Former vice president Mike Pence has long said that he is a Christian first and conservative second. As he and Russell Moore discuss politics, presidencies, and partisanship, they dig deep into what that prioritization has meant for Pence throughout his career. 

Moore and Pence discuss former president Carter’s funeral, Pence’s relationship with Donald Trump, and how the 48th vice president came to faith in Christ. They talk about Pence’s experiences during the riot at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and the attacks on September 11, 2001. They consider the upcoming return of President Trump to the Oval Office. Pence shares his perspective on major political issues such as abortion, religious liberty, and international relations. They talk about Pence’s organization, Advancing American Freedom; his hopes for the Republican party; and how Christians can pray for their government leaders. 

Resources mentioned in this episode or recommended by the guest include:

• So Help Me God by Mike Pence
• Advancing American Freedom
• “The State Funeral of Former President Jimmy Carter | Special Report”
• Basic Christianity by John Stott
• C. S. Lewis
• Samaritan’s Purse
• The Reagan Doctrine
• Never Alone by Amy Grant

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Why former president Jimmy Carter’s eternal state ought to be a warning to the American church (but not in the way some think) 

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Content warning: This episode discusses sexual, spiritual, and domestic abuse.

Should discussions of the church harming people be kept in-house so the world doesn’t hear about it? No, says Diane Langberg, and there’s a simple reason why: “That would be quite unlike Jesus Christ.”

Listen in as Langberg, an international speaker, psychologist, and author on trauma care, joins Moore to discuss her new book, When the Church Harms God’s People. Their conversation covers abuse in institutions and considers why it is different when those institutions are churches. They talk about the importance of churches and homes as havens from harm and how it affects people when they become places of hurt. 

Moore and Langberg consider power dynamics, the importance of language that properly names the abuses people have suffered, and a Christian view of women. They provide reason for hope and opportunities for church leaders to love and care for the hurting.

Resources mentioned in this episode or recommended by the guest include:

• Diane Langberg
• When the Church Harms God’s People: Becoming Faith Communities That Resist Abuse, Pursue Truth, and Care for the Wounded by Diane Langberg
• Abuse of Faith

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“Being able to be here and to tell this story—to weep about it occasionally—that is uplifting because what the story says is: ‘I'm still here. I have survived it. I have joy in my life because I have known such depths of despair.’ That is uplifting.”

So says Natasha Trethewey, a Pulitzer Prize winner who has authored several books and served two terms as the Poet Laureate of the United States. Trethewey and Moore discuss their respective familial connections to the state of Mississippi, Hurricane Katrina, and the Gulf Coast. They talk about Trethewey’s lifelong desire to write, her experience as a mixed-race person, and her thoughts on belonging, grief, and faith. 

Their conversation welcomes all who long for community, creativity, and clarity.

Resources mentioned in this episode or recommended by the guest include:

• Natasha Trethewey
• Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir by Natasha Trethewey
• Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast by Natasha Trethewey
• Native Guard: Poems by Natasha Trethewey
• Providence by Natasha Trethewey
• “Pulitzer Prize Winner Trethewey Discusses Poetry Collection”
• Elizabeth Sewell
• Often I Am Permitted to Return to a Meadow by Robert Duncan
• “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” by Julia Ward Howe
• The House of Being (Why I Write) by Natasha Trethewey
• A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis
• Michiko Dead by Jack Gilbert
• Theories of Time and Space by Natasha Trethewey
• Cosmic Connections: Poetry in the Age of Disenchantment by Charles Taylor
• Seamus Heaney
• Toni Morrison
• The Sea by John Banville

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How might Christians respond to family members who don’t believe mental illness is real? Does standing with Israel mean endorsing all of its government’s actions? Is the Enneagram a slippery slope toward engaging with the dark spiritual forces?

Listen in as Russell and CT’s editorial director for print, Ashley Hales, respond to these listener questions and more. Their conversation considers the role of Christians in religiously diverse nations and explores what it looks like to live faithfully in a complex world. 

Questions addressed during this episode include:

• How should Christians respond to family members who believe a relative’s mental illness is instead demon possession?
• What can believers do to model care and connection amid political polarization?
• Is the Enneagram dangerous?
• What do we know about heaven—and what is just cultural opinion? 
• If Christians are free from bondage to sin, why do we still struggle so greatly with temptation?
• What does it really mean to stand with Israel?
• How should the Capitol Hill testimonies affirming the existence of extraterrestrial life impact the Christian worldview?
• Do Christians have the right or responsibility to impose Christian values through laws or governmental power?

Resources mentioned in this episode or recommended by the guest include:

• The Enneagram
• “Decoding the Enneagram” 
• The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
• The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien 
• Harry Potter
• Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC by Frederick Buechner

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Why your anxiety needs an apocalypse this Christmas.

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As a pastor, author, and speaker, Rich Villodas has spent a lot of time studying the Scriptures. Over the years, he’s realized what he treasures about them: 

“ I love that the Bible is not this collection of sanitized, holy people,” he said. “It’s a collection of broken, frail people who are made righteous by a goodness outside of themselves.”

Villodas and Moore discuss that righteousness and goodness through the lens of the Sermon on the Mount. They talk about the type of life Jesus calls his people to live and consider what it looks like to engage with the emotions of our loved ones. The two converse about the prescriptive power of the Psalms, consider the role of forgiveness, and explore the nature of resentment as they cover Jesus’ statements about anger and lust.

Resources mentioned in this episode or recommended by the guest include:

• Rich Villodas
• The Narrow Path: How the Subversive Way of Jesus Satisfies Our Souls by Rich Villodas
• Good and Beautiful and Kind: Becoming Whole in a Fractured World by Rich Villodas
• The Deeply Formed Life: Five Transformative Values to Root Us in the Way of Jesus by Rich Villodas
• “Christianity Today’s 2021 Book Awards”
• Matthew: A Commentary. Volume 1: The Christbook, Matthew 1–12 by Frederick Dale Bruner
• “Bitter-sweet” by George Herbert
• Don’t Forgive Too Soon: Extending the Two Hands That Heal by Dennis Linn, Sheila Fabricant Linn, and Matthew Linn

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The Russell Moore Show is bringing Russell's weekly newsletter to all streaming platforms. Listen to his most recent newsletter every Monday!

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Welcome to the annual best-of-books episode of The Russell Moore Show! Former show producer and current editorial director of print Ashley Hales joins Moore to talk about his favorite reads of the year. Hales identifies three themes in Moore’s book list—the importance of outsiders in communities, ways forward in our historical moment, and the pursuit of the beautiful as a humanizing mechanism. 

**Special Event: Join Russell Moore, Ashley Hales, Bonnie Kristian, and Matt Reynolds on YouTube for the CT Book Awards Live Event on December 12, 2024, at 8:00 p.m. EST. Book of the Year winner Gavin Ortlund and Award of Merit winner Brad East will share the inspiration behind their books and the big ideas that animate them as they answer questions from CT staff and subscribers.**

Russell’s top ten books (in alphabetical order by author):

• Another Day: Sabbath Poems, 2013–2023 by Wendell Berry
• I Cheerfully Refuse: A Novel by Leif Enger 
• Willie, Waylon, and the Boys: How Nashville Outsiders Changed Country Music Forever by Brian Fairbanks
• Ghosted: An American Story by Nancy French
• The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt
• The Crisis of Narration by Byung-Chul Han, translated by Daniel Steuer 
• The Mythmakers: The Remarkable Fellowship of C. S. Lewis & J. R. R. Tolkien by John Hendrix
• Van Gogh Has a Broken Heart: What Art Teaches Us About the Wonder and Struggle of Being Alive by Russ Ramsey
• Cosmic Connections: Poetry in the Age of Disenchantment by Charles Taylor
• Mere Christian Hermeneutics: Transfiguring What It Means to Read the Bible Theologically by Kevin J. Vanhoozer



Resources mentioned in this episode or recommended by the guest include:

• CT Book Awards Live Event
• “The Beautiful Orthodoxy Book of the Year”
• “Christianity Today’s 2019 Book of the Year”
• The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt
• Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
• Owen Barfield
• A Secular Age by Charles Taylor
• Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ by Fleming Rutledge
• Poiéma by Michael Card
• Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose by Flannery O’Connor
• The Faithful Spy: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Plot to Kill Hitler by John Hendrix
• Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander by Thomas Merton
• James by Percival Everett

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“You have to read in order to develop your mind and develop your ability to think,” Peggy Noonan said. “It’s no good to say, ‘Oh, I can’t help that I was born in 1990 and everybody has a phone.’ Too bad. Put it down.”

For decades, Noonan has been a Wall Street Journal columnist and author, known for her Pulitzer Prize–winning commentary on politics and culture. She and Moore reflect on Noonan’s career both in journalism and as a speech writer in the Reagan Administration. They talk about Noonan’s faith, her love for Christian history, and her long-standing relationship to Roman Catholicism. The two discuss sexual scandals in both church and government, the power of the written word, and the way artists see the world. They consider the concerning potential of artificial intelligence, the value of reading in a world overrun by technology, and the importance of critical thinking in our modern political culture.

Resources mentioned in this episode or recommended by the guest include:

• Peggy Noonan
• A Certain Idea of America: Selected Writings by Peggy Noonan
• Walker Percy
• The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton
• We Don’t Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland by Fintan O’Toole
• Pascal’s Pensées
• “How to Find Grace After Disgrace”
• Abbey of Gethsemani
• Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson by Gordon S. Wood
• The Shadow
• War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
• “The godfather of AI: why I left Google” 

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“ Two of the devil's biggest lies are ‘You’re the only one who struggles with this kind of stuff’ and ‘You can’t tell anyone.’ Sin thrives in that kind of dark secrecy.”

So says author and apologist Sam Allberry during this conversation with Russell Moore. The two discuss Allberry’s new book, One with My Lord, and consider various ways people interpret the Bible’s perspective on sexuality. They talk about gender identity, marriage, and what it means when God says it is not good for humans to be alone. Allberry and Moore consider the importance of friendship, the value of community, and the impact of social media on mental health. 

They also discuss Allberry’s experience with Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM), the Billy Graham rule, and fostering organizational cultures of transparency.

Resources mentioned in this episode or recommended by the guest include:

• Is God Anti-Gay? And Other Questions About Jesus, the Bible, and Same-Sex Sexuality by Sam Allberry
• What God Has to Say about Our Bodies: How the Gospel Is Good News for Our Physical Selves by Sam Allberry
• Why Does God Care Who I Sleep With? by Sam Allberry
• 7 Myths about Singleness by Sam Allberry
• One with My Lord: The Life-Changing Reality of Being in Christ by Sam Allberry
• The Moral Vision of the New Testament: A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics by Richard B. Hays
• The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ by Fleming Rutledge
• “Interview with Sam Allberry || What Can We Learn from the Ravi Zacharias Scandals?”
• “Dallas pastor removed indefinitely due to 'inappropriate relationship' with woman, church says”
• “Sex Scandals and the Evangelical Mind”
• The Whole Christ: Legalism, Antinomianism, & Gospel Assurance―Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters by Sinclair B. Ferguson
• “Me and Bobby McGee” by Kris Kristofferson
• The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert A. Caro

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