Speaker 1Darrell Bock This episode is brought to you in part by The Table Podcast from the Hendricks Center at Dallas Theological Seminary. I'm Darrell Bock, one of the hosts, and I invite you to join us as we discuss issues of God and culture, which includes anything and everything. Listen on your podcast app or at dts.edu slash thetable.
Speaker 2You do not need hope for what you have evidence to basically explain or experience. You need hope when the evidence is against you.
Speaker 3Hello, this is Russell Moore, and this is The Russell Moore Show brought to you by Christianity Today. Here, we look for signposts in a strange time by standing fast to what really matters. Kingdom over culture wars, truth over tribalism, pilgrimage over partisanship, sanity over cynicism, witness over winning, and Christ over everything. Today we have a conversation to do just that. Back when I was a youth pastor, there was a young woman who came to see me. She wanted to become a Christian. Actually, she said, what I'd like to do is to go to heaven. And she said, and here's the deal that I want. I want to be able to have sex with whoever I want to have sex with, get drunk on the weekends, do a little weed, and basically kind of run my own life, but then go to heaven at the end. And I said, well, Jesus isn't offering. He's not offering us a deal here. It actually is, there's a little more entailed in come and follow me. And so we had this conversation for a long time, but she found somebody who was willing to say, okay, I'll give you that deal. You just pray this prayer, and then after that, do what you want. And she did. And in that is a lot of the tragedy of American Christianity. And what I've noticed ever since being a youth pastor is that there are a lot of people who, who want to try to find that exact same deal, except as it applies to the moral questions that they define as justice issues, as though there were some division between morality and justice in scripture. And that's why I wanted to talk today to Dr. Charlie Dates, who has written a really interesting new book called What Hath Justice to Do with Righteousness? Reclaiming the Intersection of Protestants. Test and prayer to ask what is going on in American Christianity and in the American church, and where is it going? And also, how can we engage in justice issues and doctrinal fortitude without losing our souls in the process? Charlie Dates, of course, is the pastor of both Progressive Baptist Church and Salem Baptist. Church in Chicago. I have no idea how. These are two huge, very influential congregations. He manages to be able to do all of that with multiple different ministries going on at the same time. He holds an MDiv and a PhD in historical theology from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He's a co-chair of the Wheaton College Billy Graham Center Preaching Institute. He has written many things, spoken in many places. I think I have known him for a long time. I think I have known him for a long time. I think I have known him for a long time. I think I have known him for a long time. I think I have known him for a long time. I think I have known him for a long time. I think I have known him for a long time. I think I have known him for a long time. I think I have known Charlie Dates for almost 10 years. We have done some events together over the years and worked on several projects together. And I always, always enjoy what he has to say. Charlie Dates, thanks for being with us today.
Speaker 2No, thank you, Dr. Moore, for the invitation. And it's good to see you, even if on the screen. Yeah. It's good to behold your face.
Speaker 3Well, I am wondering if you can help me test out a theory. Yeah. Yeah. Based on what you have done in working on this book. One of the things that I've noticed, and I've noticed it not just in kind of in conversations, but I've noticed it looking back over history, is there's a certain kind of shell game that takes place where you can have the same person can say, well, we need to be engaged in politics and righteousness and morality when that supports whatever. It's not just the political movement that they're supporting. And then when an issue comes up that doesn't affect that, that same person can turn around and say, oh, you want to distract the gospel with politics and these social questions, justice questions. And so you can look back and I can even see this in the 19th century where you'll have some of the same people say, no, no, no, no. We want to have a spiritual church, which means we can't address these. Yeah. Yeah. Tangential issues like human slavery. Yes. Yes. But actually, that is what's propping up the actual political agenda they want to follow. So it just seems to me it's almost a game. Is my theory right or wrong?
Speaker 2I think you're more right than wrong. And I think history will bear you up. My concise way, perhaps, to answer that is that American Christianity tends to be more. American than it does Christian. And the challenge is it's in an unholy wedlock with the empire, with politics. And it has lost some of its prophetic dexterity and fortitude, not because the faith does not call us to engage the public square, but because we have been afraid to turn in on our own tribe, our own camps, and to declare, thus saith the Lord. That's one of the strange things about the book of Amos to me. Amos is a justice prophet, if we could use that language. But he's actually not declaring ruin to unbelievers. He's declaring woe to those who claim the name of the Lord. And he's saying it's on you that the scales are unjust. And I think we have in America, historically, the dominant voices of the Christian witness have failed to turn its cannons on its own tribe and say, we are wrong. And so where it is convenient, therefore, like if I may use a name, I don't want to get nobody in trouble. But Dr. Jerry Falwell was noted as being against the church doesn't need to speak into these issues of segregation and these issues of bootlegging and these political things that are evil. And that was at the same time that like the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is marching for the right to vote. But just about a decade or so. So later, Dr. Falwell turns up and starts to erect what became known as the moral majority. So just it seems like there is this opportunistic when it is convenient for the American preacher, pioneer and Christian, we will speak into those issues that are favorable to us. That's why I think it's more American.
Speaker 3Do you think that this is because of I've mentioned this here before? I remember several years ago being. Asked in a Q&A, Tim Keller and I were both on the panel. They said, what? Tell us, what are your blind spots? And Tim said, well, if we knew what our blind spots were, they would be. Do you think that this is something that is unintentional, that you have people who just aren't seeing the inconsistency? They're reading Amos and they just don't see it. Or is it strategic?
Speaker 2That's one of the best questions I've had. And I want to be delicate in how I respond. I think it's both because in every iteration, even in Amos' day, there have been voices that have cried out from the margin to tell people this is what God's standard is. So the challenge in American theology and American Christianity is that theology, the formulation of doctrine, the relationship between those things lead to very different emphasis depending upon who's doing it. So if you're preaching. If you're a preacher, if the people you listen to come mainly from the same social system or cast from what you do, then it's likely that the emphasis of their interpretation and yours will bend in a certain direction. So we need the broader voices of the church to round out this rich, robust theology so that we don't miss the obvious. Because truth is, Dr. Moore, you've written some stuff that has set my bookshelf on fire. I was thinking about this the other day, but I needed that voice. The voice of Christina Edmondson. I need the voices of people who widen out that broader spectrum, as it were. And that keeps it from being malicious. If not, then yes, we are intentionally building the rut of a tribe. So I do think you have a lot of people in America who call in the faith of Christ, but they're only listening to the same white men. No offense. Or they're only listening to the same black men. No offense. We're not listening to one another so that somebody could say, no, this is how Amos looks today. And we get a fresh understanding of application.
Speaker 3Don't you think one of the issues, not the only issue, but one of the issues is how many people are even listening to Amos? I mean, one of the things that I find if I just kind of look around is I've got people who seem to. only be preaching from Pauline epistles and from the most doctrinally focused aspects of the Pauline epistles, but don't ever, don't ever look at the prophets.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 3Or if they do, they take a little piece out of Isaiah, a little piece, but don't actually preach through it.
Speaker 2Yeah. I want to ask you, why do you think that is? You're an academician. I have an idea, but as one who has trained pastors and preachers, why do you think that happens?
Speaker 3Well, I think one of the reasons is what we've already been talking about. There's a lot of really uncomfortable things that have to be said. I mean, I heard years ago about an associate pastor at a very, very wealthy congregation who they were preaching through the minor prophets, kind of one at a time, just kind of an overview. And he preached on Amos, and he was gone. Wow. Because there's no way to talk about Amos without talking about some really uncomfortable things. I think it's part of it. But the other part of it is I think people don't know how, because Pauline epistles are kind of point, sub-point, sub-sub-point. That's the only way they know how to preach. And so even if they preach a psalm, they kind of translate it into a Pauline epistle before they preach it. They don't know how to do it.
Speaker 2That's right.
Speaker 3And so they just never get confronted with it. I think that's part of it, too.
Speaker 2So let me give you my angle on it. We work with this group called Tuskegee Next. It is in our area. It is remarkable. A nonprofit organization that's seeking to raise up young pilots of color. And so we were shooting a promo for it. And I got in one of these itty-bitty planes, man. I mean, uncomfortably small, you know, and went up at the DuPage County Airport and around. And I discovered with that cadet and with a professional captain that really you can fly through some rough elements. It is actually possible. But I didn't have... As a pilot, I did not have that experience because I'm used to flying with commercial airline pilots. And I think a lot of pastors are trained like commercial airline pilots to avoid turbulence, to avoid rough weather, to make the flight as comfortable as possible for the people who are paying our salaries. And it's a tragedy because life doesn't work without turbulence. We've seen this in our nation, all kind of tragic events that have come up that have made it turbulent. And the poor. And the whole pit has nothing to say. It just looks for smoother air when actually saying, no, church, we're up against something and this is where we need to go. So some of it is in our training. And I think an unequipped or an ill-equipped reader of scripture or pastor or preacher is going to avoid the uncomfortable passages. I try as a practice. I'm certainly not saying I'm the model, but I try to preach through the redemptive historical narrative by bouncing between genres. And the testaments, because one, it's a safeguard against my own assumptions. And if you're if you preach the text, man, sometimes the text will say some stuff that you go, well, that rails against my systematic theology. But God is bigger than the system that I put them in. And so it forces me into that space.
Speaker 3You know, one of the things that's interesting to me, Peter Berger did this study back in the early 60s, maybe late 50s. And one of the things that he demonstrated. Is that there would be a lot of white pastors in the Jim Crow South who theologically knew what was wrong with Jim Crow. Yeah. And yet what they would say to them, and he said, one of the big factors is, did they have a building program going on or did they have whatever? And so what you would say to yourself is, OK, I'm going to address this, but my people can't handle it yet. And if I talk about this, then they're just going to run me off. And I'm going to be replaced with somebody worse. And of course, what happens is, and you can see this even in Congress on other issues. What happens is there never comes a point where you say, OK, this really difficult conversation. Now is the time when everybody's ready to hear it and there's not going to be any turbulence that comes with it. How does somebody know if they're being cowardly and they're avoiding the turbulence? And if. If they're just playing the longer game and they're wanting to be patient with their people and how do they know?
Speaker 2That's why I wrote the book, because the righteousness of God demands a clarity for the Christian's voice in the public square. And so something that rails against the clear commands of Scripture and the sensitive, I guess, listening of people around us is an indication that that's time to speak. I'll give you an example. So a few years ago in Chicago, we had these migrants being just dropped here, bused here by the governor of Texas. I mean, with no coordination, just bus loads and plane loads. And those migrants who came here had no resources, food, shelter, any of that. And a lot of African-American people in Chicago were upset over the city's kind of commitment. And so we had to adjust the quality of life to make it fairer for these migrants until we could get them off somewhere else. So now I'm giving you an example of a time I had to show some courage. So I pastor, you know, two largely African-American congregations, and I got up right during Christmastime at, man, this is the quietest the Black church has ever been. And you didn't preach at this church before, so, you know, people will give you feedback. I got up and argued that out of Egypt, God had called his son. That even Jesus had to move. Geographically from his place of birth to where he was reared and back forth. And what if the people of Egypt had treated him in that way? Man, those people said on me, they did not want to hear it. But I knew when I went to bed that night that I did the right thing. And because I was not preaching for applause or response, I was preaching for results and transformation. So one way, you know, is when you have a clear reading of scripture and you're listening to the stories of people around you, listen, God doesn't need me if I'm not going to say, thus said the Lord. He doesn't. I mean, that was part of the, not the fine print, but the bold print. When you go in there, say what I tell you to say. And I think a lot of us miss the clear clarion moments of culture and society because we're not paying attention to how the clear reading of scripture interfaces with the circumstances that are going on in the world. Especially Dr. Moore. When they hurt our, quote, congregations or constituents.
Speaker 3How do you know how specific to be if we did this artificial division between morality and justice? Yeah. I mean, with moral issues, there are going to be some things that we speak to from the Bible directly. You shall not steal. Yeah. You know, and then there are going to be other things where we're going to talk in terms of principles. Right. But we're not necessarily going to say. How you approach it. So, you know, the Bible tells you to raise up your children in the fear of the Lord doesn't necessarily tell you how to do. Exactly. So how do we know when it comes to some of these questions? Okay. Here's the time when I get up and say this specific issue, the way these migrants are being treated by our government right now. And then when are the times when I say I'm going to speak to the broader principles, but I don't really have. The authority to talk about specifically how we ought to get to that goal. How do you determine that?
Speaker 2As a preacher, let me rush to say to you, I feel no pressure to be specific when I'm not clear. So I will remain in the lane of principle as long as I need to, because I think there's an element of faith. There's a reason why the scripture doesn't give us a myriad of specific things with our children, because you got to walk by faith in parenting them. You remember when Paul says in Romans chapter 12 and be not conformed to this world, that word world in Romans 12, one is not the word cosmos where we get kind of the physical nature. It's the word ion, which means age, that there's a pressure of the present age that has to be dealt with uniquely in the power of the spirit. And because the age shifts and some of the nuances of the age shifts. So does our application. And so does our preaching need to do so. But I will say, I'm not trying to do all my preaching in isolation. I'm working through my preaching in community. So I'm listening to and communicating with other voices to see where I may or may not be reading this particular situation appropriately. And then if I may, you call me back to castle or whatever, but I got the Holy Ghost. And so I'm trusting. I'm trusting the unction of the spirit of God to lead me in specific applications when that comes. But I feel no pressure because I think that's unfair, too, that, you know, every sermon has to bullet point six things we now must do in response to this issue. No, sometimes that robs people of the freedom to walk by faith and the challenge to walk by faith in how they live it out.
Speaker 3There are a lot of preachers who, if they speak to. even the most minimal question of justice their communities, even the most minimal ones, they're going to have, even if it's not the entire congregation, they may have 10% of the congregation who can make their lives so miserable that, you know, I mean, I see the same tactics go on all the time, which is people sometimes won't come right out and say, for instance, in a white church, won't come right out and say, we don't like what you're saying about justice for black people. But they'll wait until there's something where they can come in and say, well, we think the pastor's a Marxist.
Speaker 4Yes.
Speaker 3And then you keep finding all these things, they keep bringing it up because they know eventually the 90% of the congregation is just going to get exhausted. And then the issue is going to be, why is the pastor always so controversial? And so then that leader, that pastor... The pastor is just gone and a lot of times doesn't have the resources to be able to deal with it. I've been trying to rack my brain to think, is there anything that the rest of the church can do to support the pastor or the leader who's in rural Indiana and is wanting to preach through Amos and doesn't have a network of people behind him or her?
Speaker 2Well, before... Before I answer that, let me say to you, I wish they could come work for me. I do. I wish I had the resources there to help provide. I want to first applaud that pastor, Dr. Moore. And I want to say to you, you have the kind of fortitude and dexterity that America's preachers need right now. The fact that your heart is tender in that way. The other thing specifically I would say, and this is going to sound... Try it, but it's scripture and it's true. Be not weary in well-doing, for in due season, you will reap if you do not faint. There are five seasons, you know, it's winter, spring, summer, fall, and due. Due season is going to come. And some of this, we got to wait out. We have to preach the truth, even though it's uncomfortable in our current milieu, and wait for due season. I will tell you, Dr. Moore, too. I think this is why a lot of people... A lot of people are planting churches over against taking established churches, because you get to, in one sense, help establish the culture and the expectations in that regard. Established churches do their communities no favor by railing against and critiquing their pastors. Now, that's a general statement. That's not like there comes a time when you have to... But I mean, just in general, established churches need to... To see that that pastor doesn't work for them, they work for God, and they want that preacher to be free to speak God's Word. You don't want a Balaam, right? We need fewer Balaks in office, but we also need fewer Balaams in our pulpit. Preachers for sale. And that's basically what a lot of congregations are after. Who can we buy to tell us what we want to hear?
Speaker 3We're going to take a quick break. Stick around for the rest of the conversation.
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Speaker 3One of the things that I'm curious about, as you were writing this book, there seemed to be a little window of time where American Christianity you almost could say, it seems like maybe things are changing.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 3And then what did we end up with? We ended up with, I mean, I realized at one point that I was getting the exact same hate mail that a predecessor of mine named Foy Valentine used to get in the 60s when he was dealing with desegregation. Exact same arguments, exact same letters, except not, not the N-word, but everything else essentially the same. And you realize, wait a minute, is this still the same? When did you start to say, ah, maybe things aren't going to change?
Speaker 2Yeah. I hate to say that I had a healthy cynicism all along. This is going to be terrible, but let me say it this way. Maybe even a healthy hopelessness at one point. So when George Floyd was murdered and we were all at home, to the most part, because of COVID, and we were watching it, it had a kind of Bull Connor effect. When Bull Connor turned those hoses on of those kids and people were by their TV screens going, oh my gosh, this cannot be America. Well, the truth is, Dr. Moore, that's always been America. It just hadn't always been televised. And we have the uncanny ability, like the kings of the Old Testament, to cry out on the God when things are bad. And just when we feel like things are getting good, we turn right back to our idolatry. I can't, and as a church historian, I can't chart for you a period from 1619 until now, where the church seems to have walked in unity against moral issues that degradated people of color on the margins. I'm not talking about other moralists. I'm talking about that particular category. That's a shame on us to not be able to chart that kind of progress. And so I tell you that there's something about our comfort, our ease, our way of life that is more appealing for us to place our theology in that category than it is the discomfort. Last thing I'll tell you is I'm starting to notice fatigue among someone like the legendary Black voices that went hard in the lane of, you know, racial reconciliation in the last, say, 35, 40 years. And I don't want to call any names, but these are mainly the ones that I'm speaking of are men who gave their lives to some of these movements, who migrated into white evangelical institutions, and who, on the promise of brotherhood and sisterhood, pushed their way forward. And they are coming to tell me, Charlie, don't waste your time doing that. That's something that, that is striking. And they're not saying, don't waste your time trying to be a reconciler. They're just saying there seems to be a germ, a cancer within American Christianity that keeps reverting. As soon as you think it's going in remission, it pops right back up.
Speaker 3Yeah. What about this? I mean, I think of, for instance, Ta-Nehisi Coates, he did that famous debate with Thabiti Anyabwili about hope. Coates said, I don't have any hope. If you're somebody who's looking at all of this from the outside and you say, well, if there's never been a time when Christianity has been able to do the very thing that the New Testament describes as the mystery of the gospel itself, creating that one new transformed humanity, then why do we think the Holy Spirit's even real?
Speaker 2Well, and there's a big difference between Ta-Nehisi Coates and me on this issue. And one is I'm a believer. And hope is discovered in the very conditions that cause despair. You do not need hope for what you have evidence to basically explain or experience. You need hope when the evidence is against you, when despair has locked in. I mean, what hope did Abram have when God told him that he and Sarah were going to have children? He hoped against hope. And that's why I said the way that I said it, will be jarring. But there is this indefatigable living hope that 1 Peter describes that does not die. In fact, I want to die before my hope does. And being a believer in Jesus Christ gives me that assurance. It will outlive me. So we keep going. We keep at it. The other thing is, I had a young man come to me along these lines. He said, well, why are we even working on these things? Because, well, you can't chart any progress. And we should just focus on the gospel and getting people saved. And I looked at the brother. This was at a preaching conference down in Florida. And he was pretty swole. So I said, man, you look like you're working. He said, oh, pastor, you know this? Oh, man. He was like, I said, well, why are you working out? He said, well, look at me. I said, but you're dying. I said, we're all bending toward the grave. Yet you go to the gym and you put all of that work in. And he said, okay. So even though the world is bending toward, a place that seems dark and dangerous, we still work. on it. We still are salt and light because we know that this thing actually is going to point toward a bright and better future, according to Romans 8. All creation is groaning. The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed. So we keep
Speaker 3going. You know, one of the things I think a lot of us have grappled with is I remember kind of early on in my life when I met some of my heroes in the faith and got to know them and realized, oh man, these are, in some cases, not very spiritually mature people. And there's a kind of crisis that comes in and says, well, if all that's an illusion, then what does that tell me about the gospel? And sometimes then you say to yourself, are my expectations too high? Do I have this idealized picture? Of what people ought to be, where I don't realize that everybody's a sinner and so forth, or are my expectations just too low? You talk about in the book, people like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, and then you look back and you see some of the people, you say, man, these are people who could really, really preach this magnificent vision of God. And then underneath this is this horrible view toward people made in the Bible. And I think that's a really, really powerful view toward the image of God, which James tells us and John, both. First John, you can't hold both. How do we think about this?
Speaker 2Well, from the beginning of my pastoral ministry, really, I think even as far back as I was a child, and believe me when I tell you this, I was clear on the fact that everybody God uses is a jerk and a sinner. And actually, H.B. Charles has written that line. That's cleanly sums this up. Jesus Christ is the only picture of solid moral perfection. Every preacher, every pastor is made of clay feet. And so my hope can only go so far with human leaders, because we all have an expiration date on us. And I shudder to think, I mean, you know, I don't want to say too much here, Dr. Moore, but like, some of the thoughts I have had and some of the evil that has been lurking in my own corridors, so to speak, has had to be confronted. And I wouldn't want nobody finding out about that. So I got to look back at Whitfield. I got to look back at Edwards. I got to look back at Dr. King. I got to look back at everybody and thank God for how he used them. Let it bless me. And then not be afraid to separate the wheat from the chaff and to say, no, but they were wrong at this point. Because somebody's going to do that to me, especially now that the book is published. Somebody's going to look at that thing and say, oh, you know, Charlie was right about this, but he's wrong about that. And so you and I do ourselves a huge favor by taking even our heroes and our sheroes and going, they too are made of clay feet.
Speaker 3So you think there's a way to kind of profitably read, say, Edwards and Whitfield? Absolutely. Without, I mean, because there are... There are some people who would say, oh, well, Jonathan Edwards is pro-slavery, but he's a man of his time. And they wouldn't do that, say, with somebody right now where they would say, you know, this is somebody who I think is right on a lot of the gospel, but they're wrong on, say, sexuality because they're a man of their time. In that case, they'd be just completely gone from them. So you think they're... There is a way to kind of hold that.
Speaker 2Yeah, there has to be. And people are fluid, Dr. Moore. Jonathan Edwards released all of the enslaved people before he died. They were under his domain. He released the land. So whereas, yes, he was an enslaver at one point, he matured. I wonder if we give people time. I'm afraid of the people who do not mature. I'm afraid of people who do not repent, who do not change. But if we give people time to grow... To grow and to develop, what kind of remarkable change might there be? David, we ain't stopped reading David to this day. Man, I read Psalm 27 just the other day. And he did some stuff that I hope never to do. But I still read him because God is able to hit a straight lick with a cricket stick. That every now and then, you see some stroke of divine brilliance come through broken vessels. Because that treasure... That treasure is in that earthen vessel.
Speaker 3How do we know when you're dealing with... I mean, Jesus talks about there can come a point where his presence leaves and something is dead.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 3And so there's a time when you can say, we're here, we're working within this church or within this institution. We're trying to call it back to what Jesus called it to be. Right. But there does come a point where you say, Jesus is gone. Jesus left the building. This is dead. How do you know when that moment is?
Speaker 2I don't. I don't know that I have a hard and fast answer because what I do know is that you cannot tell by the prosperity of that institution. Amos, for instance, is preaching to a people who are so prosperous that they associate the favor of God with their prosperity. And Amos tells them, you're dead as a doornail. So the metrics cannot be, do we have enough money? Do we have a surplus? Are more people coming? That cannot be it. So I can probably tell you better what it is not before I can tell you what it is. What I think, though, is a people and a leadership who keep shorts and accounts with God, who regularly confess their failures and their faults before God, always invite the power and presence of God. And so if there is no repentance, then it becomes Ichabod. But will there, is a lively, ongoing humility expressed in repentance? Who knows what God will do in that group at any time? Do you know what I mean when I say keep shorts and accounts with God? Don't just live in something and rebellion and let it linger, but to be unafraid to say, I was wrong, or we were wrong about these people, or our parents were wrong about this issue.
Speaker 3What do you say to people who have really been hurt by the church? And who are saying, I just don't know that I can do it anymore.
Speaker 2Yeah, man, my heart goes out to those people because I feel like I've seen it more in the last 10 years than I have any other time. First thing I want to say is, if I got to hear your circumstance, I will probably have to agree with you that you were wrong, that you were hurt. I think sometimes people who've been through extensive church hurt need to hear somebody say, you're not crazy. That was wrong. And then I would do my best through a personal relationship, as I've tried to do, to tell people that you cannot confuse the people of God with the actual power of God. I'll give you two examples. So Jesus tells the story, we call it the Good Samaritan, and the two failures in that story are the Levite and the priest. They represent the ordained Orthodox religious establishment. And they're not the same. They're not the same. They're not the same. They're not the same. They're not the same. They're not the same. And by painting them as the failures in his story, Jesus basically says the religious establishment is of no use to the people in this time. And it's the unlikely person who rallies in to save the day. The other is, I think it's in Mark 5 or Mark 9, it might be Mark 9, when Jesus comes down from that mountain of transfiguration. And the disciples are in a argument with the scribes because a man has brought his son to Jesus and the disciples could not do it. And the man says to Jesus, this is one great illustration of church earth. I brought my son to you, but they could not fix it. You see the change in the pronoun here? Sometimes the world and people living in the church can't tell the difference between bringing somebody to Jesus and bringing them to the church. And that's what I'm talking about. I mean, through a personal relationship, I would want to help dissect. No, these are people who represent God, but they are not God. And sometimes they get it wrong. I got to tell you, okay, I have a favorite eatery in Chicago. I'm ashamed to say this, but can I tell you? And it's a bunch of them. It's called Harold's Chicken. All right, say what you want, man. But it's the best mild sauce you ever did find. And all your listeners in DC, they'll talk about Mambo sauce. Has nothing to do on Chicago mild sauce. And I've had a bunch of them. I've had a bunch of them. I've had a bunch of bad Harold's experience three times, but it has never stopped me from eating it. I think we tend to treat the church way differently than we do any other institution in this regard. We will close the door to the entire church because one group of people hurt us when the reality is the institution at large is far more valuable and worthy of your commitment and your belonging than that group, one or two or three that did you wrong.
Speaker 3Do you think if we're having this conversation in 20 years and we're kind of looking back at this era, and you're looking around at most of the country, when they think of at least evangelical Christianity, they think of Magahat. And we've got every denomination seems to be in turmoil. The church just seems to be falling down at every place. Do you think in 20 years, we're going to look back and say, we came through that and we're stronger? Or do you think we're going to look back in a kind of lament to say, what have we done? I think 20 years is too
Speaker 2short. I think we may be two, three generations out on this one, because it takes a little bit more time to reconcile the sins of the past collectively. I really hope America's in livable shape in 20 years. Just to be quite honest with you. And if we have to go through this kind of purging, as it were, of disagreements within the church, to land Dr. Moore at an honest reflection on who Jesus is and what that therefore has to mean, I don't think 20 years is going to be enough time, but here we go and let's go through it. I would say this too, for people who will pick up the book along the lines of the question you just asked, you got to give it grace because it's a little punchy in its analysis of evangelicalism as we know it right now. But I was trained as a preacher like you were, that sometimes people have to discover that they're lost before they're willing to accept being found by Jesus Christ. And that's where I think American Christianity is. We have not demonstrated on the whole a willingness to say we're lost. And we probably did in 2020. We thought we were there at that moment, but it proved to be like smoke. We just dissipated. But when that time comes, so if it's not 20 years, let's say 60 years, I do hope that our children and our grandchildren look back with grace on us and say that there were voices who spoke up during that time who were right. And that they don't just take the dominant voice of what's known as popular Christianity in America as the authentic witness of what the church really believed.
Speaker 3If somebody said to you, Dr. Dates, I'm trying to think through these issues that you're talking about. I'm trying to decide whether or not I'm separating justice and righteousness or whether I'm holding them together. And they say, can you tell me where I ought to be kind of reading and meditating in the Bible right now as I try to work that out? What would you tell them?
Speaker 2I would tell them, go to Psalm 1. I would land at that invitation of the man or woman who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly or stand in the way of sinning. I would move there to Psalm 27 because there is no need to fear. And sometimes when we run in the wrong, the natural response is to be afraid. It is to be fearful, but there's no need for that. Then I jump over to Matthew chapter 6. I look at verse 33 and I would think about what does it mean to seek the kingdom first and its righteousness and to trust God for everything else. I would start there. And then after making my way through that, I would invite you to go to the prophet Isaiah and to the prophet Amos and to sit there for a little while and then read through one of the gospels. You could take your pick, but I would say maybe Luke's gospel and see how Jesus interacts with the religious establishment and ask God to speak to you. So this morning, early this morning, I was reading through the end of Esther and I was struck, man. I was too. That is weird. So I was struck by the fact of the timing of the same day, you know, so Haman has these gallows set
Speaker 4for Mordecai. I was reading the same thing this morning. So being he can't sleep, you know,
Speaker 2and he goes in to see the king. No, the king can't sleep. The Bible says that sleep departed from him like the Lord had him up. So he says, read to me the annals, the chronicles of the king or whatever. And so he runs into this good thing that Mordecai did for him. Like when Haman is invited in to see the king, the king says, hey, let me talk first. What should the king do for somebody who he should honor, who he did not honor? And Haman paints this picture of everything he would want. Little does he know that the very picture he's painting is for his art enemy, for Mordecai. That a situation can turn around. It can shift in a wonderful way. And so sitting in that, I felt some hopelessness disappear. That's what the scripture says. That God could do more in a flash than you and I can do for a lifetime. And so in his favor is life. Weeping may endure for the night, but joy will. You see how we move from the subjunctive to the indicative? Weeping may endure for a night, but joy will come in the morning. So as you read through the scriptures, I think what we need, Psalm 1, Psalm 27, Matthew 6, but we need a lens to read scripture in a different way. And so I think what we need is a lens to read scripture in a different way. And so as you read through the scriptures, I think what we need, Psalm 1, Psalm 27, Matthew 6, but we need a lens to read scripture in a different way. And it's honest backdrop. And that is this. The scripture is written on the backdrop of marginalization and oppression. That throughout the redemptive historical narrative, you have people whose backs are flung against the wall. And yet, yet, Dr. Moore, God always comes through.
Speaker 3Amen. The book is called What Hath Justice to Do with Righteousness? Reclaiming the Intersection of Protest and Prayer. It's a really good book. I commend it to you. Charlie Dates, thanks for being with us today.
Speaker 2Thank you for being a better interviewer. You were, then I was an interviewee. I appreciate you. Thank you.
Speaker 3Thanks for listening. If this episode meant something to you, share it with a friend and leave a review of the show wherever you listen. It helps others find the show. Until next time, remember, the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not, the darkness will not, the darkness cannot overcome it. This is Russell Moore, Onward.
Speaker 8The Russell Moore Show is a production of Christianity Today. My name is Leslie Thompson and I get to produce the show with help from associate producer Mackenzie Hill and mixing and mastering by Kevin Morris, video production by Sam Seder. Eric Petrick is the executive producer of CD Media Podcasts with Matt Stevens as our senior producer. Thank you to John Guerra for allowing us to use his beautiful song, Citizens, as our theme. And thank you to John Gara for allowing us to use his beautiful song, Citizens, as our theme. And thank you to John Gara for allowing us to use his beautiful song, Citizens, as our theme. And thank you to John Gara for allowing us to use his beautiful song, Citizens, as our theme. And thank you for listening.
Speaker 7Power has several prizes. Handcuffs can come in all sizes. Love has a million disguises. But winning is simply not won.
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