Beware of Gaslighters and Their Tactics
Dr. Russell Moore, immediate past president of the Southern Baptist Convention Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission [ERLC], is an expert gaslighter. Watch and listen to him publicly pounce on a messenger at the 2016 annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in St. Louis, and shame him, for asking an honest question that deserved a respectful answer.
In 2018, Dr. Moore released a book titled The Storm–Tossed Family: How the Cross Reshapes the Home. It became Christianity Today’s “Beautiful Orthodoxy Book of the Year” for 2019. CT published an excerpt from the book on December 11, 2018. The article was titled, “Russell Moore: Putting the Family First Puts the Church at Odds with Jesus.” Moore writes,
When many people think of North American Christianity, one of the first words that come to mind would be family. Part of that is good, necessary, and unavoidable for a church on mission. If we are going to disciple people, we must teach them to keep themselves from idols (1 John 5:21), and many of the idols of our age come under the rubric of allegedly freeing people from the “constraints” of family responsibility and even family definition. When the outside culture valorizes sexual promiscuity, gender confusion, a divorce culture, and the upending of marriage, then the church must work hard to articulate a different vision. There is a danger, though, that comes with any mission, and this one is no exception.…
The bottom line is that many think “family values” immediately when they think “church.” To some degree that is positive and unavoidable, but often this categorization wrongly makes the family the fundamental point of contradiction between the church and the world. The gospel, though, doesn’t distinguish between “pro-family” and “anti-family” people so much as crucified and uncrucified people. A church that focuses on the family is in line with the Bible, but a church that puts families first is not.
What?!? Christians are making an idol of the family!?! Here was my response, in part:
In our day, the family has been under attack as never before. Marriage has been redefined; society even says a same-sex couple can marry and be wonderful parents to children (however they may acquire them). Of course, same sex couples can and do act as loving parents to the children in their charge, meeting physical and numerous emotional needs to the best of their ability. But children need a parent of each sex, a mom and a dad. This is what nature teaches us, along with the definition of marriage God established: one man and one woman committed to each other for life. From their union come children that become, naturally, a part of that family. Nature teaches us this, but society has denied it all. Then there’s the rest of the LGBT agenda and the efforts of militant gays and leftists to capture our children’s minds and hearts. Then there’s abortion, which has eliminated the lives of tens of millions of children in the name of reproductive “rights.”
Never before has it been more urgent for Christians to uphold the family and bibilcal values related to the family. Recognizing this, many Christians have risen up to defend the family and family values. As the family goes, so goes the nation. The attacks on the family have been relentless, and they have taken their toll. Christians have been right to defend marriage and the family, and they have been right to make it a priority to do so.
Against this backdrop, Russell Moore writes a piece [and a book] that essentially accuses Christians of making an idol of the family. Where did that come from? Even in the church, among believers, there is a need to uphold the family. I don’t see any evidence whatsoever that Christians have made an idol of the family, but rather that too few Christians have spoken up and worked to preserve and defend it.…
[T]he Bible clearly teaches that marriage as God defines it is a picture of the unity and diversity within the Godhead (so it reflects God’s character). Marriage also is a picture of Christ and the church, so marriage is about the gospel. It is difficult for me to see how being pro-family (or to see how Christians’ and churches’ involvement in the pro-family movement) ought to compel the president of the ERLC to warn believers they must be careful to avoid making an idol of the family.…
[H]ow, Dr. Moore, have churches and Christians put families before the gospel? What I see is that not enough churches are upholding the gospel by upholding marriage and the family.
Do you see what is happening here? Dr. Moore is blaming conservatives and Bible-believing Christians, not for failing to uphold biblical principles, but for doing so. This, my friends, is gaslighting, and it cannot be divorced from Dr. Moore’s experience as a professional Democrat (see Jon Harris’s comments here; also go here).
Don’t forget, either, the verbal contortions that Dr. Moore performed in response to an honest question at the Southern Baptist Convention in 2019.
Next: J. D. Greear
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