![]() Yet, the power of this symbol is diminished when extended beyond its bounds. I don’t know any church denomination that has embodied the symbolism of this reality perfectly, but the reality of Christ (who is the Word) being head (or source) of the church is reflected metaphorically in the appointment of men as the source for the delivery of the Word to the church. One reason I’m a Southern Baptist is because I believe deeply in the significance and meaning of God creating humans as male and female. I am not talking about women preaching or being pastors, and Moore did not make this an issue in her decision. Will the door swing further open or more closed for women in the church moving forward? Left to fend for themselves like women banished to the drawing room after dinner while the men had their table talk and cigars, Beth and countless other female Bible teachers had made a room of their own.Ĭatholics aren’t the only ones who have cloisters, after all.īut Beth’s departure from the Southern Baptist Convention offers us a hinge moment. How cruel that a culture of conservative Christianity that effectively binds the feet of women would mock women when they stumble. How ironic that their lingering Victorianism - the same ethic that values overwrought womanhood - would cause evangelicals to jeer when that internalized basis of self-worth becomes externalized. How little had I known.Īs I watched Beth’s critics increase their vitriolic attacks on her teaching (although, truth be told, just as, if not more, often on her mannerisms, her hair, her very femininity), it became clear that their strongest objections were fruits of their own sowing. As we did, I finally began to recognize just how much she had contributed - and sacrificed - to the church. ![]() Over the next few years, as I became (inexplicably, in my mind) more a part of national evangelical and Southern Baptist ministries and events - “big eva,” as its detractors on social media call it - Beth and I crossed paths more, both in real life and on social media. That’s me on the edge of the front row, on the right, casting a bit of a side eye on the whole thing.)Ī large group of women, including Beth Moore, second from left, and Karen Swallow Prior, second from right, during the launch of a global women’s ministry. ![]() (Although I see it lingering in a photo someone took of us all that night. But Beth was kind, and as we bonded over boots - I do love a good boot - my nervousness faded. Sitting in the green room with so many lanky, long-haired, effervescent women, I felt an awkwardness I hadn’t felt since eighth grade. I approached the event with fear and trembling. RELATED: Like Beth Moore, many women preachers have had to break free to follow God’s call ![]() I was not thrilled about participating but didn’t feel I had much choice. I had finished my doctorate and had become an English professor at a large Christian university (and had still succeeded in avoiding anything related to women’s ministry) when a vice president at my school requested my assistance in hosting the launch of a new global women’s ministry. Yet, I see now that those two separate trajectories for the life of women in the church - one represented by those like Beth, developing and leading the rise of women’s Bible studies, and the other represented by those like me, staying as far from women’s ministries as I could get - are less about two individuals and more about larger cultural and commercial forces that have created and fossilized parallel tracks, ever running but never to meet. And my response, right or wrong, was to silently judge - and stay far away. At all.Īs I advanced in my academic studies, the women’s events at church seemed shallower and shallower to me. Unlike Beth, I didn’t do women’s Bible studies. Like Beth, I was a committed Christian, teaching Sunday school and attending church services two or three times a week. In the 1980s and ’90s, while Beth was leading women’s Bible studies in her Texas church and founding Living Proof Ministries, I was in New York pursuing a Ph.D. Her decision made me reflect on the past, present and future of women in the denomination and, more specifically, on how Beth’s and my very different experiences might be instructive in understanding how we got here - and where we might go. (RNS) - My debut column here, published just two months ago, explained why - despite several years of controversy and turmoil, particularly around the treatment of women - I am still a Southern Baptist.Ī few weeks later, the most famous Southern Baptist woman today, Beth Moore, announced her departure from the denomination.
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