 2009.
Christianity Today was founded by Billy Graham in 1956. In the 65 years since that time, it has served as a flagship publication for the American evangelical movement, serving the church with news, commentary, and resources. It has published the luminaries of each generation, including the theological voices that have shaped evangelical public life and witness. Today it is engaged in efforts to expand its scope, advancing the ideas and stories shaping the future of the church across generations, across communities, and around the planet.
The Public Theology Project will extend and build upon that tradition, seeking to reground and revitalize a beautiful and orthodox public theology for our day. It will convene a broad set of voices on matters of faith in the public square, publish content in multiple media that fleshes out the implications of the gospel for the whole of life, and host gatherings and events. It will also be the main outlet for Moore’s regular writing and his podcast, SignPosts.
“Christianity Today has meant a great deal to me in my faith journey,” said Moore. “I am thrilled to join the team and lead the Public Theology Project. We need to recover a theologically orthodox, intellectually credible, socially engaged, missiologically holistic, and generally connected witness for American evangelical Christianity.” (Moore has also posted a statement at RussellMoore.com.)
Moore will commence his work at Christianity Today this summer.
“We have long enjoyed publishing Dr. Moore, and always hoped we could do more together,” says Dalrymple. “In recent years we worked with the National Association of Evangelicals, American Awakening, and other partners to regather American evangelicals around the first principles of why and how we engage as followers of Christ in public life. When we first began to discuss a Public Theology Project with Russell, we immediately welcomed the opportunity to grow that effort by joining forces on something that matters so much to all of us. We could not have a better leader for this effort than Russell Moore.”
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