Beth Moore: The Identity Crisis of My Life. 2021 Update: She's Left the SBC.

[JermajestyDuggar]

Beth Moore posted a blog post yesterday: 

https://blog.lproof.org/

"I’ve been through the identity crisis of my adult life in the last year. No exaggeration. It has been one of the most excruciating things I have ever endured. After a lifetime of belonging – which, in itself, betrays a certain privilege – I tumbled into a season marked by the most alien sense of unbelonging. Some of it was imagined. Some of it was startlingly real. Some of it was temporary. Some of it painfully endures. I disappointed people I’d so wanted to please and I was disappointed by people I demanded to be heroic. In some very painful respects, I’d given the benefit of the doubt where I shouldn’t have and withheld it in a few places worthy of it."

This is just part of her post. Read through the rest on the link I provided. I am guessing this all has to do with Trump. What do you all think? Is she just being over dramatic? Or do you think this will actually change her perspective a little bit? I can imagine Trump brought a lot of nastiness out in her fellow Christians and it's shocked her. 

I am not a big follower of hers so I'm wondering what everyone else is thinking. 

Edited April 13, 2021 by Coconut Flan

[EowynW]

IIRC she is survivor of sexual abuse and she spoke out strongly against Trump during the election season and she was crucified for it. 

[molecule]

I assume it involves some backlash for her statements against Trump (http://www.thedailybeast.com/powerful-evangelical-women-split-from-male-church-leaders-to-slam-trump). She stunned a lot of people when she stood up for those who'd been hurt, while other evangelical leaders circled their bandwagons around Trump.

[JermajestyDuggar]

12 minutes ago, EowynW said:

IIRC she is survivor of sexual abuse and she spoke out strongly against Trump during the election season and she was crucified for it. 

I imagine that would completely shock any sexual abuse survivor. It shocks me that anyone could support a man who openly brags about grabbing women by their genital area.

[December]

Yeah, it definitely reads like it's related to her speaking out on Trump (which must've been a very difficult thing to do personally and professionally). 

[JermajestyDuggar]

I really hate that Trump is president. But I guess if there's one good thing that has come from his being elected, it would be that it exposed A LOT of people for who they truly are.

[Evangeline]

I definitely think it has to do with Trump and other Southern Baptist nonsense. Such as the convention being shamed into approving a weak anti-racism statement after rejecting a much stronger one. I think she finally realized Southern Baptist men don't give a shit about victims of sexual assault or racism, and it's shaken her to her core. I'd love to see her and Russell Moore leave the SBC in protest but I don't know if they're there yet. 

[Soulhuntress]

4 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

I really hate that Trump is president. But I guess if there's one good thing that has come from his being elected, it would be that it exposed A LOT of people for who they truly are.

If the cheeto faced one does one good thing it may be waking people up to see how bad things are.

[EowynW]

1 hour ago, Evangeline said:

I definitely think it has to do with Trump and other Southern Baptist nonsense. Such as the convention being shamed into approving a weak anti-racism statement after rejecting a much stronger one. I think she finally realized Southern Baptist men don't give a shit about victims of sexual assault or racism, and it's shaken her to her core. I'd love to see her and Russell Moore leave the SBC in protest but I don't know if they're there yet. 

No on Russell Moore. Still dislike him. He has no problem calling complementarian theology what it is. Patriarchy. Or atleast he did a few years ago. 

[clueliss]

I think, for Beth, it goes beyond just Trump.  She tweeted this back on 8/12 and it hit my twitter feed and I noticed it today when Andy Stanley retweeted it.  As someone who has done many of Beth's study's I'm going to guess/speculate that she is disappointed in how 'the church' is behaving in all of this.  

 

 

[Evangeline]

35 minutes ago, EowynW said:

No on Russell Moore. Still dislike him. He has no problem calling complementarian theology what it is. Patriarchy. Or atleast he did a few years ago. 

I don't understand this statement. 

[EowynW]

30 minutes ago, Evangeline said:

I don't understand this statement. 

http://thewartburgwatch.com/2011/12/19/russell-moore-tells-women-to-stop-submitting-to-men/

 

Edited August 18, 2017 by EowynW

[apple1]

(Context - I self-identify as a Christian woman).

That said - In the past, I haven't been a Beth Moore fan. Mostly something I couldn't exactly put my finger on, maybe having more to do with her "followers" -- the many women who seemed to hang on to her every word as absolute truth instead of thinking for themselves. Not exactly Beth's fault.

However - I respect Beth for speaking out now, in an "evangelical" world that is STILL - unfortunately - largely supporting the most morally bankrupt man to ever inhabit the office of POTUS. A world that has lost their own moral mandate in demonstrating that their actual hope and faith is in politics and a politician of a particular flavor, and not in the God they have professed.

Beth has her work cut out for her. And I completely understand and relate to the personal crisis of figuring out what one's own true faith is after seeing those that you previously looked at as faith leaders disappoint you irrevocably. (words carefully chosen, trying to say things broadly; my words might be too weak)

Beth will not come out of this unscathed. There will be many who will choose their politics first, and many who will not understand the nuances of what she says.

[PennySycamore]

@apple1,  I remember my sister talking about some Beth Moore Bible study she was doing several years ago.  (She invited my Jewish sister-in-law.  Umm, no.  Mama and Daddy never tied to convert s-i-l and don't you try.)  Anyway, I wonder how she feels about all this.  I do know she's had some shit on her FB about Antifa and BLM being terrorist orgs. I'm disgusted and disappointed in my sister, quite honestly.

[molecule]

2 hours ago, apple1 said:

(Context - I self-identify as a Christian woman).

That said - In the past, I haven't been a Beth Moore fan. Mostly something I couldn't exactly put my finger on, maybe having more to do with her "followers" -- the many women who seemed to hang on to her every word as absolute truth instead of thinking for themselves. Not exactly Beth's fault.

I am also a Christian woman. I've never been into Beth Moore. She is too exuberant for my tastes when I've seen her videos, and I haven't bothered to look at her books although they've been recommended by friends.

However, her willingness to confront the evangelical leadership's lack of moral compass regarding Trump makes me want to support her now.

[EowynW]

 

 

i like Her for stuff like this. 

[Howl]

She's a character, for sure.  And evangelical women, and many  women, need to hear another woman reminding us, YOU ARE WOMAN ENOUGH.   It would drive me crazy to listen to her for very long, though. 

She'll continue to get relentless sh*t, though, because she's a woman and she's preaching. 

Edited August 19, 2017 by Howl

[SoybeanQueen]

Former member of the SBC here. I've participated in some Beth Moore Bible studies in the past, and enjoyed them. I stopped paying attention to her for a while because she has some sketchy adoption stuff involving one of her kids, and it put me off. However, I am glad to see her taking a stand on this. I'm so tired of hearing how anyone who doesn't love Trump is a liberal or still mad about Clinton. Yeah, sorry, dudes, those are not even remotely the only reasons to distance one's self from that disaster. Good on her for saying so, publicly.

She has bigger balls than most of the men in the SBC.

[seraaa]

Is her post about Trump and the Evangelical community's support of him? I can imagine that was tough if you're actually not a hypocrite. 

ETA: Yes. Yes, it probably was.

Edited August 21, 2017 by seraaa

[Howl]

On 8/19/2017 at 0:15 PM, SoybeanQueen said:

She has bigger balls than most of the men in the SBC.

Woo hoo! Eleventy! 

[clueliss]

Reviving a very old thread because the board won't let me start a new topic on the board.

Beth Moore has split with Lifeway Publishers (I believe an arm of the SBC) AND the SBC.  She is no longer an Southern Baptist. 

I shared this piece on facebook and folks I know from doing Beth Moore studies (in non SBC Churches) were floored.  This is big.

https://religionnews.com/2021/03/09/bible-teacher-beth-moore-ends-partnership-with-lifeway-i-am-no-longer-a-southern-baptist/

 

Quote

News

Bible teacher Beth Moore, splitting with Lifeway, says, ‘I am no longer a Southern Baptist’

The famed Bible study teacher said she no longer feels at home in the denomination that once saved her life.

Author and speaker Beth Moore speaks during a panel on sexual abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention at the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex in Birmingham, Alabama, on June 10, 2019. RNS photo by Adelle M. Banks

March 9, 2021

By

Bob Smietana

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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 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.

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“She has been a stalwart for the Word of God, never compromising,” former Lifeway Christian Resources President Thom Rainer said 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.)

Beth Moore addresses attendees at the summit on sexual abuse and misconduct at Wheaton College on Dec. 13, 2018. RNS photo by Emily McFarlan Miller

Kate Bowler, a historian at Duke Divinity School who has studied evangelical women celebrities, said Moore’s departure is a significant loss for the Southern Baptist Convention.

Moore, she said, is one of the denomination’s few stand-alone women leaders, whose platform was based on her own “charisma, leadership and incredible work ethic” and not her marriage to a famed pastor. (Moore’s husband is a plumber by trade.) She also appealed to a wide audience outside her denomination.

“Ms. Moore is a deeply trusted voice across the liberal-conservative divide, and has always been able to communicate a deep faithfulness to her tradition without having to follow the Southern Baptist’s scramble to make Trump spiritually respectable,” Bowler said. “The Southern Baptists have lost a powerful champion in a time in which their public witness has already been significantly weakened.”

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Moore may be one of the most unlikely celebrity Bible teachers in recent memory. In the 1980s, she began sharing devotionals during the aerobics classes she taught at First Baptist Church in Houston. She then began teaching a popular women’s Bible study at the church, which eventually attracted thousands each week.

In the early 1990s, she wrote a Bible study manuscript and sent it to Lifeway, then known as the Baptist Sunday School Board, where it was rejected. However, after a Lifeway staffer saw Moore teach a class in person, the publisher changed its mind.

Moore’s first study, “A Woman’s Heart: God’s Dwelling Place,” was published in 1995 and was a hit, leading to dozens of additional studies, all backed up by hundreds of hours of research and reflecting Moore’s relentless desire to know more about the Bible.  

RELATED: Accusing SBC of ‘caving,’ John MacArthur says of Beth Moore: ‘Go home’

From 2001 to 2016, Moore’s Living Proof Ministries ran six-figure surpluses, building its assets from about a million dollars in 2001 to just under $15 million by April 2016, according to reports filed with the Internal Revenue Service. Her work as a Bible teacher has permeated down to small church Bible study groups and sold-out stadiums with her Living Proof Live events. 

For Moore, the Southern Baptist Convention was her family, her tribe, her heritage. Her Baptist church where she grew up in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, was a refuge from a troubled home where she experienced sexual abuse.

“My local church, growing up, saved my life,” she told RNS. “So many times, my home was my unsafe place. My church was my safe place.”

As an adult, she taught Sunday school and Bible study and then, with her Lifeway partnership, her life became deeply intertwined with the denomination. She believed in Jesus. And she also believed in the SBC.

Beth Moore speaks at Transformation Church, a nondenominational multiethnic evangelical megachurch near Charlotte, North Carolina, on June 2, 2019. Photo courtesy of Transformation Church

In October 2016, Moore had what she called “the shock of my life,” when reading the transcripts of the “Access Hollywood” tapes, where Trump boasted of his sexual exploits with women.

“This wasn’t just immorality,” she said. “This smacked of sexual assault.”

She expected her fellow evangelicals, especially Southern Baptist leaders she trusted, to be outraged, especially given how they had reacted to Bill Clinton’s conduct in the 1990s. Instead, she said, they rallied around Trump.

“The disorientation of this was staggering,” she said. “Just staggering.”

Moore, who described herself as “pro-life from conception to grave,” said she had no illusions about why evangelicals supported Trump, who promised to deliver anti-abortion judges up and down the judicial system.

Still, she could not comprehend how he became a champion of the faith. “He became the banner, the poster child for the great white hope of evangelicalism, the salvation of the church in America,” she said. “Nothing could have prepared me for that.”

When Moore spoke out about Trump, the pushback was fierce. Book sales plummeted as did ticket sales to her events. Her criticism of Trump was seen as an act of betrayal. From fiscal 2017 to fiscal 2019, Living Proof lost more than $1.8 million.

After allegations of abuse and misconduct began to surface among Southern Baptists in 2016, Moore also became increasingly concerned about her denomination’s tolerance for leaders who treated women with disrespect.

In 2018, she wrote a “letter to my brothers” on her blog, outlining her concerns about the deference she was expected to show male leaders, going as far as wearing flats instead of heels when she was serving alongside a man who was shorter than she was.

She also began to speak out about her own experience of abuse, especially after a February 2019 report from the Houston Chronicle, her hometown newspaper, detailed more than 700 cases of sexual abuse among Southern Baptists over a 20-year period.

RELATED: Beth Moore’s ministry reignites debate over whether women can preach

Her social media feeds, especially Twitter, where she has nearly a million followers, became filled with righteous anger and dismay over what she saw as a toxic mix of misogyny, nationalism and partisan politics taking over the evangelical world she loved — along with good-natured banter with friends and supporters to encourage them.

“I can get myself in so much trouble on Twitter because it’s kind of my jam,” she said. “My thing is to mess around with words and ideas.”

Then, in May 2019, Moore said, she did something she now describes as “really dumb.” A friend and fellow writer named Vicki Courtney mentioned on Twitter that she would be preaching in church on Mother’s Day.

“I’m doing Mother’s Day too! Vicki, let’s please don’t tell anyone this,” Moore replied.

The tweet immediately sparked a national debate among Southern Baptists and other evangelical leaders over whether women should be allowed to preach in church.

“There’s just something about the order of creation that means that God intends for the preaching voice to be a male voice,” Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said on his podcast.

Georgia Baptist pastor Josh Buice urged the SBC and Lifeway to cancel Moore, labeling her as a liberal threat to the denomination.

Controversial California megachurch pastor John MacArthur summed up his thoughts in two words, telling Moore, “Go home.”

Moore, who said she would not become pastor of a Southern Baptist church “to save my life,” watched in amazement as her tweet began to dominate the conversation in the denomination, drowning out the concerns about abuse.

“We were in the middle of the biggest sexual abuse scandal that has ever hit our denomination,” she said. “And suddenly, the most important thing to talk about was whether or not a woman could stand at the pulpit and give a message.”

When Moore attended the SBC’s annual meeting in June 2019 and spoke on a panel about abuse, she felt she was no longer welcome.

A panel on sexual abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention takes place at the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex in Birmingham, Alabama, on June 10, 2019. The panel was moderated by the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission Executive Vice President Philip Betancourt, from left, and included Rachael Denhollander, SBC President J.D. Greear, author and Bible teacher Beth Moore, abuse survivor and Birmingham native Susan Codone and ERLC President Russell Moore. RNS photo by Adelle M. Banks

Things have only gotten worse since then, said Moore. The SBC has been roiled by debates over critical race theory, causing a number of high-profile Black pastors to leave the denomination. Politics and Christian nationalism have crowded out the gospel, she said.

While all this was going on, Moore was working on a new Bible study with her daughter Melissa on the New Testament’s letter to Galatians. As she studied that book, Moore was struck by a passage where the Apostle Paul, the letter’s author, describes a confrontation with Peter, another apostle and early church leader, saying Peter’s conduct was “not in step with the gospel.”

That phrase, she said, resonated with her. It described what she and other concerned Southern Baptists were seeing as being wrong in their denomination.

“It was not in step with the gospel,” she said. “It felt like we had landed on Mars.”

RELATED: ‘We out’: Charlie Dates on why his church is leaving the SBC over rejection of critical race theory

Beth Allison Barr, a history professor and dean at Baylor University, said Moore’s departure will be a shock for Southern Baptist women.

Barr, the author of “The Making of Biblical Womanhood,” a forthcoming book on gender roles among evangelicals, grew up a Southern Baptist. Her mother was a huge fan of Moore, as were many women in her church.

“If she walks away, she’s going to carry a lot of these women with her,” said Barr. 

Anthea Butler, associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania and author of a forthcoming book on evangelicals and racism, said Moore could become a more conservative version of the late Rachel Held Evans, who rallied progressive Christians tired of evangelicalism but not of Christianity.

Critics of Moore will find it easier to dismiss her as “woke” or “liberal” than to deal with the substance of her critique, said Butler. But Moore’s concerns and the ongoing conflicts in the SBC about racism and sexism aren’t going away, Butler said.

The religion professor believes Moore will be better off leaving the SBC, despite the pain of breaking away.

“I applaud this move and support her because I know how soul-crushing the SBC is for women,” Butler said. “She will be far better off without them, doing the ministry God calls her to do.”  

Unwinding her life from the Southern Baptist Convention and from Lifeway was difficult. Moore and her husband have begun visiting a new church, one not tied as closely to the SBC but still “gospel-driven.” She looked at joining another denomination, perhaps becoming a Lutheran or a Presbyterian, but in her heart, she remains Baptist.

She still loves the things Southern Baptists believe, she said, and is determined to stay connected with a local church. Moore hopes at some point, the public witness of Southern Baptists will return to those core values and away from the nationalism, sexism and racial divides that seem to define its public witness.

So far that has not happened.

“At the end of the day, there comes a time when you have to say, this is not who I am,” she said.

Moore had formed long-term friendships with her editing and marketing team at Lifeway and saying goodbye was painful, though amicable. She’d hoped to spend 2020 on a kind of farewell tour but most of her events last year were canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.  (Lifeway does have a cruise featuring Moore still on its schedule.)

“These are people that I love so dearly and they are beloved forever,” she said. “I just have not been able to regard many things in my adult ministry life as more of a manifestation of grace than that gift of partnership with Lifeway.”

Becky Loyd, director of Lifeway Women, spoke fondly about Moore.

“Our relationship with Beth is not over, we will continue to love, pray and support Beth for years to come,” she told RNS in an email. “Lifeway is so thankful to the Lord for allowing us to be a small part of how God has used Beth over many years to help women engage Scripture in deep and meaningful ways and help them grow in their relationship with Jesus Christ.”

Lifeway will still carry Moore’s books and promote some of her events.

Those events will likely be smaller, attracting a few hundred people rather than thousands, said Moore, at least in the beginning. And she is looking forward to beginning anew.

“I am going to serve whoever God puts in front of me,” she said.

 

[apple1]

On 8/19/2017 at 9:38 AM, apple1 said:

(Context - I self-identify as a Christian woman).

That said - In the past, I haven't been a Beth Moore fan. Mostly something I couldn't exactly put my finger on, maybe having more to do with her "followers" -- the many women who seemed to hang on to her every word as absolute truth instead of thinking for themselves. Not exactly Beth's fault.

However - I respect Beth for speaking out now, in an "evangelical" world that is STILL - unfortunately - largely supporting the most morally bankrupt man to ever inhabit the office of POTUS. A world that has lost their own moral mandate in demonstrating that their actual hope and faith is in politics and a politician of a particular flavor, and not in the God they have professed.

Beth has her work cut out for her. And I completely understand and relate to the personal crisis of figuring out what one's own true faith is after seeing those that you previously looked at as faith leaders disappoint you irrevocably. (words carefully chosen, trying to say things broadly; my words might be too weak)

Beth will not come out of this unscathed. There will be many who will choose their politics first, and many who will not understand the nuances of what she says.

Kudos to Beth Moore as she follows the dictates of her own conscience and walks away from what she knows is morally wrong.

[Howl]

She's gone from SBC to just regular ol' Baptist.  Looking in from the outside, this doesn't seem like a huge change to me, but to Baptists and particularly SBC Baptists, it's apparently a huge deal. 

And for heaven's sake (!), what took her so long?  The SBC insanity has been relentless for years on so many fronts. But anyway, good for her.  Baby steps! 

Also, Beth, there's no cancel culture like Christian cancel culture. 

 

Edited March 10, 2021 by Howl

[seraaa]

16 minutes ago, Howl said:

She's gone from SBC to just regular ol' Baptist.  Looking in from the outside, this doesn't seem like a huge change to me, but to Baptists and particularly SBC Baptists, it's apparently a huge deal. 

And for heaven's sake (!), what took her so long?  The SBC insanity has been relentless for years on so many fronts. But anyway, good for her.  Baby steps! 

Also, Beth, there's no cancel culture like Christian cancel culture. 

 

She probably did not want to leave the denomination she has been a member of her whole life. And she took a lot of flack for arguing her corner for a long time. I admire her for sticking to her principles.

[hoipolloi]

13 hours ago, Howl said:

Looking in from the outside, this doesn't seem like a huge change to me, but to Baptists and particularly SBC Baptists, it's apparently a huge deal. 

Many ex-evangelicals on Twitter & elsewhere are saying this is a BFD as is Kristin Du Mez, author of Jesus and John Wayne.

It will be interesting to see how many fundie Christian women follow Moore's lead.

Edited March 11, 2021 by hoipolloi