Russell Moore on Divided Churches and Double Standards
Political party leaders will jump at opportunities to denounce immoral behavior from the other party, but morality often takes a back seat when the topic is their own party.
A frequently cited example has been the reactions of many Democrat Party leaders and women's groups after President Bill Clinton had a sexual relationship with an intern and lied about it both in a speech to the American public and while under oath. These leaders, who had spoken out with a strong voice against Justice Clarence Thomas and Senator Bob Packwood after allegations of sexual harassment, spoke with a weak voice against Clinton.
Today, the Party is different but the situational ethics are the same.
A jury found former President Donald Trump was liable for sexual abuse and defamation. The response from Republican party leaders can collectively be described as a big yawn. Trump's response was to continue defaming the woman he assaulted (for which he might get sued again).
Christianity Today Editor-in-Chief Russell Moore was asked Sunday on Meet the Press about this double-standard and how it ties into the current split among evangelicals.
... what's so confusing to many of us who were taught in the 1990s that character matters and are now told by often the very same people that it doesn't. Evangelical Christianity emphasizes that the internal affects the external and the fact that a person, a person’s character in private, has everything to do with his or her character in public. That has always been the case, and that's always been the issue here is: does character matter, or does it not?
Moore also noted the trickle down effects of accepting and in some cases celebrating Trump's immorality:
Well, think about the teenage girl in a church somewhere who's being abused by her youth pastor wondering whether to come forward. And she hears not only that, but when the victim is ridiculed by a presidential candidate in front of a crowd, the response is laughter. That has devastating implications.
When asked if evangelicals would support Trump again, Moore said Trump is
one of the reasons why we see churches divided. We see families divided. I mean, one of the most dismaying aspects of the Trump years is the fact that Donald Trump is at the center of everything. Almost every congregation that I know is either divided or tense about these sorts of political controversies coming out of the Trump years. Almost every family that I know has people who don't speak to each other anymore about this personality and this figure. And I think there are a lot of people, including conservative evangelicals like me, who are looking at this and saying, “Are we really going to do this again? Haven't we seen this already? Do we really want to repeat it?” And I suppose that will be the question for the rest of the year.
Watch the whole thing.
Christian Nationalism
Kenneth Woodward, former religion editor for Newsweek, raised some questions about how Christian nationalism is measured in an op-ed for The Washington Post.
Opinion surveys have their uses, but not when they produce stereotypes and scapegoats. I learned nothing from these polls about the kinds of work that white Christian nationalists are apt to do, where they fit in terms of income, education or social class. Worse, I cannot hear their voices, much less listen to their anger or their dreams.
In another op-ed on Christian Nationalism, NYT columnist Michelle Goldberg went to the ReAwaken America Tour in Miami that I wrote about last week and sees two types of Christian nationalism emerging in the GOP presidential field.
What’s not yet clear, though, is what sort of Christian nationalism will prevail: the elite, doctrinaire variety of candidates like Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, or the violently messianic version embodied by Flynn and Trump.
American Orbanism
Conservative Washington Post columnist and Ethics and Public Policy Center Senior Fellow Henry Olsen warned conservatives to stop embracing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. "Orban not only has a concerning authoritarian tilt, but his brand of nationalism simply will not translate well to American voters," Olsen wrote.
Truth Social Merger With Porn Bank?
The SEC is holding up a proposed merger between Trump's media company and a Caribbean bank that makes money from the online porn industry. The bank's owner, Anton Postolnikiov, is the nephew of a former deputy justice minister for the Russian government. In a statement, the bank denied it was “in any manner involved in ‘money laundering’ or loaning out Russian funds."