By Will Hall, Executive Editor
HOUSTON (LBM) — LifeWay’s best-selling author, Beth Moore, created more controversy in June and July, accusing Southern Baptists in the Conservative Resurgence of “sin” while recanting a 2009 statement she made about “homosexual sin.”
Moore stirred controversy when it was discovered that she had revised her decade-old book, “Praying God’s Word,” to delete a paragraph she said, July 6, “exceeded Scripture and singled out same-sex sin as particularly satanic.”
In 2009 she wrote in the book that “He’s showing me” some things about “sexual strongholds” and then cited promiscuity, pornography and homosexuality as undermining the “sanctifying work of Christ.”
Now she has deleted a passage from the electronic version of her book that called homosexuality “another deadly assault of the evil one in our society.” Moore said she made the change because she “heard from some heartbroken mothers about their kids who were having a hard enough time feeling ostracized as it was.”
Among the changes she made, she deleted the statement that “God indeed can deliver you” and removed another part that said “complete transformation is possible … because God’s Word says so … [and] because I have witnessed it with my own eyes.”
A number of individuals are pressing Moore to clarify whether she still considers homosexuality to be a sin. However, she has avoided answering the question directly, choosing instead to cite Galatians 5:19-21, which does not specifically mention “homosexuality” among the listed sins.
The July controversy was preceded by Moore taking swipes, June 26, at the Conservative Resurgence, a grassroots movement, 1979-1990, that was marked by the election of conservatives like Adrian Rogers as president of the Southern Baptist Convention.
After 12 straight losses to conservatives, no liberal or moderate candidate sought nomination again. Instead, a small splinter group (that supported women serving as pastors and other liberal agendas) broke away to form the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
Eventually, the conservative presidents helped to replace liberal and moderate trustees of SBC entities with conservative ones.
Moore, however, accused the Conservative Resurgence of having “sin in the camp.”
“That is not my opinion,” she continued. “That has proven to be a fact. A return to the Scriptures is & was vital but it was done without holiness and with what played out as slack jawing hypocrisy. We need to repent & do this differently.”
Her June 26 tweets appeared to be a continuation of a theme she began May 11 when she criticized several high-profile SBC pastors who supported then-candidate Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign.
In May she said she was “compelled to my bones by the Holy Spirit … to draw attention to the sexism and misogyny that is rampant in segments of the SBC, cloaked by piety and bearing the stench of hypocrisy.” Moore said that in 2016 the “fog” cleared for her and that she realized these leaders were motivated by “sin … power … misogyny … sexism … arrogance.”
These strident accusations seemed to be “return fire” to criticisms directed at her about women preaching (an issue also during the Conservative Resurgence).
Meanwhile, in January Moore jumped on the bandwagon with other Trump critics to accuse a group of MAGA-hat-wearing students of racist hatred. The teens were in Washington, D.C., to participate in the annual March for Life. A video clip emerged that made it appear that after the event the teens were taunting a group of Native American adults.
For her part, Moore tweeted, “To glee in dehumanizing any person is so utterly antichrist it reeks of the vomit of hell.”
Later, a lengthier version of the video showed the American Indian group actually was harassing the students, and the kids were trying to be respectful. Moore subsequently deleted her quick-to-the-draw tweet.
