Moore Is Not the Point

Reflections on Russell Moore's critics

Imagine a scenario with me. You’re at home with your family, and you get news that a band of marauding criminals is systematically working its way through your neighborhood, pillaging every house in its path. You are in grave danger, even more so because the gang of violent miscreants has just pulled up to your quiet cul-de-sac. Your house is next in line. Your family needs to work together to act now or risk losing everything, including their lives.

But there’s one slight problem. Two members of your family had a dispute this morning about whose turn it was to load the dishwasher. Sides were taken within the home, dividing your family roughly in half, and the dispute has disproportionally grown beyond its original cause, unveiling secret grievances that family members had until then kept hidden. Everyone is so caught up in emotional bickering and finger-pointing that they can’t even think about the imminent danger outside their front door. In fact, anytime the topic of the marauding invaders comes up, the only thing each side can do is blame the other.

It's a ridiculous thought experiment, I admit. But it’s the analogy that came to mind as I read an article last week—David Mitzenmacher’s “The Rise and Fall of Russell Moore: It’s Time to Say, ‘No Moore,’” on founders.org.

I need to say at the outset that I’m not writing to defend Russell Moore. He’s perfectly capable of answering any accusations about a supposed progressive drift in his own theological trajectory if he deems it’s warranted.

Rather, I’m writing to point out the following absurdity: If you put Russell Moore and David Mitzenmacher in two separate rooms and administered to each the same comprehensive test covering all the most important theological beliefs in the church’s history, their answers would probably align on 95% of the questions and on all the most substantive. I’m not exaggerating. Cross and resurrection. Virgin birth. The Trinity. Christology. Justification. The exclusivity of Christ. The five solas of the Reformation. The inerrancy of the Bible. The sovereignty of God. These two would even align on the basic substance of Calvinistic soteriology and regenerate church membership. They would both reject the excesses of the charismatic movement and abuses of Rome and would agree that the church has a mission of making disciples of every nation on the face of the earth.

Let’s expand the test to current cultural controversies. Again, the level of agreement would be remarkable. Both would denounce racism as sin. They would agree on all the big issues of sexuality and gender. They would each denounce abortion and want children protected from perverts and abusers in a pornographic culture. They would agree on these issues and many more because both would affirm the primacy of God’s word for Christian ethics.

If you interviewed each man separately, you might even conclude, with good theological reasons I might add, that they were part of the same family.

And yet, judging from his article, David Mitzenmacher believes that Russell Moore is an enemy and a threat to the health of churches everywhere. You may be wondering at this point, as I was, what evidence Mitzenmacher possesses for his claim of Moore’s “fall”—a word commonly used in theological circles to imply the guilt of apostasy. Let me save you some time and briefly summarize his argument.

Mitzenmacher points to four lines of evidence. First, Moore refused and (unlike many of his peers) continues to refuse to support the presidency of Donald Trump on grounds of Trump’s moral unfitness and the unrighteousness of many of his policies. Second, Moore accused the Southern Baptist Convention of systematically covering up sexual abuse. Third, Moore works with the After Party, a nonpartisan organization partly funded by individuals and institutions with progressive political commitments.

Finally, Moore, as editor-in-chief of Christianity Today, allowed an article to be published that argues that Jesus may have been tied with rope to the cross rather than nailed. The article, for the record, has now been retracted with an apology by the author for unintentionally casting doubt on the inerrancy of the Bible.

For Mitzenmacher, the published article represents the proverbial “smoking gun” that finally and definitively proves what so many have long suspected—Russell Moore is a theological progressive. Notice, however, that while Moore may warrant criticism for some of these past decisions, Mitzenmacher presents no evidence of any doctrinal heresy or theological downgrade. Despite explicitly encouraging evangelical leaders to publicly disavow Moore for “the sake of doctrinal integrity,” Mitzenmacher fails to show one shred of evidence of doctrinal compromise.

Mitzenmacher isn’t alone. Since at least 2016 when Moore publicly opposed Trump, certain factions within the Southern Baptist Convention have searched fervently for evidence of Moore’s theological heresy with the same determined energy as the Bush Administration looking for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and with the same result.

But let’s return to my ridiculous thought experiment. Does anyone else find it odd that David Mitzenmacher devotes hundreds of words to publicly attacking a fellow believer in Christ—someone he agrees with on 95% of major theological questions—in service to defending a president who probably wouldn’t be able to understand 95% of the questions and who actually has publicly contradicted essential Christian theological and ethical teachings?

I’m certainly not opposed to public disagreement with fellow Christians, provided its undertaken in a spirit of charity for the good of the church. My historical mentor is Andrew Fuller, nicknamed the “Elephant of Kettering” for publicly engaging in most of the weighty theological debates of his day. But Mitzenmacher’s attempted takedown of Russell Moore lacks both theological substance and the spirit of charitable disagreement modeled by Fuller and so many others.[1] It reminds me instead of a person picking a petty fight within his household as real enemies advance on the lawn.

Something is broken within evangelicalism, but I don’t think it’s Russell Moore’s supposed progressive compromise. What I see instead is evangelicals who should know better undiscerningly playing by the rules of a godless culture that rewards vitriol and controversy. You don’t get clicks by charitably writing articles on the 95%. You build public platforms by focusing on the 5% and blowing those issues out of all reasonable proportion. You get likes and shares and donations by exalting politics over theology, thus appealing to the idol of our age. You make a name for yourself by publicly piling on one of conservative evangelicalism’s favorite punching bags.

Many will gravitate toward Mitzenmacher’s article simply because he identifies himself to the right of Moore as a defender of truth, but it would be wise to distinguish between theological confessionalism that emphasizes maintaining eternal truth across generations and shallow fundamentalism that constantly creates new litmus tests for orthodoxy according to the spirit of the age. The never-changing test for orthodoxy is always the truth of God’s word preserved in the historic confessions of the church. Russell Moore isn’t a progressive because he finds President Trump abhorrent, and you’re not a progressive for refusing to disavow Russell Moore. Confessional orthodoxy doesn’t equal cultural homogeneity.

I’m sure I disagree with both Russell Moore and David Mitzenmacher on certain things, perhaps even some things I believe to be important. But I have no reason to doubt either’s sincere belief that the only hope for this dark world is the Lord Jesus Christ. We may not always agree on matters like who to vote for or on what cultural enemy provides the greatest existential threat to the church, but we ought to be able to stand shoulder to shoulder under the banner of Jesus’ lordship as brothers in Christ. The same gospel that broke down the dividing wall of hostility between Jew and Gentile and created one new man in Christ (Eph 2:15) can likewise cut through partisan bickering and cultural power grabs for the cause of a united witness. But only if we let it.

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[1] For a great perspective on how to approach theological disagreement among fellow believers, see this anecdote about Martyn Lloyd-Jones: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/evangelical-history/when-martyn-lloyd-jones-confronted-a-negative-pastor/.