The Horde’s Anointed

“I want to stoke the fire I’m in the middle of right now about as much as I want to amputate my toes without anesthesia.” -Beth Moore

I’m pretty sure it’s not her toes that are causing her to sin.

Start with the tongue Beth.

#HowLongOhLord

But what was particularly interesting was seeing a self-declared complimentarian speak about creation order.

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2012: “Farewell Rob Bell”
2019: “Out the door Beth Moore”

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Where is her husband?

This is little different than Revoice. Either the law of the Lord is good or it isn’t. Either we love his law or we don’t.

This whole issue also touches on the issue of the Christian celebrity culture we have. She thinks she has the right to teach my wife - and me it seems - but has no accountability from me, from anyone I know, from any elder that I know. Its the wild, wild west around here.

Where is her husband?

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I just came here to say that “The Horde’s Anointed” is a particularly fantastic headline.

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I had hoped the title would have a little staying power, as a place to discuss unfortunately-popular hirelings.

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I really like the chiastic structure you got going on there

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I had a read of the article you linked to. As always, there are deep presuppositions behind every statement. One of Moore’s comments that struck me as intriguing was:

“What I plead for is to grapple with the entire text from Mt 1 thru Rev 22 on every matter concerning women.”

I understand Beth Moore is a Baptist, but wouldn’t Gen 1 thru Rev 22 be more applicable?

(Sorry Baptists, you do tend to prioritise the New Testament to the detriment of the Old).

My opinion is that weak complementarianism is aided and abetted by concentrating too heavily on the New Testament for its backbone. There’s more about men and women in the Old Testament than Gen 1-3, and the male only Levitical priesthood. Maybe that is part of Moore’s problem.

Other comments about protecting power, etc, etc, seem just slanderous (or libelous - if we can call tweeting writing :slight_smile:) Sure, there is likely truth in any accusation, but people deserve better than an accusation without follow through.

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We should grapple with Scripture the way Jacob grappled with the angel of the Lord – to be blessed and bested by it. If we come refusing to bend to it, we will be broken by it.

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Completely agree regarding her leaving out the OT. I mean, why? Statements like this show she shouldn’t be a teacher, man or woman.

Even so, God, in his infinite Mercy and understanding of is, his stubborn people, have us a prooftext in 1 Tim 2, which IS in the NT. She “understands” this in some other way. Some issues are difficult. Consider the IVF we’ve discussed recently. But this women teaching men issue is black and white.

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About Baptists and the OT - what I learnt was, “Live by the New Testament, but learn from the OT”. A fair approach? I would welcome feedback.

Live by the New Testament, but learn from the OT

For the Old Testament, my philosophy’s more of, “Study how Jesus and the apostles treated the Old Testament and treat it that way too.” They did more than learn from it, it was their foundation. They understood that some things were abrogated and some things were changed; yet they made arguments from the Old Testament—they extracted principles from its case law—they joyfully quoted particular psalms as applicable to their current situations. Shouldn’t we too? What wealth is there!

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But that sounds hard. What if we just kept the bible verses that look good printed on coffee cups instead?

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If I hear Jeremiah 29:11 quoted out of context to an inmate again… sometimes it feels like half of my teaching in jail is just giving context to out of context snippets of Scripture.

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Remember that this is said of the Old Testament Scriptures:

2 Timothy 3:16–17
All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

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Hmm…so Beth Moore, once again blew up Twitter this week, and I’m not sure if this video from Mohler was timed accordingly.

But I find it interesting that he’s making the topic of women in the function (or role) of pastor verses the office of pastor, as being something Baptist’s have a better grasp on than Presbyterians. He seems to think Presbyterian theology on baptism (or is it ordination, I couldn’t tell) lends itself to enabling the likes of Beth Moore. :man_facepalming: Or maybe that was just an unnecessary sidebar without a point.

Anyways, he seems to be very uncomfortable treading into this territory, and makes a lot of appeals to precedence as a defense of the reasonableness of his assertion of complimentarianism. I just find his response unhelpful. What say you?

Oh and this gem of a follow up.

Appeals to precedence typical of Mohler. He’s an historian at heart. Haven’t had a chance to watch but I’ll bet he didn’t say the “hard things.” Looking forward to checking it later.

The appeal to precedence should be seen as the SBC equivalent of appealing to Calvin or the Westminster Divines among the Reformed. Scripture is the authority, but historical precedent gives weight to a particular understanding of scripture for those identifying themselves in that tradition. The SBC is a big tent (by design) so appealing to precedent is often the only way to get everyone moving in the same direction. I’m not saying that’s how it should be, but from what I can tell that’s just the way it is.

His bringing up Presbyterianism was a bit of a side-bar, but it is worthwhile to point out that baptists who make the argument that women can do everything an “unordained man” can do are at odds with their own polity (he was referring to ordination, not baptism). He didn’t reference this, but I saw a video earlier this week of RC Sproul saying that he believed that women should be teaching elders, just not ruling elders. For a baptist, this argument is not only wrong (because of what “teaching” means), but also nonsensical because we don’t recognize a distinction between teaching and ruling elders.

I understand not finding this response helpful, but I think that’s because it’s not primarily for us. Mohler is signaling to those in the SBC where he stands on the issue and which hill he’s willing to die on. Overall I appreciate his response here because it is worlds better than what he’s said on the social justice question. He didn’t seem uncomfortable to me in these clips.

Remember that the SBC is not analogous to a presbytery or general assembly. I’m not in the SBC so I’m privy to all the inner workings, but I do know the original point was to get independent churches to cooperate to advance missions by sharing resources and creating institutions. Neither the denominational leaders nor the gathered convention has any authority over the ministers or churches themselves. Now, that does get complicated when the president gives an expository sermon at the annual meeting, which I was glad Mohler acknowledged. I’m not sure if I agree with him about the other functions of the SBC president not being matters of authority, but I can kind of see his point. Still, there’s something about a woman appointing committees that appoint heads of missions boards and seminaries that makes me uncomfortable.

I’m not trying to be a Mohler fanboy or anything, but I thought his responses here were good overall. He may not go as far as many of us want him to, but don’t miss the fact that he’s staking his future in the SBC on “NO WOMEN PASTORS” which includes “NO WOMEN PREACHING.” I’m thankful he’s taking a stand here.

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Thanks Zak, I always welcome your perspective. Perhaps I should be more grateful for his comments, but like you pointed out, his description of the other functions as being not against the creation order is just completely inane (my judgement, not necessarily yours). It’s that sort of mincing of words that has led to so much of his other missteps and no doubt led some of his students into complete rebellion as we have seen.

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Again, I’m not trying to be a fanboy or saying he’s above criticism. But understand that he’s under a lot of pressure from every side. For perspective, there is a sizable constituency in the SBC who still want him booted from leadership for being a Calvinist. I expect every word he speaks has been run through multiple political filters to avoid offense to some part of a coalition he’s trying to maintain. I don’t know I would be able or willing to do that if I were in his position, but that’s why I’m unlikely to ever be in his position.

But one thing is for sure: The annual SBC meeting next week should be interesting.

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