Russell Moore says religious right must either refocus on the Gospel or die

Russell Moore in a screen capture of a video from the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary | Youtube/Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary

Russell Moore, president of Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, issued a harsh rebuke to the religious right saying that it must get back to the Gospel instead of advancing its political goals.

"A Religious Right that is not able to tie public action and cultural concern to a theology of gospel and mission will die, and will deserve to die," he declared at a lecture on Oct. 24.

His speech titled "Can The Religous Right Be Saved?" was delivered at the 2016 Erasmus Lecture sponsored by First Things magazine.

Moore narrated that he grew up in the Bible Belt and he became a witness to the hypocrisy displayed by his fellow believers who turned a blind eye to racial injustice. He recalled how fruitless cultural Christianity became when it was embroiled in politics.

He acknowledged that people are facing hard decisions in the coming election and some have thought of it as a choice between the "lesser of two evils." He said that some are forgetting the Gospel in their attempt to gain political influence.

"The Religious Right turns out to be the people the Religious Right warned us about," he stated.

Moore also decried the use of "apocalyptic language" every time a presidential election is held. He characterized it as "the sort of theological liberalism that makes no sense in a religion in which Augustine wrote the City of God in the context of a collapsing Rome."

Moore asserted that the younger generation of evangelicals are prioritizing the furtherance of the Gospel over right-wing politics. He said that younger Christians will have to abandon alarmist eschatology and prosperity gospel in order to become effective in the current cultural climate.

"A Christianity without a clear gospel is just moralism; but a Christianity also without visible churches is backward looking and seething with rage with what has been lost," he said.

In an earlier interview with Bloomberg, Moore predicted that evangelical conservatives will be deeply divided even after the election in November. He said that the older generation in the religious right establishment is very different from the younger generation who are more theologically oriented and multi-ethnic.