Why Charlie Kirk Repeatedly Clashed With Russell Moore

Showing 5 Russell D. Moore videos from Charlie Kirk's video collection.

Russell Moore, editor-in-chief of Christianity Today and former head of the Southern Baptist Convention's policy arm, became one of Charlie Kirk's most consistent targets among prominent evangelical voices. Kirk saw Moore as representative of a faction of Christian leadership working against the political engagement he was trying to build, pointing to Moore's association with the "He Gets Us" Super Bowl ad campaign, funded by members of the Green family, as an example of a version of Christianity he considered soft on sin and detached from cultural conflict. Kirk was equally critical of Moore's opposition to what Moore himself has called Christian nationalism, framing that opposition as evidence Moore had drifted from the theological tradition he once represented toward alignment with more progressive commentators. Kirk also linked Moore to a program called the Afterparty, developed with Duke Divinity professor Curtis Chang and journalist David French, describing it as an effort aimed specifically at Christian college campuses that Kirk viewed as ideologically opposed to his own campus organizing. Underlying the disagreement was a real institutional shift: Moore, previously head of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission representing roughly 43 million Southern Baptists, moved from that mainstream denominational role toward a more openly anti-Trump editorial position at Christianity Today, a change Kirk treated as a betrayal of the outlet's evangelical readership.