Submitted by: M Mulukin
Cunning & Corruption...
By Jim Fletcher 22 March 2021
My time working in the Christian book publishing industry taught me many things about where the American Church is. One of the first authors I became aware of was Beth Moore.
LifeWay, the publishing arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, had turned her into a star. Beginning as a teacher of women’s Bible studies, Moore very quickly became an elite Christian writer.
Did I say writer? I meant product.
The Christian retail industry has traditionally been a huge money-maker. Since at least the 90’s, various groups and individuals with a penchant for making money have infiltrated Christian media.
Teachers like Moore often start as sincere teachers. I’m not here today dissing Moore for her teaching, although plenty have documented the problems there. What I want to discuss this week is the influence and worldview of people like Moore.
Moore’s exit from the SBC and move to Tyndale House Publishers will actually only increase her reach, unfortunately. LifeWay, long a conduit for bad books (Jimmy Carter, Jesus Calling, etc.), will go into free-fall with the loss of Moore, but that’s another topic.
Increasingly in the last decade, Beth Moore has become stridently partisan in her politics. It’s a tactic used in evangelical elite circles that, like their political counterparts in Washington, one doesn’t say overtly that he or she is a Republican or Democrat.
Many reasons for this. Even the uninformed in the pews jump awake if a “conservative” source “comes out” as a Democrat.
But make no mistake: many if not most of the evangelical leaders in this country today are centre-left. Or hard left. I cannot emphasize enough how dangerous the associations of evangelical elites are to healthy churches. It’s how bad politics enters.
Moore’s good friend Thabiti Anyabwile [pictured below] is now saying that white Christians that believe Biden stole the election (he did, obviously) are a “spiritual cancer”!
The thing is, there are common threads among almost all evangelical leaders regarding politics. This means that if radical progressive Brian McLaren—once moving freely among the evangelical crowd—is fine with a Biden presidency, so is Russell Moore. So is Beth Moore. So are many others.
Notice that they don’t criticize the Obama’s, Bidens, Clintons, etc. But they are savage in their denunciations of Donald Trump.
That, and the muzzling of pastors by the coveted tax-exempt status, has created an environment in which those in the pews do not know the issues. In past generations, bold preachers kept congregations informed. No more.
Today, what Beth Moore believes about a social issue is much more important to many than what Scripture says. I stand by that statement.
Her influence over the SBC’s 45,000 churches is as complete as that of Rick Warren’s.
LifeWay’s long sweetheart deal with churches—pumping bad books and studies through that pipeline—destroyed at least a generation of true Bible teaching in the churches. Instead of teaching from the Bible itself, the climate is now totally with various Bible “studies” by famous evangelicals. But what if their worldviews are faulty?
The people that have been doing this for years are cunning. They walk and talk and look like a traditional evangelical. But in fact, they are political operatives and religious radicals aiming at fooling real evangelicals.
Beth Moore supplements her imposition of left-wing politics with savage and contemptible social media tirades against her perceived enemies. Just check them out the last couple years. Trashing fundamentalist Christians, trashing Trump voters…all part of her con.
Evangelical elites have worked for a long time to turn Evangelicalism into just another voting bloc for Democrats.
Now the Spirit speaks expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to deceitful spirits, and doctrines of demons; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; 1 Timothy 4; 1-2
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