Moore’s departure ignites debate over women’s roles
Famed Bible teacher Beth Moore put a spotlight on how women are treated within the conservative evangelical church when she declared herself no longer a Southern Baptist.
Her departure stirred the longstanding debate over the role of women in the Southern Baptist Convention. The conversation continues to boil one month after Moore publicly cut ties with the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S. and its publishing arm.
Women can serve in the church, but the Southern Baptist statement of faith specifically restricts the office of pastor to men only.
Southern Baptists generally agree with the restriction but some within the convention extend it to additional ministry settings like a chapel service or guest preaching on a Sunday morning, said Katie Mccoy, a professor of theology in women’s studies at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary’s Scarborough College.
Those differing views can open Southern Baptist women serving in ministry roles up to criticism.
Mccoy said in an email that it is common for Southern Baptist women to have to defend and explain their work. But she thinks there is a solution to making the Nashville-based convention more welcoming to women and their leadership.
“We need to recover the Baptist doctrine of local church autonomy rather than compel conformity on matters extending beyond our Confession of Faith,” said Mccoy, who is on the steering committee for the SBC Women’s Leadership Network
Bible teacher Jacki King, who also is on the steering committee, said she wants to have conversations about what women can do within the parameters of Southern Baptist doctrine, and how to develop their leadership skills.
But she said it is hard to have a productive discussion when the immediate reaction so often provoked by this conversation is to remind women they cannot hold the office of pastor. King said other Southern Baptist women have shared similar experiences with her.
“They’re just tired of having to come into a conversation not only saying why they deserve to be at the table but then, we’re not trying to be pastors — we agree with you,” King said in a phone interview. “So it gets to where you’re frustrated. You’re exhausted.”
It happens so frequently King penned a SBC Voices piece in 2018, saying “we don’t want your pulpits,” but women do want “a seat at the table and a lane on the track to run beside you.” More recently, King defended herself this week in a series of social
media posts after a member of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee criticized her on Twitter for preaching at a college chapel service.
King, who was saddened by Moore’s departure, continues to encourage Southern Baptist women.
“Keep going. To persevere, to use your gifts, to be a woman that lives a life for Jesus just like Beth Moore has modeled for us,” King said. “Women are changing the world in beautiful ways with the gospel and through the SBC ... I will do everything that I can to get that narrative out more than, you can’t be a pastor.”
This year is also not the first time Moore, the founder of Living Proof Ministries in Houston, Texas, has been at the center of the debate about women’s roles in the convention.
In 2018 Moore wrote a letter detailing the challenges of being a female evangelical leader in a male-dominated conservative Christian world. In it, Moore said she did not aspire to preach or teach men; her passion was teaching women.
An ongoing debate about women’s roles
Gender roles were a key issue when theological conservatives wrestled control of the convention from moderate Southern Baptists in the 1980s and ‘90s, said Nancy Ammerman, who wrote about the conservative takeover in her book “Baptist Battles: Social Change and Religious Conflict in the Southern Baptist Convention.”
Views on women clergy became a litmus test, Ammerman said, and conservatives
pushed a complementarian theology, the belief that men and women are equal but have distinct roles with men leading at home and in the church.
“The people who stayed in the denomination just doubled down on restricting the roles of women in the churches,” said Ammerman, a Boston University professor emeritus of sociology of religion. “This is a really central issue in how the people who are leading the Southern Baptist Convention today understand what the denomination’s supposed to be about.”
This week Moore addressed complementarianism on Twitter.
“Let me be blunt. When you functionally treat complementarianism—a doctrine of MAN—AS if it belongs among the matters of 1st importance, yea, as a litmus test for where one stands on inerrancy & authority of Scripture, you are the ones who have misused Scripture. You went too far,” Moore said in a Wednesday post.
“I beg your forgiveness where I was complicit. I could not see it for what it was until 2016 … I have not lost my mind. Nor my doctrine. Just my naivety.”
Megan Cassell, the director of mercy and finance at her Southern Baptist church in Chattanooga, considers herself a complementarian. But she does so hesitantly. She said its practice within the convention comes off as tone deaf amid the sexual abuse crisis in Southern Baptist churches.
“I don’t think it’s a major theological stance or to be weighted so heavily as the SBC would have us to believe,” Cassell said in a direct message. “The abuse of complementarianism has done more damage to Christ’s sacred church than it
“Keep going. To persevere, to use your gifts, to be a woman that lives a life for Jesus just like Beth Moore has modeled for us. Women are changing the world in beautiful ways with the gospel and through the SBC ... I will do everything that I can to get that narrative out more than, you can’t be a pastor.” Jacki King
has contributed to it. I certainly cannot identify with it the way the SBC has advocated for it culturally.”
Moore, who also received pushback for criticizing former President Donald Trump’s treatment of women, told the Religion News Service last month that she hoped for a future without nationalism, political division and sexism in the Southern Baptist Convention.
Cassell said she is grateful Moore had the courage to share her reasons for leaving the convention and praised her for faithfully stepping up to theologically train women.
But her departure has made Cassell question, “If Beth Moore can’t survive the SBC, who can?” Cassell also raised concerns about the recent string of Black pastors who publicly announced they were leaving the convention, too.
Mccoy is concerned more women will follow Moore’s lead and leave.
“Even more injuriously, if they leave the SBC – despite being in harmony with our Confession of Faith – they will be dismissed as ‘liberal,’ when in reality, they’re just weary of the infighting,” Mccoy said.
Rachel Clinkenbeard, who attends a Southern Baptist church in Gallatin, Tenn., said she wished Moore well but her departure is not impacting Clinkenbeard personally. The popular Bible teacher’s work never really resonated with her, but Clinkenbeard said its OK to leave.
She likes being Southern Baptist. At her local church, Clinkenbeard feels free to ask bold questions during Bible study discussions and serve how she wants, including in music ministry and teaching Sunday school classes.
“I’ve done anything I’ve wanted to do,” Clinkenbeard said. “My thought is if you are in a Southern Baptist church that does not allow you to do what you believe you should do, find a different church.”
For those who flocked to Moore’s speaking engagements and used her Bible studies, the decision to stay Southern Baptist could come down to the message they’re hearing at their local church, Ammerman said.
“If they go to church and they’ve really been influenced by Beth Moore and their pastor gets up in the pulpit and bashes her, Beth, they just may find another place to go to church,” Ammerman said.