The Russell Moore Show

How do you learn the lessons of mortality before mortality forces you to?

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After Wendell Berry’s death, Russell Moore gathered with friends to talk about Berry’s life and work. During that conversation, pastor and author Russ Ramsey brought up Remembering, Berry’s novel about Andy Catlett, a farmer who loses his right hand—and, with it, his old way of holding on to the world.

Years earlier, Ramsey had nearly died from a bacterial infection that required open-heart surgery. Reading Remembering during his recovery gave him language for what was happening to him: the disorientation of suddenly knowing life will not go back to what it was, the temptation to take our pain out on those closest to us, and the strange clarity that can come from confronting death.

Dr. Moore wanted to continue that conversation here. He and Ramsey talk about whether it is possible to learn some of mortality’s lessons without first being “struck”; why suffering sometimes makes us freer and sometimes makes us harder; and what happens when a culture responds to death not with resurrection hope but with attempts to outrun mortality altogether. Yes, the tech bros come up.

They also turn to Ramsey’s books Rembrandt Is in the Wind and Van Gogh Has a Broken Heart. What initially seems like a different subject turns out not to be different at all. Ramsey’s writing about mortality and his writing about art are both concerned with learning to see—to pay attention to beauty, to other people, and to the life in front of us while we still have it.

Along the way, Ramsey walks us through how to look at a painting, why you don’t have to like every great work of art, and how to know when it’s time to leave a museum—which, as it turns out, may be a lesson about mortality too.

Plus, stay to the end to hear Ramsey’s song “The Ballad of Andy Catlett,” inspired by Berry’s Remembering.

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From the Moore to the Point newsletter: AI tech bros seem like awful, broken people. And they might be telling us the truth.

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Tim Keller’s son on the new book they co-wrote together.

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Russell talks with Michael Keller about his new book, The Stories We Live By (co-written with Tim Keller), and the cultural myths that promise to make sense of our lives before ultimately falling apart.

Michael and Russell talk about why suffering has a way of exposing the stories we actually believe, why forgiveness becomes almost impossible when everything is reduced to a struggle for power, and why a Christian understanding of identity is neither something imposed on us nor something we invent for ourselves.

They also consider whether AI–a particularly interesting topic for Keller, who has a PhD in computational linguistics–is creating new problems or just magnifying very old ones.

Michael also reflects on the more personal story behind the book, finishing work he began with his father before his death. He shares what it was like to return to his father’s words while grieving—and why, afterward, he found himself searching their old text messages for a word every child longs to hear.

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From the Moore to the Point newsletter: The Joker Is Our Spiritual Director Now

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How can Wendell Berry’s novels help us understand love of country and community without stumbling into idolatry?

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In 2021, Russell did a talk at The Rabbit Room’s virtual conference, Hutchmoot: Homebound. Given in the main room of North Wind Manor, Russell shared how Berry’s fiction can help us see something underneath our political arguments, revealing the human longing to belong somewhere.

Drawing from Jayber Crow, Hannah Coulter, and other works by Berry, Russell argues that the answer to Christian nationalism isn’t less Christianity, but Christianity that refuses to use Jesus as a means to some other end.

Special thanks to the Rabbit Room for allowing us to air this talk from Hutchmoot Homebound 2021. Learn more about the Rabbit Room here.

Keep up with Russell:

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Submit a question for the show at questions@russellmoore.com

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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