Russell Moore claims that animal rights are a spiritual issue. Russell Moore claims that protecting illegal immigrants from prosecution or extradition is a Gospel issue. Russell Moore claims that environmentalism “creation care” is a Gospel issue. Russell Moore says that “racial justice” is a Gospel issue. In fact, it’s hard to find a single political issue that Russell Moore hasn’t taken the left-of-center position on, making it into a Gospel – or at least a Biblical – issue.
Why then is Russell Moore silent on the issue of gun control, days after a Southern Baptist church was brutally shot up? We’re not the only ones who have noticed that gun rights are virtually the only issue that Moore hasn’t chimed in to opine. Nashville Public Radio noticed this peculiarity as well. They write…
The head the Southern Baptist Convention’s political arm says there’s no gun control policy outlined in the Bible. And so the powerful Nashville-based denomination isn’t taking a position, even after more than 20 members of a Texas congregation were murdered in their own sanctuary on Sunday. The country’s largest protestant denomination frequently takes positions on the most controversial matters — like gay marriage and abortion. But not on guns.
Moore made comments about the topic, but gave absolutely no help in regards to navigating the topic of self-defense from the Bible, saying, “I don’t think there is a gun control policy outlined in scripture. There is a commitment to human life and to the protection of human life, but I think Christians can disagree on what the specific policies ought to be to get there.”
The former Democratic staffer seems to leave room for disagreement on whether or not there is an inalienable right given us by our creator to defend ourselves and others. Although Moore has found enough warrant to defend illegal immigration, environmentalism and Black Lives Matter from the Bible, he claims there’s insufficient Biblical warrant to defend guns from the pages of the Holy Bible. Moore said,”It’s not the sort of disagreement that we have on other issues in American life, where we really do have two very different visions of what the country should be or what a family should be. There are not people calling for violence. There’s instead people who just don’t think that these [gun control] measures work in anything other than a cathartic sense.”
For a Biblical defense of self-defense, you can read an article defending the use of firearms from Scripture here.
