Thank You Beth Moore
With permission.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (RNS) — For nearly three decades, Beth Moore has been the very model of a modern Southern Baptist.
She loves Jesus and the Bible and has dedicated her life to teaching others why they need both of them in their lives. Millions of evangelical Christian women have read her Bible studies and flocked to hear her speak at stadium-style events where Moore delves deeply into biblical passages.
Moore’s outsize influence and role in teaching the Bible have always made some evangelical power brokers uneasy, because of their belief that only men should be allowed to preach.
But Moore was above reproach, supporting Southern Baptist teaching that limits the office of pastor to men alone and cheerleading for the missions and evangelistic work that the denomination holds dear.
“She has been a stalwart for the Word of God, never compromising,” former LifeWay Christian Resources President Thom Rainer during in 2015, during a celebration at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center in Nashville that honored 20 years of partnership between the Southern Baptist publishing house and Moore. “And when all is said and done, the impact of Beth Moore can only be measured in eternity’s grasp.”
Then along came Donald Trump.
Moore’s criticism of the 45th president’s abusive behavior toward women and her advocacy for sexual abuse victims turned her from a beloved icon to a pariah in the denomination she loved all her life.
“Wake up, Sleepers, to what women have dealt with all along in environments of gross entitlement & power,” Moore once wrote about Trump, riffing on a passage from the New Testament Book of Ephesians.
Because of her opposition to Trump and her outspokenness in confronting sexism and nationalism in the evangelical world, Moore has been labeled as “liberal” and “woke” and even as being a heretic for daring to give a message during a Sunday morning church service.
Finally, Moore had had enough. She told Religion News Service in an interview Friday (March 5) that she is “no longer a Southern Baptist.”
“I am still a Baptist, but I can no longer identify with Southern Baptists,” Moore said in the phone interview. “I love so many Southern Baptist people, so many Southern Baptist churches, but I don’t identify with some of the things in our heritage that haven’t remained in the past.”
Moore told RNS that she recently ended her longtime publishing partnership with Nashville-based LifeWay Christian. While LifeWay will still distribute her books, it will no longer publish them or administer her live events. (Full disclosure: The author of this article is a former LifeWay employee.)
As a Southern Baptist my whole life until a year and a half ago, (raised as an IMB missionary kid, and served for 20 years as an IMB missionary, graduate of an SBC University and SBC seminary) I believe she is doing the right thing, and is showing us what happens when you ignore the voices and gifts of women.
I am so very pleased with this news on Beth Moore. Glad she's leaving the SBC behind. I would hope she would reconsider that very convoluted complementarian position that has been so much a part of her past. When one looks at biblical hermeneutics and ties that in with the Great Commission worldwide mission, it's no longer (never was) tenable---apart from a racist perspective---to say women can "preach to the natives" as SBC and evangelical women of all stripes have been doing for generations, but they can't preach to red-blooded American men.