I listened to Russell Moore’s latest book, Losing Our Religion, on Audible and needed to get the hard copy to go over again all he laid out. With Russell Moore and Beth Moore (no relation to each other) there are two journeys on a bigger scale… far bigger… than mine. Yet, their position in church life growing up was somewhat similar to mine and their complete shock to the events around 2016 resonate with my own experience. I wanted the hard copy of Russell Moore’s book to highlight, go over, and then share.

Russell Moore was head of the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention but ran into the Christian Nationalism latent within his denomination full force in 2015 when he was not endorsing the “Republican” candidate for president. In fact, he was speaking out against the nominee.

As the Baptists would say, “All heck broke loose.”

Moore was grilled in front of “doctrinal” committees. He had not changed his theological stances one iota from standard SBC theology. All he had done was NOT endorse the “Republican” candidate for president.

Moore writes:

“A friend, and respected older Baptist leader, called when I was at the lowest moment of all this psychological warfare. I assumed it was to check on me or pray with me. Instead, he acted as through I had betrayed a fraternity into which he had inducted me. ‘This is not how you play the game,’ he said. ‘You give them the 90 percent red meat they expect, and then you can do the 10 percent of side stuff that you want to do, in immigrants or whatever.’”

This is not how you play the game.

That was exactly what I found in my own context in 2016. When 2017 rolled around, I knew it was over. I hadn’t “played the game.” I didn’t have any significant job I was holding. I didn’t have some big church. But the denomination I grew up in and loved and served had let me know by their silence that I wasn’t playing the game.

And here is the thing. Like Moore, I didn’t know we were playing a game!

I hadn’t changed my view on the Gospel, on the deity of Jesus, on our denomination’s stance on the Holy Spirit… nothing.

But I hadn’t played “the game.” It wasn’t any great loss to anyone else. Just me.

Russell Moore lost so much more. Beth Moore did as well. What I went through was more internal and mournful than the public flogging they had to endure because of their exposure on a national stage.

I can just resonate with so much of the emotion and sense of loss that was evident in my own life.

I didn’t “lose my faith.” I didn’t walk away from Jesus. I just lost the identity of a place that had been my spiritual home my entire life. Thankfully, I knew more was “out there.” People of God clinging to Jesus gathering as the Church… in so many places. Finding them is always a treasure.

I am thankful for these books from the likes of Russell Moore, Beth Moore, and Philip Yancey. I am thankful for a likeness of spirit in a hard journey. In my own small corner of the world I was jolted. It is somehow comforting to know that in other corners of the church world, others have felt that jolt as well. And here we are… clinging to Jesus.