The Southern Baptists and the Beth Moore Identity Crisis

The Southern Baptist Convention is undergoing an identity crisis. In my estimation, it’s a healthy and needed one. I live surrounded by Southern Baptist Churches. We are a small liturgical Presbyterian congregation in the panhandle of Florida that uses wine during the Lord’s Supper. That fact alone is sufficient to cause great consternation from our SBC friends. Still, I think our practical and theological differences are the kinds of differences that can stir a good conversation around a beer…make that sweet tea.

I love my SBC brethren, but this entire struggle for identity is one they should embrace wholeheartedly. SBC ministers need to fight for the heart of theological integrity. The ones I know are committed to doing so, and they should strive for the peace of the convention through stricter definitions and not looser ones. As a former Baptist, I am committed to supporting them in this endeavor, which leads me to my main point: It is good that Beth Moore is gone from the SBC.

Beth Moore added a dimension to the SBC that did not shape the ethos of the convention to the standard of the Baptist Faith and Message or to root it more deeply in the Spurgeon-strand of the SBC nor did she encourage the larger convention to a higher commitment to basic and historical concepts on the relation of man and woman and their respective roles in the local church. Moore imbibed an eclectic standard of doing ministry that always pushed the buttons of historical Baptist orthodoxy. She brought a mystical and charismatic flavor to her teaching that encouraged women to look deeply into their experiences as a standard in and of itself. She injected a pietism into the SBC that does not produce the cultural fruit the church needs today to fight secularism. Her devotionals, however beneficial, ultimately did not provoke a greater interest in a faithful hermeneutic, but in a broad evangelicalism that kept readers and listeners at a very basic understanding of the faith.

When such insertion of personality and charisma and pietism coalesce around one woman, it is natural that she will begin to push the creation order and priestly tradition of the Old Testament into new territory. When Moore becomes the voice of a historically-men-led group of churches, she will inevitably become uncomfortable with the outcome of such an environment. If it is true that men spoke unkindly to her or even addressed her abrasively or abusively, that is a separate matter. Those men need to be judged for their lack of care and concern and a harsh reprimand should be a start, and if it’s a pattern, a few floggings as well. That kind of attitude is unacceptable. I agree that action needs to be taken, but once that abusive attitude is dealt with, we are still left at the end of the day with the question pertaining to what the role of a woman is in leading a congregation liturgically or devotionally, or sermonically.

As I have argued before, women have a fantastic role to play in the church, but they do not have the role of leading men in spiritual warfare. And this is not because they lack capability intellectually, it’s because of the order of creation and God’s inherent standard that men protect women in warfare and not the opposite. It is Christ, the risen man, who leads the saints into victory. The minister functions as representatives of that sacred duty on Sunday morning.

If my assumptions line-up with standard SBC practice, and I know they do, then Beth Moore’s place is elsewhere. And this is a good thing. If her reaction to perceived mistreatment or real mistreatment is reason to open herself to un-SBC practices and theology, including an excessive interest in leftist voices to defend her views on racial reconciliation, then she is right to move beyond the SBC. I think this is a sign that the SBC is tightening her corridors. The Convention needs to be more precise in her voice and Moore’s departure may be the impetus for such action.

Anthea Butler, associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania, believes Moore could be the conservative version of Rachel Held Evans. That assessment is a dangerous one since Evans rallied progressive Christians away from biblical authority. A conservative version would mean leading other Baptist women to accept a version of authority with a hundred caveats. The caveats are the danger. One can say, “Only men should preach,” but on special occasions, a Sunday morning should be reserved for a special female guest to speak or share a word. That kind of subtlety forms unhealthy trends that do not lead to Geneva or Louisville, but to the embrace of Mother Woke.

But getting even closer to the heart of the matter is Moore’s distaste for anyone who supported Donald Trump in this last election. Moore believed that Trump supporters went too far and once she began to receive push-back on her anti-Trump sentiments, she began to re-analyze her entire role in the SBC. And with that analysis came a lot of praise from voices on the Left supporting her cause and cheering her revolution.

I have already delved into much of this through this entire season, but what happened to Moore is what is happening to many within the SBC. They are at a crossroads deciding whether they will embrace those outside voices seeking a broader convention led by the influence of Russ Moore and the ERLC, or whether they bring the SBC to a place of stability.

I believe Beth Moore leaving is a good thing. Others who follow her vision should also leave. Until that happens, the SBC will be in one perpetual identity crisis after the other. I hope this becomes an impetus for a healthy trajectory in the SBC; the kind Mohler led a few decades ago. We need another one now and I support that cause if it means drinking sweet tea or an IPA.