Citing Political Division, Russell Moore Calls the Church to ‘Recover the Credibility of Our Witness’
Dr. Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, recently urged the American church to “recover the credibility of our witness” following an intense election season.
Moore told Time Magazine in an interview released last Thursday as to how many families are “divided over President Trump, and politics generally.”
“I don’t know a single church that hasn’t been,” he added.
For that reason, Moore contended that the biggest threat the church is currently facing is “is not secularism but cynicism,” and that “we must recover the credibility of our witness.”
Moore, who has been opposed to the Trump presidency since 2015, explained how siding against the former President puts him in a “lonely” place as many high-profile evangelical leaders, like evangelist Franklin Graham, stood by Trump’s side.
He also dismissed the claim from evangelical leaders who said that Trump converted to Christianity prior to being elected president.
“It is not a position that I find rational,” Moore explained. “Especially when Mr. Trump has been very clear about his own spiritual journey, or lack thereof.”
According to The Christian Post, Moore’s lack of support for Trump has garnered criticism from his own denomination. In 2017, he lost funding from more than 100 Southern Baptist churches for speaking out against Trump during the presidential race in 2016.
In an interview with Relevant Magazine last week, Moore said that he will be praying for “wisdom and humility” over President Joe Biden, along with the “ability to unify.”
“We’ve got to get beyond this,” he argued. “To use the lyric from Larry Norman, ‘Do you really think the way to bring about peace is to sacrifice your children and kill all your enemies?’ That’s sort of the mentality that is politically short-term useful in America right now, and we have to have people who are willing to short circuit that and to say, ‘I’m willing to listen to views I disagree with and to grow.’”
In light of his experience with President Barack Obama, Moore believes Biden will also be “willing and eager to listen to people” who disagree with him.
“I hope that that’s the way that he decides to be as president,” he said. “And what that’s going to mean is saying, ‘There are going to be some things that would make my base happy if I said or if I did, and I’m going to have to take into account the whole country and maybe disappoint people who support me just like I will disappoint people who oppose me sometimes.’”
Photo credit: RNS/Butch Dill
Milton Quintanilla is a freelance writer. Visit his blog Blessed Are The Forgiven.
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