Moore to the Point
As many of you are aware by now, I launched a weekly newsletter a few weeks ago. If you haven’t seen it yet, I’ve called this project “Moore to the Point” (and, yes, that is the previous name of the website you’re currently reading). Every Monday I’ll be sending out new content in this newsletter about all sorts of things from news, politics, and world events to Christianity, culture, Country Music, and comic books.
Today marks the third week of this project. You can read this week’s edition here. You can also read the previous editions (Week 1, Week 2), or become a subscriber (for free) to have each one one delivered to your inbox.
Russell Moore Podcast
I also wanted to let you know about another new project that is launching this week called the Russell Moore Podcast. This new podcast will feature several types of content while Signposts continues to feature conversations with leaders, thinkers, artists, and authors.
Here’s an excerpt from today’s newsletter with a bit more detail about the new podcast:
People sometimes ask me what I miss the most about my life before I moved into this role, now over seven years ago, and my answer is immediate—Sunday School. By that I mean the week-by-week Bible teaching in “The Dean’s Class” at Ninth and O Baptist Church and then the “Kingdom First” class at Highview Baptist Church, both in Louisville. I still keep in touch with many, maybe even most, of those people, and they changed my life for the better in ways I can’t even describe.
I can’t re-gather those people—I can’t gather any people in a time of social distancing—but I can teach chapter-by-chapter through the Bible. And that’s why I’m launching this week a new podcast series going through the Book of Genesis, and showing how this book helps explain and is explained by the kingdom of Christ announced in the gospel of Jesus.
At the same time, something else that I missed was a podcast I hosted years ago called “The Cross and the Jukebox,” which explored religious themes and cultural currents in country music. I had to end the series around the time I was elected here because, it turns out, the lawyers said I could get in trouble for playing the songs on the air. Being sued by Willie Nelson or Loretta Lynn would be more than I could emotionally bear. So I just let it drop.
Now, “The Cross and the Jukebox” is back. No, I haven’t reached an agreement with the estate of Waylon Jennings, nor have I smoked anything on Willie’s bus. I will just let you listen to the songs on your own through whatever mechanism through which you listen to music. And on “The Cross and the Jukebox” I will talk about what insights we can find about sin, grace, judgment, joy, or the human heart.
Some of you hate country music, or don’t know anything about it. The show is for you too, because it will help you to see some patterns that show up all over the place in the dregs of American cultural Christianity and also songs that show up everywhere in the human psyche. There’s more than a little Dostoevsky in Hank Williams.
Now, these won’t be a series of separate podcasts, but will—along with the return of “Questions and Ethics” (where I answer your questions about moral decisions you or those you now might be facing) will all fall under the new “Russell Moore Podcast,” which I’m excited to launch this week.
Tomorrow I’ll release a trailer introducing the new podcast right here on my website, and the first episodes will be available in your podcast app later this week. I hope you’ll subscribe and leave a rating or review, and that will help the new project to get to more people.
