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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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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How gallows humor is what we need right now to overcome cynicism.

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

Subscribe to Russell's weekly newsletter here!

Do you have questions for Russell Moore? Send them to [email protected].

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Nancy Guthrie has taught the Scriptures, written about them, and searched them for answers when tragedy struck her family. “ The Bible is the one thing in the world that the closer scrutiny you give to it,” she said, “the more it holds up.”

Guthrie and Moore discuss Guthrie’s new book, Saved: Experiencing the Promise of the Book of Acts; maintaining attention while studying Scripture; and interacting with the biblical text. They talk about praying with the Bible in hand, avoiding the stereotypes often projected onto female authors, and engaging with difficult passages. They consider what it looks like for modern Christians to follow God’s command not to call common what God has called clean and what it means that suffering is not the end of our stories—glory is. 

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

• Saved: Experiencing the Promise of the Book of Acts by Nancy Guthrie
• The One Year Book of Discovering Jesus in the Old Testament by Nancy Guthrie
• “It All Turns on Affection”
• Seeing Jesus in the Old Testament with Nancy Guthrie
• Nancy Guthrie
• “Preaching Christ in a Postmodern World”
• “Help Me Teach the Bible”
• The Gospel Coalition Women’s Conference

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Note: This episode was recorded before the presidential election.

“We don’t live in a world of ideals right now.”

So says Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic. He and Moore, who recorded this episode on the anniversary of the October 7th Hamas attacks on Israel, discuss the fraught state of both domestic and global politics. They consider cultural climates on college campuses and social media, civil disobedience, and leadership. They also talk about military service in light of Goldberg’s new book, On Heroism, and talk about perspectives on masculinity in light of American culture and politics. 

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

• Jeffrey Goldberg
• The Atlantic
• Washington Week with The Atlantic
• Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror by Jeffrey Goldberg
• On Heroism: McCain, Milley, Mattis, and the Cowardice of Donald Trump by Jeffrey Goldberg
• “The Unreality of Columbia’s ‘Liberated Zone’” 
• “Stoicism in the South”  
• Seven Days in May
• The Overton Window

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“Civility is not the whole story in life,” Richard Mouw said. “But we often take incivility much too far.” 

Online, in face-to-face relationships, and even at church, this statement has proven true time and again in recent years. Mouw—author, theologian, and former president of Fuller Seminary—says that in a world of ridicule, Christians can still be people who honor the humanity of others.

Mouw and Moore discuss political division, patriotism in worship services, and the powerful draw of specific candidates to certain demographics. They talk about the rise in female leadership, the sense of lostness many men feel amid cultural shifts, and the idea that bitterness and anger are often forms of grief. Mouw and Moore talk about what Calvinism can bring to the church today, whether they believe they’ll be surprised by the faces they see in eternity, and how to live in light of the kingdom.

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

• Richard J. Mouw
• Uncommon Decency: Christian Civility in an Uncivilized World by Richard J. Mouw
• Divine Generosity: The Scope of Salvation in Reformed Theology by Richard J. Mouw
• Wendell Berry on the providence of God
• Nicholas Wolterstorff
• “Sphere Sovereignty” by Abraham Kuyper
• James E. Bradley
• “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing”

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When will all the craziness be over? 

It’s the question that seems to be on every American’s mind, and one that many have asked both Russell Moore and George Packer, author and staff writer at The Atlantic. Moore and Packer discuss the exhaustion and rage that have become common in our politics. They discuss partisanship, profitability, and pessimism. They talk about the historical events that have led to our current realities, the effects of secularization on culture, and what it might take for Packer to believe there is a God—and why Packer still, despite all of the chaos, can’t forgo his hope for humanity.

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

• George Packer
• "What Will Become of American Civilization? Conspiracism and Hyper-Partisanship in the Nation’s Fastest-Growing City” by George Packer at The Atlantic
• The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America by George Packer
• The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq by George Packer
• Blood of the Liberals by George Packer
• Facing Unpleasant Facts: Narrative Essays by George Orwell, compiled and with an introduction by George Packer
• Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century by George Packer
• David French
• Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis
• The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt
• Montaigne’s Tower

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Carlos Whittaker is an author, podcaster, and global speaker who is backed by, as he puts it, “the power of a massive Instafamilia.” Perhaps it’s no wonder, then, that when he decided to spend 23 hours a day in silence at a Benedictine monastery, he experienced physical detoxification symptoms—including heart palpitations. 

Whittaker and Moore talk about their experiences of spending time screen-free and how it has changed them. They discuss the relational focus made possible by time apart from devices and the transformative effects of communal living. They consider how Christians engage with time, why it’s important to savor experiences, and how believers might reclaim the practice of solitude. 

Ultimately, they speak to the potential for a healthy relationship to technology and discuss what it may look like to pursue it.

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

• Carlos Whittaker
• Pascal’s Penseés 
• Reconnected: How 7 Screen-Free Weeks with Monks and Amish Farmers Helped Me Recover the Lost Art of Being Human by Carlos Whittaker
• Saint Andrew’s Abbey
• Henri Nouwen
• “London Taxi Drivers and Bus Drivers: A Structural MRI and Neuropsychological Analysis”

Do you have a question for Russell Moore? Send it to [email protected].

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