Tag Archives: russell moore

The Religious Test of Russell Vought, but Not Mark Green

Critics have come out in force against US Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt) after he said he would not support President Trump’s nominee for the deputy director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought. Sanders’ reason? Vought has Christian beliefs, which he expressed in a column defending Wheaton College in 2016 in which he said that “Muslims stand condemned”:

Muslims do not simply have a deficient theology. They do not know God because they have rejected Jesus Christ his Son, and they stand condemned.

In his questioning during the confirmation hearing for Vought’s nomination to the OMB, Sanders asked:

Do you believe people in the Muslim religion stand condemned? Is that your view?

…I don’t know how many Muslims there are in America. Maybe a couple million. Are you suggesting that these people stand condemned? What about Jews? Do they stand condemned too?

In your judgment, do you think that people who are not Christians are going to be condemned?

I would simply say, Mr. Chairman that this nominee is really not someone who this country is supposed to be about.

Atheists, liberals, and Christians alike have condemned Read more

On Christianity, Children, Transgenders, and President Trump

“Children should not be turned into pawns of culture war experimentation…

“There are good reasons to put boys and girls in different bathrooms and locker rooms and sometimes sports teams, reasons that don’t impugn the dignity of people but uphold it… Every human being knows that there are important, and necessary, differences between men and women. Without such recognition, women are harmed and men are coarsened…

“If anything, there’s much more of a case to be made that one can feel to be a different age than one’s doctor’s exam or birth certificate would show…It’s something else entirely if chronological self-identity is Read more

Martyrdom, Sacrifice Do Not Absolve Wrong

John Sutter, a CNN columnist, recently repeated what has become a tired — and ultimately baseless — argument: The tragic murder of homosexuals means homosexuality needs to be accepted.  He expressed his disbelief that the terrorist attack in Orlando hadn’t generated waves of conversions in ideology:

Even in the wake of one of the deadliest mass shootings in history, one that specifically targeted members of the LGBT community, politicians and religious leaders are unable to offer unalloyed support…

It’s a nonsensical proposition on its face. The death of a group of people who share a common characteristic does not suddenly legitimize that characteristic. When a man goes on a killing spree targeting sex offenders, for example, sex offenders do not suddenly become honorable, moral, or defensible. Their offense does not justify, warrant, or legitimize their murder — but neither does the murder legitimize their immorality.

Sutter goes a step further, though, and says American citizens who oppose homosexuality “branch from the same tree” as Islamic terrorist Omar Mateen:  Read more

Russell Moore: Is Religious Freedom For Non-Christians Too?

Contrary to the claims of some critics, religious liberty is a part of the Christian ethos:

One thing we need to be very clear about is that religious liberty is not a government “benefit,” but a natural and inalienable right granted by God. At issue is whether or not the civil state has the power to zone mosques or Islamic cemeteries or synagogues or houses of worship of whatever kind out of existence because of what those groups believe. When someone makes such a claim, Read more

Christians and Voting for the Lesser of Two Evils

Update: While Russell Moore (discussed below) appeared to advocate abstaining rather than voting for an immoral candidate, Franklin Graham went on record for the opposite point of view, saying Christians may have to vote for the “less[er] of two heathens.”

Writing at Christianity Today, Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, discussed the moral situation some Christians may find themselves in at the ballot box — feeling as though they are having to decide between the “lesser of two evils.”

Moore essentially says that Christians cannot justifiably support either “evil.” The most notable part of Moore’s article was his use of the US military as an analogy to this Christian conundrum [emphasis added]:

Think of military service, another office of public responsibility, as an example. Members of the military don’t need to approve of everything a general decides to be faithful to their duty to the country.

But if they’re commanded to either slaughter innocent non-combatants or desert and sign up with the enemies of one’s country, a Christian can’t merely choose the least bad of these options. He would have to conclude that both are wrong and he could not be implicated in either.

It’s an interesting, if somewhat ill-fitting, analogy.

Yes, Christians (and every Read more

Russell Moore on Proactive American Christianity

In an American system of government, religious liberty is everyone’s problem because the state is accountable to the people, who are, ultimately, the governing authorities. A Christian, then, who doesn’t care about working for religious liberty is a Christian who is not only wishing to be persecuted, and to consign others to persecution, but is also a Christian who wishes to be, by his silence, a persecutor of others. This is contrary to the way of Christ (1 Pet. 2:12-17).

Read more.  Read more

Christianity on Marriage, Divorce, and Homosexuality

Drs. Al Mohler and Russell Moore wrote in March on the topic of whether Christians are “hypocrites” for publicly opposing “same-sex marriage” while re-married divorcees make up large portions of their congregations. In short, Dr. Moore made the point that even if how they got there wasn’t right, the relationship between remarried men and women was still a marriage, in the Biblical definition.

The Southern Baptist Convention recently voted to break fellowship with a Southern California church that chose a “Third Way,” claiming they took no position as a church on “same-sex marriage.” The SBC disagreed and severed the relationship. Mohler and Moore again wrote on the topic of homosexuality and Biblical marriage in the Read more

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