After her controversial exit from the Southern Baptist Convention and a social media apology for her complicity with the complementarian doctrine, Beth Moore announced that she is taking a break.
In her most recent tweet, Moore said that she's putting herself in a "time out." Aside from certain things that needed her attention, she confessed that it's better to "get off" than "get ugly" online.
"Morning, y'all! Jumping on here to say I'm putting myself in time out for a bit. I think we'll both be relieved. LOL. 2 reasons:1) I feel a bit too strongly about some things to be on Twitter right now. I don't trust myself. Gonna punch somebody. I can either get ugly or get off," she wrote.
Moore added that she is not taking back a word she previously said. She just thinks it's enough and that she would rather immerse in her personal writing for now.
Earlier this month, SBC's former Bible teacher made waves online after posting on Twitter her apology for "elevating" the complementarian view on gender roles to a "matter of 1st degree" as reported by The Christian Post.
"I beg your forgiveness where I was complicit," Moore wrote following her blunt statement on complementarianism as a "doctrine of man." "I could not see it for what it was until 2016. I plead your forgiveness for how I just submitted to it and supported it and taught it. I trusted that the motives were godly. I have not lost my mind. Nor my doctrine. Just my naivety."
She also clarified with Religion News that her action does not necessarily mean she should also be pigeon-holed with egalitarianism which was often equated as the opposite of complementarianism.
Religion News noted that since 2016, Moore's "shift" started with some criticisms on male evangelical leaders. CP added that she had also "grown increasingly critical of the denomination and its handling of political and racial issues, Christian nationalism and what she deemed as the sexism & misogyny that is rampant in segments of the SBC."
In support to Moore's complaints on male chauvinism, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Albert Mohler Jr. said that SBC must "take responsibility" in their failures to address abuses within the denomination. The theologian also did not deny that the complementarianism view, held by almost all Baptist denominations, had certainly led to male tyranny because it was misunderstood as endorsing "male superiority."
In defense of complementarianism, apologist Ken Ham provided an explanation through a Facebook post. He said that God had originally given Adam and Eve different but complementary roles. The understanding of those roles was distorted when sin entered the picture. As found in numerous marital conflicts, wives now seek to control their husbands while the husbands start lording over their wives. Ham argued that neither is acceptable and are contrary to the Bible's teaching about the wife's role to submit to her husband and the husband's role to love his wife as Christ did to his Church.
"It's not a matter of what our opinion is in regard to what roles a man or woman should have, but what does God's Word clearly teaches," concludes Ham.
