Russell Moore has stepped down as editor in chief of Christianity Today and will be succeeded by one of the most iconoclastic Christian journalists of the late 20th century.
In an undated news release, Christianity Today Interim President Thomas Addington announced the appointment of Marvin Olasky as editor in chief of the ministry’s flagship magazine. Olasky, 75, came to national attention as editor of World magazine from 1994 to 2021.
There, he advocated a kind of “biblical worldview” journalism. He abandoned traditional teaching about journalistic objectivity by claiming “the only true objectivity is biblical objectivity.”
A 2006 Baptist Press article reported on Olasky’s comments to a group of Southern Baptist journalists: “The right way to do journalism is to let the Bible teach reporters how to view any event and report on it accordingly,” he said.”
That led him and World magazine to take a much more aggressive approach in reporting on culture war issues than other media outlets. To traditional journalists, he advocated bias; to conservative evangelicals, he was a much-desired truth-teller.
That approach had distinct consequences, as noted by San Francisco-area pastor Fred Harrell. Harrell was founding pastor of City Church San Francisco, a congregation affiliated with the Reformed Church in America.
Fred Harrell
“When I led our church to become fully affirming of LGBTQ people, Olasky — then at World magazine — wrote a piece about us and outed my son, even after I begged him not to. He combed through my son’s Twitter feed for ‘evidence’ and published it anyway,” Harrell wrote in an Oct. 13 Facebook post.
“Despite whatever theological views one holds, no parent should ever have to make the call I had to make that day — to tell their child that a Christian publication has just revealed something so deeply personal to the world. It was one of the most painful phone calls I’ve ever had to make, knowing that now every relative — with World magazine sitting on their coffee tables — would learn something sacred and private about his life. It was, honestly, about as wicked as it gets.
“Outing someone publicly like that is cruel and dangerous. It’s a violation of dignity, privacy and love. It’s the kind of homophobic evil that drives LGBTQ people away from the church and fuels the epidemic of depression and suicide among queer youth — all to sell a few more magazines and increase circulation.
“Christianity Today, this is the kind of person you just hired. The harm is real. Who else has he done this to? Who else will he do it to? If the church is ever to reflect Christ’s heart, it must reckon honestly with the harm it has done — and stop empowering those who perpetuate it.”
On the other hand, Moore praised Olasky as just the kind of person Christianity Today needs.
Russell Moore
“Marvin is respected all over the world not only as one of the most accomplished Christian journalists in American history but also for the way he identifies and cultivates the gifts and callings of others,” he said. “Many of the most skilled and recognizable Christian journalists right now, on countless platforms all over the country, were trained by Marvin Olasky.”
As a younger person, “I would quite often open up an issue with a low whistle and comment, ‘I can’t believe he is courageous enough to take on that,’” Moore said.
“I have been praying for a year and a half for God to send us a ‘Marvin Olasky type’ to serve with us so that I could focus my attention fully on writing, audio and video content, and speaking,” Moore explained. “I remember the moment when I realized it might just be that the ‘Marvin Olasky type’ God was sending us was, well, Marvin Olasky. That seemed almost too perfect to be real.”
Addington said Moore requested to step away from the editor in chief role because of the expansion of “The Russell Moore Show” and the demands of his weekly essays and role as a cohost on “The Bulletin,” Christianity Today’s weekly news and analysis podcast.
In addition to being the founding editor of World, Olasky served as a professor at the University of Texas at Austin from 1983 to 2008. He is the author of 30 books on journalism, American history, abortion and public policy, including The Tragedy of American Compassion, Prodigal Press, and Compassionate Conservatism. He has served the past 18 months at Christianity Today as a consultant and then as an executive editor.