predict how all of my 49 or 48 colleagues in the senate on the democratic side will vote. tell you, though, simple math tells you if john mccain is 50-49 senate, one republican senator can decide fate of any supreme court nominee. >> president donald trump will announce his nominee for the court, filling the vacancy left by retiring justice anthony kennedy. watch the announcement live monday night at 9:00 p.m. c-span and c-span.org or listen on the free c-span radio app. russell r this year, more, the president of the ethics and religious liberties commission of the southern baptist spoke, this is an hour and a half. >> what a pleasure and honor it

is to introduce my beloved friend, russell moore, as this year's carol g simon lecturer. dr. moore is the eighth president of the ethics and religious liberties 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 in history to get such a call from a member of the board of trustees of the southern baptist convention. i'm not even quite sure if i remember the title correctly, whether it was board of trustees, but in any event the board that was looking to find a successor for richard land as president of the erlc 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, and the next thing i know, dr. moore was the president of the erlc. back in 2009, when russell was, what, 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 me to speak at his installation at first baptist church. if i recall, the name of the church correctly in washington, d.c. and there i said, again correctly, that russell was the right man in the right place at the right time for that important post. 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 indeed proven to be the right man at the right time in the right place for that position. he has proven in that position to be a champion defending the rights to religious freedom and other fundamental 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. russell holds the view, a view i certainly share, that religious liberty and other fundamental liberties are the path and rights of all. believers, yes, and unbelievers as well. before becoming president of the

erlc, dr. moore served as provost and dean of the southern baptist theological seminary where he taught theology and ethics and where i'm glad i was never his student. 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 triumph of christ." and wonderful and important book, his first book if i recall correctly but one i would commend to all of you, "adoption for life," "the priority for adoptions," "christian families and churches." russell there speaks not only as a moral theologian and christian but also as an adoptive parent. and it's a wonderful book whether 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. russell is also an ordained minister. he's served as pastor for a number of southern baptist churches, most recently preaching pastor at high baptist church from 2008 to 2012. he earned his master of divinity agree from new orleans seminary and ph.d. from the southern baptist theological seminary. please join me in welcoming back to preston russell moore. [applause] russell: thank you, it's good to be with you. there's no one in america that i esteem and admire more than professor george and fewer

institutions that i admire so much as the witherspoon institute and james madison program so it's a great honor to be with you today. after a church service that i was speaking at one day a year or two ago i was approached by a man who had before his conversion made his living as a roadside psychic. and he still had a conscience that was weighing somewhat heavily because he had milked so many people out of so much money over the years, and he was telling me about how he did it. he said that there was a secret to keeping clients. and it was easy. he said one needed to consistently predict either really good news or absolute catastrophe. he said, i can see love in your future will cause someone to come back over and over again, but 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 foretold. the man said, i understand what i'm saying to you, you probably wouldn't be able to understand and sadly i have seen that phenomenon over and over and over again from watching prosperity gospel evangelical on television and the roots are the same, tell people all they need to do is say some words or write a check to the preacher and god will give them everything they ever wanted in terms of health, family or economic prosperity or on the other hand tell people that civilization is facing imminent collapse and the evangelist can provide freeze dried food supplies to outlive 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 works. that's show business. but that is not the gospel of jesus christ.

american evangelical christianity seems to be a bit in both of these categories at the moment, triumphant ascent and plummeting catastrophe. evangelism and, seems to be in the media quite a bit with no small amount of influence. on the other hand survey after survey after survey shows trouble demographically with millennial and generation z church goers or x church goers. and the unrest here it turns out is not exactly what the doomsayers have been predicting all along. younger evangelicals are not yielding to the inevitability 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. many are wondering whether evangelical christianity is just another badge of tribal identity or another vehicle for a political action or even worse, just another marketing scheme. on this very campus, princeton evangelical fellowship made headlines around the world when the campus ministry dropped the word evangelical from their name. the group found this to be an unwieldy obstacle to evangelism and discipleship because so many people associated the word evangelical simply in terms of politics or culture rather than 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. because 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 historic conventional orthodoxy or biblical morality, while at the same time, some evangelicals are sometimes quick to excommunicate one another on the basis of political ideas or culture identity or causes. when i say evangelical here today, what i'm referring to is this informal link of renewal and revival movements that are united in historic confessional emphasis on h an

and nal conversion evangelism. any definition of evangelical in any sort of scholarly setting will eventually get to what they call the bevington dri lateral. the story of bevington who defines evangelical in terms of four planks, bib la six, commitment to authority of the bible, conversionism, 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 neighbor around them and christian centralism, the cross. and the last is one often

assumed but i think it's where we should begin and end this conversation. because any evangelicalism worthy to shape the future must be across shaped, must be called every to repent and believe in christ, must call all people everywhere to demonstrate love and god in our various communities and callings but most importantly evangelicalism must point to the cross. and by the cross, i don't here mean just a shorthand for christian identity or christian theological ideas or theological moral norms. by cross i mean the actual place of the skull outside of the gates of jerusalem. by the cross, i mean what the apostle paul meant when he wrote at corinth, i deliver to you as a first importance in which i also received that christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. that is what i think 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

aspires 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 being crucified, first corinthians 2, he obviously did not mean he was addressing no other topic but the atonement. he wrote about a litany of issues from how to structure a leadership within these emergent 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. his singular focus on the cross though meant that his understanding of power, of

weakness, of success, of failure, of life and death were redefined by the historical reality of the death, burial, resurrection and ascension of jesus of nazareth. and in this he was simply following the words 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 can be no evangelicalism without the evangel. yet emphasis on the cross is one of the hardest things to maintain in any christian group, and that includes american evangelicalism. and in this the entrepreneurial nature of american evangelicalism is both a help and a burden. on the one hand, an

evangelicalism centered on personal conversion and suspicious of institutions meant that evangelicalism has had the freedom to establish bonds with like-minded believers for a missions thrust, the likes of which the world has never seen. this sort of suspicion of institutions allowed alternative institutions to emerge during the fundamentalists, modernists controversy and at other times. but on the other hand this free market ecclesiology can easily make it into a market-driven movement to the point of eclipsing the very distinctiveness it has to offer to the world in the first place. and unbelievers are able to

notice this. the guardian newspaper looking at american evangelicalism from well on the outside put it this way, quote, 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 redefined and even sanctified, end quote. 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 evangelicalism does not meet the caricature in full that is presented here but there's enough truth in it to sting. note the popular view that american evangelicals are scolds, standing athwart to american culture yelling stop with a kind of embittered separatism, while evangelicals would -- would agree with some

kernels of this characterization, the idea that evangelicals are counterculture or out of step with a decadent american culture because of commitment to bible and jesus, would that if it were so, there are some ways, of course, evangelicalism does run counter to the prevailing culture at least in views like sexual morality and practice of charitable giving in the response, for instance, after a natural disaster with those who are committed, evangelical churchgoers who are often the first on the scene and the last to leave. in other areas including the actual practice of marital and sexual integrity we are often only as countercultural as we want to be. and that's why political scientist alan wolf argued that the culture war among

evangelicals is often illusory since churches are often gladly enmeshed in the same consumerist, narcissistic, therapeutic milieu of autonomous milieuism that gave us the sexual revelation in the first place, in terms of divorce, pornography, premarital sex, and many other issues, wolf would argue if evangelicals are fighting a culture war, we're on the same side as the culture, whether we know it or not. this problem though is the reason we have seen recent years young evangelicals attempting to articulate a radical sort of christianity, to 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 downplay the ordinary means of god's grace, and that is a helpful critique. horton is no doubt correct if my 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 sure there are no doubt some who would 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 which often the very same patterns of materiality and immorality 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 in the context of

saying, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, 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? and no doubt that verse needs interpretation. jesus is not calling for patricide or matricide or suicide. and c.s. lewis is undoubtedly right when he wrote that, that verse is profitable only for those, as he put it, read it with horror since the man who, quote, finds it easy enough to hate his father, the woman's whose life is a long struggle to not hate her mother should probably at best keep clear of that verse all together. nonetheless, the calls for a more radical christianity are less about youthful zeal or the request for the extraordinary, although there's undoubtedly

some of that, as they are a call to combat of scepticism that would see american evangelicalism as merely a prop for white middle class suburban american culture. these calls, however unbalanced they may sometimes get, are at the heart a warning about idolatry that could be invisible in religious movements that sometimes lack the resources to define themselves theologically. the invisibility as these younger evangelicals intuitively sense is the most dangerous aspect of them. novelist david foster wallace was partly right when he said, quote, look, the most ridiculous things about these forms of worship, talking about idolatries, is not that they're evil or sinful, is that they are unconscious, they are default settings, end quote. in asking what the default settings are, these young

restless christians are not folding to cynicism, they are seeking to fight it. now, long before our current discussions of secularization, market-driven churches discovered that most of their neighbors do not lie awake at night wondering about the nature of penal substitutionary atonement or the relationship between justification and sanctification. increasingly they found their mission field also did not spend much time worrying about what answer they would give if after death god were 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 wanted 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, put the sizzle back in your sex life or find the destiny that god has for you. often with very good intentions but in some cases, this devolved into a deemphasizing of the gospel in favor of a 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 its most extreme forms, this kind of market-driven christianity became something other than christianity all together, as in the case of the so-called prosperity gospel. this project though is decreasingly possible in a secularizing american culture. and as even on its own pragmatic terms, it requires a kind of

cultural christianity in which people believe that the church will contribute a positive good to them or to their children in a way that simply is increasingly not the case. when a culture believes that the church supplies something missing, then someone will seek out the church. but why would a secularized north american culture would 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 to be a good american. why would such a culture listen to a minister about how to succeed in life and business? this is especially true when the american marketplace now supplies no shortage of life coaches and marriage and family consultants and spiritual but not religious gurus.

and the same futility is true of the perpetual call to save the church by moving it theologically or morally left ward. there were always be those who will suggest christianity must change or die, as bishop spawn of the episcopal church said many years ago. defining that change as downplaying the supernatural basis of the faith, the authority of scripture, or shaving off the hard edges of christian moral norms, where those norms are unpopular. the call to personal salvation in this view is seen as escapists and the idea that the cross demonstrates the justice of god, the wrath of god as well as 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 theologian carl f.h. henry, 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. a cross-shaped christianity on the other hand would articulate a deep sense of both god's righteous judgment against sin and his gracious mercy and 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 judgmental but rather a church that sees justice and grace together at the cross in which god is not unjustly rationalizing sin or injustice,

and neither is god censoriously shocked at those who fall short of his law. a number of which, of course, includes all of us, except for one of us. in the preaching, teaching, discipleship, ordinances and mission of such an evangelical movement, morality will be emphasized but always in light of the cross making clear that we are those who have been 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 venues as sports and politics. sports and politics are worthwhile endeavors and can be done to the glory of god.

they cannot, however, bear the load of providing the ultimate sense of identity and purpose. neither can the pursuit of economic security and career ambition. this is increasingly poignant and important in a globalizing, mechanicizing economy in which many of the younger generations believe they will never achieve the success for which their parents groomed and educated them. and which even those who seem to be the winners as defined by i am can find themselves suddenly obsolete at midlife. if my job title or my income bracket is who i am, this is nothing short of an existential 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,

our theology means that people are divided up as either crucified or uncrucified and those in the latter category are in the precise position as those in the first before the gracious intervention of god. that means that those who claim and profess the gospel have no reason to boast because everything that we have, we received. and 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 grandchildren or great grandchildren. at the death of billy graham, many journalists would ask me where will the next billy graham come from, and my response would always be the next billy graham may be passed out drunk in a frat house right now.

or the next augustine may be running a planned parenthood clinic right now. god increasingly takes every unlikely people, chuck coulson, c.s. lewis, and turns those people around very suddenly. a mission that sees itself in light of the cross will not be intimidated to define sin, for there can be no grace where there are no sins to forgive. at the same time, will conduct itself with the sort of kindness that the scripture says led us to repentance in the first place. a church that is confronted with the cross in its own sin and with the love of god for the world will then do precisely what jesus modeled and what the apostle paul mandated to deal gently with those who are on the outside, while holding high standards of accountability for the doctrinal and personal integrity of those on the inside, first corinthians five. rather than is often the case, the reverse.

cruciform evangelicalism that personalizes regeneration, personal rebirth, personal through sin through the rebirth of christ is not escapism. it is defined by the biblical presentation of the cross, and the cross does not teach us sin and injustice are present merely in individuals. the creed emphasizes our lord was crucified under pontus pilate, by working the cross is what simon peter preached at pentecost were presence of god and unjust systems and structures that could allow the government to sentence an innocent man for fear of the popular will. cross culture should not assume that personal regeneration will resolve every ill. apostles, apart from judas,

were believers, admitted at the table of the lord the night before their arrest. even though 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 ongoing reminder to see ourselves as crucified and resurrected and having been purchased in such a way that as the apostle peter says, we are to no longer walk in the futile ways inherited from your forefathers. the truth of personal redemption, personal union with christ at the cross, does not necessarily lead to adamistic 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 burdens as those who are purchased at the cross.

the personal nature of the evangelical message though would mean we are not simply a part of a nameless aggregate of generic humanity. we must all, the scripture says, appear before the judgment seat of christ. that is not merely western individualism. 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 i live in the flesh i live by faith and the son of god who loved me and 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 an emerging of one's identity into a digital mob. in a world like that, the evangelical christianity of the cross must reinforce in the words of the old hymn, jesus sought me when a stranger wandering from the fold of god, he to rescue me from danger, interposed his precious blood. again, that's 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. the cross show us us how. more importantly though, the centrality of the cross in an evangelical movement upends the darwinian values of worth through power and prestige and puts the church where the church has always been on the side 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 for the humanity dignity of immigrants, refugees, poor, refuse to do so for the unborn and some who speak out for the indignity of the unborn refuse to speak up for the dignity of vulnerable refugees, immigrants, and the poor. those are not totems for our individual identities. we cannot hold the same view of power and influence and worth and dignity as the outside world. as theologian fleming rutledge put it, god in christ has become one with the despised and outcast of the world and no other method of execution that the world has ever known would have established that so conclusively. as richard bachman observes, crucifixion 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 bachman points out, roman society and the roman state tried hard to suppress the memory of this crucified man as they suppressed the memory of others but in this case they failed. people of the cross must remember this in order to 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 an understanding of the dignity of the person who is made in the image of christ and for whom christ died, and that is true whether the issue is white supremacy or sexual immorality. the human trafficking of the

global poor or the human trafficking of the pornography industry. a cross-shaped evangelicalism will also, it seems to me, bear a certain sort of tranquility in the face of cultural tumult, which we do not often see in a kind of siege mentality that's often present in american life. and the same is true in almost every corner of american media right now. there is the idea that evangelicalism in particular in christianity in general are either culturally in decline or culturally triumphant. and for some, history is working all things together for the good for those who love history and are called to its purpose, and for others, imminent collapse is near and no other generation is known the trouble we've seen. evangelicalism 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 americans evangelicals are not exiled meaning 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 signposts in a strange land, then exile certainly is an appropriate identity to claim. not as an 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're outside the camp as the book of hebrews teaches us at the cross. we've grown then as the new testament teaches as we see the world around us. obviously, this alienation is culture realities. more obvious in different but the time between the times requires a sense both of engagement, bevington's activism, and of alienation. it requires the sort of distance that comes with that. frederick beatener, the novelist and essayist, was reflecting on the work of the scholar marcus bourk wondering why the church emphasizes the priestley story of the bible but neglects the

other macro stories as he puts it such as that of exile. in the priestley story he said we are predicted primarily as sinners who have good reason to be ashamed of our lives and 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 loneliness 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, end quote. what he misses is these are the same story. the exile was not due to lost directions but due to god's purposes of judgment and the restoration as the prophets continually reminded the people. and in the cross we see both of those things, sheer grace and the judgment of god. now, an american evangelicalism that is engaged and also claims

an exilic identity rooted in the cross can be delivered to sort of a naive reservation of culture 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 judgment and mercy, both brokenness and glory, both the depth of the world's depravity and the extent to which god loves the word, and had sent his own son for the world. we need both of these instincts, 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 historical, historically inevitable secularism. the gospel is alive and well around the world, as sociologists rodney starks' fine scholarship has demonstrated but even before that we have a caesarea philippi. at the same time i spent much time seeing to tell christians the trouble they think coming is more seismic than they think. the rise of the nuns, no religious affiliation, not religious women, are nor complicated than usually reported. robert puttnam and david campbell rightly distinguish two related but independent trends at work. rise of true nuns, those who have clearly rejected organized

religion, and the rise of liminal nuns, who flickered off of organization religion because of a broader alienation of social institutions in general, not just the church. even with these distinctions and even without accepting some of the halagian determination that often comes with this determination, there's a challenge for the church that will not be addressed simply by social media advertising or better phrase and worship songs and sunday services. evangelical christians should take this seriously. at the same time though we should be reminding the broader church that there is power in the blood, that the cross means that the gospel can thrive on the margins because 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 nor by the rhetoric of social norms, he

will find meager consolation in a choice between lessons and civic morality and the church as a troupe of boy scouts trained in additional politeness useful to the authorities. in this milos echoes the great presbyterian theologian who rightly argued that a religion that is the means to an end of saving a culture or community or a nation may be many things but it is not christianity. christianity as mentioned contended against liberalism depends not on its usefulness but as he put it on something that happened. our religion must be abandoned all together unless at a definite point in history, jesus died as a propitiation 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 cruciformity will have a distinctive word to say in a world inundated with gospels. we've seen that even in my own tradition even in the early baptist witness in this country. most of the culture 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 but christian movements that

were on the cultural margins of influence. in the first baptists in virginia and elsewhere. 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 in anglican america that reasonable people did not ultimately see disestablishment of a state church as a stalking horse for baptist power. first of all, because it was not their motive but second of all, few could imagine what baptist power would look like anyway. the civil rights movement modeled nonviolence and pervasive appeal to conscience, structural power and legal power was needed to pass and enforce and interpret culture legislation but the move is shaped in the beginning by influence makers, black preachers such as martin luther

king jr., sharecroppers such as danny lou hamer of my home state of mississippi. and it is 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 evangelicalism that is latched to an explicit and robust theology of the cross. many people in american culture assume that evangelicals are like cicadas that go dormant in between new hampshire primaries every four years. market-based entrepreneurial evangelicalism, further shorn of a supernatural doctrines in some cases, and in its moral consistency in others, 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 culturally, politically, economically, will not be useful for long. the gospel that the american

evangelical movement seeks to highlight is not going forward because it is familiar but because it is strange. indeed, the strangest concept we can imagine, a god justifies the ungodly. nothing guarantees that american evangelicalism is an established movement will be found somewhere in the future pointing to christ and then crucifying. god does not need an american

evangelical movement. god does not need an american church. someone will. god does not need the evangelical movement but the evangelical movement desperately needs god. and to that end those of us who are evangelicals should work to a form of a robust evangelicalism that can pass the torch to a new generation with the message that we first heard down at the cross. and to that end our reform efforts should start and end not with another political slogan or another culture cliche, but with a prayer. make evangelicalism born again. thank you. [applause]

>> i wouldn'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, sir. yes? >> hi, dr. moore. my name is lee. i'm a graduate of southwestern baptist seminary and i'm now in princeton seminary. i really appreciate you and muller as leading southern baptists. unfortunately we discuss religious liberty, i really did not see that in the southern baptist convention, at least at the education level. it seemed like like southern seminary, southwestern in schools like citadel college that there's been an oppression of the first amendment where students don't have free speech in many of these schools, like there's no free press in a southern baptist school, there's no deviation from a guy like page patterson. can you address, or do you

believe that a southern baptist seminary, should students have freedom of speech and is that being practiced as a southern baptist convention? >> i have never seen a southern baptist school repressing freedom of the speech or press. obviously religious liberty means though that voluntary institutions and voluntary associations have the right to conventionally confined 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. gut but i think religious liberty is emphasized for everyone. yes? >> is this on? cool. in your lecture you made a few references to historical christian orthodoxy. so i'm just curious what markers you use to define what is historical orthodoxy, especially in the southern baptist convention that is not necessarily connected to the long stream of catholicism or orthodoxy or something like that. russell: i would argue that we are at the level, when i'm talking about basic, hi tore cal orthodoxy i'm referring to what is articulated, for instance, in the nicene creed and apostle's creed. i would see a base level of 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 where we would disagree. but i think the base level of

historical orthodoxy is present. >> russell, can i follow up on that terrific question. just to 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 of solo scriptura? what does it mean and how does it define evangelicalism? russell: well, what we do not mean and no evangelical steward organization i have ever known has meant that scripture is the only authority present. obviously, even the claim we believe in solo scriptura is pointing to an authority of the group making that claim. what solo scriptura means is that scripture is the only final authority as the reformation put it, the normie norm that norms

all other norms. so if 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 concordance of the bible, i pull up my g.p.s. if my g.p.s. tells me there is not nor has ever been a place known as jerusalem, then the authority of scripture overrides the authority of my g.p.s. evangelicals would believe the same is true, for instance, church councils and church organizations, believing that the apostle john through the risen christ teaches in the opening chapters of revelation that a church can lose its lamp stand, can 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 makes for a much more richer and interesting engagement between evangelicals and eastern

orthodox christians or catholics than many on all of those sides have imagined. next question? question, down here. >> michael gorsen had a piece in "the atlantic" recently whic i think i read he feels as an evangelical he needs to speak out against trump and calls on other evangelicals to do so. do you have a view broadly on the role of the evangelical in the role of the political life of the nation and particularly at this moment? russell: well, i don't know how i can be any clearer on that -- [laughter] -- about that. but i do think that there are sort of multiple streams within evangelicalism right now. and a lot of tensions that we say in 2016 sort of demonstrate

that. even in the sort of decision being made about election possibilities. there were some evangelicals that, of course, were willing to not only support the president but to adopt wholeheartedly his program, his person, and everything else. there were other evangelicals though that believed that they were on either side choosing a lesser of two evils and did so with great fear and trembling, as one evangelical told me, he voted, he did not even tell me who he voted for, but 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.

so i think those tensions are present even still. >> yes? >> i'm a student here at princeton. my question is how as a mesh of the young evangelical generation you spoke about today, 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? russell: what i would say is 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 -- 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. they can be -- one can be taught into the blessings of state craft and possibilities of state craft much easier than someone can be -- can be taught the limits thereof. but i think there's always in every generation, especially with american evangelicalism, the tendency to overreact to the last bad thing. so there are some younger evangelicals who will look at a hyperpoliticized version of evangelicalism they have seen close in person or on television and say the answer to that is complete political and culture withdrawal. in the very same way when i meet an evangelical who says to me, we shouldn't talk about the

commandments of scripture. let's simply talk about who we are in christ and everything else will work itself out, i know this is someone who came out of a very ecclesiastic sort of environment saying i don't want that. or when i meet an evangelical who says i want a list of rules about whether or not to celebrate halloween and what kind of school to send one's children to, i know typically that's someone who came out of a morally chaotic environment and wants order. as lewis taught us, evils don't come one by one. they come two by two on either side of the truth. so often what i'm trying to do is when i'm talking to older evangelicals, and, again, this is more conceptually than chronologically speaking, to older evangelicals i'm often preaching my kingdom is not of this world. that 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 very 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 pilate 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 saying we will speak simply to evangelism and discipleship 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, for instance,

what is happening in the 1850's in southern evangelicalism, we don't talk about politics means we don't talk about slavery. and if one is called morally to repentance for drunkness and adultery but not for the sin of kidnapping and enslaving a image-bearing human being, it's not that you're avoiding the topic of slavery, you're addressing it by your silence. so i think there has to be a balance there. >> yes, professor gregory? >> thank you very much for your talk and for your work. i very much appreciate the call for engagement without accommodation. it seems like all sorts of denominational movements of christians in america are trying to strike that balance. i guess i wanted to ask about the american part of american

evangelicalism and how that fits into your understanding of christian identity, because i understand the critique of instrumentalizing evangelicals in the service of state or in the service of some political goal and a lot of critics on whole say it's america they have to devotion, not the cross. yet this morning we were talking about richard john newhouse who said when he meets god, he expects to meet him as an american. so how do you understand the nation as part of a christian identity, in particular in this case american identity? is it just a kind of temporal happenstance governed by the divine providence or is it something that will be part of the christian identity just as much as other parts of our identity, our maleness, femaleness, ethnics, other sorts of things that a lot of contemporary christians have questions about, what it means

to be african-american, a lot of difficult questions today in our culture moment but theologically, will you be american in heaven? [laughter] russell: i'm a calvinist so i don't believe anything is happenstance but i do believe national identity is temporal ultimately. obviously the stories of who we are and how we were shaped and providentially 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 deemphasizing of

the prosecutions with gratitude, which i think lack of patriotism would mean and what i think father newhouse was getting at when he talked about the blessings of being 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 other christian has to answer is as ken myers of morris hill audio put it not long ago, what is the first thing that comes to mind when we say we? is it 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're facing right now, what do we mean when we say we and how does that shape and form who we are? >> yes, professor mooney? >> thank you. i wonder if you could say a little bit more if you have any

further thoughts on the radical evangelicals or what some have called evangelical left, people like shane claiborne, the irresistible revolution, is that part of the evangelicalism that is growing in influence or is it declining? and theologically how is this radical evangelicalism or evangelical left different from the rest of evangelicalism? russell: yes, when i was referring to so-called radical language in terms of 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 these movements, is that they often turn out to not be very

evangelical. and so one can simply see this by looking at advertising, for instance, on a particular site or magazines. when most of the advertising is coming from main line seminaries or institutions, it's a main line protestant essentially sort of operation. i don't see that growing very much in influence, although there will be places where there will be an overlap of concern. >> yes? >> hi, i'm kristin. i'm a masters student here. we spoke about the importance of the multiethnic church. i was hoping you can speak a little bit to how the church can achieve that and specifically what can white leaders of the church and white members of the church do to create more inclusive environments and to address their own rules, our own rules, in systemic injustices

against people of color? russell: well, there are a number of things that have to be done. one of them is my understanding of bearing one another's burdens, galatians 6, means an ecclesial 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. that's my problem. again, who is we, the first we? and we belong together. and that also means a careful reading of our history in order to understand how is it that people were able to as frederick douglass so memorably pointed out sing gospel hymns of redemption at one moment while whipping an enslaved person two hours later, what happens

morally within not only that individual but also within a culture that can lead to that sense of blindness? which means often what i find myself doing and dealing with white evangelical audiences 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. what a spent a great deal of time saying is not i need to convince you that there are aspects of systemic injustice. you already know there are. and in other areas so you need to take what you have learned in other areas and understand how that's working here in terms of racial injustice. so for instance sometimes when i will have people say to me, you know, we really shouldn't talk

about racial justice and racial reconciliation 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, you know, we have a lot of arguments about abortion. we really wouldn't have to worry about abortion if we were just getting people saved and teaching people sexual morality. there was a course of amens in the room. people didn't understand what he meant by that is we bear no responsibility for the systems that are perpetuating against unborn children. >> yes, over here. >> thank you. you touched on earlier in the

talk -- i'm a university student. you talked to princeton evangelical fellowship changed its name to christian fellowship. you think the prudence of leaving the label of evangelical is comdex dependent? and if so can you comment on the decision whether or not to use the label? russell: yes, i think it is context dependant 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 the -- sort of an analog to that would be the word "fundamentalist," which initially simply meant someone who believed that the so-called foundational fundamentals of the

faith, that jesus was bodily raised from the dead and scripture is true and so forth. but it became though a certain set of additional doctrines, a certain sort of mood and temperament that was no longer descriptive. so i will if i am in a group of evangelical christians and someone says to me, are you a fundamentalist, the answer to that is no. if i'm at a gathering of the if i'm at a gathering of the unitarian universalist association and they ask are you a fundamentalist? yes, i am. [laughter] russell: and so, i don't want to "evangelical,"d

because this is a good word that is rooted in a gospel word that we ought to retain. but it no longer works as standalone shorthand. so whether i speak as myself as an evangelical, i find i'm also explaining what i mean by that at the same time. 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's a member of our own community here, pastor matt of the stonehill church. matt, i want to give you the privilege if you did have anything you wanted to ask or say, we would love to hear from you. >> i have never known a preacher to be speechless. [laughter] >> you're answering questions wonderfully. tribe.ally in your it's not easy to take a church through the storms that have happened over the past 5 to 10 years, and most acutely over the past two years.

so most of my questions are more kind of pragmatic questions, russell. apparently russell was at my church last fall, and splendid guy. thank you. 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, yeah, so i have 100 questions but maybe i don't have any because i have so many. is that disappointing to you? >> no, it's good to hear your voice. i have someplace else i have to be on sunday mornings and i very rarely make it over. this fellow right down here, sir. >> that's actually my pastor. it's great to follow up. so 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. so i'm curious if you would be able to say how some of the things suggested are similar or maybe even different from

something like "the benedict rod dreyer. it sounded like some of it as i would see it evangelical christians need to become christians again and that's how i understand a bit of rob drier but maybe it's something how you would differentiate some of you would suggest. >> i would probably affirm almost everything that rod dreher would affirm in "the benedict option" but i would not deny everything that rod denies. so i think largely i'm in great sympathy with the benediction option, but as an evangelical christian i cannot resonate with a monastic imagery applied to the entirety of the church in a way that -- so if one even thinks in terms of cover design, the cover of "the benedict

option," i blurbed the book and happy to do so and recommend it to many people but the picture on the front is sort of a fortress on a hill. i agree with that. i just want a big, flashing neon sign of jesus on the outside. [laughter] >> yes, sir, down here. here you go. >> thank you. could you describe a vision of a moralistic society that evangelicals can embrace with integrity? >> yes, i think we have seen that vision of a pluralistic society at least in my specific tradition of evangelicalism. i 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 theologically or morally pluralistic 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. a person can only be compelled to pretend to be part of a specific religion. and so when for instance i remember several years ago i was on a panel in the university campus, i was seated with a muslim woman. she and i were speaking, and then there was a representative of the aclu and someone from an episcopal church. and 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 that the state does not adjudicate those theological

differences. and so i believe that i ought to -- that she ought to have th freedom to seek to convince me there is no god, that allah and mohamed is the prophet, where i seek to persuade her jesus christ is the way, truth and the life and no one comes to the father but through him. that is not a state that referees that discussion but it's not because those issues aren't important but they're so important they're beyond the competence of government bureaucrats. at that point a student came to the microphone and said i take exception to what you said because that was really arrogant for you to say that because why can't you just say that you and she are together, you're serving god together, you're just doing it in slightly different ways? and i turned to her and i said, do you think that's what we're doing?

and she said, tell me -- tell me your vision of god and i said, father, son and holy spirit incarnated in jesus christ, crucified, raised from the dead who will come to judge the living and the dead. no, she said. so my response to him because he said how would you be so arrogant so as to suggest to her your way to god is the only way to god, my response is to say, well, why are you so arrogant as to impose your religion upon us because both she and i agree we have very significant and important existential, 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 spirituality is all that we need. so a pluralistic society is one in which i think 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? yes, right up here, sir. >> maybe today but i come from far away. talk.yed your beautiful. you really did cross various layers. taking up from where we are now, with the kind of acceptivity, to india and religious expressions of india, that have greater acceptance kind of feeling in india -- i mean in america, and its future if that continues is

one concern. roman way, i'm a catholic priest coming from india. and on the other side what happens at the transition time having the right, the duty and the responsibility to settle these views of faith and doctrine by telling those guys in the council you will not come out without deciding either way, what is your response? russell: well, i would not see to constantine the authority to dictate that to the church, although i am, of course, comfortable with where nicaea ended up. there are all sorts of things this happened in the providence of god where 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 resurgent 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 had sort of adopted modernity in such a way that it cast aside largely the supernatural. liberal,come very mainline protestant. the congregation was dwindling, white elderly, affluent liberals. but there was a group of christians who were immigrants from india who started attending that church, initially having their own bible study and becoming integrated into the larger church. and it created a crisis within the congregation because the

indian evangelical christians really believed the gospel and really believed the bible, and wanted to talk about such things as the blood of christ and all sorts of things that horrified the affluent elderly white liberals in that congregation. moreover, they were evangelistic in leading others to make in christ. and moreover, they were getting married and having children. being ledegation was back into orthodoxy by this -- at the very beginning, a very small immigrant community. and that congregation, icy something of -- i see something of a parable. >> a lesson for us all. >> before we thank him properly, 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. and secondly, i never mentioned his title. he did not mention his title. -- we heard all about the final three words today. join me in thanking him. [applause] announcer: the book is called believe me: the evangelical road to donald trump. i want to begin what your book ends, because you say many of the leaders and their followers have traded their christian witness for a mess of political pottage and a few federal judges. guest: i am really writing this

book -- my primary audience is to evangelicals. historian, butn i am an evangelical myself. i am really thinking about what are the implications of the trump administration for the church, and what does american evangelicals -- what does it mean for evangelicals to latch themselves to a political party? and how will that affect their witness in the world as christians? i think that is the primary audience of the book. anyone who reads the book will realize -- i don't think it is a good idea that american evangelicals have been taking power politics like this to change the world. host: on the outside, what is your view of donald trump? an evangelicals christian, i see myself as part of the 19% or