Losing Our Religion would be more persuasive if—instead of affecting to be a simple piece of pastoral counseling—it straightforwardly acknowledged its own agenda. Moore has an argument to make, and he wants to advance his project and defeat his opponents. But his book frames the gospel as some pure, otherworldly abstraction that has little to do with power or politics. 

Southerners have a way of burying their actual thoughts under a welter of pleasantries. So it is perhaps worth asking what lies beneath this apparently straightforward morality tale by Russell Moore, the editor-in-chief of Christianity Today. As Moore presents it, Losing Our Religion is a guidebook for Christians in troubled times. Drawing on his own disillusioning experience, Moore encourages his readers to put the gospel before the false pursuit of credibility, authority, identity, integrity, and stability. “This book will consider all the ways evangelical America has sought these things in the wrong way,” he writes. “Along the way, I will suggest little choices you can make, not just to survive this dispiriting time, but in order to envision a different future.” The chapters are structured with self-help-style subheadings such as “Prioritize Long-Term Integrity Over Short-Term Success” or “Pay Attention to Means, Not Just to Ends.”
There is much truth in what Moore says. I, too, worry about our overly partisan society and the loss of a vibrant center. I, too, see Christians becoming consumed with the burning issues of the day and losing sight of God’s grace and providence. I share Moore’s dismay at Pentecostal preachers and certain Christian leaders who misrepresent the faith or use it in a cynical fashion. But the book also contains a rather sharp-edged polemic. Moore castigates “culture warriors”; he contrasts Christians who follow the gospel with those who would tie the church “to forms of power.” And he portrays the evangelical church as under assault from all directions by wolves and “hucksters.”
The book therefore sits easily alongside the genre of anti–Christian nationalist, exvangelical memoir, which has arisen in the last couple of years (though Moore himself does not claim such a label). There are clearly many readers who wish to see the sins of evangelicals repeated over and over again. Whatever else these books do, they make Democrats feel better about their disdain for conservative Christians. Or, to put it more generously, they meet the need of liberals for interpreters of the scary world that exists outside of the coasts and major urban areas.
Moore presents himself as a prophetic outsider, but there is a paradox here. Anybody who remembers the evangelical politics of the pre-Trump era will recall that Moore was at the pinnacle of the movement. For many years he held a very influential position within the Southern Baptist Convention, as leader of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. Moore wants his audience to denounce and reject the culture and group that he for so many years reigned over and shaped. We are not to think of Moore as the political Christian he has been the past couple of decades. We are not to think of Moore as an operator. No, those epithets are for all those Christian nationalists, theobros, cynical Baptist churchmen, pagans, Trumpists, fake Christians, and everyone else who would array themselves against Moore and the true Christians whom he claims to represent.
But Moore is inescapably political, not least because of the context that has shaped his career. Though I am not a Southern Baptist, nor a native Southerner, I currently live in the Baptist kingdom of the Southern United States. To those outside this world, the internal politics of the Southern Baptist Convention are hard to comprehend. Baptists need to air their grievances because corralling majority support on questions of doctrine and policy is necessary to the functioning of their church. This imperative, combined with a Southern penchant for high drama, gives Southern Baptist culture an energy that can appear distasteful and brutal to church denominations that keep their disagreements more private. Thus Southern Baptist ministers become very effective politicians. Moore rose to prominence in this world largely because of his political skill and his calm, confident style.
Given this background, Losing Our Religion would be more persuasive if—instead of affecting to be a simple piece of pastoral counseling—it straightforwardly acknowledged its own agenda. Moore has an argument to make, and he wants to advance his project and defeat his opponents. But his book frames the gospel as some pure, otherworldly abstraction that has little to do with power or politics. Moore calls on Christians to lose respectability and authority; this may seem a little strange from the editor-in-chief of Christianity Today and a former fellow of the prestigious Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago.
The leitmotif of the book is one of conversion: the altar call. Moore tells us evangelicals are in need of one. At root, the problem is that those who claim to believe the gospel actually don’t. “We see now young evangelicals walking away from evangelicalism not because they do not believe in what the church teaches, but because they believe the church itself does not believe what the church teaches.” Those who leave the church, in Moore’s view, do so because the church itself “would disapprove of Jesus” if he were among them. Many evangelicals are more concerned about the culture and power than about the gospel; they shout down faithful preachers and leaders. Their own leaders are “narcissists and psychopaths and Machiavellian power seekers,” to be contrasted with the real Christians, who exhibit “winsomeness,” “persuasion,” and “gentleness.”
This would all be more plausible were Moore not so one-sided in his treatment of his opponents. At one point, he holds up for our disapproval a supposed “fundamentalist Calvinist,” who appears to be the theology professor James Wood. In 2022 Wood, of course, wrote a thoughtful article for First Things praising Tim Keller, while also gently criticizing the limitations of Keller’s ministry, its “winsomeness” and emphasis on “public witness.” In Wood’s words: “‘Public witness’ most often translates into appeasing those to one’s left, and distancing oneself from the deplorables. I didn’t like what this was doing to my heart and felt that it was clouding my political judgment.” Moreover, Wood wrote, “If we assume that winsomeness will gain a favorable hearing, when Christians consistently receive heated pushback, we will be tempted to think our convictions are the problem.”
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When we hear a phrase like “God wrote the Bible,” we immediately want to include a dozen or more asterisks behind it to try and prove that we’re not ignorant, uneducated, and anti-intellectual. We want to sound sophisticated and enlightened, having moved beyond the simplistic statements we were taught as children. We want to signal to others that we’re not like those Christians who just accept everything on blind faith.

Last month, The Wall Street Journal ran an article where they asked college students who sympathize with Palestinians in the Israel/Hamas war whether they knew which river and which sea were being referred to in the popular chant “from the river to the sea.” Only 47% of students could name the river (Jordan) and the sea (Mediterranean). Once they were shown the river and the sea on a map and informed that “from the river to the sea” meant the annihilation of Israel, 67.8% of the students changed their minds and no longer supported the chant.
It might not be wise to wade into a hot-button issue to prove a different but related point, but the fact that close to 70% of students in a pro-Palestine rally were unknowingly calling for the extermination of Israel because they chanted a slogan that was catchy to say and sounded supportive shows how easy it is to be captivated—literally taken captive—by the sound of words when they play to the desires of our hearts. Having compassion and concern for the innocent Palestinians who are caught up in this tragic conflict is good and noble. Unknowingly chanting for the annihilation of a different people group—one that has a history of being the victims of genocide—a position you don’t even hold is not good and noble; it’s ignorant and dangerous.
My point here is not to talk about the Israel/Palestine conflict. I would be way in over my head. I simply want to point out how easily we are swayed by words and rhetoric more than arguments. I’m currently reading Augustine’s Confessions and this is a something that he discusses. Having doubts about his Manichean beliefs, he was excited that a prominent Manichean teacher, Faustus, was coming to speak in Carthage, where he lived.
After hearing Faustus speak, he was impressed by the way he spoke but disappointed by the content of his speech. Yet Faustus’ reputation for being a Manichean teacher was great, and Augustine’s peers said all he needed was to wait for Faustus to come, and all his doubts would be relieved. That failed to be the case.
Augustine wrote about this experience,
Those who had given me such assurances about him must have been poor judges. They thought him wise and thoughtful simply because they were charmed by his manner of speech.
…
You [God] had already taught me that a statement is not necessarily true because it is wrapped in fine language or false because it is awkwardly expressed.
…
You [God] had already taught me this lesson and the converse truth, that an assertion is not necessarily true because it is badly expressed or false because it is finely spoken.
I had learned that wisdom and folly are like different kinds of food. Some are wholesome and others are not, but both can be serveed equally well on the finest china dish or the meanest earthenware. In the same way, wisdom and folly can be clothed alike in plain words or the finest flowers of speech.
tldr: The way something is said has no bearing on the truth of the thing.
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Written by Reuben M. Bredenhof |
Sunday, March 13, 2022
God has been at work, and He remains at work, among us and for our good. By retelling God’s saving works in public prayer, we remind the body of Christ about who God is and who they have become in him. Besides God’s creating and saving works, He remains busy in our lives daily. And so prayer can also acknowledge his gifts of that particular moment. Take time at the beginning, end, or middle of a prayer to adore God for the many blessings of a new day. 

Jesus taught us to put praise in the first position: “Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name.” With these simple words, He modelled an attitude in prayer where we seek to give glory and adoration to God.
In fact, the entire first half of his Prayer is oriented around adoration. Because his name is worthy, we ask God to exalt himself in everything. Because his kingdom is glorious, we ask God to advance it in power. Because God’s will is wise, we ask that his will be done. If the Lord’s prayer is any indication, then it is only right that our own prayers be saturated with awe for God.
Praise Aloud
In this series, we’ve been linking personal prayers with those we offer in communal settings, whether in the home, at school, at church, the classroom, or elsewhere. Here too, our private praise flows into public praise. ‘Leading in prayer’ is an exercise of ‘leading in worship,’ as we adore God together. As others join in our prayers, we can set before them the glory of God.
Jeffrey Arthurs describes the encouragement of a public prayer which is deliberately God-centered. By doxological praying, “We can draw worshipers from the undertow of the world to breathe again life-giving truths about God even as we address God in prayer” (143).
When Jesus prioritized praise in the Lord’s Prayer, He wasn’t inventing a new approach to prayer. Many of the Bible’s prayers speak worshipfully about God at the same time as humbly making supplication to him.
As one example, in 1 Chronicles 29 David offers a beautiful prayer about the preparations for building the temple. Notably, it is a prayer that he makes “before all the assembly” (v. 10), including many of the nation’s leaders.
All these leading men ‘listen in’ as David prays. It is a striking example of adoration: “Blessed are you, LORD God of Israel, our Father, forever and ever. Yours, O LORD, is the greatness, the power and the glory, the victory and majesty; for all that is in heaven and in earth is yours; yours is the kingdom, O LORD, and you are exalted as head over all” (v. 11). David will make requests regarding the temple, his son, and the Israelites, but the entire prayer is framed by deep reverence for God. Before he says anything else, David gives God his due honour.
This is a good reminder when we pray both silently and aloud, for we can easily become side-tracked. Our minds are ever inclined to wander, and our thoughts stubbornly return to our big catalog of personal concerns. Yet Scripture says that true prayer is communing with God.
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