Rethinking Our Holly-Jolly Christmas Songs

Russell Moore reminds us in this article why it's important to remember that "We have a rich and complicated and often appropriately dark Christmas hymnody."

Of course, some of the blame is on our sentimentalized Christmas of the American civil religion. Simeon the prophet never wished anyone a “holly-jolly Christmas” or envisioned anything about chestnuts roasting on an open fire. But there’s our songs too, the songs of the church. We ought to make sure that what we sing measures up with the, as this fellow would put it, “narrative tension” of the Christmas story.

The first Christmas carol, after all, was a war hymn. Mary of Nazareth sings of God’s defeat of his enemies, about how in Christ he had demonstrated his power and “has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate” (Lk. 1:52). There are some villains in mind there.

Simeon’s song, likewise, speaks of the “fall and rising of many in Israel” and of a sword that would pierce the heart of Mary herself. Even the “light of the Gentiles” he speaks about is in the context of warfare. After all, the light, the Bible tells us, overcomes the darkness (Jn. 1:5), and frees us from the grip of the devil (2 Cor. 4).

Read the entire article here.
 

70 x 7 - The Most Difficult Math Problem in the Universe

Russell Moore's brief but excellent article on "Why It's Hard to Forgive."

The most difficult math problem in the universe, it turns out, is 70 x 7. Perhaps the hardest thing to do in the Christian life is to forgive someone who has hurt you, often badly. But Jesus says the alternative to forgiving one’s enemies is hell.

One of the reasons this is hard for us is because we too often assume forgiving a trespasser means allowing an injustice to stand. This attitude betrays a defective eschatology. At our Lord’s arrest (Matt. 26:47-54), Jesus told Peter to put his sword back into his sheath not because Jesus didn’t believe in punishing evildoers (think Armageddon). Jesus told Peter he could have an armada of angelic warriors at his side (and one day he will). But judgment was not yet, and Peter wasn’t judge.

That’s the point.

When we forgive, we are confessing that vengeance is God’s (Rom. 12:19). We don’t need to exact justice from a fellow believer because justice has already fallen at the cross. We don’t need to exact vengeance from an unbeliever because we know the sin against us will be judged in hell or, more hopefully, when the offender unites himself to the One who is “the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 Jn. 2:2).

A prisoner of war who forgives his captor or a terminated pastor who forgives a predatory congregation, these people are not overlooking sin. Nor are they saying that what happened is “okay” or that the relationships involved are back to “normal” (whatever that is). Instead they are confessing that judgment is coming and they can trust the One who will be seated on that throne.

You don’t have to store up bitterness, and you don’t have to find ways of retaliation for what’s been done to you. You can trust a God who is just. If you won’t forgive, if you refuse to rest in God’s judgment without seeking to retaliate, it doesn’t matter what your evangelistic tracts and prophecy charts say. When it comes to the gospel and the to the end times, you’re just another liberal.

Russell Moore on NPR's "Here & Now"

On Wednesday, NPR's "Here & Now" interviewed Dr. Russell Moore, the new president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, and talked with him about specific issues and the current state of the church. 

To read highlights of the interview or to listen to the sixteen minute conversation, click here.

How Should Same-Sex Marriage Change the Church's Witness?

Russell Moore provides a helpful reminder of what has (and has not changed) since yesterday's Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage and how the church should respond:

Same-sex marriage is headed for your community. This is no time for fear or outrage or politicizing. It’s a time for forgiven sinners, like us, to do what the people of Christ have always done. It’s time for us to point beyond our family values and our culture wars to the cross of Christ as we say: “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”

And that’s good news.

Read the entire article here.

An Evangelical Looks at Pope Benedict XVI

With the surprising news of Pope Benedict XVI's retirement, there have been no shortage of comments, reflections, and even speculations as to who the next pope will be.  Not many reflections, however, are coming from evangelicals. 

Russell Moore provides one in this article, An Evangelical Looks at Pope Benedict XVI.     

Moore on "Farewell to the American Protestant Majority"

An excerpt from Russell Moore's reflections on the results of the recent Pew Forum study:

According to a new study by the Pew Forum, Protestants are, for the first time in history, not a majority in the United States of America. I don’t think that’s anything for evangelical Protestants, or anyone else, to panic about.

[...]

Frankly, we should be more concerned about the loss of a Christian majority in the Protestant churches than about the loss of a Protestant majority in the United States. Most of the old-line Protestant denominations are captive to every theological fad that has blown through their divinity schools in the past thirty years-from crypto-Marxist liberation ideologies to sexual identity politics to a neo-pagan vision of God—complete with gender neutralized liturgies. Should we lament the fact that the Riverside Avenue Protestant establishment is now collapsing under the weight of its own bureaucracy?

What we should pay attention to instead may be the fresh wind of orthodox Christianity whistling through the leaves-especially throughout the third world, and in some unlikely places in North America, as well. Sometimes animists, Buddhists, and body-pierced Starbucks employees are more fertile ground for the gospel than the confirmed Episcopalian at the helm of the Rotary Club.

Accordingly, evangelicals will engage the culture much like the apostles did in the first century—not primarily to “baptized” pagans on someone’s church roll, but as those who are hearing something new for the first time. There may be fewer bureaucrats in denominational headquarters, but there might be more authentically Christian churches preaching an authentically Christian gospel.

Read his reflections in their entirety here.

Something about Crushing a Snake's Skull

A vivid reminder from Russell Moore about Jesus' clear understanding of his own identity as the Son of God and as the second Adam, as he moved from his baptism to his temptation in the wilderness:

"If you had stood there by the Jordan River, watching the scene at the baptism of Jesus, you might have braced yourself for a shock wave of glory. After all, the God of Israel had just unveiled - publicly, audibly, visually - his promised Messiah.  The villagers around you might have been chattering about great things - the overthrow of Rome, the throne of David, shock and awe.  You might have waited to watch this new king unleash his Spirit power.  Instead, though, you would see him shake out the water from his hair, pause and look at the mud on the bank, and then walk off toward the desert.  As he passed by you, you might have heard him whisper to himself, something about crushing a snake's skull.  Jesus knows who he is."

--Russell Moore, Tempted and Tried 

Just the Kind of Providential Irony Our God Loves

Russell Moore has a great post on the expected election next week of the Southern Baptist Convention's first African-American president and on how providentially ironic it is. Here are a few excerpts:

As I write this, news reports tell us that we just might see, by the time you read this, the election of the first African-American president of the Southern Baptist Convention. This is significant for all sorts of reasons: one being, of course, that the SBC was founded, partly, to protect the “right” of slaveholders to be missionaries. It’s important also because it’s a test for whether the SBC will go forward with the gospel and mission we say we believe.

.....................

I’m thrilled about where God might be taking the SBC. A denomination formed to protect slavery led by a descendant of slaves, that’s just the kind of providential irony our God loves. Maybe it will prompt our denomination to stop seeing non-white people as opportunities for “ethnic ministry,” and prompt us to see there opportunities to find our leaders. Maybe seeing a non-white face with the gavel of the SBC might remind us that the Man we’ll see on the Judgment Seat, well, he isn’t a white guy either.

Read the post in its entirety here.

Russell Moore on "Christlessness Is Peace"

Russell Moore provides a very thoughtful reflection on the true peace that Christ brings (and the means by which he brings it). Here's an excerpt:

The sound of Christmas, in the biblical text, isn’t the sound of sleigh-bells jingling, but the clanging swords and strangled babies and demon screams. It’s awful.

But in the midst of all that horror, there’s peace. This peace isn’t tranquility and stillness, but the dynamism of the shalom of God’s new creation. It is not merely the perfunctory “good will to men” but peace between the ruler of the universe and those “with whom he is pleased” (Lk. 2:14).

In the gospel, that peaces comes only through war. This isn’t violence, the way we think of it, flesh and blood against flesh and blood. It is the Spirit of Jesus marching as to war against the principalities and powers in the heavenly places (Eph. 6:12). It is the blood of Christ silencing the accusations of the ancient dragon (Rev. 12:10-11). This is why the Apostle Paul can say, without contradiction, that the “God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet” (Rom. 16:20).

Read the whole reflection here.

Russell Moore on "Why I'm Ungrateful"

Great post by Russell Moore here (a very apt word at this Thanksgiving season).

Russell Moore Preaching at FBC Jackson This Sunday

For those of you in and around Jackson, Russell Moore, Dean of the School of Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, preaching pastor at Highview Baptist Church (Fegenbush campus), and author of Adopted for Life, will be preaching at First Baptist Church in our morning service at 9:00am this Sunday, November 7, which is Orphan Sunday. There will be a Q & A on adoption following the service (from 10:30-11:00) in the sanctuary for anyone who is interested.

Russell Moore on "Christ and Katrina"

The feature article in the July/August issue of Touchstone is Russell Moore's "Christ and Katrina." It is a haunting yet hallowed reflection on the five-year anniversary of Katrina and how that "apocalyptic event" affected his hometown of Biloxi, Mississippi - as well as his theology. You can read the entire article online here.

Russell Moore on "Preaching Like the Devil"

Russell Moore provides a good reputation for Baptists every time he writes for Touchstone (which readers of this blog will know is one of my favorite magazines/journals). His article in the May/June 2010 issue is no different. It is about preaching, but it deserves to be read not only by preachers, but also those who listen to preaching. It is titled "Preaching Like the Devil" (below is an excerpt).

The devil is a preacher. From the third chapter of the Bible onward, he is opening up God’s Word to people, seeking to interpret it, to apply it, to offer an invitation. So the old Serpent of Eden comes to the primeval woman not with a Black Mass and occult symbols, but with the Word she’d received from her God—with the snake’s peculiar spin on it. Throughout the rest of the canon he does the same, implicitly or explicitly.

Throughout the Old Testament, he preaches peace—just like the angels of Bethlehem do—except he does so when there is no peace. He points God’s people to the particulars of worship commanded by God—sacrifices and offerings and feast-days—just without the preeminent mandates of love, justice, and mercy. Satan even preaches to God—about the proper motives needed for godly discipleship on the part of God’s servants.

In the New Testament, the satanic deception leads the scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees to pore endlessly over biblical texts, just missing the point of Christ Jesus therein. They come to conclusions that have partially biblical foundations—the devil’s messages are always expository; they just intentionally avoid Jesus.

So, the scoffers feel quite comfortable asking how a man from Nazareth could be the Messiah when the coming King is of Bethlehem. They find themselves wondering how the Son of Man can be crucified when the Bible says he lives forever. When Jesus says those who follow him should eat his flesh and drink his blood, there’s little doubt that the Adversary was there to point the crowds to Leviticus’s forbidding of the consumption of human blood. When the satanically inspired crowds crucified Jesus, they did so pointing to biblical texts that called for the execution of blasphemers and insurrectionists (Deut. 21).

When the early Church rockets out of the upper room in Jerusalem, Satan is there, with false teachers, to preach all kinds of things that seem to be straight from God’s Word—from libertinism to legalism to hyper-spirituality to carnality. He never stops preaching.

Read the whole thing here.

A Primeval Problem, Not a Medieval One

Russell Moore has a sobering post about Reformation Day on Touchstone's Mere Comments blog. Here is an excerpt:

What I do know is that, whatever your view of the Reformation, it's obvious to see that some of the things that drove Luther to anger (and to despair) are everywhere present, to this day, often even in the most "Reformation-centric" evangelical churches....

The combination of the damning power of cheap grace with the accusing agony of performance-based righteousness before God exists in every wing of the church. That's because it's not a medieval problem, but a primeval one.

Click here to read the whole thing.

Very Encouraging Resolution Proposed by Russell Moore

For those of you who are not Southern Baptists, this will obviously not have as much appeal to you (though I hope you will still appreciate it). But for those of us who are, the resolution being proposed for the 2009 Southern Baptist Convention by Dr. Russell Moore, Dean of Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, is very encouraging. While so many of the resolutions voted on at the SBC seem to be concerned with peripheral issues, this one involves a genuine gospel issue - adoption and orphan care.

Read Moore's resolution here.

And read his new book, Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families and Churches.