Moore to the Point – 09-11-2024

September 10, 2024

View in Browser

Moore to the Point

Hello, fellow wayfarers โ€ฆ Whatโ€™s at stake for your soul as you vote (or donโ€™t) this November โ€ฆ Where you can listen to a set of amazing songs about the โ€œAmerican Gospelโ€ โ€ฆ Why Iโ€™m glad I forgot, for a minute, about a friendโ€™s recollection of sending his son off to college โ€ฆ A former fundamentalist kid, now all grown up, shows us his Desert Island Playlist he could never have played at home โ€ฆ This is this weekโ€™s Moore to the Point.


Will Your Presidential Vote Send You to Hell?

Since by nature of my work Iโ€™ve had to weigh in on a lot of controversial issues over the years, Iโ€™ve been cussed out a time or two. Sometimes, Iโ€™ve been yelled at with, โ€œGod damn you!โ€ When an unbeliever says that, itโ€™s one thing. Christians, though, mean it literally.
 
A family I know and love was rattled recently to get a note from someone they considered a longtime friend suggesting that the family was going to hell. The cause for the impending brimstone was not that the family denied the faith, embraced some heresy, or adopted some unrepentant life of immorality. At issue was that the family did not support a presidential candidate.
 
The note-sender put in all the provisions of โ€œIโ€™m only saying this because I love you,โ€ which works for cruelty the same way โ€œThis doesnโ€™t actually count as sexโ€ works for people who want to sleep with each other without giving up their purity rings. Adding a โ€œbless your heartโ€ to the โ€œGod damn youโ€ doesnโ€™t really change it that much.
 
This sort of situation comes to me at least once a week these days and, in some ways, itโ€™s jarringly new in our history. I canโ€™t think of churches splitting over whether Dwight Eisenhower or Adlai Stevenson should sit in the Oval Office, for example. I canโ€™t imagine family members refusing to speak to one another over who voted for Jimmy Carter and who for Gerald Ford. That has changed over the past decade or so, and some of us arenโ€™t used to it yet. I pray we never will be.
 
Much of this has to do with larger divisions in American lifeโ€”the polarization of the populace, the tribalization of the parties, the trivialization of politics itself. And some of it has to do with changes in the American church.
 
A market-driven religion seeks to appeal to โ€œfelt needsโ€ and especially to what drives the passions of the people to whom it wants to appeal. When the concern is what happens after death or how to be forgiven of guilt, a market-driven religion emphasizes those things.
 
And when the market secularizes to caring more about how to thrive in the workforce or how to spice up a marriage, a market-driven religion will reflect that. When the market further secularizes to the point that what people want is โ€œred meatโ€ about why their political or ethnic or racial โ€œenemiesโ€ are bad, a market-driven religion can do that too. And it has.
 
Thatโ€™s why we end up with an American religion in which people can gladly partner with prosperity gospel teachers who would be thrown out of a Billy Sunday crusade, not to mention the Council of Nicaea. These same people simultaneously denounce as maybe-not-even-regenerate those who are orthodox on every article of the faith but who wonโ€™t violate their consciences on supporting political causes or candidates they believe to be wrong.
 
In a politicized, secularized American Christianity, some seem to think that the apostleโ€™s admonition to make your calling and election sure (2 Pet. 1:10) has to do with posting the right pop-political opinions on social media.
 
We live in a time when religious experience has grown cold and dead, and political affiliation feels alive and invigorating. Plus, itโ€™s easy. Trolling your neighbors on social media for their politics may cost you some self-respect, but you can budget for that.
 
On the other hand, bearing witness to Christ and persuading your neighbors to give their lives to him requires something of you. Modeling Christ in word and life for your Haitian immigrant neighbors fleeing violence and poverty will require you to interrupt your life and comfort. Reposting memes falsely accusing them of eating household petsโ€”because somebodyโ€™s cousinโ€™s friend from high school said they didโ€”takes only a few seconds.
 
While this might feel new to many of us, we should recognize that itโ€™s rooted in something very old: an Americanized version of one of the earliest heresies in the church.
 
Much of the New Testament, especially Paulโ€™s letters to the churches in Rome and Galatia, addresses a dispute about what it means to follow Christ and to be united to him in faith. Those the apostles pronounced to be false teachers suggested that the Gentiles seeking to follow Christ must first become Jews, with the marks of circumcision and the observance of diets and days. Concerning the teachers who insisted on circumcision for these Gentiles, Paul wrote to the Galatians, โ€œTo them we did not yield in submission even for a moment so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for youโ€ (2:5, ESV throughout).
 
For the apostle, those who added to the gospel were not thereby practicing addition but subtraction. A gospel of โ€œChrist andโ€ is another gospel altogether (1:6). Paul speaks of those who wish to add additional entrance requirements to the gospel of Christ crucified and resurrected as โ€œanathema,โ€ as those who should be cursed (vv. 8โ€“9). If one is united to Christ, the old categories are broken down, and people who ordinarily wouldnโ€™t be united togetherโ€”Jew and Gentile, rich and poor, zealot and tax collectorโ€”find themselves in this mystery where the only defining category is Christ and Christ alone (Col. 3:11).
 
The gospel, of course, works itself out in lifeโ€”both in terms of how we live our lives personally and how we live our lives together, socially, culturally, and politically.
 
People can be committed, though, to the same goals of justice but differ as to how to get to them. The Bible mandates care for the poor. On some matters, the application is explicit and clear-cut: One should not exploit the pay of oneโ€™s laborers, for instance (James 5:1โ€“6). On other matters, believers may disagree on exactly which public policies benefit the poor and what unintended consequences might actually hurt them. Somebody on that will likely be wrong. Thatโ€™s why we have debate and moral persuasion.
 
Some Christians believe the pro-life vision of care for the unborn always requires voting for the Republican ticket, no matter what. Others believe the pro-life vision is harmed long-term by tying it to sexual anarchy, misogyny, contempt for the vulnerable, and mob violence. Some believe their consciences require them to vote for a candidate with whom they disagree, even on major issues, but who will respect the rule of law and the constitutional order. Others donโ€™t believe they can vote for either candidate in good conscience.
 
As you know, I have very strong views on the presidential election. I have and will continue to make those views known. To do otherwise would be to violate my own conscience, and my own sense of what it means to love my country. Some people disagree with meโ€”even up to half the country. I do not believe those viewpoints are morally or rationally equal, of course, or I wouldnโ€™t hold the views I do.
 
That doesnโ€™t mean, though, that I think that those who disagree with me are, by definition, not Christians. To do so would be to add to the requirement of faith in Christ a commitment to see the political and cultural stakes of the moment the way I do. That would be veering close to the Galatian heresy. And that, the Bible says, really does endanger our souls.
 
We have the obligation to speak out when support for any partisan movement or personality is conflated with Christianity itself. Itโ€™s especially odd when those who defend slaveholding or white supremacist Christians of the past as โ€œmen of their timeโ€ or as good Christians with โ€œblind spotsโ€ are nonetheless willing to say that only those who vote the way they do can be genuine Christians.
 
More serious than all of the issues combinedโ€”more serious even than the future of the American Republic itselfโ€”is the conflation of the gospel with a human personality or power. When the church yawns at Trinitarian heresy or scoffs at what Jesus defines as the fruit of the Spirit but unites around a partisan identity, we are heading toward something closer to the imperial cult against which the risen Christ warned the first-century churchesโ€”congregations persecuted by that cult for refusing to say, โ€œCaesar is Lord.โ€
 
Decisions one makes on Election Day have implications for Judgment Day. But if we confuse one day for the other, weโ€™ve lost more than an election. Itโ€™s bad enough when we say to our political opponents, metaphorically, โ€œGo to hell.โ€ Itโ€™s even worse when we think thatโ€™s the gospel.

Jon Guerra Sings the American Gospel

Some of yโ€™all know how much I love the music of singer/songwriter Jon Guerra. He was part of the gathering of musicians, writers, and thinkers that we brought together last year for The After Party projectโ€”with collaboration that amazed me in both excellence and in spirit. And Iโ€™ve often quoted here songs heโ€™s written, such as โ€œCitizens.โ€
 
Jon has a new EP out as of last week, and itโ€™s incredible. The song โ€œAmerican Gospelโ€ includes lyrics such as this:

Blessed are the powerful
Blessed are the rich
Blessed are the merciless
And the hypocrites
They will inherit the empireโ€™s passing
Itโ€™s the American gospel
 
Blessed are the superstars,
Blessed are the famous
Blessed are the ones
Who make their faces ageless
They will inherit the magazine covers
Of the American gospel

This is more than a jeremiad, though. In classic Guerra fashion, he takes us to a different place:

Blessed are the powerless
Blessed are the poor
Blessed are the merciful
Blessed are the pure
For they will inherit the kingdom of heaven
And thatโ€™s the heart of the gospel

I also love his song โ€œNothing to Say to The New York Times,โ€ in which he sings: 

Iโ€™ve got nothing to say to The New York Times
Nothing to say to Fox News
Iโ€™ve got nothing to spin
To lose or to win
Iโ€™ve got nothing to say but the truth

You can check out The American Gospel songs wherever you listen to music.

18 Years Is Not Enough

I mentioned here last week about how dropping off my son Samuel to his dormitory room at college was one of the hardest things Iโ€™ve ever done. In talking about that with my friend Peter Wehner, Pete said, โ€œRemember Mikeโ€™s column about that?โ€ Suddenly I did. I said, โ€œOh my word. I am glad I didnโ€™t think about that column last week or I would have cried even harder.โ€

I went back and reread that column, which the Washington Post reran after Mikeโ€™s death from cancer. It hit even harder, after having had such an experience firsthand.

Of his son, Mike Gerson wrote:

He will be homesick, as I was (intensely) as a freshman. An education expert once told me that among the greatest fears of college students is they wonโ€™t have a room at home to return to. They want to keep a beachhead in their former life.
 
But with due respect to my sonโ€™s feelings, I have the worse of it. I know something he doesnโ€™tโ€”not quite a secret, but incomprehensible to the young. He is experiencing the adjustments that come with beginnings. His life is starting for real. I have begun the long letting go. Put another way: He has a wonderful future in which my part naturally diminishes. I have no possible future that is better without him close.
 
There is no use brooding about it. Iโ€™m sure my father realized it at a similar moment. And I certainly didnโ€™t notice or empathize. At first, he was a giant who held my hand and filled my sky. Then a middle-aged man who paid my bills. Now, decades after his passing, a much-loved shadow. But I can remember the last time I hugged him in the front hallway of his home, where I always had a room. It is a memory of warmth. I can only hope to leave my son the same.

He closed with these words:

The cosmologists, even with all their depressing talk about the eventual heat death of the cosmos, offer some comfort. They point out that we live in the briefest windowโ€”a fraction of a fraction of the unimaginable vastness of deep timeโ€”in which it is physically possible for life to exist. So we inhabit (or are chosen to inhabit) an astounding, privileged instant in the life span of the universe.
 
Well, 18 years is a window that closed too quickly. But, my son, those days have been the greatest wonder and privilege of my life. And there will always be a room for you.

No matter how many times I read that, it tears me up, especially knowing thatโ€”much too short of a time laterโ€”Mike himself would be saying a longer goodbye, into the place where Jesus promised to save him a room (John 14:2โ€“3).

You can read the whole thing here, but if youโ€™re the parent of a kindergartener or a young adult, you might want to wait a little while to do so.


Desert island Playlist

Every other week, I share a playlist of songs one of you says youโ€™d want to have on hand if you were stranded on a desert island. This weekโ€™s submission comes from reader Alan Rydman in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, who writes:

When I look at my list, I notice that only the one classical and the one Big Band piece would have been allowed to have been played in my childhood home (at least when our parents were around!). That fact meant that my exposure to nonreligious music was defined by my older brothers, and I have no idea what was behind their selection of classic rock as our favorite forbidden genre. 
 
To me, it seemed to be mostly about our own rebellion against the fundamentalist rules imposed on us, but to this day it is harmonies and rhythms like these that just plain make me feel good. Reading other peoplesโ€™ reasons for their individual selections seems to show that I had a pretty shallow appreciation of the broader and deeper messages that were in other types of music. Also, I was only thirteen years old when my sources of musical contraband moved out of the house.

After that, I dove into the Independent Baptist fundamentalism of my parents and church with all my might, and swore off secular music (and CCM) for thirty years. Then, when the leaders and institutions I revered (and had paid my tuition) crashed and burned in moral failure, one of the things I deconstructed was my musical legalism, and on one particular family vacation, I introduced our teenage daughters to all my favorites from childhood. They were a bit stunned, but loved it all at the same time. Music suddenly became a medium for significant connection in our family. Some of the list below were the ones I remembered and shared with them that day in the car.

Hereโ€™s Alanโ€™s list:  

  • โ€œYou Make My Dreamsโ€ by Daryl Hall and John Oates: I think I heard this on the radio while driving a school bus. I almost have to dance every time I hear it, and it speaks the truth about my wife of thirty-four years! I think it would lift my spirits even when it reminded me of my loneliness on the island.
  • โ€œHallelujahโ€ by Leonard Cohen; the more stanzas the better: This song isnโ€™t from my long ago, either. In fact, I may have been reintroduced to it (as opposed to periodically overhearing it while Shrek is playing) from one of these earlier island lists. This speaks so profoundly to me of the reality of redemption for deeply broken places and people.
  • โ€œKnee Deepโ€ by Zac Brown (featuring Jimmy Buffet): This is my wifeโ€™s favorite song. She wants it played at her funeral. As Michiganders who try to go to Lake Michigan in the summer as much as possible, we donโ€™t worry about the tide reaching our chair, but we get it! BTW, for those who have never been there, Lake Michigan is nothing specialโ€”please continue to go to the ocean ๐Ÿ˜‰ Anyway, Iโ€™ll be able to think of her, while I stare at the waves!
  • โ€œOne of These Nightsโ€ by the Eagles: This is one of the songs I played for our daughters on that day of deliverance! Our younger daughter once said this was one of her favorites. โ€œYouโ€™ve got your demons, youโ€™ve got desires; and Iโ€™ve got a few of my own!โ€ resonated with her, and I like the perception and honesty she expressed when she told me. I would remember her and hope to be reunited while enjoying these rhythms!
  • โ€œShotgunโ€ by George Ezra: Our older daughter shared this with us a few years ago. Besides betraying our familyโ€™s love for the beach (something else we reclaimed from IFB), it is an example of the means of connection shared music of any kind can be. With this song I would remember and dream of being reunited with her to ride to our little west coast again!
  • โ€œWhen We Were Youngโ€ by Andy Black and Juliet Simms: No disrespect to Adele, but I like this version much better. Our older daughter and son-in-law shared it with us. I love the way they do it as a couple. During a tough time in our marriage, we were working through some deeply entrenched patterns that were not helping, and we were challenged by Brenรฉ Brownโ€™s writing to select some anthems for each relationship. This song by these artists reminded me powerfully of my wife when we met as teenagers. Itโ€™s been our anthem since that struggle, and itโ€™ll work great on the island to keep her on my heart and mind.
  • โ€œAdagio in G Minorโ€ attributed to Tomaso Albinoni: Although sometimes reminding me of The Godfather soundtrack, this long plodding yet flowing, then ebbing, then building to crescendos must be perfect for island sunsets. Weeks after my parents passed within two months of each other, I listened to this song while drinking my morning coffee on our back deck. I sensed such a present beauty and joy that made me fear for my own survivalโ€”or at least sanity. This experience came with an intuition that I was being allowed to experience just a momentary sliver of the pleasure of Godโ€™s gaze in which my parents endlessly indulge. Until I cross over to join them in that unapproachable Light, I hope and pray I never forget that momentary peek through the veil. I do not now feel โ€œitโ€ as I listen and type, but I do remember.
  • โ€œDance with Meโ€ by Orleans: In some ways my most favorite. It repeats the deep longing God placed in me and has kept alive between me and my wife to do this dance together. On that island, I think I would want to hear and sing this a lot.
  • โ€œChattanooga Choo-Chooโ€ by Glenn Miller and His Orchestra: One of the songs my mom would have approved. She used to sing it around the house long before I ever heard the recording. I think she may have kept us from hearing it because, even today, when Glenn Millerโ€™s Orchestra gets to that last reprise, I have to pound the table and stomp my feet! In other words, how could she and dad have kept us little Baptists from dancing if we heard that!? I love this memory of my mom, and I love the song (as a Michigander, I love โ€œKalamazooโ€ tooโ€”but mom didnโ€™t sing that one).
  • โ€œReminiscingโ€ by Little River Band: Gotta have this on the island, donโ€™t you? Brings back memories of me and my lifelong best friend โ€œillegallyโ€ listening and singing this together (and me wondering what in the world the word โ€œreminiscingโ€ meant!).
  • โ€œHotel Californiaโ€ by the Eagles: Strictly forbidden by our Baptist brethren. Wow! What a beautiful piece of music. As I recall, in an Eagles documentary, Glen Frey acknowledged that he was aware of many strange interpretations of this song, including a demonic one put forth by some preachers. I heard several of those preachers, but I loved this song on the sly! The ambiguous lyrics (as Frey called them) concluding with โ€œyou can check out anytime you like, but you can never leaveโ€ describe so many shared human situations and experiences, theyโ€™re almost prophetic, if not diagnostic.
  • โ€œMore Than a Feelingโ€ by Boston: My memories as a nine-year-old boy, of sitting in the back of my big brotherโ€™s โ€™66 Chevy Impala, with the single blown-out speaker in the middle of the seatback, with the 8-track playing this song, are very vivid. In recent years, Iโ€™ve preached several sermons that have borrowed some from the theme of the title. I think love is more than a feelingโ€”but not less than one, either. I donโ€™t know what he did to cause or allow Marianne to walk away, but I use this song to remind me that a strong marriage is more than emotionโ€”it takes intentionality. I donโ€™t know how Iโ€™m gonna end up on that island, but I donโ€™t want it to be because of my neglect. Bahโ€”bahโ€”bumpa, bumpaba, bahโ€”bah!

Thank you, Alan!

Readers, what do yโ€™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. (Weโ€™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 youโ€™re writing.


Quote of the Moment

โ€œWe reject the false teaching that struggle is the basic law of creation and, therefore, the combative stance is the law of God since the original creation. Fight sets the friend/enemy relationship above all. These relationships first arise with the face to good and evil. The goal of mutual annihilation placed within it is a consequence of the fall, after which good and evil are no longer unmixed in man.โ€

โ€”The Bethel Confession of 1933, cited in Torbjรถrn Johansson, Faith in the Face of Tyranny, transl. Bror Erickson


Currently Reading (or Re-Reading)


Join Us at Christianity Today

Founded by Billy Graham, Christianity Today is on a mission to lift up the sages and storytellers of the global church for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ. For a limited time, you can subscribe and get two years for the price of one. Youโ€™ll get exclusive print and digital content, along with seasonal devotionals, special issues, and access to the full archives. Plus, youโ€™ll be supporting this weekly conversation we have together. Or, you could give a membership to a friend, a pastor, a church member, someone you mentor, or a curious non-Christian neighbor. You can also make a tax-deductible gift that expands CTโ€™s important voice and influence in the world.


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 youโ€™re facing, or whatever. You can send your questions to questions@russellmoore.com. Iโ€™ll never use your nameโ€”unless you tell me toโ€”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.

If you have a friend who might like this, please forward it, and if youโ€™ve gotten this from a friend, please subscribe!


P.S. You can support the continued work of Christianity Today and the PUBLIC THEOLOGY PROJECT by subscribing to CT magazine.

Moore to the Point

Join Russell Moore in thinking through the important questions of the day, along with book and music recommendations he has found formative.

Delivered free via email to subscribers weekly. Sign up for this newsletter.

You are currently subscribed as no email found. Sign up to more newsletters like this. Manage your email preferences  or unsubscribe.

Christianity Today is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
โ€œChristianity Todayโ€ and โ€œCTโ€ are the registered trademarks of Christianity Today International.

Copyright ยฉ2024 Christianity Today, PO Box 788, Wheaton, IL 60187-0788
All rights reserved.

Apple PodcastsDown ArrowDown ArrowDown Arrowarrow_left_altLeft ArrowLeft ArrowRight ArrowRight ArrowRight Arrowarrow_up_altUp ArrowUp ArrowAvailable at Amazoncaret-downCloseCloseEmailEmailExpandExpandExternalExternalFacebookfacebook-squareGiftGiftGooglegoogleGoogle KeephamburgerInstagraminstagram-squareLinkLinklinkedin-squareListenListenListenChristianity TodayCT Creative Studio Logologo_orgMegaphoneMenuMenupausePinterestPlayPlayPocketPodcastRSSRSSSaveSaveSaveSearchSearchsearchSpotifyStitcherTelegramTable of ContentsTable of Contentstwitter-squareWhatsAppXYouTubeYouTube