Beth Moore Tells The Atlantic the Struggle Women Evangelists Face

Author and Evangelical Beth Moore, 61, composed a series of tweets in 2016 criticizing the words and actions of now President Donald Trump and the ‘evangelical political machine’ at a great personal cost. 

This month, The Atlantic sat down with Moore to talk about the controversy surrounding the tweets she posted during the 2016 presidential election and the fall out that came with them. 

In the article, which will be published in the October 2018 edition of the Atlantic, the author speaks about how in October of 2016, Moore came to hear the infamous Access Hollywood tape where Trump is recorded talking about women in vulgar and graphic terms. After hearing the tape, while on a plane home from a ministry event, Moore filtered through stacks of newspaper clippings and transcripts to try to distinguish and understand the character of the then-presidential candidate along with the people who defended his words.

Moore told The Atlantic that she could not dismiss this as “locker-room talk,” like so many of her male counterparts had, noting that she was “so appalled.”

After looking into Trump's comments and the defenses of so many evangelists, Moore decided to take to Twitter. The Atlantic writes that “she decided to compose the tweets that changed her life.”

She wrote, “Wake up, Sleepers, to what women have dealt with all along in environments of gross entitlement & power. Are we sickened? Yes. Surprised? NO.”

The tweets, The Atlantic says, “upended Moore’s cheerful, feminine world.” 

Reportedly, Moore was pinned as “standing ‘in the gap for Hillary Clinton.’” Though Moore did not support Clinton, she could not in good conscious support Trump either. 

The article then states perhaps the most controversial statement of the bunch noting that to Moore, “it wasn’t just a matter of hypocrisy, of making a deal with the devil that would deliver a Supreme Court seat, among other spoils. Moore believes that an evangelical culture that demeans women, promotes sexism, and disregards accusations of sexual abuse enabled Trump’s rise.”

Evangelicals, Moore said, have “clearer lines between men and women and how they serve.” But sometimes, “that attitude is no longer about a role in a church. It becomes an attitude of gender superiority. And that has to be dealt with.” Moore is a complementarian, but she firmly believes that Christian men should not treat women “any less than Jesus treated women in the Gospels: always with dignity, always with esteem, never as secondary citizens.”

According to The Atlantic, Moore lost a lot of support from fans and readers and was also confronted by several popular evangelists and asked to recant her tweets. She refused, and the tweets can still be read on her Twitter today. 

The article concludes by noting that Moore has not become a liberal or a feminist, but she is now trying to help “protect the movement she has always loved but that hasn’t always loved her back.” Moore also notes that her only regret is that she’d let others dictate her place in the evangelical community saying, “What I feel a little sorry for, looking back over my shoulder, is how often I apologized for being there.” 

Moore began to build her career in an aerobics classroom in Huston, TX in the 1980s and has since penned around 20 bible studies and seven books.

Photo courtesy: Unsplash/Kipras Streimikis