Who Will Follow Beth Moore Away From the Southern Baptist Church?
The Christian influencer and Bible teacher has been a towering figure among evangelicals willing to criticize Trump
Beth Moore fills a commanding niche in women’s evangelical circles. She has nearly a million Twitter followers; she runs Living Proof Ministries, a Texas-based Bible organization for women; she has headlined sports-arena-sized conferences; and she hosts a television show.
Moore is a petite, blonde, Southern belle with an Arkadelphia, Arkansas, folksiness and a televangelist’s urgency. She’s charming, self-deprecating, and can with conviction call Satan a liar and Donald Trump an example of “gross entitlement & power.” As a member of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), she calls herself a Bible teacher, not a preacher, and for women whose churches often won’t allow female pastors, Moore fulfills a leadership role where women are allotted some authority — over other women.
But in a recent interview with Religion News Service, Moore announced that she no longer is a Southern Baptist and has broken ties with her SBC-affiliated publisher Lifeway Christian Resources. She said she still loves many Southern Baptist people and churches, “but I don’t identify with some of the things in our heritage…
