supreme court filling the vacancy left by retiring justice anthony kennedy. watch the announcement live tonight at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span and c-span.org or listen on the free c-span radio app. >> what a pleasure and honor it is to introduce russell moore as this year's lecturer. dr. moore is the eighth president of the ethics and religious liberty commission of the southern baptist convention which is the moral and public policy agency of the nation's largest protestant denomination.

before dr. moore was appointed to that very important and prestigious post, i got a call, i believe i was probably the first catholic and history to get such a call. i'm not even quite sure if i remember the title correctly if it was board of trustees. the person looking for a su successor for richard land asking for my views about who would make a good successor to dr. land in that post. and i immediately and correctly said russell moore. and i don't know if they thought they were talking to the pope. but they did as they were told. the next thing i know he was the president of the erlc. back in 2009 when russell was

brought about 11 years old, i described him as a gift of god to the christian community and a gift of the christian community to the nation. and then when he was selected, he did me the very high honor of inviting many he to speak at his installation at first baptist church, if i recall, the name of the church correctly. there i said again correctly that russell was the right man in the right place at the right time for that important post. and little did i know how right i was. and would prove to be about that in the turbulent waters in which the ship is now sailing in our very troubled culture, russell has proven to be the right man at the right time in the right

place. he has proven to be a champion, defending the rights to religious freedom and other fund. al liberties not only of southern baptists and other evangelicals and protestants but of catholics, jews, muslims, and people of all faiths. indeed, even people of no faith. before becoming president of the erlc, dr. moore served as dean of the southern baptist theological seminary where he taught theology and ethics and where i'm glad i was never his student and i say that only because he shared with me on a couple of occasions the exam questions he gave to his

students which were absolutely impossible. he's the author of several books including "onward: engaging the culture without losing the gospel," "tempted and tried: temptation and the triumph of christ" and a wonderful and important book, his first book if i recall correctly, but one that i would commend to all of you really a timeless book called "adopted for life: the priority of adoption for christian families and churches." russell there speaks not only as a moral theologist and a christian but also as an adoptive parent. it's a wonderful book if you happen to be adopting or adopted or of a mind to possibly adopt or not, it's a book from which i learned a great deal and i think everyone who reads it will learn a great deal.

i taught from 2008 to 2012. he earned his master dif inti group from new orleans baptist seminary and phd from the southern seminary, please join me in welcoming back to princeton russell moore. there are few institutions i admire as much as the witherspoon institute and the james madison program. it's a great honor to be with you today. after a church service i was speaking at one day a year or two ago, i was approached by a man who had had before his conversion made his living as a roadside psychic.

he had built so many people out of so much money over the years. he said it was ealy to keep clients. you had to give absolute news or catastrophe. he said i can see love in your future to cause someone to want to come back over and over again, so would i see a storm approaching. and the unnerved seeker would want to return again and again and again in order to get help trying to navigate the bad omens. i understand what i'm saying to you probably wouldn't be able to understand. i said i've seen that phenomenon over and over again from watching ee vafrpg lifts on television. the ruse is the same.

tell people that all they need to do is to say some words or write a check to the preach and god will give you everything you need or tell people that civilization is facing imminent collapse and the he vafrpg lifts can provide freeze dried food supplies needed to outlast the apocalypse for a low monthly fee. and sometimes the same people alternate between both of those two messages at the same time. and that woshgsrks. that's show business but that is not the gospel of jesus christ. christianity seems to be a bit in both of the categories at the moment. try um fanlt asent and plummeting catastrophe. on the one hand, ivevangelicals

seems to be in the media quite a bit as a political phenomenon with no small amount of influence. on another hand, survey after survey after survey shows trouble, dem graphically with millennial and generation z, churchgoers or x churchgoers. and the unrest here turns out is not exactly what the doomsayers have been predicting all along. younger evangelicals are not yielding to the inestability of secularization. nor are they leaving churches in large numbers because they want to liberalize historic doctrine or ethics. the obstacle, it seems to me, is not secularism as much as cynicism. i wonder if it is just another badge of tribal identity. another vehicle for political action or even worse, just

another marketing scheme. the campus ministry dropped evangelical from their name. they found this to be an unwieldly obstacle. so many students associated the word evangelical in terms of politics or culture rather than with the good news of jesus christ. one can't blame this campus ministry for that. nor can one really blame the students who stop listening when they hear the word evangelical. so often in 2018 america, evangelical is associated more with iowa caucuses than with the empty tomb. and that tendency is not just external. evangelical is often applied. sometimes even by professing

evangelicals to those who are well outside of historical confessional orthodoxy or biblical morality while at the same time some ivee he evangel quick to associate with causes. when i say he van gellic awill here today, what i'm referring to is this informal link of renewal and revival movements that are united in historic confessional orthodoxy with an emphasis on the necessity of personal conversion and evangelism. any definition of evangelical in any sort of scholarly setting will eventually get to what is called the bebington quad lateral of the historian david bebington who defines it in terms of four plafrpgs. -- planks.

commitment to the idea that every person must be personally born again, activism, that christian faith requires people to be active in the world and loving neighbors around them, and an emphasis specifically upon the cross. the last is one that is often assumed. i think it's where we ought to begin and this end conversation. because any evangelicalism that is worthy to face the future must be cross shaped. must call people everywhere to repenlt and believe in christ. must call all people everywhere to demonstrate love of god and neighbor in our various communities and callings. but most importantly, evangelicalism must point to the cross. and by the cross, i don't here mean a shorthanded for christian identity or christian

theological ideas or christian moral norms. by cross, i mean the actual place of the skull outside the gates of jerusalem. by the cross i mean what the apostle paul meant when he wrote to the church i delivered you to as a first importance that which i also received that christ died for our sins new orleans with the script tours, that he was buried and raised on the third day in accordance with the script tours. and that is what i think at the -- is at the best of what is sometimes called a gospel centered resurgence happening with evangelicalism, especially among younger people. i think that's what the movement aspiers to be. an application of the gospel, not merely as the steps it takes to be converted to christianity. although that is certainly part of it. but to the whole of the church's self understanding and the grid through which the church interacts with the outside

world. when the apostle paul wrote in the first century that he knew nothing among the churches except christ and him crucified. he did not mean he was addressing any other topic but the atonement. he wrote about a litany of issues from how to structure leadership within the emerging congregations, to how to financially provide for widows. to even how often married couples should have sex. many things are being addressed in his letters. they were redefind by the death burial resurrection and asention of jesus of nazareth. in this he was simply following the words that jesus himself had previously said, whoever does

not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. now at the most superficial level, the cross is assumed in any conversation about evangelical christianity. there is no evangelicalism without the evangel. and, yet, an emphasis on the cross is one of the hardest things to maintain in any christian group in that includes american evangelicalism. and in this, the entrepreneurial nature of american evangelicalism it centered on personal conversion and specific institutions means that they had the free om to establish bonds with like minded believers for a missions thrust, the likes of which the world has never seen.

they allowed alternative institutions to emerge during the fundmentalist controversy and at other times. but on the other hand, this free market study can make it into a market driven movement to the point of eclipsing the very zirvegtiveness it had as to offer to the world in the first place. unbelievers are able to notice this. they look from well on the outside. put it this way. "a religion that is responsive to the pressures of the market will end up profoundly fractured with each denomination finding most hateful to god the sins that least tempt its members while those sins that are the most popular become redefind and even sanctified." a market driven approach to religion ultimately ends up, the

newspaper concludes, with a market driven approach to truth itself. this is no doubt overblown to some degree. american he val gellicalism does not meet the caricature in full that is presented here. but there is enough truth in it to sting. note the popular view that they're standing to american culture yelling stop! with the kind of bittered separatism while evangelicals would agree with some of colonels of this characterization, the idea that evangelicals are counter cultural or out of step with a decadent american culture because of commitment to bible and jesus would that it were so. there are times it runs counter

to theory on sexual morality and in the practice of charitable giving in the response, for instance, after a natural disaster with those who are committed evangelical church goers who are often the first on the scene and the last to leave. but we're often only as counter cultural as we want to be. the culture wall among evangelicals is often losing since churches are often gladly enmeshed in the same narcissistic they're putt imidea of individualism that gave us the sexual revolution in the first place in terms of divorce, pornography, premarital sex and many other issues, wolf would

argue that if evangelicals are fighting a culture war, we're on the same side as the culture. whether we know it or not. this problem is the reason that we have seen recent years, young evangelicals attempting to articulate a radical sort of christianity so quote the best-selling book by my colleague michael david plat. michael horton and others have challenged the usefulness of that radical language arguing that it can down play the ordinary means of god's grace. and that is a helpful critique. hordon is no doubt correct if by radical one means that the christian life must always be characterized by extraordinarily heroic measures such as moving to the hardest mission field imaginable. and to be no doubt some will veer off in that direction.

but not most of them. most of the younger evangelicals who are using this language see the holiness of calling in the mundane. but they resonate with a radical vision because of the conundrum of looking at a christianity in often the same patterns are present as in the outside world except sometimes under a covering of darkness. jesus did not merely tell us to carry our own cross. he did so no in the context of saying if anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters and yes even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. what church would want that as a theme verse for vacation bible school? no doubt that verse needs interpretation.

jesus is not calling for suicide or matricide. and lewis is undoubtedly wrote when he wrote that verse is profitable only to those who, as he put it, read it with horror. since the man who finds it easy enough to hate his father, the woman whose life is a long struggle not to hate her mother, had probably best keep clear of that verse altogether. nonetheless, the various calls for a more radical christianity are less about youthful zeile or the quest for the extraordinary. as they are a call to combat the skepticism that would see american evangelicalism as merely a prop for white middle class suburban american culture. these calls however imbalance they may sometimes get are at the heart a warning about eye doll trithat can be especially

invisible in religious movement that's sometimes lack the resources to define themselves thee logically. the invisibility as these younger evangelicals intuitively sense is the most dangerous agency inspect of them. novelist david foster wallace was partly right when he said "the most ridiculous things about these forms of worship, talking about idolotries is not that they're sinful it's that this their uncushion, they're default settings. in asking what the default settings are, these young restless christians are not folding to cynicism. they are seeking to fight it. long before our current discussions of secularization, market driven churches discovered that most of their neighbors do not lie wake at night wondering about the nature

of penal substitution atonement or the relationship between justification and sanctification. they found that mission field also did not spend much time worrying about what answer they would give if after death god was to ask them why they should be admitted to heaven. people did though want to have healthy marriages. they wanted to rear well rounded and well behaved children. they want to find meaning in their work. and so often churches could conclude that they could reach large numbers of people by emphasizing practical measures to affair proof your marriage or put the sizzle back in your sex life or find the destiny that god has for you. woven very go often with good intentions. this evolved into a deemphasizing of the gospel in favor of kind of crossless moralism that could tell people

how to lead their best lives now but could not tell them how to lose their lives. how to find peace with god through the shed blood of jesus christ. and in the most extreme forms, this kind of market driven christianity became something other than christiancy altogether as in the case of the prosperity gospel. this project though is decreasiy possible in a secularizing american culture. even on the own pragmatic terms it requires christianity in that which people believe the church will create a positive good to them or to their children in a way that simply is increasingly not the case. when culture believes that the church supplies something missing, then someone will seek out the church.

the secularized american culture care how a clergy person would recommend structuring their family life. when would such a culture seek out a family friendly congregation if they don't see the church as a necessary part of their child's life in order to be a good person and good american? why would such a culture listen to a minister about how to succeed in life and business. thfr is especially true when the american marketplace now supplies no shortage of life coaches and marriage and family consultants. and the same futility is true of the perpetual call to save the church by moving it thee logically or morally leftward. there will always be those who will suggest that christianity must change or die.

defining that change as downplaying the super natural basis of the faith, the authority of scripture or shaving offer the hard edges of christian moral norms where those norms are unpopular. this is seen as escapist and the idea that the cross demonstrates the wrath of god and the love of god that god condemns sin in the flesh as the scripture says, is seen in this view as violent and vengeful. this too morphs into something quite different from historic christianity and ultimately also fails on its own terms. to paraphrase the late evangelical thee loathian, who cares what a church that no longer knows what it believes

about the authority of its own scriptures has to say about energy policy. it would articulate a deep sense of god's righteous judgement against sin and his gracious mercy in forgiving the sinner who comes to him through christ. that does not entail a church that is more reticent to speak about sin for fear of appearing judge mental. but rather a church that sees justice and grace together at the cross. neither is god shocked at those who fall short of his law. a number of which, of course, includes all of us. in such the movement, morality

will be emphasized but always in light of the cross making clear that we are those that crucified with christ and must therefore walk in obedience to him as the scripture teaches. and in doing so, the church would stand apart from what david brooks calls the arena culture in which people shorn of transcendent meaning seek for such meaning in such venues as sports and politics. sports and politics are, of course, worth while endeavors and they can be done to the glory of god. they cannot, however, bear the load of providing an ultimate sense of identity and purpose. this is increasingly poignant in a globalizing, mechanic anizing economy in which manufacture the younger generations believe that they will never achieve the success which they're parents groomed and educated them.

even those that seem to be the winners as defind by ian rand can find themselves suddenly obsolete at midlife. if many i job title or income bracket is who i am, this is nothing short of a threat to personal identity. evangelicalism though ought to bring a different perspective. we ought not to see people categorized as with us or against us, winners and losers, my tribe versus your tribe or my ethnicity versus your ethnicity or my nation versus your nation. those in the latter category are those in the first before the gracious intervention of god. that means that those who know

the gospel the most because everything we have we receive. en that means that any person on the outside, this side of death, could potentially be my future brother and sister in christ or indeed even the one who may evangelize my future children or grand children or great grandchildren. people ask me where will the next billie graham come from? i said the next billy graham may be passed in and out a frat house right now or he may be running a planned parenthood clinic right now. god takes unlikely people and turns those people around very suddenly. a mission that sees itself in light of the cross will not be intimidated to define sin. there can nobody grace where

there are no sins to forgive. at the same time, will conduct itself with the sort of kindness that the scripture said led us to repentance in the first place. a church con fronted with the cross in its own sin and with the love of god for the world will then do what jesus modelled and what the apostle paul mandated to deal gently with those who are on the outside while holding high standards of accountability for the person integrity of those on the inside. rather than as is often the case the reverse. there is personal regeneration. personal new birth, personal forgiveness of sin through the mediation of christ is not escapism. it is defined by the biblical

presentation of the cross. it does not teach us that sin and injustice are present merely in individuals. it emphasizes that our lord was crucified under pilot. work in the cross was as simon peter preached, personal sin against god but also present were unjust systems and structures that could allow a governor to sentence an innocent man for fear of the popular will. we cannot assume that personal regeneration will resolve every ill. the apostles were believers. they admitted to the table of the lord the night before his arrest. even so, they fled at his arrest for fear of their own personal safety. the word of the cross in the new testament calls people to personal faith and repentance and it is an on going reminder to see ourselves as crucified and resurrected and having been

purchased in such a way that as the apostle peter said we are to no longer walk in the futile ways inherited from your forefathers. the truth, a personal redemption of personal union for christ at the cross does not necessarily lead to individualism. it instead at its best balances community belonging with individual dignity and responsibility. as we see from the very beginning in which jesus from the cross entrusts the care of his mother to the apostle john. we bear one another's burts as those who are purchased at the cross. the personal nature of the evangelical message though would mean that we are not simply a part of a nameless aggregate of generic humanity. we must all the stript tour says appear before the judgement seat of christ. that is not merely western

individual you'llism. this is a very old concept in christian theology. that as the apostle paul says, i have been crucified with christ. it is no longer i who live but christ who lives in me. and the life that i now live in the flesh, i live by faith in the son of god who loved me and who gave himself for me. this is important. in a time when technological trends increasingly force people into either an extreme individualism of maintaining a personal brand or into a emerging of one's identity into a digital mob. the christianity of the cross must he enforce jesus sought me when a stranger wandering from the fold of god, he to rescue me from danger interposed his precious blood. again that, is not a call to

escapism. it is a call instead to recognize that blood atonement means we have a community to which we belong but also that sometimes for the sake of a future community, a roger williams must walk out into the wilderness alone. more importantly though, the ten traffic light of the cross in an evangelical movement up ends the darwinian worth and puts the church where the church has always been onside of the vulnerable. now evangelical movement is happy under any circumstances to stand with the vulnerable as everyone else is. so long as the vulnerable are culturally acceptable to the tribe. some who speak up up for the human dignity refuse to do so for the unborn and some who

speak out for the dignity of the unborn refuse to speak out for the dignity of vulnerable immigrants and refugees and the poor. the vulnerable among us though are not totems for our cultural identities. we cannot hold the same view of power and influence and worth and dignity as the outside world. as thee loathians put it. god in christ has become one with the despised and outcast in the world and no other method of execution that world has ever known would have established that so conclusively. as richard balkam observed, it was shameful because it was particularly dehumanizing. those crucified were those to be forgotten. and jesus joined the number of the forgotten, the invisible, the seemingly irredeemable and as he points out, roman society in the roman state tried hard to

suppress the memory of this crucified man they must ask who is invisible to us now and why. if this is the case, then we will have an understanding of the image of god and understanding of the dignity of the person who is made in the image of christ and for whom christ died and this is true whether the issue is white s supremacy or sexual immorality. the human traffic of the global poor or the human trafficking of the pornography industry. it will also bear a certain sort of tranquility in the face of cultural tim ult which we do not often see in a kind of siege

mentality. there is the idea that evangelicalism and christianity in gin are either culturally in decline or occur culturally try um fanlt. and for some, history is working all things together for the good for those that love history and called to its purpose and for others, imminent collapse is neither and no other generation is known the trouble we've seen. it is not immune to this. within evangelicalism in america, some tension often shows up when it comes to the use of the word exile. now i must admit that i'm somewhat conflicted here because american evangelicals and other

christians are not in exile if by that we mean that we have moved from a golden age into a dark one. a theology rooted in the cross teaches us that every age is in captivity to sin and every age shines with god's common grace. but if by exile one means a sense of restlessness and distance from the outside cultures of looking for what walker percy called sign posts and a strange land, then exile certainly is an appropriate identity to claim. not as a escape from history or an escape from created reality, but instead an understanding that there is always a certain status for the church in every age. we are outside the camp as the book of hebrew teaches us at the

cross. we have grown as we see the world around us. now obviously, this alienation is more obvious in different cultural realities. but the time between the times requires a sense both of engagement, bebbington's activism and of alienation. it requires the sort of distance that comes with that. the novelist and essayist was reflecting on the work of the religious scholar wondering why the church emphasizes the priestly story of the bible but neglects the other macro stories as he puts it, such of that of exile. in the priestly story, he says, we're depicted primarily as sinners who have good reason to be ashamed of our lives and the religious life becomes a story of guilt, sacrifice and god's forgiveness. why don't we also, he says, speak of liberation and freedom? or why not remind us of the

exile story and ask if there are any of us who don't feel sadness and lonliness and lostness from being separated from where we know in our hearts we truly belong even if we're not sure where it is to be found or how to get there? now what he misses is that these are the same story. the exile was not due to lost directions. but due to god's purposes of judgement and of restoration as the profits continually reminded the people. and in the cross, we see both of those things. shear grace and the judgement of god. american evangelicalism is that is engaged and also claims an identity rooted in the cross can be delivered from the sort of naive accommodation to cultural forms and movements that are out of step with the gospel while at the same time pulling us back from frantic perpetual outrage

or resigned melancholy at the culture around us. in the cross, we see both exile and restoration, both judgement and mercy. both brokenness and glory. both the depth of the world's depraf ti and the extent to which god loves the world. and has sent his own son for the world. we need both of these instirvegts, it seems to me, in the years to come. and that's why dealing with especially younger american evangelicals, i find that i have to do two seemingly contradictory tasks all the time. on the one hand, i seek to persuade those on the outside and some on the inside. that things are not as bad for the church as they think. religion will not be swept away by some historically inevitable secularism. the gospel is alive and well around the world.

but even before that, we have a promise made. at the same time, i spend much time seeking to convince some christians that the trouble that is coming is more seismic than they think. the rise of the nuns is more complicated. the rise of true nuns and those have flickered because of a broader alienation because of social institutions in general, not just the church. even with these distinctions, and even without accepting some

of the determinism that comes with this conversation, there is a challenge for the church that will not be addressed simply by better social media advertising or better praise and worship songs in sunday services. evangelical christians should take this seriously. we should remind there is power in the blood. the cross means the gospel can thrive on the margins. that's where it started in the first place at the place of the skull. poet milos observed when an individual is delighted neither by reasons of state or the rhetoric of social norms, he will find meager consolation in a choice between lessons and civic morality and the church as a troop of boy scouts trained in an additional politeness useful to the authorities.

christianity as he con tended against liberalism depends not on the usefulness but as he put it on something that happened. our religious must be abandoned altogether unless at a definite point of history, jesus died for the sins of humanity and was raised from the dead. the cross is not useful to any human culture or to any human authority. that is where its power comes from. the distinctiveness of the cross. and a voice of evangelicalism that is distinguished by its crucifixion will have a word to say in a world inundated with gospels.

we've seen that even in my own tradition in the early baptist witness in this country. most of the cultural projects in american history that one can imagine that were undertaken from a position and posture of christian strength and influence, prohibition, for instance, failed and failed spectacularly. but two causes in particular, the struggle for religious liberty for all in the founding era and the civil rights movement succeeded with christian movements working with secular people on the outside. christian movement that's were on the cultural margins of influence. in the first, baptists in virginia and elsewhere and in the second, the black church. in both cases, the lack of cultural power actually helped their message to be heard rather than hindering it. baptists were disreputable

enough that reasonable people ultimately did not see disestablishment of a state church as a stalking horse for baptist power. first of all, because this was not their motive, but second of all, because few could imagine what baptist power would look like anyway. the civil rights movement modelled none violence and pale to structural power, legal power was needed to pass and enforce and interpret the resulting legislation. but the movement is shaped in the beginning by influence makers, black preachers such as martin luther king jr., share croppers such as fanny lou hamer of mississippi and it's no accident that dr. king called the persuasive self sacrificial work he was called to do bearing the cross. american culture will not see the relevance of an he v

evangelicalism that is lashed to a theology of the cross. many people in american culture assume that evangelicals are like cicadas that go dormant i between new hampshire primaries. market based evangelicalism will seem far more conducive for some people to the digital and post digital ages. that is until it is suddenly not useful or relevant at all. the gospel does not thrive, though, because it is useful. and an evangelical movement that strives to be useful will not be useful for long. the gospel that the american

evangelical movement seems to highlight, the strangest concept that we can imagine, a god that justified the ungodly. not that it guaranteed that american evangelicalism will be found somewhere in the future. god does not need an american evangelical movement or an american church. someone will. god does not need the evangelical movement but the evangelical movement needs god. one that can pass the torch to the new generation with the message that we first heard. to that end our reform efforts should start and end not with

another political slogan or another cultural cliche but with a prayer. make evangelicalism born again. thank you. [ applause ] i won't say somebody give me an amen but i will open the floor for questions. wait for the microphone so we will get your question on c-span. right here in the middle. >> i am a graduate of southwestern baptist seminary. i'm now in princeton seminary. i really appreciate you as leading southern baptists.

unfortunately we discuss religious liberty i didn't see that at least at the education level. it seemed like schools like southern seminary, southwestern and schools like cedarville college that there has been a repression of first amendment where students don't have free speech in many of these schools. there is no free press in a southern baptist school and no deviation. can you address, do you believe that at a southern baptist seminary should students have freedom of speech? >> i have never seen a southern baptist school repressing freedom of speech or freedom of the press. obviously religious liberty means that voluntary institutions and voluntary associations have the right to confessionally define the terms of their membership. so i would certainly not believe

that i have the religious liberty to demand that pope francis ordain me to catholic priesthood when i do not meet the qualifications for catholic priesthood. so i think religious liberty is emphasized for everyone. >> question over here. is this on? cool. in your lecture your made a few references to historical christian orthodoxy. what markers do you use to define what is historical christian orthodoxy especially one that is not necessarily connected to the long stream of catholicism? >> i would argue that we are at the level -- when i'm talking about basic historic orthodoxy

i'm referring to what is articulated for instance in the nicene creed and the apostles creed. i would see a base level of historic orthodoxy which evangelicals would share with all christians of every tradition. then there would be an articulation of a special and unique distinctive emphasis upon the gospel in terms of personal regeneration. and then there would be denominational distinctives. i think the base level is present. >> could i follow up and ask you to say a word about something you have spoken about here before and i think it would be helpful in thinking more deeply about the point that this gentleman raised. can you say a word about your conception. what does it mean and how does it define evangelicalism? >> what we do not mean and no

one i have known has meant that scripture is the only authority present. even the claim we believe is pointing to an authority of the group making that claim. what it means is that scripture is the only final authority, the norming norm that norms all other norms. so everyone is appealing to and dependent upon multiple authorities every day. if i'm looking to find my way from princeton to manhattan i don't search in the conaccordance of the bible. i pull up my gps. if, though, my gps tells me there is not and has never been a place known as jerusalem then

the authority of scripture overrides the authority of my gps. church counsels and church organizations believing that the apostle john through the risen christ teaches that a church can lose its lamp stand and lose the presence of christ the entire membership of the church must constantly be judging every church and every claim to church authority over and against scripture rather than the other way around. >> and i would submit that that makes for a much more richer and interesting engagement between evangelicals and eastern orthodox christians than many on all of those sides have met. >> next question. down here. >> michael garsen had a piece

which i think read as he feels that as an evangelical he has to speak out on trump. do you have a view broadly on the role and the political life of the nation in particularly at this moment? >> i don't know how i can be any clear clearer on what i think about that. i do think that there are sort of multiple streams within evangelicalism right now and a lot of tensions that we saw in 2016 sort of demonstrate that even in the sort of decision being made about election possibilities. there were some evangelicals that were willing to not only support the president but to adopt whole heartedly his program, his person and everything else.

there were other evangelicals that believed that they were on either side choosing a lesser of two evils and did so with great fear and tremblings. as one evangelical told me he voted and said he voted and walked out convulsing with tears. and then there were other evangelicals such as myself who held a very different view, not so much about the candidates and candidacies involved, but about what happens to a movement that becomes closely identified politically and a movement that becomes inconsistent with itself. i think those tensions are present. i'm a student here at

princeton. a question i have as a member of the young evangelical generation, how can we look at the future of american politics and how should we engage in that? do we lean into it? do we focus on serving the country in other ways? what does that look like? >> what i would say is that there is not -- when it comes to the individual, there is not a one size fits all mandate. as a matter of fact, i would tend to say that those evangelicals who are the most enthusiastic about political action are probably those who should be talked back from it while those who are the most reluctant about political action ought to be talked into it. because the latter group has i think a better understanding of the limits of state craft that they can be -- one can be taught into the blessings and the

possibilities of state craft much easier than someone can be taught the limits thereof. but i think that there is always in every generation especially within american evangelism the attendancy to overreact to the last bad thing. so there are some younger evangelicals who will look at a hyperpoliticized version of evangelicalism that they have seen and say the answer to that is complete political and cultural withdrawal in the same way when i meet an evangelical who says to me we shouldn't talk about the commandments of scripture, let's talk about who we are in christ and everything else will work itself out. i know this as someone who probably came out of a legalistic environment. i don't want that. and when i meet an evangelical

who wants a list of rules about whether or not to celebrate halloween and what kind of school to send one's children to i know that is typically someone out of a morally chaotic environment and wants order. evils don't come one by one but two by two on either side of the truth. often when i am talking to older evangelicals and this is more conceptualal conceptually speaking. i'm often preaching my kingdom is not of this world, a sense of political identification will let you down. when i'm speaking to younger evangelical church planters and others i'm often preaching from that same text in john 18:19 but referring to the fact that we in this system of government are

standing not only where jesus stood but also where pilot stood. we have romans 13 responsibility for the sword. so the sort of evangelical movement that becomes obsessed with politics easily turns into a vehicle to be used by the state and by parties. and an evangelical movement that overreacts to that by saying we will speak simply to evangelism and not talk about political matters becomes just as political as the first and sometimes more so by baptizing the status quo. so if one sees what is happening in the 1850s in southern evangelicalism we don't talk about politics, it means we don't talk about slavery. and if one is called morally to repentance for drunkenness and adultry but not for the sin of

kidnapping and enslaving an image bearing human being it's not that you are avoiding the topic of slavery, you are addressing it by your silence. so i think there has to be a balance there. >> yes, professor gregory. >> thank you very much for your ta talk. all sorts of denominations and movements -- how does that fit into your understanding of christian identity. i understand the critique and a lot of critics hold that it is

america that they have as the object of devotion and not the cross. yet i was -- some of us were talking about richard who said when he meets god he expects to meet him as an american. how do you understand the nation? is it just a kind of temporal ha happenstance or is there a sense that it will be a part of the christian identity just as much as other parts of our identity, our maleness, femaleness, ethnic, other things that contemporary christians have questions about. >> will you be american in heaven? >> i'm a calvinist so i don't think anything is hampenhampen

happenstance but i believe national identity is temporal ultimately. obviously, the stories of who we are and how we were shaped and formed will be prov denchally informed by where we were and by our temporal sorts of affections including patriotism and love of country. but i think the temptation for american evangelicals right now is not so much a de-emphasizing of those temporal affections to the point of ingratitude which is what i think a lack of patriotism would mean and i think it is what father newhouse was getting out when he talks about the blessings of being an american. i think instead we have the reverse problem most of the time in which american identity is so deeply seeded in us that the

primary question i think that every evangelical christian and every christian has to answer is as ken myers put it not long ago, what is the first thing that comes to mind when we say we? is it a national identity? is it a generational cohort or is it as part of the global body of christ uniting heaven to earth? that is the primary problem that we are facing right now. what do we mean when we say we and how does that shape and form who we are? >> yes, professor moony. >> i wonder if you can say more if you have further thoughts on the radical evangelicals or what some have called the evangelical left?

and then how is this radical evangelicalism? >> i was referring to within the stream of what is often called gospel centered evangelicalism, the resurgence of theologically robust oriented evangelicalism not to the evangelical left. i think what often happens with any evangelical left movement as a movement, not referring to any particular individuals, but to the movements is that they often turn out to not be very evangelical. one can simply see this by looking at advertising, for instance on particular sites or

magazines. when most advertising is coming from main line institutions. it is sort of -- i don't see that growing very much in influence although there will be places where there will be an overlap of concern. you spoke about the importance of the multi ethnic church. i was hoping you could speak a little bit to how the church can achieve that and specifically what can white leaders of the church, white members of the church do to create more inclusive environments and to address our own rules in systemic injustices? >> i think there are a number of things that have to be done. one of them is my understanding of bearing one another's burdens means an ecleesial identity in

which white christians understand that both personal and systemic injustices against our african-american brothers and sisters in christ and other minority groups is not someone else's problem. it also means a careful reading of our history in order to understand how is it that people were able to as fredrick douglass so memorably pointed out sing gospel hymns of redemption at one moment while whipping an enslaved person two hours later? what happens that can lead to that sense of blindness which means often what i find myself

doing is saying it's not because often in american life white americans often think of racism simply in terms of individual personal hatred rather than in terms of systems and structures. it is not that i need to convince you. you already know there are. and in other areas. you need to take what you learn and understand how it is working here in terms of racial injustice. sometimes when i will have people say to me you know we really shouldn't talk about racial justice because if we just preach the gospel then this would all work itself out. i have heard that before when i heard a protestant minister that

i knew to be a supporter of abortion rights speaking before a congregation where he knew most of the people would not agree with him saying we have a lot of arguments about abortion, we really wouldn't have to worry about abortion if we just were getting people saved and teaching people sexual morality. there was a chorus of amens in the room. people didn't understand what he meant is we bear no responsibilities for the system s that are perpetuating us against unborn children. >> so you touched on evangelical change. do you think the prudence of leaving the label of evangelical is context dependent? if so can you comment on the

decision of whether or not to use the label? >> i think it is context dependent because obviously evangelical is not a label that is mandated scripturally. evangelical is shorthand. if the shorthand no longer works in a particular context then one has to find other shorthand. i think sort of an analogue to that would be the word fundamentalist which means someone who thinks the fundamentals that jesus was bodily raised from the dead and that scripture is true and so forth it became a certain set o that was no longer descriptive. so if i am in a group of evangelical christians and

someone says are you a fundamentalest the answer to that is no. if i am at a gathering of the universalists association and they ask are you a fundamentalest, yes, i am. i don't want to give up the word evangelical because it is a good word that is rooted in a gospel word but it no longer works as stand alone shorthand. if i were running a campus ministry where the campus ministry is intending with its very name to shorthand signal to people this is who we are, that would be an entirely different project. >> at the risk of putting him on the spot, we have a great evangelical leader who is a member of our own community

here. i want to give you the privilege if you did have anything to ask or say we wanted to hear from you. i have never known a preacher to be speechless. >> you're answering questions wonderfully. i'm totally in your tribe. it is not easy to take the church through the storms over the past five to ten years. most of my questions are more pragmatic. so it's that specific kind of practical stuff that i'm sitting here asking how does that relate to this person over here or this

situation. and so i have 100 questions and maybe i don't have. >> it is good to hear your voice. i have somewhere else to be on sunday mornings and i rarely make it over there. >> this fellow right down here. >> matt is my pastor. it's great to follow up. i have a question about just trying to figure out how to map some of what you said and maybe compare it to some other projects. i'm curious if you would be able to say how some of the things you suggested are similar and maybe even different from something like the benedict. it sounds like some is evangelical christians become christians again. maybe how you would

differentiate some of what you would suggest? >> i would probably affirm almost everything that rod would affirm in the benedict option but i would not deny everything that he denies. i think largely i'm in great sympathy with the benedict option, but as an evangelical christian i cannot resonate with a monastic imagery applied to the entirety of the church. if one thinks in terms of coverage design the cover i blurbed the book and am happy to do so and recommend it to many people. the picture on the front is sort of a fortress on a hill. i agree with that. i want a big flashing neon jesus saves on the outside.

>> is this on? >> can you describe a vision of a society evangelicals can embrace? >> i think we have seen that vision at least in my specific tradition within evangelicalism. i have referenced the early baptist movements in the united kingdom and in the united states in which there was a commitment to complete and total freedom of religion not because those leaders were somehow morally pleuralistic but because they held to a very conservative orthodox view of what it takes to be reconciled to god. so a person cannot be compelled

to religious belief by the state and by the coercion of the state. the person can only be compelled to portend to be part of a specific religion. when -- i remember several years ago i was on a panel on the university campus. i was seated with a muslim woman. she and i were speaking and then there was a representative of the aclu, someone from an episcopal church. i said at one point my vision of religious liberty does not mean a shutting down of theological differences. my vision of religious liberty means the state does not adjudicate those differences. i believe that i ought to -- that she ought to have the freedom to seek to convince me that there is no god but allah while i seek to persuade her

that jesus christ is the truth and the way. that is a state that does not referee that discussion but it's not because those issues aren't important. it's because they are so important that they are beyond the competence of government bureaucrats. at that point a student said i take exception to what you said because that was really arrogant for you to say that. why can't you just say that you and she are together? you are serving god together and just doing it in slightly different ways? and i turned to her and said do you think that is what we are doing? and she said tell me your vision of god. and said father, son and holy spirit incarnated in jesus christ, crucified, raised from the dead.

no she said. my response to him because he said how would you be so arrogant as to suggest to her that your way to god is the only way to god? my response is to say why are you so arrogant as to impose your religion upon us because both she and i agree that we have very significant and important eternal questions before us. and you are the one seeking to impose upon us the idea that these are meaningless differences and that instead some generic version of spirit ality is all we need. a society is one in which the state does not seek to become priests or does not seek to pave over and roll over consciences but in which we have the freedom to argue with one another and to debate with one another. >> do we have any other questions? >> right up here.

>> i come from far away. i enjoyed your talk. beautiful. you really nuanced across various layers. taking on from where we are now, with the kind of preceptivity to let's say the -- and all kinds of religious expressions of india that is having of late an acceptance of feeling in america. basically i'm a roman catholic priest coming from india. what happened at the transition time of having the right, the duty and the responsibility to settle the issue of faith and

doctrine? you will not come out without deciding either way? what is your response? >> i am comfortable with where i see i ended up. there are all sorts of things that happened in the providence of god in which the end result is better than the process. in terms of indian influence on the united states i'm not sure about in terms of the broader american culture. i can tell you that within evangelical christianity there is a strong and resurgeant indian evangelical community that is having a very beneficial influence upon the church. as a matter of fact there was a church that i would pass driving somewhere all the time that was

a baptist church but a baptist church that long ago had sort of adopted in such a way that it cast aside largely the supernatural and had become a very liberal main line protestant congregation was dwindling. mostly elderly liberals but there was a group of christians who were immigrants from india who started attending that church initially having their own bible study but then becoming integrated into the larger church. it created a crisis for the congregation because the indian evangelical christians really believed the gospel and the bible and wanted to talk about such things as the blood of christ and all sorts of things that horrified the elderly white liberals in that congregation.

they were evangelistic and more overthey were getting married and having children. so that congregation was being led back into orthodoxy by this what started out at the very beginning a very small immigrant community. in that congregation i see something of a parable of what is happening in global evangelicalism right now. >> a lesson for us all. dr. frank. >> i want to say two things. first of all, i want to thank the foundation for supporting this lecture series which has gone to the next level.

please join me in thanking him. [ applause ] coming up, attorney general jeff sessions speaks at the annual western conservative summit regarding religious freedom. that is followed by discussion on efforts to combat crime and violence in elsalvador. at 8:00 eastern it's a look at the future of jobs, training and wages in america. and then at about 9:30 eastern a series of discussions on social media. the former head of the fbi's chief of counter espionage peter

strzok. he led the investigation into hillary clinton's use of a private e-mail server. listen with the free c-span radio app. tonight on the communicators jeremy bailonson discusses his book about virtual reality technology and potential for the future. >> when vr is done well the front of the brain can be saying this is not real. the back of the brain is terrifi terrified. whenever we bring whether children on a school field trip or ceo of a fortune 10 company that's the first thing we want to do. if i show you vr feels real and

you are unwilling to take a step on the plank, once i sold you on the idea that the vr is so real that you are not willing to step on a fake plank then we can have a real conversation. can it change attitudes about racism and climate change and hard topics that you have to experience to really understand. >> watch the communicators. >> c-span where history unfolds daily. in 1979 c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies. today we continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court and public policy evens in washington, d.c. and around the country. c-span is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. attorney general jeff sessions was one of the speakers at the

annual western conservative summit hosted by colorado christian university's centennial institute. while in denver the attorney general discussed religious freedom, crack down on violent crime, illegal immigration and the opioid epidemic. his remarks followed by actor kirk cameron. >> please welcome 710 knus radio show host. [ applause ] good afternoon. it's a great privilege to be able to introduce kirk cameron. i know that many of you are going to know him from a long time back. i suspect that if there was a single individual who embraces the theme of this conference it ul