Beth Moore and the Evangelical Exodus

Examining the reasons for the great de-churching.

NOTE: Starting in 2024, I will be doing a third blog each month only for paid subscribers. I will still do my bi-monthly writings for everyone, but I wanted to do something to thank those that are supporting my writing in such a tangible way. Here is my first offering. Thank you to everyone who subscribed in 2023! —M

I felt a connection to Beth Moore as soon as I found out we were both from the same small town in Arkadelphia, AR. We both lived there at the same time in the late 60’s/early ‘70’s, although I don’t recall meeting her back then. We both went to the same church, where both of our fathers served as leaders. We went to the same schools, went to the same movie theatre (which her Dad owned actually) and probably both rode the same drag on Friday/Saturday nights from the KFC parking lot down to the Pig Pit BBQ in Caddo Valley. We both wrote about our experiences in Arkadelphia in our books. My book, God, My Girlfriends and Me: Nurturing the Three Most Important Relationshiops In A Woman’s Life, and her book, All My Knotted-Up Life. (Her book has sold a few more copies than mine, but who’s counting, right… lol… and it’s incredible. I highly recommend. Easily one of my favorite books of 2023.)

She left Arkadelphia and moved to Houston with her family, eventually becoming famous as one of the best women bible teachers in the Southern Baptist world. While she was writing women’s bible studies and speaking at women’s conferences, I had already left the Southern Baptist denomination, not necessarily by choice, but because I married into a family that was Church of Christ and so I was expected to become a member of that church instead. So, I missed her rise to the top and subsequently missed many of her bible studies and teachings along the way.

Fast forward to 2016, when I started becoming aware of her in new ways. Not because of her bible studies, but because she was making headlines as a… well.. a problem for the SBC, and especially the men in the SBC.