The Russell Moore Show

What would we learn if we listened to the people who have left our churches?

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Emilee Hackney had never written a book before. She doesn’t have a substack or a social media following, nor does she write op-eds for the New York Times or The Atlantic. But her debut memoir, All That’s Unseen, has become a New York Times bestseller, was named a finalist for the 2026 Southern Book Prize, and had feature reviews in the Wall Street Journal, Publisher’s Weekly, Kirkus, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and more.

The topic? Appalachia, faith, poverty, and her journey from Virginia coal country to Harvard.

Remarkably–despite having left the Christian faith as an adult–Hackney doesn’t speak poorly of the church, instead she remembers the beauty and freedom she experienced growing up in a Pentecostal tradition. And yet, she recounts the devastating failure of that same community when she found herself in an abusive relationship as a teenager engaged to an older man.

Hackney’s story is indeed complex, but familiar for so many of us who once had genuine spiritual experiences in a church home, but were failed by that same community when it seemed to really matter. While some continue in the Christian faith despite the devastation, many choose to leave. You might know some of them. You might be one of them.

This shared experience is part of what drew Russell to Hackney’s story, especially with her tone of hospitality and high regard for a tradition in which she experienced great devastation.

Emilee joined Russell from her office in Virgina, with a Dolly Parton poster peeking over one shoulder, and a Loretta Lynn poster above the other. Their conversation spreads from church hurt to class and belonging, even to parenthood. Through it all, Emilee resists the invitation to dilute or flatten Appalachia, her family, or even the church that wounded her into something easily dismissed. Instead, she asks what it might mean to see the people and places we think we already understand.

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Maybe the way to speak with clarity into a loud and angry age starts with learning when not to speak at all.

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Most of us know what it is to feel overwhelmed by noise…not just the literal kind, but the pings and alerts, the demands and arguments, the constant sense that something somewhere requires our attention right now. John Mark Comer, author of The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, returns to talk with Russell about his new book, Into the Quiet: Following Jesus in a World of Noise (October 6th). And, as Comer argues, quiet isn't simply a way to calm down. Sometimes the first thing we encounter in silence is everything we've been using the noise to avoid.

Russell and Comer talk about why solitude can initially make us more anxious rather than less, how to distinguish the voice of God from all the other voices rattling around in our heads, and why God's silence isn't the same thing as God's absence. They also consider what churches might look like if they became refuges from noise rather than competitors in it—and why the Christian call to “lead a quiet life” doesn't mean retreating from a troubled world.

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From the Moore to the Point newsletter: A system that scares you can sometimes keep you compliant, but whatever can ultimately direct your life is your god.

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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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