Just a month after making headlines by announcing her departure from the Southern Baptist Convention, popular author and Bible teacher Beth Moore launched a second salvo against the male-dominated leadership of the SBC. Read full piece
First she shook the evangelical world by leaving the Southern Baptist Convention. Now Beth Moore, arguably the evangelical world’s most famous Bible teacher, has begged forgiveness for supporting the theology of male headship rooted in many evangelical cultures.
Though data shows declines across the board, departing members aren’t going far. Read full piece
Two weeks after being kicked out of the Southern Baptist Convention, Towne View Baptist Church celebrated its 32nd anniversary by formally accepting members the SBC said they should have turned away. Read full piece
Many women preachers and teachers say their call to ministry was inspired in part by Beth Moore’s example. Some have been able to stay in evangelical churches by avoiding the title “pastor” and going by “Bible teacher” instead. Others have had to leave their home churches.
The National African American Fellowship of the SBC issued a statement Wednesday asking presidents of SBC seminaries to take steps to help defuse current racial tensions within the convention.
Among the millions of women belonging to churches of the Southern Baptist Convention, there are many who have questioned the faith’s gender-role doctrine and more recently urged a stronger response to disclosures of sexual abuse perpetrated by SBC clergy.
Even before a member of a Southern Baptist church was accused of the Georgia spa massacre, motivated, he told police, by guilt over a “sex addiction,” the Southern Baptist Convention was under scrutiny over its teachings on gender and sexuality.
A new generation of evangelical women are following in the footsteps of Beth Moore, the popular women’s Bible teacher who shook up the evangelical world by announcing last week she was quitting the Southern Baptist Convention.
When pastors or churches talk about misconduct as a ‘moral failing’ instead of abuse, they send a message that victims and survivors are partially to blame. This can be seen in the response to Jennifer Lyell in Southern Baptist life.