Russell Moore show

Russell Moore

Summary: A weekly podcast by Russell Moore discussing religious and cultural themes in country music.

Join Now to Subscribe to this Podcast
  • Visit Website
  • RSS
  • Artist: Russell D. Moore
  • Copyright: Copyright 2013, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

Podcasts:

 Signposts – Special Episode: A Q&A on The Storm-Tossed Family | File Type: image/png | Duration: Unknown

This episode of Signposts features a recent conversation I had with my colleague, Brent Leatherwood, about my new book, The Storm-Tossed Family: How the Cross Reshapes the Home. I wanted to highlight this conversation to offer a preview of the book ahead of its release on September 15. I’m particularly excited about this project because I believe this book has something important to say to people in every stage of life. This is a book about the cross. This is a book about the family. But whether you are married or single, whether you long for a child or you’re shepherding a full house, you are part of a family. Family is difficult because family—every family—is an echo of the gospel. The book is available for pre-order through the link above. I hope that you’ll enjoy this conversation, and for those who read The Storm-Tossed Family, it is my prayer that God will use this book to keep your focus on the cross as you weather the ups and downs of life. Listen above, and be sure to subscribe to get new episodes of Signposts as they are released. The post Signposts – Special Episode: A Q&A on The Storm-Tossed Family appeared first on Russell Moore.

 My Favorite Books of 2017 | File Type: image/jpeg | Duration: Unknown

Each December I post for you my favorite reads of the past year. This is not a “working list,” so I try as best I can to avoid theological or “ministry” books (though this year there were a few unavoidable exceptions). I don’t claim that these are necessarily the “best” books of the year, just that they are books that I both enjoyed and that made me think. Often I can see that visibly by the number of book flags protruding from the pages, marking passages I will want to ponder again. These books carried such flags like a United Nations building. The books are in no particular order other than where I found them on the shelf as I was writing this. 1) Eugene H. Peterson, As Kingfishers Catch Fire: A Conversation on the Ways of God Formed by the Words of God (Waterbrook) Some of you will want to pass this book by when you see that it is a collection of sermons. Don’t. This is, in my view, Peterson’s best book, in his long lifetime of writing good books. Peterson is at his best when forcing the reader to confront old truths from a different, sometimes jarring, perspective. His discussion, for instance, on the Beatitudes calls the reader to consider that nobody in the ancient world expected to be happy. Tragedy was the defining feature of life. If one was happy, one wished to hide that fact, for fear that the gods would punish one for acting like one of them. Into that world, God brought the idea of blessing—an idea both at odds with ancient tragedy and with modern emotional entitlement. Peterson is an artisanal metaphor-maker, with images that will stay with you for years. My favorite is his discussion of vulnerability in terms of skeletal structure. Peterson notes that creatures with exoskeletons (crabs and beetles) are advantaged at first, protected from the outside world. We creatures with skeletons on the inside are much more vulnerable to harm at first (think of a baby or a kitten). The beetle loses his advantage because while it survives, it doesn’t develop. Vulnerable creatures are less likely at first to survive, but, if they do, they develop far beyond their protected counterparts. As Jesus would say, “Therein is a parable.” My favorite passage is from where Peterson expresses how fed up he is with Jane Austen’s Emma, for the unsatisfactory choices the character is making: “Just as I get thoroughly fed up at times with God’s Eugene. God created me and inserted me as a character in the story of salvation. Sometimes I don’t like the position I have in the plot. I don’t like what I do and say. I don’t like what other people do and say to me. I don’t like the way things are going at all, and I get angry with the author. ‘If you are writing a story of salvation, surely you can make it more satisfactory than this!’ And then I get interrupted by Isaiah 35.” 2) Christian Wiman, Joy: 100 Poems (Yale University Press) Like Peterson’s example of “blessing,” joy is a word we don’t easily understand in our context, conflating it with the sort of perpetual emotional exuberance to which we believe we are entitled. C.S. Lewis, of course, defined joy in a way that is more akin to longing than to whatever we define as “happiness.” This collection of poems takes up the challenge of picturing such joy to us in lyrical form. The poems are well chosen, many of them haunting. The best part of the book, though, is Wiman’s introduction. He notes how strange joy seems in a world filled with suffering, a strangeness no less true for “those early audiences of Paul and others, many of whom might very well have made their way home past rows of crucified corpses designed specifically to eradicate all cause for any insurrectionist hope or joy.” 3) Alan Jacobs, How to Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds (Currency) In an incredibly stupid time, this …

 What I’m Reading | File Type: image/jpeg | Duration: Unknown

Every once in a while, I give a report here on what I’m currently reading. Keep in mind; this is not (necessarily) an endorsement of these books, just a note on what’s on my nightstand at the moment. These are some of the books I’ve been reading since my last report.     Winds of Heaven, Stuff of Earth: Spiritual Conversations Inspired by the Life & Lyrics of Rich Mullins Andrew Greer and Randy Cox I picked up this new book after attending a concert at the Ryman Auditorium here in Nashville, put together and led by my friend Andrew Peterson, celebrating the life and legacy of Rich Mullins. This book was referenced at the event and I’ve been reading through it. Fellow Mullins fans will find reflections on his life and art by people who knew and performed with him. It is interesting to contemplate what—twenty years after his death—Mullins would have been up to in 2017, and what he would have thought of contemporary American evangelical culture.     Cheap Sex: The Transformation of Men, Marriage, and Monogamy Mark Regnerus Reading this book gave me flashbacks to reading Ray Ortlund’s book, Whoredom, many years ago, neither of which I felt comfortable reading on a plane. This book, like Ortlund’s, is excellent. Regnerus applies an economic model to his sociological data on what’s happening to marriage. He does not shy away from very difficult truths about the scene before us. The last chapter includes his predictions for the future and is for the most part jarring although convincing. If you do any sort of ministry at all (and all of us should be), you will want to reference this book.     In the Swarm: Digital Prospects Byung-Chul Han This short little philosophical reflection on digital culture is mind-changing and mind-blowing. Han addresses such topics as anonymity in social media concluding, “Respect is tied to names. Anonymity and respect rule each other out.” He also expertly deconstructs social media outrage by noting that it cannot be sung. Referencing the Iliad, he argues that rage “can be sung.” He further argues, “digital outrage cannot be sung. It admits neither action nor narration. Instead, it is an affective condition devoid of the power to act.” Let he who has an ear, let him hear.     Autumn Karl Ove Knausgaard I first started reading this author with his multivolume autobiographical series, My Struggle, after hearing it recommended on Brian Koppelman’s The Moment podcast. I couldn’t imagine that I could find something as long and as seemingly mundane as an autobiography translated into English to be appealing, but Koppelman was right. Knausgaard often provides jarring insights into the human condition. This is the first in a series of books related to the seasons, and happens to start with my favorite of the seasons. The author writes, from the very beginning, a letter to his unborn daughter about the mysteries of human existence. It is, so far, a life-affirming and inspiring reflection.     Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process John McPhee I love to read books about writing when they are done well such Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird or Stephen King’s On Writing. This book was especially appealing to me because it lays out McPhee’s process. I am writing a book right now and I tend to hate my writing all the way through to the very end. At several points, I always consider scrapping the entire project; I am at that moment now. McPhee’s book is a reminder that this is just how writing works.       World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech Franklin Foer I tend to be wary of jeremiads against technology for the same reasons that I tend to be skeptical of many evangelical end times prophecy books. I picked up this volume because of my interest in the drama which took place several years ago when Foer resig…

 The Cross and Jukebox – “Live Like You Were Dying” by Tim McGraw | File Type: application/xml; charset=UTF-8 | Duration: Unknown

Russell Moore discusses Tim McGraw's song “Live Like You Were Dying,” and the difference between living as if your days are numbered vs. the “bucket list” mentality.

 The Cross and the Jukebox: Rich Mullins – Hard to Get | File Type: application/xml; charset=UTF-8 | Duration: Unknown

“Are you really there? Do you really hear me? How long, Lord, will you allow this to happen?” These are the questions the late Rich Mullins asks in his song, “Hard to Get.” In a tone that sounds almost disrespectful, Mullins seems to be pressing Jesus to prove he has not lost touch with his own humanity. Join me on this week's “The Cross and the Jukebox” as we delve into the depths of Mullins' questioning that God is there, and listening, in the midst of his doubts and despair—and how the gospel offers peace and comfort even in the midst of our deepest anguish.

 Cross and the Jukebox: Rascal Flatts – Mayberry | File Type: application/xml; charset=UTF-8 | Duration: Unknown

“Memory is hunger,” Ernest Hemingway once said, and I think he's right. In every era, we battle the pull of nostalgia. We tend to overlook the grace and glory of the present, and ignore the brutality and banality of the past. It's easy to imagine that we'd all be better off if we could just get back to the perceived “good ole days” of our our pasts. This week on “The Cross and the Jukebox” we'll examine this tendency as we think through the Rascal Flatts' song “Mayberry,” and ask why it is that people tend to long for a perceived golden era. As we do, we'll consider the way the gospel shows us that we're made for nostalgia, but nostalgia of a different kind—not for an idealized past, but instead for a future, for a kingdom, for life eternal in a world made right.

 Cross and the Jukebox: You Can’t Make Old Friends | File Type: application/xml; charset=UTF-8 | Duration: Unknown

We live in an age where, increasingly, being someone’s friend is little more than exchanging information on a computer screen, or entails little more than the casual nod of a head when passing in the hall. When Jesus calls us “friends” (John 15:15), though, surely he means something more than what we often do. This week on “The Cross and the Jukebox,” we’ll consider the song that upholds the meaningfulness of genuine, time-tested friendship, “You Can’t Make Old Friends” by Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton. Join us, then, as we listen to this song, and as we consider how friendship is both a gift from God and a reminder for those of us in Christ that it points ahead to the age to come—where will be reunited with loved ones and united together in friendship and life for eternity.

 “The One On The Right Is On The Left” by Johnny Cash | File Type: | Duration: Unknown

What do you mean when you say the word “we”? Who are you primarily talking about? Your team? Your generation? Your political affiliation? A friend of mine asked that question not long ago, and listening to a Johnny Cash song I was reminded of the question once more. This song, “The One on the Right Is on the Left,” is a playful song that tells the story of a folk group that falls apart because of “political incompatibilty.” But it points, I think, to a larger issue—the way many of us find our identity not in Christ but in our political affiliation. Listen with me, then, as we think about this song, and how the gospel calls us to engage the culture, but to view issues with a prophetic distance, as “we,” the body of Christ, find our identity, not in a party platform, but rather, an empty tomb.

 “Stand by Your Man” by Tammy Wynette | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 00:35:48

Hillary Clinton famously said, in the midst of questions about her husband’s fidelity, “I’m not some Tammy Wynette, standin’ by my man.” Wynette was offended, prompting an apology from the future Secretary of State to the Queen of Country Music. Clinton, of course, meant no insult to Wynette. Her point was that, whatever the problems […]

 “Suspicious Minds” by Elvis Presley | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 00:21:54

This week marks the commemoration of the death of Elvis Presley, for those of us who believe he’s really dead. It also marks the return of “The Cross and the Jukebox,” the first since we made our transition from Southern Seminary to the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. So I decided to put the two […]

Comments

Login or signup comment.