I Support Beth Moore: When Your Church Leaves You

Beth Moore left her denomination this month, and it’s been big news:  NYTimes front page, Washington Post, USA Today, etc.all headlined the story. Beth has always been a Southern Baptist and still loves many things about her church and her people, but she said that “I don’t identify with some of the things in our heritage that haven’t remained in the past.”   

One of those things has been the slowness of the denomination to effectively deal with (in her eyes and the eyes of many Black church leaders) racism.  The overt support for Trump by many Baptist pastors was another deal-breaker for Moore.  She was not a supporter of Trump in 2016, but quickly became an outspoken opponent of him after the Hollywood Access story broke where he bragged about grabbing women’s genitals (he didn’t use such a polite word).  Beth was shocked and justifiably outraged, but even more astounded and disbelieving over the next week that evangelical leaders STILL supported him, in light of this revelation.  As a sexual abuse survivor herself, she felt betrayed that Christian leaders would not condemn Trump’s words and character, holding Bill Clinton to one standard of conduct and making incomprehensible exceptions for Trump.  As Sarah Stankorb wrote in her piece "These Evangelical Women Are Abandoning Trump and Their Churches, "women all over the country were having crises of faith because male leadership supported ‘the thrice-married, profane, biblically illiterate, sexually predacious candidate [who] mirrored no beatitudes,' all while demanding their sexual purity.” 

Over the next five years of Trump support, and as awareness of racist issues arose also, Beth became disenchanted and uncomfortable being associated with a denomination that would not speak out against things she saw as clearly unChristlike. 

I understand her dilemma and support her decision.  I’m not Southern Baptist but know how hard it would be to leave a church that had raised you and nurtured you and introduced you to Jesus.  But it would also feel untenable to so publicly represent such a church when you feel like it does not represent the Jesus you know and follow.  

All churches are so flawed because of the flawed humans that make them up.  And I don’t have much patience with people who leave church altogether because of the “hypocrisy” or “judgmental attitude” there, because the defectors were part of the imperfect when they were there.  They probably just had a different kind of imperfect from the people they are judging, so they couldn’t see their own contribution to the problem of the imperfectness of the church.  

But there does come a time when Christians have to make some hard choices about leaving a particular congregation or denomination.  Sometimes it’s because a particular church is spiritually abusive or controlling or legalistic and misses the whole point of Jesus completely.  Sometimes it’s because a church is so ritualistic or big that you can’t find a place or family there. Sometimes a church is just doctrinally wrong and you can’t conscientiously be a part of it.  

And SOMETIMES you need to stay and be a part of the change.  It won’t change if everybody who sees the problem leaves.  You can’t blame a church for being like it is if you haven’t devoted yourself to working with the people there to change it.  

In Beth’s case, she did try to get people to see the problem and make the changes.  And she got so much hate back, and so much pushback, that she’s decided she needs to leave.  In her case, it’s different from most of us because she represents that church in so many ways.  She’s not just a well-known Bible teacher with millions of followers; she’s a Southern Baptist Bible teacher.  I’m not judging the Southern Baptist church as a whole; there are many Godly, wonderful Southern Baptists I know, both friends and public figures, who love Jesus and walk with Him.  And I don’t claim the church I attend is right on all the hot social issues out there.  It’s hard to withstand the graceless, glaring scrutiny that is directed at everyone and every institution in our society right now.  But I see the position Beth Moore was in and know why she left.  She’s looking at other churches now and visiting around.  I pray God will bless and lead her to the place He wants her to be.