I’m not sure if Russell Moore’s latest admission that he’s still suffering an acute case of Trump Derangement Syndrome (and still the liberal Democrat he’s always been) is behind the Christianity Astray paywall or not, but take heart – Protestia has a subscription to the birdcage-filling-worthy rag so that you don’t have to.

Former Baptist interloper Russell Moore wants Christians to be as morally adrift as. Uneasy about law enforcement, uneasy about Scripture, uneasy about appeals to order, authority, and justice. And in his latest column responding to the justified killing of Renee Good by an ICE agent, he succeeds—by doing violence not only to the facts of the case, but to the very passages of Scripture he claims to defend.

Moore frames the incident like he’s reporting for Right Wing Watch: an ICE agent “shot protester Renee Good through the head,” followed by emotive language about cursing and blood on the ground. He then anticipates what he regards as the predictable and morally suspect Christian response: an appeal to the plain text and meaning of the Bible. Romans 13, which Moore cited in supporting government-forced church closures, forced masking, and vaccine mandates to supposedly save lives, magically becomes an anti-Christian standard and invalid citation once the life belongs to an ICE agent and the danger is a leftist agitator’s two-ton SUV.

Trying his best to put a target on federal law enforcement agents.

Moore claims that Christians who “use [Romans 13] to wave away state violence” are doing “the opposite of what Paul intended.”

My charitable response to Russell Moore:

Listen, idiot. God-ordained state violence is exactly what Romans 13 is about. It’s the point. Why do you think that God’s Word describes what the governing authorities bear as “the sword?”

Russell Moore’s desperation to cast whatever Donald Trump does as categorically evil forces him into the logical corner of having to define whatever his opponents do in opposing him as categorically righteous. The problem is, evidence makes it clear that Renee Good threatened the life of the ICE officer, and her (admittedly tragic) death was both avoidable by her obedience to the law and justified by her disobedience. With Romans 13 being the biblical confirmation of this standard, Moore is forced to the position he has become all too familiar with, yet numb to – attacking actual Christians by bearing false witness against them and dismantling the Word of God.

Romans 13 Is Not a Rorschach Test for Activist Consciences

Moore’s attempts to cast suspicion on Christians who instinctively (and properly, of course) reach for Romans 13 when confronted with state use of force. He portrays such Christians as people desperate to “quiet their consciences,” as if believing in the righteousness of self-defense means we are happy when people die.

But Paul does not write Romans 13 to soothe guilty consciences. He writes it to correct rebellious ones.

“Let every person be subject to the governing authorities,” Paul writes, grounding that command not in pragmatism but in divine ordination. Authority, he says, is instituted by God. Resistance to it is resistance to God’s appointment.

This is not ambiguous. It is not provisional. It is written both to define the righteous bounds of magisterial power and to demand that Christians recognize and respect it.

Romans 13 restrains Christians from lawless resistance, such as interfering with investigations, resisting arrests, and fighting against the enforcement of the law. It does not invite them to reflexive suspicion of law enforcement, nor false witness against law enforcement officers.

The Category Error That Drives Moore’s Argument

Moore repeatedly collapses distinct biblical categories in order to smuggle in his subversive conclusion.

He blends:

Romans 12’s prohibition on personal vengeance

Matthew 5’s interpersonal ethics

Revelation’s condemnation of imperial idolatry

…into Romans 13’s doctrine of civil authority.

This is a serious theological error, presuming one actually cares about the Bible as anything other than a prop.

Paul deliberately places Romans 13 after Romans 12. Christians are forbidden from avenging themselves precisely because God has delegated interpersonal vengeance—“the sword”—to the state. The state is not commanded to “turn the other cheek.” The church is.

Moore’s deliberately terrible, subversive, false reading of scripture attempts to disarm the state by moralizing it into passivity. Why? Because of who the president is.

Moore of the Same

In a poorly-aged 2022 piece entitled “What the Pelosi Attack Says About a Post-Truth Church,” Moore wrote that he was “almost shaking with rage” because conservatives, based on initial erroneous reporting, mocked the bizarre media narrative of David DePape’s home invasion and assault of Paul Pelosi with an “underwear and hammer” meme.

Moore lent credibility to the conspiracy theory that David DePape was a master MAGA assassin, despite the evidence indicating that DePape was ideologically all over the map and better described as holding to a QAnon-left mashup ideology rather than anything resembling MAGA support.

Moore tied the bathroom humor of the meme and the media doubts over police bodycam footage to (what else?) January 6th. Despite no evidence of a link, much less any indication that Christians had advocated political violence as he claimed, Moore went on to smear “some evangelicals” without the common decency to name even one (lest he have to defend his subjective moralizing).

If anyone knows what “Post-Truth Church” is, it’s Russell Moore.

When someone feigning “conservative Christianity” has to stretch this much, it betrays that they are stretching to reach plausible conservatism from their true home on the left, not the other way around. Punching this consistently to the right simply cannot be done from anywhere other than the left.

Of course, Moore’s track record of undeniable leftism spans the entire Trump era. He’s long criticized Trump supporters as un-Christian, partnered with never-Trumpers like David “Vichy” French, and is a “theologian in residence” (whatever extrabiblical nonsense that is) at the church of “this time Harris” Ray Ortlund. Meanwhile, Moore ignored left-wing violence like the Kavanaugh assassination attempt and BLM riots, and pivoted to condemning Trump’s rhetoric (and praising Biden’s) when Trump was nearly assassinated in 2024.

Moore’s takes fit his Never-Trump pattern: condemn violence perfunctorily, then moralize at Trump supporters as the real threat to civility and faith. He ignores lefty incitement (e.g., media “threat to democracy” hyperbole, Kathy Griffin severed-head stunt) while equating conservative pushback with peril. As an SBC establishment exile cozy with liberal media, it’s consistent gaslighting of grassroots Christians who are rightly supporting American law-and-order.

The Facts Moore Cannot Afford to Acknowledge

Most glaringly, Moore’s entire argument rests on moral ambiguity, now completely collapsed by the evidence.

There is documented evidence – both in video and in medical records – that the ICE agent was struck by Renee Good’s vehicle and suffered internal bleeding as a result. A vehicle is not a protest sign. It is not speech. It is not symbolic resistance.

It is deadly force.

When an officer is struck by a vehicle, the standard for the use of deadly force is not theoretical or retrospective—it is immediate and objective. Reasonable fear of death or serious bodily harm is established. The law recognizes this. So does basic moral reasoning.

Romans 13 does not require law enforcement officers to absorb lethal violence in order to satisfy the scruples of fake Christians like Russell Moore writing from a safe distance.

Once deadly force is used against an officer, deadly force in response is not only lawful—it is morally justified. Moore’s refusal to reckon honestly with this fact is simply the only option his Trump Derangement Syndrome will allow.

The Quiet Defense of Interference

Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of Moore’s column is what it implicitly blesses.

By framing lawless resistance, questioning, and morally unbound disobedience as the morally mature Christian posture, and by treating appeals to authority as spiritually suspect, Moore provides theological cover for interference with lawful enforcement actions – the kind of cover that gets people like Renee Good killed.

As Moore undoubtedly knows, scripture does not permit this.

“Whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.”

Christians are never commanded to obstruct arrests, swarm officers, or insert themselves into enforcement operations under the guise of protest. That is not prophetic witness. It is not martyrdom. It is godless rebellion.

And rebellion does not become righteous simply because it is emotional or politically fashionable.

1 Peter 2 Says What Moore Will Not

Peter is explicit. Authorities are sent by God “to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good.” The Christian response is not suspicion, not agitation, not second-guessing enforcement decisions in real time.

It is honor.

“Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.”

Russell Moore encourages the reverse merely because the duly elected representative of the American people is his enemy. He dishonors authority, sanctifies skepticism, and treats law enforcement as a moral problem to be managed rather than a God-ordained institution to be respected. The civil law – clearly aligned with God’s law in this case – is what Moore encourages rebellion against in the hearts of Christians.

The Real Issue

Russell Moore is not offering careful nuance. He is offering a progressive, humanist, and God-rejecting worldview.

It is a worldview that:

Presumes guilt in law-enforcement institutions

Treats authority as morally suspect

Elevates conscience above command

Aligns Christian ethics (and more offensively, biblical teaching) with progressive activism and Trump hatred

Romans 13 describes the God-ordained role of civil authority: avenging lawlessness like illegal entry into a country, criminal acts committed by those in a country illegally, and yes, disobeying lawful orders from officers and plowing your vehicle into them.

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