When angry white men can’t give up hating Beth Moore

This article was updated Dec. 30 to include a response from Beth Moore.

 

Some of the Southern Baptist Convention’s white male theocrats just can’t give up hating on Beth Moore.

It has been nearly three years since the popular Bible teacher and author from Houston gave up on the denomination of her heritage and became an Anglican — an exit driven primarily by SBC leaders’ unwillingness to address the lies of Donald Trump and by reaction from male-headship pastors who accused her of “preaching” and exercising authority over men.

She seems to have moved on, but some of the men who need her as a foil for their masculinity cannot quit.

Exhibit A is William Wolfe, a former Trump staff member and former intern to Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Al Mohler. Wolfe is a self-described Christian nationalist who frequently uses his X account to post inflammatory statements of white supremacy, Christian supremacy and male supremacy.

The latest came Dec. 23 when he tweeted: “If you can’t admit that Beth Moore was an ungodly, even demonic, influence on the SBC — I really won’t be able to trust you.”

He followed that by writing: “The first thing the Devil said to God’s people was ‘Did God really say…’ Beth Moore has stood up now for years and said ‘Did God really say…only men can be pastors?’ Anyone promoting disobedience to God is doing the work of the Devil. That’s basic Christianity.”

He later responded to critics on X by writing: “People get really angry when you point out that the corrupted theology of their favorite Bible teachers is fundamentally demonic.”

His original tweet generated more than 113,000 views and dozens of comments, mainly skewering him for his obsession. One respondent tweeted: “Seriously the obsession is embarrassing. She’s moved on from you, why don’t you do the same.”

Three days later, Dec. 26, Beth Moore responded indirectly with her own tweet:

I’ll get slammed for this but it’s been on my heart to say for months. I love you SBC women so much. You were such a privilege to serve. You made me study Scripture 10 times harder than I would have. You gave me room to make so many mistakes and grow. You were my first and longest compadres in Bible study. I would not have chosen to leave you. I believe a fight is worth having if you are fighting for someone you love. You are who I fought for even if you disagreed and even if my mouth got away from me. Most of my ministry was too far behind me to have fought for my own selfish sake. When you get to be my age, you start thinking what you want to make sure you’ve said to those you cherish before it’s too late. I’ve been thinking for weeks now how I wished I could say this to you but haven’t known where to post it. I decided this was as good a place as any: Thank you thank you thank you thank you. What grace of God to serve you. Thank you so much for allowing me into your church libraries, into your dens, into your sanctuaries, into your lives. It was never lost on me. I was aware every second what a gift from God you were. Through all eternity, I will thank God for the honor to serve you, study Scripture and seek the Lord Jesus with you. I’m positive I love him more because of your impact on me. I had problems with the SBC. But you weren’t one of them. You will only ever be dear to me. I will carry you on my heart to the grave. I love you so.

That tweet got three times the views as Wolfe’s and three times the number of comments — mainly thanking and affirming Moore.

But Moore felt compelled to follow up her self-effacing original post with yet another apology: “I’m just so sorry if I hurt y’all. I say this with tears.”

The vast majority of responses to her tweets not only were affirmative but told personal stories of how lives were changed because of her influence.

Amid those, one Calvinist pastor from Kentucky snapped back, however: “Your problem is with scripture, not the SBC and it is very clear you have not tirelessly studied the scriptures because you cannot submit to simple instruction given by an Apostle.”

Note the overall trend of what’s happening here: A white male authoritarian figure lambastes a woman as a heretic and she responds by apologizing for what she sincerely felt was the right thing to do.

This is the very epitome of our embedded culture of white male supremacy. Surely that’s something William Wolfe believes is the way things ought to be, but the response is indicative of what truly matters.

No one responded to Wolfe with stories of how his theology or teaching changed their lives. But that’s mainly what people said to Moore about her life and ministry.

The next thing Moore needs to model for Christian women called by God is to stop apologizing for being present, for speaking up, for proclaiming the word. And to stop apologizing to angry men.

They aren’t worth the breath.

 

Mark Wingfield serves as executive director and publisher of Baptist News Global. He is the author of the new book Honestly: Telling the Truth About the Bible and Ourselves.

 

Beth Moore wrote the following response to this article on X:

This article was good for me to read for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the closing exhortation. Yes, I hear you. Yes, I needed to hear it.

But a couple of things I’d like to say in response: What I wrote in that post to Southern Baptist women had been on my heart to say for some time. How the fissure began in 2016 was so chaotic and the studies were thrown out of numerous churches so quickly that it has taken me a good deal of time to sort it all out. I may never get it all sorted out but I know the Lord has overseen it all and had purpose.

I believe I did what he told me to do and am now where he meant me to be. But, man, it has been brutal. Those words to Southern Baptist women were something like you might say to a friend that you lost in a conflict years earlier after you’ve healed up a bit: “no matter what happened, I want you to know I love you so much and I’m glad for the time we spent together and I’m the better for you being in my life. Thank you.”

You were not wrong, however, to connect the apology in some respects to the Wolfe tweet. Most of the time I can let this stuff roll off my back. I know it does not come from the Spirit because people who walk with Jesus don’t treat people the way Wolfe and his ilk do. I can easily intellectually tell myself the truth when I see things like that but I’m not sure my skin will ever be thick enough to prevent every arrow from hitting my heart.

My apology was not for speaking out. I make no apologies for that and I have not changed my mind or my stand. But in 40 years of teaching, the fact is, all of us owe some apologies to the people we’ve served. We’ve said too many words. Been poor examples at times. We’ve been self-centered and we’ve let our anger dictate some of our messages.

This much I know: I helped prop up misogyny in the denomination and helped build up trust in some systems and some leaders that were not worthy of our trust though I did not realize that was what I was doing. I do indeed owe some people I’ve served a long time an apology for any harm I brought them. It was never my intention. My desire was to do good. My desire was to be godly.

Lastly, I’d like to say that what men like William do to women is not without effect, which, of course, they know and which, of course, is why they do it. And there is a “they.” Wolfe is just saying publicly what his circle says privately. In an ideal world, we would be unaffected by those kinds of things. But we are humans here. Still breakable. Still well able to be bruised. Still bothered in the dark night by questions like, did I do them harm???

And I have to think that, if the time comes that I cannot still be wounded, my heart has grown hard and I’ll probably need to retire. So, what to do? Take those things to the Lord and learn from them and ask him to do something good with them.