The Russell Moore Show

The civil rights leader treated love of God and love for others as inseparable.

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On occasion, we like to record audio versions of the latest from Russell’s weekly newsletter. Sign up for the newsletter, Moore to the Point, where Russell shares thoughtful takes on big questions, offers a Christian perspective on life, and recommends books and music he's enjoying.

Submit a question for the show (and include a voice memo!) at [email protected] 

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Every Moment Holy author Douglas McKelvey on writing prayers for the moments both sacred and mundane.

Watch the video of this episode on YouTube here.

There are moments in life when something significant is happening, but we don’t quite know how to mark it. Not a wedding, not a funeral—just one of those in-between spaces when we feel that words ought to be said but don’t know how to say them. In this episode, Russell Moore talks with writer and liturgist Douglas McKelvey about the Every Moment Holy series of prayers and the newest volume focused on marking the unique experiences of young adulthood in the new book of prayers, Rites of Passage.

Their conversation explores why people often need help finding words for prayer in the most human experiences: grief over a beloved pet, awkward encounters with a former relationship, the anxiety of measuring oneself against impossible standards, or the transitions of young adulthood. McKelvey reflects on the long process of writing these prayers and the sobering responsibility of crafting words that others might speak to God in their most vulnerable moments.

They also talk about the unique pressures facing emerging adults today and why the church must learn again how to shepherd people through these seasons. Drawing from the Psalms and the rhythms of historic Christian prayer, McKelvey argues that liturgy doesn’t remove pain or uncertainty. Instead, it helps people remember a deeper truth: that God is present in every moment, even when we don’t yet see how the story will resolve.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Keep up with Russell:

Sign up for the weekly newsletter where Russell shares thoughtful takes on big questions, offers a Christian perspective on life, and recommends books and music he's enjoying.

Submit a question for the show at [email protected] 

Subscribe to the Christianity Today Magazine: Special offer for listeners of The Russell Moore Show: Click here for 25% off a subscription.

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Russell answers a listener question about what algorithms miss about heartbreak.

Watch the video of this episode on YouTube here.

Links mentioned:

Previous episode about Martina McBride’s song “Independence Day”

Song, Dean Summerwind’s “Parked Out By the Lake”

Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History episode “The King of Tears” 

Submit your own question for the show! Email [email protected] — and remember: attach a voice memo!

Keep up with Russell:

Sign up for the weekly newsletter where Russell shares thoughtful takes on big questions, offers a Christian perspective on life, and recommends books and music he's enjoying.

Subscribe to the Christianity Today Magazine: Special offer for listeners of The Russell Moore Show: Click here for 25% off a subscription.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Former Harper’s Magazine editor Christopher Beha on his journey from skeptical Atheism to skeptical Christianity.

Watch the video of this episode on YouTube here.

For many people, faith and skepticism are opposites, but novelist and former Harper’s Magazine editor Christopher Beha argues that the two may be more intertwined than we assume. In this conversation about his new book, Why I’m Not an Atheist, Beha reflects on his journey from a devout Catholic upbringing to atheism and eventually back to Christian faith.

Beha describes how an early mystical experience and later personal tragedy pushed him into deep questions about suffering, prayer, and the nature of belief. In college, those questions led him to identify as a skeptic, valuing reason and intellectual independence. Yet over time he came to see that skepticism itself has limits. The turning point came not through philosophical argument but through life itself, like falling in love and becoming part of a family. Those experiences prompted Beha to return to church, where he began hearing familiar Christian teachings in a new way: not primarily as moral demands or metaphysical propositions, but as a story centered on love and relationship–without setting aside his questions.

Together, Russell and Chris reflect on what it means to believe while still wrestling with doubt, how parents might talk with children who are questioning faith, and why the path toward belief often begins not with certainty but with simply showing up.

If you’ve wrestled with the Christian life being sold as putting aside all questions and doubt to choose unwavering certainty, you may appreciate hearing from Chris. 

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Why I Am Not an Atheist by Christopher Beha

Keep up with Russell:

Sign up for the weekly newsletter where Russell shares thoughtful takes on big questions, offers a Christian perspective on life, and recommends books and music he's enjoying.

Submit a question for the show at [email protected] 

Subscribe to the Christianity Today Magazine: Special offer for listeners of The Russell Moore Show: Click here for 25% off a subscription.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On the war with Iran.

On occasion, we like to record audio versions of the latest from Russell’s weekly newsletter. Read this article here. Sign up for the newsletter, Moore to the Point, where Russell shares thoughtful takes on big questions, offers a Christian perspective on life, and recommends books and music he's enjoying.

Submit a question for the show (and include a voice memo!) at [email protected] 

Watch this episode on YouTube
Subscribe to the Christianity Today Magazine: Special offer for listeners of The Russell Moore Show: Click here for 25% off a subscription.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A bonus episode with bestselling author and friend, Jennie Allen, on the occasion of her new book, The Lie You Don’t Know You Believe.

Watch the video of this episode on YouTube here.

Many people live with a persistent sense that something is not quite right—a low-grade hum of anxiety, insecurity, or striving that never seems to go away. In this bonus episode, Russell Moore talks with author and Bible teacher Jennie Allen about the hidden lies that can quietly shape our lives for years. Drawing from her brand-new book, The Lie You Don’t Know You Believe, Allen argues that many of our struggles—whether feelings of worthlessness, being unlovable, or helplessness—can often be traced back to stories we began believing long ago.

Russell and Jennie discuss how those beliefs form, often in childhood moments that seemed small at the time but quietly shaped a person’s identity. Along the way, they consider how faith, self-reflection, and grace can help people see their stories more clearly without turning the process into an exercise in blame.

The discussion also moves outward—from personal struggles to cultural ones—touching on why people crave recognition, why fear so often drives public life, and how Christians can respond without being ruled by anxiety. Ultimately, Allen points toward a simple but demanding path: recognizing the lies that bind us and fixing our eyes on Christ.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

The Lie You Don’t Know You Believe by Jennie Allen

Keep up with Russell:

Sign up for the weekly newsletter where Russell shares thoughtful takes on big questions, offers a Christian perspective on life, and recommends books and music he's enjoying.

Submit a question for the show at [email protected] 

Subscribe to the Christianity Today Magazine: Special offer for listeners of The Russell Moore Show: Click here for 25% off a subscription.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The author of Theo of Golden sits down with Russell in Andrew Peterson’s Chapter House for a conversation on the breakout novel. NO SPOILERS!

Watch the video of this episode on YouTube here.

Russell is joined by Allen Levi, the author of the breakout novel Theo of Golden, to ask why so many readers are hungry for a story about kindness—and whether such a person could exist outside the pages of fiction. 

Russell and Allen sit together in Nashville for a conversation based on questions RDM collected from listeners and friends. Without any spoilers, Levi describes Theo of Golden as a book not only about kindness, but about the reason for kindness—an ordinary holiness rooted in the reality of Heaven. Levi’s clear-eyed theology of “glory and grime” found in Golden insists that darkness is real, but it doesn’t get the last word. 

To close, Russell offers for Allen to share a rare on-air prayer for listeners who are exhausted by suspicion and artificiality.

If you’re struggling to see how kindness is worth the cost, or if you’re weary from cynicism, this episode is for you.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Theo of Golden by Allen Levi

“The Confession” by Leo Tolstoy

“Think Little” by Wendell Berry 

How to Know a Person by David Brooks

Keep up with Russell:

Sign up for the weekly newsletter where Russell shares thoughtful takes on big questions, offers a Christian perspective on life, and recommends books and music he's enjoying.

Submit a question for the show at [email protected] 

Subscribe to the Christianity Today Magazine: Special offer for listeners of The Russell Moore Show: Click here for 25% off a subscription.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A thought experiment on the realness of aliens, and what that would mean.

⁠Watch this episode on YouTube

On occasion, we like to record audio versions of the latest from Russell’s weekly newsletter. Read this article here. Sign up for the newsletter, Moore to the Point, where Russell shares thoughtful takes on big questions, offers a Christian perspective on life, and recommends books and music he's enjoying.

Submit a question for the show (and include a voice memo!) at [email protected] 

Subscribe to the Christianity Today Magazine: Special offer for listeners of The Russell Moore Show: Click here for 25% off a subscription

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What happens to a society when its boys grow up without a script for becoming men?

Watch the video of this episode on YouTube here.

In this conversation, Richard Reeves—author of Of Boys and Men (selected as a 2024 Summer read by President Obama), and founding president of the American Institute for Boys and Men—walks through the data and the deeper cultural currents beneath the struggle of the journey of boys becoming men. From rising male suicide rates to widening education gaps, and from sports betting addiction to body-image pressures once thought to belong mainly to girls, Reeves argues that boys and men are not so much acting out as checking out.

Reeves suggests that we tore up the old scripts of masculinity—and for good reason—but never replaced them with a compelling vision of what it means to be a man today. In that vacuum, some young men retreat to screens, pornography, and gaming; others gravitate toward louder, angrier answers. But Reeves sees something else underneath the check-out: a hunger for formation, for purpose, for being told not just what not to be, but what to become.

The conversation turns to the church’s unique opportunity at this moment. Russell and Richard reflect on Joseph as a model of quiet strength, the importance of rites of passage, the power of male friendship, and the simple but often neglected message young men need to hear: we need you. 

In a time when many men feel optional, this episode is an invitation to recover a vision of manhood rooted not in dominance or drift, but in responsibility, community, and hope.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Of Boys and Men by Richard Reeves

Keep up with Russell:

Sign up for the weekly newsletter where Russell shares thoughtful takes on big questions, offers a Christian perspective on life, and recommends books and music he's enjoying.

Submit a question for the show at [email protected] 

Subscribe to the Christianity Today Magazine: Special offer for listeners of The Russell Moore Show: Click here for 25% off a subscription.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Watch the video of this episode on YouTube here.

Russell answers a listener question about how we should perceive seemingly harmful political beliefs in our church congregations.

Submit your own question for the show! Email [email protected] — and remember: attach a voice memo!

Keep up with Russell:

Sign up for the weekly newsletter where Russell shares thoughtful takes on big questions, offers a Christian perspective on life, and recommends books and music he's enjoying.

Subscribe to the Christianity Today Magazine: Special offer for listeners of The Russell Moore Show: Click here for 25% off a subscription.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices