This week Shai was in town, making his way through the country on The Black Out Circuit tour, and I couldn’t wait to have him in the studio. In this episode of “The Cross & the Jukebox,” Shai and I talk about the prosperity gospel, why it’s dangerous, and why it shows up in so many places, including in America’s theological export to the African continent. We talk about how the prosperity gospel isn’t just on TBN, but lurks within every heart, including too often mine and, I’ll bet, yours.

Listen to this episode of “The Cross & the Jukebox” and let me know about any songs that you would like us to examine in the weeks and months to come.

This sermon, “The Weight of Twelve Stones: Reflections on a Grateful Goodbye” (Josh. 4:1-24), was originally preached at Alumni Chapel at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary on Tuesday, April 16, 2013. This was Dr. Moore’s final chapel sermon as Dean of the School of Theology and Senior Vice President for Academic Administration. You can find more sermons and other audio from Dr. Moore here.

The song, part of Paisley’s new album Wheelhouse, has provoked controversy in media outlets around the country, with some suggesting the song is hokey and some suggesting it’s actually racist.

I don’t think Brad or LL are in any way racists of any sort. I just think the song awkwardly trivializes the real issues it raises, making it the musical equivalent of Michael Scott’s “diversity day” presentations on a rerun of The Office.

But I could be wrong. And that’s why I pulled in a pastor/scholar/author I respect, Thabiti Anyabwile. I love Thabiti’s work across the board, but I thought of him particularly because some of the issues raised in this song are remarkably similar to a recent conversation he had with pastor Douglas Wilson about the legacy of the Civil War.

In this episode of “The Cross and the Jukebox,” Thabiti and I have a conversation about a wide range of topics spinning out of this song. We talk about Paisley, why LL Cool J is on this song, the Confederate Battle Flag, Malcolm X, the Black Panther Party, personal and structural sin, and the place of the gospel in a theological anthropology.

I’m glad Brad and LL gave us an occasion to have this fun and important conversation. But, still, I say listen to “Famous People” or “Mama Said Knock You Out,” both of which are far superior songs to “Accidental Racist.”

Join us this week as we talk about racism, accidental and intentional, and let me know what you think.

I know you don’t believe in in vitro fertilization, but my wife and I found it was a good solution to our infertility problem. We created multiple embryos, and carried two to term. We cannot afford any other children, so another round of pregnancies is not an option. Our quiver’s full. My conscience is bothering me a little, though, since we banked a number of other fertilized embryos, just in case the first round didn’t take. Do we have any responsibility for these embryos?

Sincerely, A Stressed Dad

Dear Stressed,

Your quiver’s fuller than you think.

You’re right that there are complex ethical questions regarding IVF, and I’d be happy to have that discussion later. Once IVF has been done, though, the issues are simple, even if the consequences are complex.

In a Christian vision of reality there is no such thing as an “almost person,” which is what we think with the abstraction of “fertilized embryos.” Someone is either a human person, and therefore my neighbor, or not. You do not have “frozen embryos.” You have children, frozen in this cruelly clinical world of suspended animation.

It is one thing to decide you can’t afford to have children, before you conceive children, just as it is one thing to decide you can’t afford to marry, before you marry. You’re married though, and you’ve conceived children. You have an obligation to them. The one who does not care for his own household is, the Apostle Paul says, “worse than an unbeliever” (1 Tim. 5:8).

This doesn’t mean your game-plan is easy. There’s a cross to take up here. The path from frozen storage to birth is difficult, whether through bearing those children or making an adoption plan for them into loving families. But these are not things; these are persons, worthy of love and respect and sacrifice.

I’d advise you to meet with some respected spiritual advisers, to look at your situation and come up with a map to take responsibility for your children. The first step is to start thinking of them that way, not as your “embryos” or a project to be managed, but as your children, your neighbors, and the “least of these,” who bear the image of our Lord Jesus.

Your conscience might seem to be a nuisance to you; it does to all of us sometimes. But a nagging conscience can be a sign of grace. It might be that what you are hearing is a happy foretaste of obedience to Christ, as you hear his voice saying, “I was frozen and you remembered me.”

You can read my response here, and weigh it along with the others. I said “no,” that I didn’t think firing her was the right way to go. I wanted here to give a fuller sense of why I think the way I do. I believe the issue is bigger than the particulars of this court case.

First of all, I’m no anti-dentite. I have nothing but commendation for the dentist for recognizing, early on, his point of temptation. The first step in overcoming temptation is finding one’s own points of vulnerability and finding the way of escape Holy Scripture promises us is there (1 Cor. 10:13). The dentist is right to take action in his life as soon as he realized he is hot-for-hygienist and he is right that his marriage is more important than his practice.

If the hygienist were pressing for a relationship or actively seeking to be sexually provocative, I think he has the right to fire her, if she won’t end it. That’s unprofessional behavior and puts him in a situation in which it is impossible for either of them to do their jobs. It would be a kind of reverse sexual harassment.

But, if not, I think there are other means for keeping his integrity intact.

He could have acted to his own economic hurt, rather than to hers. I know of Christian professionals who cut their own salaries in order to hire more than one staff member, to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. He could have made sure that he was only in the office when there were others there, or, when that was impossible, his wife or a friend would accompany him.

Jesus said “If your eye offends you, gouge it out.” He didn’t say “If you find your neighbor’s eyes are too sexy, gouge them out.” It isn’t a just society when women are hired only if they meet certain standards of “sexiness,” as in our “Mad Men” celebrated recent past. It also isn’t a just society if women are fired because some man finds them attractive on those same terms.

At the root of this is, I fear, a kind of misogyny which identifies women themselves as the problem rather than one’s own lust and self-control. That’s not what the Bible teaches.

What would happen if this standard were enforced on a wide scale? What happens when, for instance, a new hygienist gets a new hairstyle and a new pair of glasses and, suddenly, the dentist starts noticing her in a new way? Is she fired too? And what happens across the board when women can be fired at will by men who can simply proclaim, “You’re too sexy for this office.”

The dentist is right to maintain his marriage and his integrity, but I think there are better, more just ways of doing that.

Remember to send me your real-life ethical dilemma at questions@russellmoore.com.

The same sort of pessimistic vision often shows up in the preaching and teaching of the church. Cultural progressives claim the arc of history is on their side, moving toward sexual revolution, family redefinition, and so on. Christians sometimes speak as though we believe them, that the future is dark and scary. This is why our narrative about the world around us is that it’s slouching toward Gomorrah.

I think the biblical vision is more complicated, and brighter, than that.

On this week’s episode of “The Cross and the Jukebox,” we’ll listen to Merle Haggard’s ask “Are the Good Times Really Over for Good?”. As we do, we’ll ask why people want to answer pessimism with nostalgia and whether there’s another, better, way for the people of Christ.

Dement describes herself as an agnostic, but she grew up in a Pentecostal Christian home in Arkansas. Her mother, a believing Christian, seems to shape her art to this day, which is why there are so many songs in her repertoire about Mom, and about God.

One of my favorite of her songs is the one we’ll listen to today, called “Let the Mystery Be.” Don’t be fooled by the lyrics. While it sounds like, simply, a relativist’s plea for dogmatic Christians to abandon their certainties and leave her alone, I think there’s more here. Let’s listen to Iris Dement, and then talk about what it means to live a life story that is, to us, a mystery.

Johnny Cash and then later the late Chuck Colson changed the way many Christians thought about prisons and prisoners. They didn’t idealize prisoners, the way some social progressives did, and they didn’t downplay criminal justice. But they called us to think anew about what Jesus meant when he said “I was in prison and you visited me” (Matt. 25:36).

By way of joining in the remembrance of Cash’s historic performance, I thought we’d listen this week to both “Folsom Prison Blues” and “Mercy Seat.” As we listen, let’s think afresh about what it means for us as Christians to join Jesus in his mission of reaching out to the guilty and the hardened with the news that is intended to set the captive free.

I am an evangelical Christian, and I work as a wedding photographer. By conscience, I hold to an orthodox view of human sexuality, with all that entails. I’ve been asked to photograph a same-sex wedding service (legal in my state), and I’ve said no. I wonder if I did the right thing.

After all, this is a business, providing a service. Would it be right for me to refuse to serve a gay couple if I owned a restaurant? I don’t think so.  If a same-sex marriage isn’t a marriage at all (as the historic Christian view teaches), then how is this different from just photographing people at a birthday party or community festival (in which case it wouldn’t matter what’s happening with them sexually).

Moreover, I’m not sure that photographing an event is an endorsement of that event. I have photographed weddings of people who were divorced (and I didn’t investigate the background), people who were probably cohabiting, people who were most likely unequally yoked to one another, and so on.

So I’m kind of caught. My conscience bothers me because I turned this couple down, and my conscience will bother me if I photograph this wedding. What do you think?

The Wedding Photographer

Dear WP,

You’re right that this situation is more complicated than whether to serve someone at a restaurant (yes) regardless of that person’s sexual or marital situation. I would also argue that the situation is very different from photographing some other event, regardless of whether you agree or disagree with the clients’ sexual or marital context. The fact that this is a wedding means there’s a different moral question for you.

You are also right that your role as a wedding photographer is different from an officiating minister, a member of the wedding party, or even an invited guest. All of those people are part of the wedding itself, the assembled witnesses who affirm the lawfulness of the union and pledge to hold the couple accountable for their vows.

If you were, say, a photojournalist for a news service, there to report on the first same-sex marriage in your state, for instance, there would be no issue for your conscience. As a wedding photographer, though, you are in a third place between participant and neutral observer.

A same-sex wedding is different, I think, from the other problematic marriages you mentioned, for a couple of reasons.

First of all, while a biblical view of marriage would see that such people (fornicators, believers to unbelievers, unlawfully divorced, etc.) should not get married, and that the church has no authority to marry them, we also would affirm that such people, when married, actually are married. A pastor who joins a believer to an unbeliever bears an awful responsibility for doing something wrong, but the end result is an actual marriage.

The same-sex marriage differs not in terms of morality, but in terms of reality. It is not that homosexuality is some sort of wholly different or unforgivable sexual sin. It’s that the historic Christian view of marriage means that without sexual complementarity there is no marriage at all.

More than that, you are right to note that your situation takes place at a moment of concerted cultural revisionism on the question of marriage as conjugal union. A same-sex wedding service right now is not merely personal, but, whether the couple intends this or not, political, with all sorts of corresponding questions.

Your conscience is conflicted right now, but suppose there’s in the near future an evangelical or Roman Catholic or Muslim photographer whose conscience would be morally opposed to participating at all in a same-sex marriage ceremony. There’s a real question as to whether the civil state will penalize this person’s conscientious objection, at least in some parts of the country. And a state that will do that has over-stepped its authority.

I would say that the decisions you’ll make, generally, as a wedding photographer will correspond often with the Corinthian dilemma of whether to eat meat that had been offered to idols (1 Cor. 8).

The Apostle Paul says, first of all, that the idols don’t represent real gods (1 Cor. 8:4), in the same way that you would argue that a wedding without a bride or a groom isn’t really a marriage. If something’s put before you, the apostle writes, eat it to the glory of God, no questions asked.

But, the apostle says, if the food is advertised as sacrificed to idols abstain from it for the sake of the consciences of those around you (1 Cor. 8:7-9).  This is the difference between investigating a doughnut shop owner’s buying habits before eating there and stopping in for doughnuts when the sign out front flashes: “Eat here and support our owner’s cocaine and prostitutes habit.”

You need not investigate as a wedding photographer whether the wedding you are photographing is Christ-honoring. But when there is an obvious deviation from the biblical reality, sacrifice the business for conscience, your own and those of the ones in your orbit who would be confused.

That said, don’t be mean.

The couple asking you to do this wedding aren’t your enemies (Eph. 6:12). They are made in the image of God and are loved by him, and so should be loved by us. As orthodox Christians we don’t believe this leads to the happiness they’re looking for, but we must stand with kindness as well as with conviction. Tell the couple that you wish them well, but that you have beliefs about marriage that won’t allow your conscience to participate in this way. Thank them for asking you but recommend a photographer who can click away with a clear conscience.

Domestic abuse, particularly wife abuse, is a fairly persistent theme in country music, especially in recent years. Two songs immediately come to mind, both of which focus on the murder of an abusive man, though they could hardly be more different in tone.

Martina McBride in “Independence Day” sings from the perspective of a daughter who lived through her father’s drunken beating of her mother, and through her mother’s killing of her father. In this song, she doesn’t condone the murder, but she says this was the only way her mother could find to be free of his tyranny.

The Dixie Chicks, on the other hand, pick up a similar storyline, but in a kind of dark comedic format. In their song “Goodbye Earl,” they present two friends who, “Thelma and Louise-style,” murder their abuser, and realize that life goes on just fine because Earl was “a missing person who nobody missed at all.”

As I think about it, I don’t really think these songs are about calling women to murder the men who abuse them. I don’t think that’s the case with film representations along similar lines, such as The Burning Bed. It seems to me that the murder is a stand-in metaphor for the utter helplessness victims of domestic violence feel. After all, a woman who cannot see how, economically, she can walk away from an abusive relationship can feel as though she is trapped in a life sentence with no way out.

This week, listen with me to these two songs. And as we do so, let’s reflect on what it means for the church to listen to the desperation of victims of violence and provide a place of refuge, escape, and healing for these sisters of ours, and their children.

This interview was originally aired on November 7, 2012.

The forum “The Pastor and Politics,” held on Wednesday, October 24, 2012, was designed to help students think through the relationship between ministry and politics in light of the upcoming presidential election. Dr. Moore was interviewed by Andrew Walker, from the Heritage Foundation.

I’ve heard you say before that a pastor’s calling is to shape the consciences of God’s people toward conformity to Christ through the faithful preaching of the Word, and that this informs their callings in the everyday world. I agree. But here’s my problem.

I have a church member, a devoted Christian, who is an attorney specializing in divorce cases. Our church believes that divorce is (in almost every case) sin. If so, isn’t he empowering sin? Should I counsel him to follow Christ by walking away from this job and to do something else? If he won’t, should we discipline him?

Yours,
Divorce Lawyer’s Pastor

Dear Pastor,

Zacchaeus was a wee little man, you know. If you have a song bubbling up in your head right now, you probably grew up in an evangelical Sunday School somewhere. Even if not, you know the story, and I think it’s applicable here.

There is not much commendable about Zacchaeus’ occupation. He was a shill for the Roman occupation, in a role that was virtually always corrupt, defrauding oppressed people of money with the implicit threat of Caesar’s sword hanging over their heads.

When he came to know Christ, the Bible does not tell us that Jesus required that he abandon his occupation. Rather, the Spirit radically altered the nature of that occupation. He walked away from fraud and abuse, and made restitution to those he had sinned against (Lk. 19:1-11).

There are some jobs, of course, that no Christian can hold. One cannot be a Christian temple prostitute in Corinth or a Christian porn star in Los Angeles. Jesus died for temple prostitutes and porn stars, and invites them into his life, but following him will mean walking away from jobs that are inherently sinful.

That’s not necessarily the case here.

In a fallen world, do we need divorce lawyers? I would argue, yes. Our divorce laws, as they currently stand, are often unjust, but think of the lack of justice if we had no divorce laws at all. Men would still leave their wives (and vice-versa), take up with other people, and leave wreckage behind. Just divorce laws seek to minimize harm to the innocent.

Divorce proceedings then decide child custody and financial arrangements. A divorce lawyer working to see that an innocent woman is not left destitute by her abandoning husband is working for justice. A divorce lawyer who is working to prevent a sexually abusive spouse from gaining custody of a child can be working for justice.

I would look at precisely what kind of divorce lawyer this Christian is. If he is an “ABC easy divorce for $125″ advertisement sort of lawyer, who is seeking to entice people into divorcing for his financial gain, then, yes, that’s unjust and outside of what it means to follow Christ. But I wouldn’t assume that’s the case.

It could be that this attorney has been given a ministry to wrecked families. In some cases, he can use his influence to try to keep families together, and to work toward some sort of mediation that could lead to reconciliation. In others, he could be a voice that seeks to shield innocent parties from being financially destroyed by predatory spouses and parents. And, after making sure that everything is done in accordance with the law and the principles of justice, he could try to help people see the hope of a new life on the other side.

God hates divorce. Divorce is always the result of someone’s sin and rebellion. But often, as the Scripture itself tells us, there are those who experience divorce as victims, not as perpetrators. These people have a divorce foisted upon them, and they need protection. That’s love of neighbor.

This takes a strong Christian, with a sensitive conscience. If he starts to see divorce as a commodity through which he can make money, he should walk away. If he uses the law to deprive justice for the weak and vulnerable, he should repent. But if he can see himself as standing for justice in a fallen world, and lives accordingly, there is no reason for him to abandon his sphere of influence to the conscienceless.

And, of course, he is waiting, like Zacchaeus and all of us, for a new creation in which our vocations really take off. There will be no divorce law practices in the New Jerusalem, but, then again, there won’t be any need for ethics Q&A columns either.

Remember to send me your real-life ethical dilemma at questions@russellmoore.com.

This sermon was originally preached at the Marriage and Family Conference at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary on Thursday, August 23, 2012. You can find more sermons and other audio from Dr. Moore at our media page.

I was interested though a couple of weeks ago in a column by columnist David Brooks that explored this question beyond the political and market arenas. Brooks traced out the way that a person changes in his life as he thinks about the relationship between his individual initiative and the role not of the government but of mentors and colleagues and proteges in his life and work.

Much of Brooks’ understanding is rooted in an evolutionary model of human nature that I don’t share, but he’s on to some important insights that resonate, I think, with what the Bible tells us about how we’re to think of our place in the mission of the church.

In this episode of “Moore to the Point Audio,” I reflect on how Brooks’ essay prompted me to think about how we as Christians should see our own gifts and ministries.

Let me know what you think. How have mentors and role models and specific churches shaped your ministry? How can you encourage the next generation in their unique individual gifts and drives, for the service of the rest of the Body?

I’ll make this very long story as short as I can. A close family member of ours lost his health due to what appears to be some serious negligence from a government agency. Several people have suggested that we sue this branch of the government.  On the one hand, this might help alert the state to other situations, similar to that of our family member, in hopes of bringing reform. Yet, on the other, the Bible is pretty negative about Christians suing and mandates us to obey and honor the government. I don’t know if we’ll sue, but, if we did, would we be wrong?

Grieving and Confused

Dear Grieving,

First of all, I’m not a lawyer so, of course, I can’t tell you whether your lawsuit would be wise, or even if you have a case. But the questions you raise about your ethical obligations as a Christian are, I think, important. You are right that, first of all, the Bible does command us to not only obey the governing authorities (Rom. 13) but to show honor to them (1 Pet. 2:17) and pray for them (1 Tim. 2:2).

That said, a lawsuit in our legal system is not necessarily an attack. It is, however, when it’s the result of vengeance or acrimony between individuals. But the suit of a governing agency is less like an assault than like an appeal for a grievance to be answered. The normal mechanism of a citizen seeking justice, in our system, goes ultimately through the court system.

In that sense, I think, if all other avenues are exhausted, suing this branch of government would simply be the equivalent of Paul appealing to Caesar to settle his legal dispute (Acts 25:1-12) and pointing to his Roman citizenship in order to question the legality of his scourging (Acts 22:25-28).

This is a very different matter from Christians suing one another, which is forbidden by Scripture. But why is it forbidden? It is not because God is uninterested in justice. It’s that when two Christian persons sue one another they are signaling to the outside world that the church is incompetent, not gifted by Christ, to settle disputes among brothers. That is a defective eschatology, and ultimately says something profoundly untrue about Christ and his gospel. It is better, Paul says, to be defrauded than to do such a thing (1 Cor. 6:1-8).

A suit of a government agency is a different matter precisely because the church has no jurisdiction over the state (Jn. 18:36; 1 Cor. 5:12-13).  A suit could be simply an appeal to the state to do justice on its own terms in a particular matter.

That said, you must examine your motives. If you are really seeking to address a systemic wrong, to prevent others from being injured, that is one thing. If you are seeking some form of personal vengeance, that is contrary to the spirit of Christ and to the letter of Scripture (Rom. 12:17-21).

Finally, there is a difference between something being ethically permissible and being wise. A war, for instance, might be just and yet be imprudent. In the same way, it may be that you can, in clear conscience, sue this government agency and yet that be an unwise use of your family’s resources and emotional energy right now. Only you, in seeking God’s direction in prayer and the counsel of wiser Christians, can discern that.

Remember to send me your real-life ethical dilemma at questions@russellmoore.com.

I’m a committed evangelical Christian, and also a chaplain with responsibility for people from all sorts of religious backgrounds. I am called on to pray at many functions, with mixed audiences. Some over me are pressuring me not to end my prayers “in Jesus’ name” but to instead pray more inclusively to God, generally. I can pray “in Your name” and that seems to solve the problem. I mean Jesus, of course, but it wouldn’t be as patently offensive and it would enable me to minister here longer and more effectively. Is that ethical?

A Confused Chaplain

Dear Chaplain,

You’re assuming this quandary is about language. It’s not. Praying in Jesus’ name isn’t simply a cultural addendum at the end of a request, something evangelicals do in the same way we repeat phrases like “just” and “lead, guide, and direct us.” We pray in Jesus’ name because Jesus commanded us to do so (Jn. 14:13). We pray in Jesus’ name because we believe that “there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5). Thus, we have no access to God apart from our being hidden in Christ.

When you pray publicly, you are not there to proselytize or to do apologetic battle against other religions. But that’s not what praying in Jesus’ name is. If you are asked to pray, you can only pray as a Christian. In so doing, you are actually, ironically enough, protecting the rights of other religions and their chaplains. I frankly don’t want a Muslim chaplain forced by the government to pray like a Episcopalian.

As for the old “in Your name” wink and nod, I would counsel you against that. Our ancient Christian forebears, under persecution in Rome, could have pinched the incense and proclaimed “Caesar is lord” while assuring themselves privately that they meant the “eternal Caesar” of Jesus of Nazareth. After all, wouldn’t they be of more service to Jesus alive and preaching than thrown to the lions? And what is a momentary acknowledgement of a civic faith, especially when one can be as specific as one wants in private?

Well, behind all those rationalizations hung a warning: “Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven” (Matt. 10:32-33).

Christian chaplains have been ordained by their churches, and offered to the military, to be Christian chaplains. For them to pray as a civil-religion cleric is for them to enlist their services in another faith. You wear the Cross, and must speak it and not put it under the bushel of a more inclusive language of civil faith.

Chaplains don’t serve chiefly a civic function. They are there, first of all, to guarantee the First Amendment liberties of military and other personnel to the free exercise of religion. If the government decides that the only chaplains who can serve are those willing to pray like Unitarians in public, one wonders what would remain of the purpose of chaplaincy at all.

From the government’s point of view, it might not be that much to ask a chaplain to pray a sensitive prayer to a generic God. Perhaps it wouldn’t seem too much to ask a Catholic soldier to serve himself and his Protestant friends Mass since “bread is bread,” and a Muslim chaplain to lead people in the Rosary because “it’s just a prayer.”

But it is too much to ask. A Muslim who would speak of Mary as the Mother of God rejects the Koran, and he’s just not a Muslim anymore. A Catholic Mass without a priest is just not a Catholic Mass. And a prayer to a “God” who is not clearly the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ is not a Christian prayer.

When Caesar asks for service and for taxes and for honor, we should render such things gladly. Prayers don’t belong to Caesar, though, and they shouldn’t be brought before him for editorial submission. We owe Caesar submission and loyalty in almost everything (Rom. 13), almost.

But when Caesar objects to the mention of Jesus in a Christian’s prayers, we must have the conviction to say, “Sir, I wasn’t talking to you, sir.”

This sermon from 1 Samuel 15:1-35 was originally preached on Sunday, January 8, 2012 at Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky. You can find more sermons and other audio from Dr. Moore at our media page. ]]> http://www.russellmoore.com/2012/04/12/1-samuel-151-35/feed/ Russell D. Moore This sermon from 1 Samuel 15:1-35 was originally preached on Sunday, January 8, 2012 at Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky. You can find more sermons and other audio from Dr. Moore at our media page. 00:33:07 Media,Preaching,1 Samuel 15,Audio,Russell D. Moore http://www.russellmoore.com/2012/04/10/hebrews-58-9-3/ http://www.russellmoore.com/2012/04/10/hebrews-58-9-3/#comments Tue, 10 Apr 2012 12:00:54 +0000 Russell D. Moore http://www.russellmoore.com/?p=8665

This sermon from Hebrews 5:8-9 was originally preached on Sunday, December 18, 2011 at Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky. You can find more sermons and other audio from Dr. Moore at our media page. ]]> http://www.russellmoore.com/2012/04/10/hebrews-58-9-3/feed/ Russell D. Moore This sermon from Hebrews 5:8-9 was originally preached on Sunday, December 18, 2011 at Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky. You can find more sermons and other audio from Dr. Moore at our media page. 00:27:31 Media,Preaching,Audio,Hebrews 5,Russell D. Moore http://www.russellmoore.com/2012/04/08/hebrews-58-9-2/ http://www.russellmoore.com/2012/04/08/hebrews-58-9-2/#comments Sun, 08 Apr 2012 12:00:44 +0000 Russell D. Moore http://www.russellmoore.com/?p=8657

This sermon from Hebrews 5:8-9 was originally preached on Sunday, December 4, 2011 at Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky. You can find more sermons and other audio from Dr. Moore at our media page. ]]> http://www.russellmoore.com/2012/04/08/hebrews-58-9-2/feed/ Russell D. Moore This sermon from Hebrews 5:8-9 was originally preached on Sunday, December 4, 2011 at Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky. You can find more sermons and other audio from Dr. Moore at our media page. 00:31:26 Media,Preaching,Audio,Hebrews 5,Russell D. Moore http://www.russellmoore.com/2012/04/06/hebrews-58-9/ http://www.russellmoore.com/2012/04/06/hebrews-58-9/#comments Fri, 06 Apr 2012 12:00:12 +0000 Russell D. Moore http://www.russellmoore.com/?p=8651

This sermon from Hebrews 5:8-9 was originally preached on Sunday, November 27, 2011 at Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky. You can find more sermons and other audio from Dr. Moore at our media page. ]]> http://www.russellmoore.com/2012/04/06/hebrews-58-9/feed/ Russell D. Moore This sermon from Hebrews 5:8-9 was originally preached on Sunday, November 27, 2011 at Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky. You can find more sermons and other audio from Dr. Moore at our media page. 00:34:05 Media,Preaching,Audio,Hebrews 5,Russell D. Moore http://www.russellmoore.com/2012/04/04/romans-118-21/ http://www.russellmoore.com/2012/04/04/romans-118-21/#comments Wed, 04 Apr 2012 12:00:29 +0000 Russell D. Moore http://www.russellmoore.com/?p=8648

This sermon from Romans 1:18-21 was originally preached on Sunday, November 20, 2011 at Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky. You can find more sermons and other audio from Dr. Moore at our media page. ]]> http://www.russellmoore.com/2012/04/04/romans-118-21/feed/ Russell D. Moore This sermon from Romans 1:18-21 was originally preached on Sunday, November 20, 2011 at Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky. You can find more sermons and other audio from Dr. Moore at our media page. 00:26:47 Media,Preaching,Audio,Romans 1,Russell D. Moore http://www.russellmoore.com/2012/04/02/2-kings-617/ http://www.russellmoore.com/2012/04/02/2-kings-617/#comments Mon, 02 Apr 2012 12:57:10 +0000 Russell D. Moore http://www.russellmoore.com/?p=8642

This sermon from 2 Kings 6:17 was originally preached on Sunday, November 6, 2011 at Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky. You can find more sermons and other audio from Dr. Moore at our media page. ]]> http://www.russellmoore.com/2012/04/02/2-kings-617/feed/ Russell D. Moore This sermon from 2 Kings 6:17 was originally preached on Sunday, November 6, 2011 at Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky. You can find more sermons and other audio from Dr. Moore at our media page. 00:35:21 Media,Preaching,2 Kings 6,Audio,Preaching,Russell D. Moore http://www.russellmoore.com/2012/03/15/should-i-divorce-if-im-miserable/ http://www.russellmoore.com/2012/03/15/should-i-divorce-if-im-miserable/#comments Thu, 15 Mar 2012 17:14:27 +0000 Russell D. Moore http://www.russellmoore.com/?p=8602 Dear Dr. Moore,

My wife and I are at an impasse. There’s been no abandonment, no sexual immorality, and no abuse. We just don’t get along. We shouldn’t have married. We should have known we are incompatible. I know God hates divorce but I don’t have any other option. My pastor and some Christian counselors have told me that while God hates divorce, this is the lesser of two evils because God doesn’t want me to be miserable.  What do you think?

Married but Miserable

Dear Miserable,

Here’s what I think (and I’m paraphrasing a pastor friend of mine here). With “Christian” pastors and counselors like these, who needs demons?

Divorce isn’t about you, and it’s not just about your marriage. Divorce is the repudiation of a covenant. It doesn’t start anything over again. It instead defaces the icon God has embedded in the creation of the union between Christ and his church (Eph. 5:22-31) .

I do believe that there are exceptions to Jesus’ prohibition against divorce: namely unrepentant sexual immorality or abandonment by a gospel-repudiating spouse. Neither of these, according to you, are present here and so you do not have reason to leave.

I plead with you to reconsider this and to understand that when you give account before the Judgment Seat of Christ, these “counselors” you have around you will not be present, and their cowardly justifications for sin will ring quite hollow.

Does God want you to be miserable? Long-term, no. And that’s why God has designed marriage as a life-long covenant signaling the gospel of Jesus Christ. In the long-term, God wants you to be deliriously happy. But by long-term, I mean the next trillion years, and beyond. In the short-term, one often must bear difficulty and, yes, even misery. Remaining faithful to a wife you wish you hadn’t married might seem miserable to you, but taking up a cross and following Jesus is “miserable,” in the short-run. That’s why the Book of Hebrews presents the life of faith in terms of not receiving what was promised (Heb. 11:39), but seeing it and embracing it from afar.

If you take the nuclear option of divorce off the table, you might find that you and your wife have more reason to seek help with your problems and make this work. But even if your marriage never becomes what you thought it might be, it is worth it to stand by your words and maintain fidelity to the wife of your youth.

What God has joined together, let no man separate (Mk. 10:9). And that includes the “shepherds” whose craven counsel leads to simply more chewable  mutton for the wolves.

But I think adoption and orphan care have to be more organic than that, and I think there are some realities this move forms beyond the question of orphans and families themselves. This short video explains why.

Russell Moore from Christian Alliance for Orphans on Vimeo.

By the way, if you can, join Rick and Kay Warren, Dennis Rainey, Francis Chan, Steven Curtis Chapman, and me for the Orphan Summit VIII at Saddleback Church May 3-4 of this year.

Not long ago, my doctor prescribed me as having a (relatively) mild form of depression. He put me on an anti-depressant. I hate the side effects, and I don’t like the way it makes me feel, but maybe I’ll get used to it. My biggest struggle is whether it is right to be on these at all. If I have the Holy Spirit, why do I need this drug? Is it ethical for a Christian to take drugs like this?

Dazed and Confused

Dear Dazed,

First of all, you are right to seek medical help. Depression is not just unpleasant; it can be debilitating and dangerous, and it signals that something has gone wrong somewhere. Here are some things to think about.

God created us as whole persons, with body and psyche together. The body affects the psyche. Going without food, for example, or sleep will change the way one thinks or feels dramatically. And the psyche affects the body. We don’t “have” bodies or “have” psyches. We are psychosomatic whole persons, made in the image of God.

It makes sense to me that biological and physiological factors often play a role in persons not seeing reality correctly. Some drugs can “fix” something that’s gone wrong. For example, a malfunctioning thyroid can be corrected by synthetic drugs that prompt the body to do what it’s designed to do. Most of the anti-depressants you see advertised on television don’t “fix” something, as much as they alleviate symptoms. They rework levels of serotonin or dopamine reception, for instance, so that a person doesn’t experience the same levels of sadness or dullness or hopelessness.

Often, even when depression or anxiety is rooted in non-physiological reasons, the person is so far gone that medication is necessary to start working on the root issues. But, remember, for most people, there is no drug that will bring about psychic flourishing. What the drug is meant to do is to “numb” the person to the pain of depression and anxiety.

Numbing, as part of an overall plan, can be a good thing. When I have a toothache, I want my dentist to give me an anesthetic so that I don’t feel that throbbing anymore. Before my tooth can be fixed, someone must “shut down” the agony I’m in, temporarily. But a dentist who simply “treats” my infected tooth with an anesthetic isn’t helping me. Ultimately, the tooth must be fixed.

It could be that your depression and anxiety is caused by something physiological. If so, continue your medical treatment and have that looked at. But it could be that there’s a reason for the sadness or the anxiety. Maybe you’ve recently lost a spouse or a job or a friend. If so, grieve over that loss. Maybe you’re anxious about a guilty conscience or about an uncertain future. Don’t just medicalize that anxiety. Rehearse the gospel you’ve embraced, and pray, alone and with others, and seek the kind of counsel that can bring about the necessary life-change to cope with whatever seems so hopeless right now.

Whether your depression is ultimately chemical or circumstantial, it is also important, I think, to start with a realistic picture of what “normal” is, what your end goal should look like. I know I have trouble seeing this clearly sometimes.

The “normal” human life isn’t what is marketed to us by the pharmaceutical industry or by the lives we see projected on movie screens, or, frankly, by a lot of Christian sermons and praise songs. The normal human life is the life of Jesus of Nazareth, who sums up in himself everything it means to be human (Eph. 1:10). And the life of Christ presented to us in the Gospels is a life of joy, of fellowship, of celebration, but also of loneliness, of profound sadness, of lament, of grief, of anger, of suffering, all without sin.

As the Holy Spirit conforms us to the image of Christ, we don’t become giddy, or, much less, emotionally vacant. Instead, the Bible tells us we “groan” along with the persecuted creation around us (Rom. 8:23). We cry out with Jesus himself, experiencing with him often the agony of Gethsemane (Gal. 4:6; Mk. 14:36). And, paradoxically, along the way, we join Jesus in joy and peace (Gal. 5:22). A human emotional life is complicated, and a regenerated human emotional life is complicated too.

If your doctors are trying to get you to this kind of emotional holism, good. But if what you’re expecting is a kind of all-the-time emotional tranquility, you just might be passing up something that is part of the human condition itself.

There are some Christians who believe any psychiatric drug is a spiritual rejection of the Bible’s authority. I’m not one of them. But there are other Christians who seem to think, with the culture around us, that everything is material and can be solved by material means. I don’t think that’s right either.

Keep working with your doctors to treat your depression. If you’re not happy with the treatment or with the side-effects, seek some additional medical opinion, and listen for wisdom in a multitude of counselors. As you note in your question, sometimes the side-effects of these drugs are awful. Communicate with your doctor, and read up to ask the right kinds of questions.

But spend time too with those who know you and love you, and ask if there’s more behind this than simply serotonin reception. God doesn’t want you to be simply, in the words of one observer of the current pharmacological utopianism, “comfortably numb.” He wants you to be whole.

Your Skeleton is Safe: Signs of Hope in a Cross-Bearing Life from Southern Seminary on Vimeo.

This sermon, “Your Skeleton is Safe: Signs of Hope in a Cross-Bearing Life” (John 19:16-36), was originally preached at Alumni Chapel at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary on Thursday, August 25, 2011. You can find more sermons and other audio from Dr. Moore at our media page.

Dear Dr. Moore,

In the middle of my premarital counseling with our pastor, I found out that my fiance has had, what he calls, ongoing struggles with pornography. I was kind of floored by this because I hadn’t known anything about it until now. One of the things that drew me to this man was his call to gospel ministry.

I remember your question you answered earlier about finding out about a future spouse’s past, but this, to me, is a little further down the road in the process and more is immediately at stake. Can you help me know what to do? Should I just go forward, or what? How will I know that this is sufficiently addressed? And I don’t have much time because the wedding is right around the corner.

Sincerely,
Engaged and Confused

1 Samuel 4:1-22 from Southern Seminary on Vimeo.

This sermon, “Repentance, Not Rebranding: The Horrible Mercy of Owning Your Shame” (1 Sam. 4:1-22), was originally preached at Alumni Chapel at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary on Thursday, October 13, 2011. You can find more sermons and other audio from Dr. Moore at our media page.

Last week while speaking at Princeton I had a chance to sit on the firing line with my favorite professor of jurisprudence, Robert P. George. He’s not just a brilliant legal theorist and the leading voice on natural law and ethics in the nation, he also knows more about country music than I do. And plays Banjo.

We spoke at the James Madison Program’s event, “Faith in America: The Role of Religion in the Public Square.” We talked about evangelicals and politics, the centrality of the church, natural law, the meaning of sola Scriptura—and even, briefly, the extent of the atonement.

You can watch the video of our conversation, posted above (with permission from the James Madison Program). You can also listen to the audio of our conversation, which is posted above, as well.