Religion News Service reporter Bob Smietana broke the story this week that famous Bible study leader Beth Moore is leaving the Southern Baptist Convention and ending the mutually lucrative publishing relationship with their Lifeway group. She claimed that the SBC…
As a woman called to ministry, my heart is broken, and the wound is very old
Two days after I learned that the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee formally voted to remove St. Matthews Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky., from denominational membership, my chest began to hurt. Right in my sternum, there was pain I can…
Is the Beth Moore Effect a feminist awakening?
Beth Moore’s recent defection from the Southern Baptist Convention has been a long time coming. Moore built her career modeling Southern Baptist, submissive womanhood, but her public witness has challenged the gender roles that she, until very recently, defended. Moore’s…
Why Beth Moore’s departure from the SBC really matters
In its own year of racial reckoning, the Southern Baptist Convention just awoke to a high-profile gender reckoning as well. Beth Moore, the popular Bible study teacher and author who for years has maintained the line of being a “teacher”…
Coronavirus challenging denominational summer conventions yet again
For the second year, denominational annual meetings are being derailed and reworked due to the coronavirus pandemic. This will have an urgent effect on the United Methodist Church, which already had delayed from last year a critical vote on the…
Matter-of-fact statements about Scripture aren’t always the gospel truth
It was a beautiful September day on the campus of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. The sun was shining brightly through the Beech trees along Lexington Road as they turned from green to orange. I ran down the stairwell from my…
About disfellowshipping churches based on the ‘clear’ teaching of Scripture
Two churches were disfellowshipped this week by the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee for “affirming homosexuality within their memberships.” I have ties to at least one of the churches — friends, colleagues and former students and seminary and Sunday school…
What the SBC should learn from the Ravi Zacharias tragedy
According to an investigative report released earlier this month, deceased celebrity evangelist Ravi Zacharias abused multiple women with “sexting, unwanted touching, spiritual abuse and rape.” The evidence is overwhelming. The details are stark and nauseating. Many have described the report…
LGBTQ inclusion and clergy sexual abuse treated equally in SBC expulsions
Four churches were expelled from the Southern Baptist Convention Feb. 23 in a joint action that gave the appearance of equating LGBTQ inclusion with predatory sexual behavior. Among the four churches expelled, two were removed due to welcoming LGBTQ Christians…