Russell D. Moore (born 9 October 1971) is an American theologian, ethicist, and preacher. In June 2021, he became the director of the Public Theology Project at Christianity Today, and on August 4, 2022, was announced as the magazine's incoming Editor-in-Chief. On September 24, 2025, Moore announced his resignation as Editor-in-Chief and his transition to the role of Editor-at-Large and Columnist.https://www.christianitytoday.com/2025/09/mission-of-christianity-today-continues-russell-moore/
Moore previously served as president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, the public-policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), and at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, as dean of the School of Theology, senior vice president for academic administration, and professor of theology and ethics.See "Russell D. Moore." The Writers Directory, St. James Press, 2018.
Early life and education Moore was born and raised in the coastal town of Biloxi, Mississippi, the eldest son of Gary and Renee Moore. His grandfather was a Baptist preacher, and his grandmother was Roman Catholic.Aaron Cline Hanbury, Russell Moore: the call to ministry & the public square, baptistpress.com, USA, May 30, 2013 He earned a B.S. in political science and history from the University of Southern Mississippi, an M.Div. in biblical studies from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. in systematic theology from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Ministry Moore served as associate pastor of Bay Vista Baptist Church in Biloxi, where he was ordained to gospel ministry.Jeff Robinson, SBTS profs on first pastorate: Russell D. Moore, news.sbts.edu, USA, September 18, 2009
In 2001, Moore was appointed to the faculty of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.Kay Campbell, Russell Moore chosen as president of Southern Baptists' Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, al.com, USA, March 27, 2013 As Professor of Christian Theology and Ethics, Moore was responsible for teaching across a spectrum of topics, including systematic theology, Christian ethics, church life, pastoral ministry, and cultural engagement. In addition to his role on the faculty, he also served as Executive Director of the Carl F. H. Henry Institute for Evangelical Engagement from 2001 to 2009. In 2004, Moore was named Dean of the School of Theology and Senior Vice President for Academic Administration. In this role, in addition to his regular teaching and lecturing, Moore served as the chief academic officer of the seminary, responsible for all curriculum and the administration of the seminary. Beyond these roles, Moore served as Executive Editor of The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology, and has served as Senior Editor for Touchstone Magazine and as Chairman of the Board for the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.
Moore pastored Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, from 2008 until 2012.Kay Campbell, Russell Moore chosen as president of Southern Baptists' Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, al.com, USA, 27 mars 2013 More broadly, Moore has served extensively within the Southern Baptist Convention, as chairman and four-time member of the Resolutions committee, as a member of the Ethics and Public Affairs Committee of the Kentucky Baptist Convention, and as a regular correspondent and columnist for Baptist Press.
ERLC Presidency On June 1, 2013, Moore became President of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, the Southern Baptist Convention's official entity assigned to address social, moral, and ethical concerns. In this role, Moore led the organization, which maintains offices in both Nashville and Washington, D.C., in their advocacy efforts—addressing especially the issues of religious liberty, human dignity, family stability, and civil society.
Moore believes marriage is a union between a man and a woman. He accepted an invitation from Pope Francis to attend a Colloquium on Marriage at the Vatican, where he spoke on 18 November 2014.Russell Moore speaks on gospel and marriage at Vatican, ERLC, 18 November 2014]
In 2014, Moore commented on gay conversion therapy, saying, "The utopian idea [that] 'if you come to Christ and if you go through our program, you're going to be immediately set free from attraction or anything you're struggling with,' I don't think that's a Christian idea. Faithfulness to Christ means obedience to Christ. It does not necessarily mean that someone's attractions are going to change." He added, "The Bible doesn't promise us freedom from temptation. The Bible promises us the power of the spirit to walk through temptation." Moore also said at that time that the Southern Baptists' Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission was working with parents of those who are gay and lesbian, adding, "The response is not shunning, putting them out on the street. The answer is loving your child."
Moore's vocal criticism of then-candidate Donald Trump during the 2016 election season drew a backlash from fellow Southern Baptists, triggering a crisis in which more than 100 churches threatened to withdraw donations to the denomination's Cooperative Program in protest of Moore's stances and leading to calls for his resignation. After Moore issued statements of apology in December 2016 and March 2017 for "using words... that were at times overly broad or unnecessarily harsh", Southern Baptist leaders affirmed their support for his leadership and he remained in his post.
Moore resigned from the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission at the end of his term as president. He left the Southern Baptist Convention as well soon afterward; on June 1, 2021, Immanuel Nashville, a nondenominational church, thus unaffiliated with the SBC, announced that Moore had joined its staff as a pastor in residence.Adelle M. Banks, Russell Moore parts from Southern Baptists personally as well as professionally, religionnews.com, USA, June 2, 2021
Christianity Today
Following his departure from the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, Moore was hired as a public theologian for the magazine Christianity Today.Mark Wingfield, Russell Moore leaves ERLC for Christianity Today, highlighting the new schism within SBC, baptistnews.com, USA, May 19, 2021 In 2022, he was named Christianity Today's Editor in Chief following the resignation of previous editor Mark Galli.Bob Smietana, Russell Moore named Christianity Today editor, religionnews.com, USA, August 5, 2022
On September 24, 2025, Moore announced that he was stepping down as Editor-in-Chief and taking the new title of Editor-at-Large and Columnist. Moore was replaced as Editor-in-Chief by Marvin Olasky, the former Editor-in-Chief at World magazine.
Personal views Moore has spoken out against the display of the Confederate flag; in 2015, two days after the Charleston church shooting (in which nine black churchgoers were murdered in a hate crime), Moore wrote: "The cross and the Confederate flag cannot co-exist without one setting the other on fire. White Christians, let's listen to our African-American brothers and sisters. Let's care not just about our own history, but also about our shared history with them." Moore also condemned the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Nationalism and the Syrian refugee crisis In 2015, during the Syrian refugee crisis, Moore wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post calling upon evangelical Christians to support refugee resettlement. Moore criticized those who "demagogue the issue", writing that "evangelical Christians cannot be the people who turn our back on our mission field. We should be the ones calling the rest of the world to remember the image of God and inalienable human dignity, of persecuted people whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim or Yazidi, especially those fleeing from genocidal Islamic terrorists."Ed Kilgore, Is Anyone Listening to Russell Moore in Iowa?, Washington Monthly (November 20, 2015).Russell Moore, Stop pitting security and compassion against each other in the Syrian refugee crisis, Washington Post (November 19, 2015). Moore wrote that security and compassion are compatible.
Theological views Moore writes from the perspective of a Baptist who affirms the inerrancy of scriptureRussell Moore, "Why I'm a Happy Evangelical", [10 December 2005]. Online. and a complementarian position on gender roles,Russell Moore, "After Patriarchy, What? Why Egalitarians are Winning the Evangelical Gender Debate", Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 49 (Fall 2006): 569-76; idem, "Pastoral Leadership and the Gender Issue: What Does Courage Look Like?" [21 February 2008]. believes in a literal hell, and is a Calvinist.
He works in the area of Christian eschatology, highlighting the kingdom of God as the center of theology and ethics.Russell Moore, "Kingdom First: How the Reign of Christ Transforms Our Lives, Our Churches, and Our World", [8 September 2008]. Online. Moore believes in an "inaugurated eschatology" in which the Kingdom of God is both "already" and "not yet."Russell Moore, "The Evangelical Uneasy Conscience Faces the Future", [22 January 2012]. Online. Consistent with this position, he sees Jesus Christ as the full inheritor of God's promises to Israel, and that the Church receives the benefits of this as it is "in" Christ."http://www.russellmoore.com/documents/russellmoore/SBJT_2007Winter2.pdf From the House of Jacob to the Iowa Coaucuses: The Future of Israel in Contemporary Evangelical Political Ethics." Southern Baptist Journal of Theology, Winter, 2007. pg. 17. Moore emphasizes the kingdom as a spiritual warfare uprooting the demonic powers, an emphasis that shows up not only in his works on the kingdom and on temptation but also in his writings, for example, on orphan care.Russell D. Moore, "Triumph of the Warrior King: A Theology of the Great Commission." Online.
Moore has written about issues of ethics and religious liberty. In his early work, he argued for the early Baptist commitment to religious liberty represented by such figures as Isaac Backus, John Leland, and Jeremiah Moore, over against those who would articulate a more secularist understanding of the separation of church and state.Russell D. Moore, "Baptist After All: Resurgent Conservatives Face the Future", in Why I am a Baptist (ed. Tom J. Nettles and Russell D. Moore; Nashville: B&H, 2001), 233-46.
In ethics, Moore stands within the Christian Democracy stream of communitarianism, calling for a Christian demonstration of ethical transformation within the church as the initial manifestation of the kingdom.Russell D. Moore and Robert E. Sagers, "The Kingdom of God and the Church: A Baptist Reassessment", The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 12 (Spring 2008): 68-86 Heavily influenced by the Dutch Neo-Calvinist theologian Abraham Kuyper and the early American Neo-Evangelical theologian Carl F. H. Henry, Moore articulates a conservative evangelical call for justice for the vulnerable, including care for widows, orphans, the unborn, the disabled, the elderly, and the undocumented.Russell Moore, "Orphan Care and the Great Commission Resurgence", [26 June 2009]. Online; Southern Baptist Convention, "On Adoption and Orphan Care", [June 2009]. Online; Russell Moore, "Immigration and the Gospel", [17 June 2011]. Online.
He has called on evangelicals, especially Southern Baptists, to embrace racial reconciliation, writing that segregation was "a sin against God and neighbor and a repudiation of the gospel."Russell Moore.Black and White and Red All Over: Why Racial Justice is a Gospel Issue", [12 June 2012]. Online; idem, "Race and the Gospel in Mississippi", [30 July 2012]. Online.
Political background and involvement