Beth Moore: ‘I Can No Longer Identify With Southern Baptists’

Editor

March 9, 2021

The Beth Moore brand has, for decades, been synonymous with the Southern Baptist Convention. The partnership, though, is over — at least in its official capacity.

In a new interview with the Religion News Service, Moore announced she no longer feels at home in the SBC, a shift that comes as she has ended her professional partnership with LifeWay Christian Resources, the publishing and distribution division of the SBC.

She told RNS’ Bob Smietana on Friday she is “no longer a Southern Baptist.”

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“I am still a Baptist,” Moore clarified, “but I can no longer identify with Southern Baptists. 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.”

The breakup between Moore’s Living Proof Ministries and LifeWay was reportedly amicable.

Becky Lloyd, director of LifeWay Women, said the organization will continue to work with Moore and will still sell some of her books as well as promote events hosted by the author and Bible teacher.

“Our relationship with Beth is not over,” she said. “We will continue to love, pray, and support Beth for years to come. 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.”

Moore has becoming increasingly interesting to the media as she is a prominent Christian leader who has been critical of former President Donald Trump. Outside her criticism of the Republican leader, it’s unlikely mainstream journalists would pay as much attention to her shift away from the SBC.

She told RNS she was “shocked” by the now-infamous “Access Hollywood” tape, in which Trump — then a reality TV star — bragged about his sexual exploits with women, whom he said allowed him to do things as a result of his celebrity status.

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

Moore, 63, told Smietana she expected Southern Baptist leaders to condemn Trump and dismiss him as a viable candidate. While many still voted for Trump in 2016 and again in 2020, several prominent Christians did condemn his 2005 comments.

Dr. Russell Moore, president of the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, rebuked Trump’s words as “a disgrace” and “a scandal to the gospel of Jesus Christ and to the integrity of our witness.”

And, although he went on to vote for Trump last November, in 2016, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Albert Mohler described both Trump and then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton as “unsupportable.” As for Trump, he argued in an op-ed for The Washington Post that Christians should not “allow a national disgrace to become the Great Evangelical Embarrassment.”

Moore has also been very vocal in her criticism of the SBC’s handling on matters of racism and sexism.

In 2018, she published a post titled, “A Letter to My Brothers,” outlining the mistreatment she has experienced over the years in Southern Baptist circles simply because she is a woman serving in ministry alongside men.

The author and speaker has, over the last few years, spoken out about her own experience with sexual abuse and has called for Christians to reckon with the issue since February 2019, when the Houston Chronicle published a report that detailed more than 700 cases of sexual abuse among Southern Baptists over two decades.

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