On August 5, 2023, Russell Moore, editor-in-chief of Christianity Today, suggested in an interview with NPR’s Scott Detrow, that Christianity may be in crisis because there is evidence of wrong attitudes among Christians about Jesus.  Readers of my website would not be surprised by such a suggestion since my motivation, from the beginning, has been my observation that New Testament Christianity is misrepresented in many churches.

Moore is a white evangelical and a former top official of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) who became alienated from his denomination because of his criticism of Donald Trump.  He was also a strong critic of SBC leadership’s response to a recent sexual abuse crisis and the denomination’s tolerance of white nationalism.  His NPR interview, synchronized with the release of his new book Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call for Evangelical America, sparked a debate in which some shared his concern, confirming that they have seen much evidence supporting his statements, while others felt that the beliefs he was denouncing are actually inherent aspects of evangelicalism.  I will discuss such matters in this post.

In his interview with Detrow, Moore explained why he thinks Christianity is in crisis:

“Well, it was the result of having multiple pastors tell me essentially the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount parenthetically in their preaching – turn the other cheek – to have someone come up after and to say, where did you get those liberal talking points? And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, I’m literally quoting Jesus Christ, the response would not be, I apologize. The response would be, yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak. And when we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we’re in a crisis.”

The introductory statement from Detrow that led to the above response is “When we talked this week, Moore told me why he thinks Christianity is in crisis today in America.”  However, from the title of his book, we may assume that Moore’s experience is primarily with evangelicals rather than all of Christianity.

I must say I was not surprised by Moore’s statement about the Sermon of the Mount.  In his 2019 book Christ in Crisis: Why We Need to Reclaim Jesus, Jim Wallis, a white evangelical, correctly refers to the Sermon on the Mount as the constitution of the kingdom of God.  Wallis, I think, does not want to be labeled a liberal, but has been strongly critical of his fellow white evangelicals.  He surprised me with the following statement he made in his book:

“… I recalled that I had never heard a sermon in my home church about the Sermon on the Mount—which I could now see was meant to turn the world upside down. I later learned that the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount became foundational, formational, and catechetical teachings for all the new ‘followers of the way’ (what people who decided to believe and follow Jesus were called before they were named ‘Christians’). But these teachings were never taught in my church growing up, and neither was Jesus’s way discussed as a way of life, but rather as a system of beliefs.”

Such a statement obviously leads to the realization that Jesus, to many evangelicals, is merely a name to be invoked for the purpose of going to heaven after death, rather than the Messiah who introduced to the world a new way of life he called the kingdom of God, which means God’s rule on earth.  When Jesus urges his followers to turn the other cheek, he is promoting non-violent resistance to evil.  That is God’s way.  Martin Luther King knew that.  Moore knows that, but he is surprised that his fellow white evangelicals do not.  Doesn’t that say something about Christian teaching in white evangelical churches, and perhaps conservative churches in general?  It is a fundamental question: Can a person who has no regard for the Sermon on the Mount really be called a Christian?  After all, Christ is all about his word!  The Bible calls him “the Word.”

When Detrow asks him “…  How do you even begin to fix that problem, though, when the central message of the gospel is something that a lot of people in the church do not seem to want to fully embrace?”, Moore says:

“I don’t think we fix it by fighting a war for the soul of evangelicalism. I really don’t think we can fix it at the movement level. And that’s one of the reasons why, when I’m talking to Christians who are concerned about this, my counsel is always small and local. I think we have to do something different and show a different way. And I see in history every time that something renewing and reviving has happened, it’s happened that way. It’s happened at a small level with people simply refusing to go with the stream of the church culture at the time. And I think that’s where we need to be now.”

I assume he means individuals in individual churches and localities must be reached with appropriate Christian content by people they tend to trust.  That seems difficult to me since I believe there are assumptions made by conservative Christianity about the Bible itself that make it difficult to fully embrace the teaching of Jesus.

In an article published on August 19, 2023, Issac Bailey says: “In the eyes of a significant number of white evangelical Christians, loyalty to Donald Trump is more important than following Jesus. Trump is their Savior now.”

Bailey refers to an analysis of online and social media content that found “’tens of thousands of mentions calling Trump a martyr’ when Trump faced his first indictment in New York during the Christian Holy Week. That number doubled when Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene compared Trump’s arrest to the literal persecution of Christ.”

Bailey reports Marjorie Taylor Greene’s statement and adds his own commentary:

“’Trump is joining some of the most incredible people in history being arrested today,’ the congresswoman told Right Side Broadcasting. ‘Nelson Mandela was arrested, served time in prison. Jesus — Jesus was arrested and murdered by the Roman government.’

I was at the New York courthouse in the days and hours leading up to Trump’s first arraignment. It was more circus and spectacle than crucifixion or execution.”

Christian nationalists such as Marjorie Taylor Greene are fond of quoting people like Martin Luther King or Nelson Mandela out of context, even though, based on their views, they undoubtedly would have opposed these leaders in their fight for civil rights.  Indeed, their radical opposition to critical race theory is proof of that.  But today, they feel comfortable calling themselves Christians while comparing Trump to Jesus.  Bailey explains their reasoning:

“Two thousand years ago, Jesus voluntarily became a sacrificial lamb, giving his life to save us from our sins. Trump voluntarily relinquished a billionaire’s lap of luxury — and even his salary as president — to save the country from its sins, they’ve argued while praising him. (Never mind the hundreds of millions of dollars from foreign actors his family made while he was in the White House, and since.)

Like Jesus, despite all Trump has had to endure — such as supposedly having an election stolen from him — the former president is still standing, still fighting evil on their behalf. In their view, Christians who oppose Trump are blind and don’t realize he was sent for a time like this to fight powers and principalities, not to improve the short-term political fortunes of the elite.

A return to the White House would be like Jesus’; his garment will be stained with his enemies’ blood.

The horror that was Jan. 6, 2021 likely emboldened them rather than shocked their conscience. It’s why they view every Trump indictment not as democracy working as intended, upholding the principle that no man is above the law, but as akin to a lash from a Roman soldier’s whip on Jesus’ back.”

These evangelicals obviously have, in Trump, a leader who is not “weak” like Jesus, but is willing to use all means necessary, including violence, to defend their interests.  Therefore, Bailey is not surprised by Moore’s statement.  Furthermore, he recognizes the danger associated with the logic used by Trump’s evangelical supporters:

“It’s a mindset similar to the one that convinced Edgar Maddison Welch to drive from North Carolina to a Washington, D.C., pizza parlor, convinced he had to save children from an imaginary satanic child sex ring funded and operated by Democrats. He was armed with an AR-15 rifle and a pistol, and fired a shot inside Comet Ping Pong, only to realize too late he had been taken in by a hoax. He was sentenced to four years in prison.”

Aleks Phillips, in his article Jesus or Trump? Conservative Christians Face Growing Rift, describes the current situation within evangelicalism, as represented by the difference between Moore and those he is warning against, as “a rift within the conservative Christian faith that has been growing for decades—but had come to be defined by support for Donald Trump of late.”

Phillips reports on conversations he had with two theologians who agreed that there was “a dichotomy between theological evangelicals, who are concerned primarily with Christian character, and ‘political’ evangelicals intent on winning the culture war.”

In other words, some evangelicals, like Moore, expect theology to influence conduct, while others let their political goals influence their reading of the Bible.  Phillips writes:

“’What Russell Moore’s talking about is real and important and certainly, for anyone who cares about the longer history of Christianity, it’s deeply concerning,’ said Heath Carter, associate professor of American Christianity at Princeton Theological Seminary. ‘But I don’t think it’s new.’”

Carter defines political evangelicals as follows:

“’There’s lots of people today who call themselves evangelicals, who may even go to an evangelical church…I think [Moore’s] concern is that they are more attuned to Fox News and more attuned to right-wing media and whatever Donald Trump is saying on that day than they are to the historic teachings of the Christianity of the scriptures,’ Carter said.”

But after that rather harsh assessment, Carter takes a more neutral tone, explaining that there is a general tendency to prioritize parts of the Bible that support one’s position in the current political discourse.  Regarding political evangelicals, Phillips quotes Carter as follows:

“’We’re living in a time of deep political polarization, and we shouldn’t imagine that the way that people read the Bible is somehow outside of that polarization,’ he said, noting that evangelicals were likely familiar with the Sermon on the Mount ‘but they may not think of those verses in the context of our world today.’”

But Carter also has something to say about progressives, bringing them into a debate that presumably was focusing on evangelicalism (Moore is not a progressive).  He is, again, quoted by Phillips:

“He mentioned so-called Matthew 25 progressives—politicians who align themselves with the tract of scripture in which Christ describes the righteous person as someone who gives to the needy—as an example of a similar but opposing realignment among left-wing Christians.

‘Jesus doesn’t sit neatly into contemporary political categories,’ said Carter, who writes about the intersection of Christianity and public life. ‘Jesus lived in a vastly different moment in time and Jesus was not thinking about life in the categories that 21st-century Americans do.’”

If this statement implies that political evangelicals and progressives equally select parts of the Bible that fit their narratives, I have to disagree.  Clearly, progressives who quote Matthew 25 are following Jesus, and there is no reason to believe that they reject Jesus’ teaching about turning the other cheek.  But evangelicals who reject Jesus’ teaching on turning the other cheek are not following him.  If those evangelicals also reject Matthew 25, then they are even further from Jesus.  In other words, Carter has not convincingly made the point that progressives and political evangelicals both accept Jesus’ teachings that support their political views while rejecting those that do not.

After this, Carter adds a statement that hardly provides further clarification:

“At the same time, the gospel—the teachings of Jesus—continue to resonate, partly because there are aspects of them that are perennial.”

It seems to me that both Progressives and theological evangelicals such as Moore will be more likely to accept the teachings of Jesus that are perennial, while political evangelicals will be more likely to reject some of them.  The “both sides” approach simply does not work.

The second theologian, Darrell Bock, a senior research professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, told Phillips:

“This group of Christians has been concerned about the country and the shift in the country for four decades now, and Trump has dominated the last decade of those four decades.”

This is obviously a statement about political evangelicals.  Bock also “argued that ‘Trump is a symptom of a larger orientation that has allowed Donald Trump to surface. The issue is not Donald Trump, it’s just that Donald Trump has presented himself in such a way that he aligns himself with already extant concerns that many evangelicals had and thus they connected to him because of those shared concerns.’”

It is easy to guess that the “concerns” are political.  Bock also explained that liberals and conservatives use labels against each other to avoid engaging in alternative viewpoints.  But regarding the rift within evangelicalism, Bock describes it as differences between those, like Moore, who “prioritize a Christian character” and are “concerned about the way in which many Christians are engaging the culture,” on one side, and those who want to “win the culture war” and are “willing to do most anything to get there,” on the other side.

According to Bock, political evangelicals “see Trump as a fighter for the cause and so they are supportive of him, not because they have great feelings about his character—they generally don’t—but because they feel like he is the best fighter for the cause.”  And in so doing, “’they totally bypassed in the process the character of the person with whom they aligned’ because for them the larger issue is the moral values of wider society.”

But are those “moral values of wider society” truly Christian values?  As we know, they primarily have to do with abortion and LGBTQ issues, which Jesus did not specifically address.  They also often normalize social inequalities and military action, which Jesus rejected.  Bock does not dive into such details, but provides an insightful concluding remark that gives a definite moral advantage to theological evangelicals:

“The tension is the inconsistency itself undercuts the credibility of trying to fight against what’s going on in the culture—and that’s what the more theological evangelicals are concerned about. What they’re basically saying is the position is incoherent; it can’t sustain what it’s fighting for because it’s internally inconsistent.”

Perhaps a good summary of this thought would be “You cannot use the devil’s tools to fight the devil and still claim that you belong to God.”  After all, as stated in 1 John 1:5, “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.”

In a response to Moore’s interview, John Stoehr rejects the notion that evangelicalism is in crisis and suggests that Moore’s assessment is misleading:

“His gambit, however, depends on something important – that the broad public doesn’t know much, or anything, about conservative religions. Moore wants us to believe that ‘Christianity is in crisis,’ but Christianity is not in crisis, not for the reasons that he says. Nor is his particular sect in crisis. It’s exactly where it wants to be.”

He then explains:

“What the broad public does not know is that the ‘Sermon on the Mount’ does not play a central role in the evangelical Protestant community. It plays a role, of course, but mostly to the extent that ‘turning the other cheek’ applies to those already in the evangelical Protestant community.

God’s love is also exclusive to those already on the inside. It’s unconditional, but also conditional, on accepting that his only-begotten son, Jesus, died on the cross to redeem your sins and prevent your soul’s everlasting damnation. Once you have accepted this – once you have accepted that God’s love is conditioned on punishment – you’re part of the community.”

It is true that conservative Christians relish the idea that their statements of faith make them part of a select group that is favored by God while all others are bound for hell.  Protestantism, in general, accepts the idea that salvation is a result of God’s grace only.  However, conservative Protestants seem to struggle with how to understand the extent of God’s grace and usually end up claiming that God’s grace is conditioned on some human feat such as adhering to the correct statements of faith.  Stoehr further explains his position as follows:

“Evangelical Protestantism is a conservative sect. As such, it concentrates on punishment. That’s the side that Scott Detrow doesn’t know about, apparently. That’s the side that Russell Moore is letting him misunderstand. If you do not accept God’s conditions – that his son died to redeem your sins and prevent your soul’s damnation – you get what you deserve.

Now, American Christians have always argued about this question. If God’s love is equal and unconditional, how can it also be unequal and conditional? The answer is that it can’t be both. That’s why liberal and moderate Christianities, even some forms of evangelical Protestantism, have either abandoned the concept of damnation or prioritized God’s love. They have taken the Sermon on the Mount to its logical, subversive conclusion.

What is it subversive to? If God’s love is equal and unconditional, then anyone can be redeemed, no matter who they are, no matter how they choose to live their lives, even if they do not believe in a higher power. The most subversive interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount is God loves you, right now, as you are. The Kingdom of Heaven is brought to earth.”

I agree with the fact that “God loves you, right now, as you are.”  Also, I think Stoehr is correct is saying that “anyone can be redeemed.”  But I am a little confused about the meaning of “redeemed.”  Is it consistent with “no matter how they choose to live their lives”?  For example, is redemption possible for a person whose conscience does not condemn him when he consistently engages in criminal activity such as murder?  I am assuming that is not what Stoehr intends to say.  Jesus said he came to save, not to condemn.  But he clearly expected those he saved to change their ways and live their lives, as much as possible, with a focus on love.

Stoehr mentions that conservative Christianity tends to focus on punishment.  More generally, one might say that conservative Christianity tends to over-emphasize the law, a fact I have discussed elsewhere.  While the New Testament presents the Gospel of Christ as a new covenant replacing the Mosaic covenant, conservative Protestants insist on making the new covenant a subset of the old one, which makes it impossible to discard many ideas that are supposed to be obsoleted by the new one.

Stoehr continues his assessment:

“To conservative sects, that’s heresy. It also democratizes social and political hierarchies, and jeopardizes the privilege of those on top. The subversive teachings of Jesus – ‘turn the other cheek’ – undermine the point in being conservative. They must divide the world between those who are ‘saved’ – God’s children – and those who are damned. They must cling to punishment because it explains and rationalizes the surrounding reality.

Why are there poor people in America? Why do Black people suffer most? Why do so many hard-working people struggle to make ends meet? They must have done something to deserve their lot in life. And because they deserve it, there’s nothing to be done about it. It’s God’s will, after all. If they’d accept what we accept, then maybe God would bless them, too.”

An interesting development in the biblical narrative is the change in attitude toward material wealth.  While the ancient Israelites were initially taught that wealth is a divine reward for righteous conduct, the Prophets, at a later stage, relentlessly accused the rich and powerful of ungodliness, and the New Testament completed this process by declaring that it is extremely difficult for the rich to enter the kingdom of God (Matthew 19:23-24).  The tendency among people of privilege to cling to the Old Testament and the law is therefore understandable.  Obviously, a rich person will find it difficult to respond positively to Jesus’ call to sell all he has, give the money to the poor, and follow him.  A rich person would rather find some other criterion that makes him a “Christian” while he keeps his wealth and his privileges.  But Jesus clearly contradicted Old Testament teaching when he said one “cannot serve both God and Money” (Matthew 6:24).  Of course, I am not saying that a rich person cannot be a Christian.  But I am saying that Jesus saw the allure of wealth as a serious handicap for those who wanted to follow him.  This is because he cared deeply about the common good and the well-being of those who had nothing.  He saw the existing inequalities as a violation of God’s will.

Stoehr finishes his assessment of Moore’s statement with the following:

“Russell Moore sees himself as a reluctant dissenter. He’s not, though. He’s rehabbing the image of evangelical Protestantism by exploiting the broad public’s ignorance of conservative religions. (Not all conservative religions justify society’s status quo, but most do.) ‘The church,’ he said, should not be as ‘tribalized and factionalized’ as American culture has become. But ‘tribalized and factionalized’ makes evangelical Protestantism what it is.

And it’s exactly where it wants to be.”

One thing is clear: Jesus tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves, and to love our enemies.  Most of us struggle with this but would not consider replacing Jesus’ standard of godliness with a lower one.  It seems to me that the political evangelicals Moore is denouncing do not even care about Jesus’ standard, and there are certainly aspects of their theological views that led to that situation.  Therefore, Moore’s proposal to focus on “small and local” may not be good enough.  Something in the teaching itself must be corrected.