Growing Up in Mississippi: Family, Church, and Birth Order

Even as a young child, Dr. Russell Moore was always in a church pew. That strong seed of faith and biblical knowledge has provided him with the firm foundation needed to navigate complex ethical and leadership issues throughout his ministry. And amid the trials, questions, and ever-changing culture, one truth that Russell has leaned on is how God continues His good work even in the long term and heartache.

Guest Bio:

Russell Moore is Editor-in-Chief of Christianity Today and is the author of the upcoming book Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call for Evangelical America (Penguin Random House).

The Wall Street Journal has called Moore “vigorous, cheerful, and fiercely articulate.” He was named in 2017 to Politico Magazine’s list of top fifty influence-makers in Washington D.C. and has been profiled by such publications as the New York Times, the Washington Post, TIME magazine, and the New Yorker.

An ordained Baptist minister, Moore served previously as President of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and, before that, as the chief academic officer and dean of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he also taught theology and ethics.

Moore was a Fellow at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics and currently serves on the board of Becket Law and as a Senior Fellow with the Trinity Forum in Washington, D.C.

He also hosts the weekly podcast The Russell Moore Show and is co-host of Christianity Today’s weekly news and analysis podcast, The Bulletin.

Russell was President of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention from 2013 to 2021. Before that role, Moore served as provost and dean of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, where he also taught theology and ethics.

A native Mississippian, he and his wife Maria are the parents of five sons. They live in Nashville, where he teaches the Bible at their congregation, Immanuel Church.

Notes & Quotes:

• “[Some will say] ‘Well, there's a golden age back there in the past and somebody's keeping us away from it and we've got to get back to it.’ And the stakes are so high that we can morally adjust in order to get there. And I think biblical eschatology, you know, is calling us away from all of that.” 
• “I think I had a sense of the way that God works in the long term, which is often to bring a kind of crisis and then to rebuild and recreate out of that. And that's what you see are communities that are broken up, but then new communities that are reformed and are coming together.”
• “You know, nobody would choose to go through that, but nobody would choose to go through any crisis in his or her life. But almost everybody, if you say, where are the times that God has really been active in ways that have changed your life, it's usually in a time of crisis that they would have never chosen.”

Links Mentioned:

• FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
• Learn more about Russell’s current role as editor-in-chief with Christianity Today.
• Listen to Russell’s podcast, The Russell Moore Show, on your preferred podcast platform. 
• Check out Russell’s latest book, Losing Our Religion, on Amazon. 
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