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Even though one is a supposed Christian and the other is a fictional comic strip character?
In seeking to answer that question, first, please forgive me for making a cultural comparison. I know the swells of film-going euphoria are riding high right now at the genial and solid presentation of female derring-do in the form of re-booted Wonder Woman, and apparently I can't resist.
Anyway the short answer is that Wonder Woman is capable, teachable, and single-mindedly focused on serving humanity and doing right. Beth Moore isn't.
The long answer is, I grew up on the original 1975 Lynda Carter Wonder Woman. In an era of M*A*S*H, The Jeffersons, and All in the Family, it was refreshing to this teenager and her friends to be able to identify with a capable woman, unattached and unembedded in a family, out there and doing stuff. Mary Tyler Moore was the same. /cue throwing hat/. It was the era of feminism and bra burnings, after all.
That was the message we received back then. You girls can do stuff, you can be strong and feminine (blue skirt suits with bow at the neck notwithstanding), you can be accomplished, strong, and capable.
I'm not agreeing with feminism, I'm just relating the times and the cultural message I was bombarded with during my formative years.
Now it's 40 years later, I'm a late-middle aged woman, and I'm saved by the grace of God through faith. I follow Jesus and His statutes now, not the world's philosophies. I look forward to His kingdom. The world isn't something I identify with any more.
According to the Bible, I'm the daughter of the King. I'm capable of doing anything within His will because I have the Holy Spirit in me. My affections are for Jesus as Groom and His ways in His strength and power, which is infinite. I'm loved, affirmed, chosen, nurtured, protected, and guided. I have an eternal home, an important job on earth, a fulfilling future, and the most solid promise in the universe: He will keep us with Him forever. That is who I am as a woman. It is very positive.
According to Beth Moore and her spiritual daughters who teach like her, their incessant message is that we women don't need to be the emotional wrecks we are. We don't have to be the hand-wringing ninnies we are that need a ladder to get out of our pit. We can avoid being sunk by our funk and we don't have to keep dragging all that baggage. It sounds like a positive message, but in fact it's very negative.
As an aside, you might notice that after relentlessly reminding us women that we're emotional wrecks, Moore is here to provide the ladder, give us our affirmation, and help us live fully for our purpose. She has the key, and she provides the answers. In that way, she becomes our supposed savior. Have you noticed?
Anyway. I was reading a movie review Wonder Woman in The National Review,. The author of Run, Wonder Woman! The Feminists Are after You! was commenting on modern feminism. Far from the strident, aggressive, "I'm strong like a lion hear me roar" feminists I grew up hearing about 40 years ago, the philosophy has currently reduced itself to "today's weird brand of obsessive, woe-is-me 'feminism' " said the author.
This resonated.
Thanks to so many false but prominent female Bible teachers, don't we now have a brand of obsessive, woe-is-me Christian women? False Christianity mirrors the culture, because both are from satan.
The movie review author said,
Today's feminist needs safe spaces to hide from the gender oppressive partiarchy. They need trigger warnings, AKA advance notice that something in a syllabus or lecture might trigger unhappy memories and hurt their feelings. They make strident demands so they can cower wimpily. They want no negative repercussions for their emotional hand-wringing. The 1960s-1970s feminist strode out to take over the world. Today's feminist retreats from the world because some words in a lecture hurt their feelings.
As the movie review author said, today's feminism is just "a giant, manufactured angst magnet!"
Isn't Beth Moore a giant, manufactured angst magnet? Aren't her studies aimed at making more giant, manufactured angst magnets? The comparison is immediately apparent. The National Review author continues:
Or Edith Bunker showing how to stay married to a difficult man? Or Margaret Houlihan, regular-army head nurse of the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital who was a leader of a large number of personnel, in war?
Or Louise Jefferson, a woman who raised her son and worked alongside her husband so hard that the two of them "made it", as black people penetrating the racial layer of the upper crust of NY City's East Side and settling into financial security and professional recognition?
None of those women needed a safe space. None of them were "in a pit" loaded down with "insecurity". They were too busy getting on with things.
I know these women on TV and movies are just fictional representations. But they're messages too, and our girls absorb them whether we want them to or not.
I'll repeat to us Christian women what the author of the Wonder Woman review had said in her essay, just to a different audience. "Please, Sisters, for everyone’s sake, avoid buying into the idea that women are fragile creatures who need 1,000 different obsessive gender-based affirmations just to make it through life."
Any woman who has been married for any length of time knows how hard it is. Any woman who has become a mother knows how hard it is. Anyone who has to keep a home and work outside the home knows how hard it is. Anyone who's single and struggling to make ends meet alone knows how hard it is. We don't need any version of Feminism to buck us up nor any wimpy women's Bible study to buck us up either.
Jesus is our All in All. He gives us the wisdom, strength, provision, and the everlasting Word to rely upon. We don't need the world's messages to lead us like wounded deer from safe spaces to peer at the big bad world through our insecurities and baggage. I'm not in a pit, Jesus already went to the abyss. I'm not weighed down by baggage, He already carried our sins to the cross and threw them as far as the east is from the west.
I'm tired of the feminist message, be it the 1970s version or today's. I'm also tired of these 'Bible' teachers perpetuating the lies that mirror the feminists'. Sisters, all we need to do is focus on Jesus of the Word, and the rest falls into place. Whether you're taking a Bible study or whether you're simply reading the Bible, the simple truth is that we are who we are: sinners, saved by grace and forever cherished with the power to slay sin, resist the devil, and serve the Most high with honor and dignity. That's a Wonder Woman
The takeaways:
1. The false teachers will always mirror the world, because they are of the world. It takes discernment to parse where and how.
2. Worldly philosophies change. The racism of today is not the racism of the 1960s which is not the racism of the 1920s. Feminism has already undergone three waves, and some would argue we are in or about to start the fourth. The false teachers' messages morph also.
3. Feminism is counter to Biblical Womanhood.
4. Beth Moore is a false teacher.
Back when I was first began researching Moore and her teaching methods five years ago, it was extremely hard to find anything comparing Moore to scripture and less so to find a piece pronouncing Moore as anything but wonderful. In 2013 an excellent analysis of Moore appeared on a blog called The King's Dale. It was the first discerning piece I'd read about Moore. I was so relieved. Here it is.
Beth Moore - False Teacher
In seeking to answer that question, first, please forgive me for making a cultural comparison. I know the swells of film-going euphoria are riding high right now at the genial and solid presentation of female derring-do in the form of re-booted Wonder Woman, and apparently I can't resist.
Anyway the short answer is that Wonder Woman is capable, teachable, and single-mindedly focused on serving humanity and doing right. Beth Moore isn't.
 |
| Back in the day, I owned this book. |
That was the message we received back then. You girls can do stuff, you can be strong and feminine (blue skirt suits with bow at the neck notwithstanding), you can be accomplished, strong, and capable.
I'm not agreeing with feminism, I'm just relating the times and the cultural message I was bombarded with during my formative years.
Now it's 40 years later, I'm a late-middle aged woman, and I'm saved by the grace of God through faith. I follow Jesus and His statutes now, not the world's philosophies. I look forward to His kingdom. The world isn't something I identify with any more.
According to the Bible, I'm the daughter of the King. I'm capable of doing anything within His will because I have the Holy Spirit in me. My affections are for Jesus as Groom and His ways in His strength and power, which is infinite. I'm loved, affirmed, chosen, nurtured, protected, and guided. I have an eternal home, an important job on earth, a fulfilling future, and the most solid promise in the universe: He will keep us with Him forever. That is who I am as a woman. It is very positive.
According to Beth Moore and her spiritual daughters who teach like her, their incessant message is that we women don't need to be the emotional wrecks we are. We don't have to be the hand-wringing ninnies we are that need a ladder to get out of our pit. We can avoid being sunk by our funk and we don't have to keep dragging all that baggage. It sounds like a positive message, but in fact it's very negative.
As an aside, you might notice that after relentlessly reminding us women that we're emotional wrecks, Moore is here to provide the ladder, give us our affirmation, and help us live fully for our purpose. She has the key, and she provides the answers. In that way, she becomes our supposed savior. Have you noticed?
Anyway. I was reading a movie review Wonder Woman in The National Review,. The author of Run, Wonder Woman! The Feminists Are after You! was commenting on modern feminism. Far from the strident, aggressive, "I'm strong like a lion hear me roar" feminists I grew up hearing about 40 years ago, the philosophy has currently reduced itself to "today's weird brand of obsessive, woe-is-me 'feminism' " said the author.
This resonated.
Thanks to so many false but prominent female Bible teachers, don't we now have a brand of obsessive, woe-is-me Christian women? False Christianity mirrors the culture, because both are from satan.
The movie review author said,
Please, for everyone’s sake, avoid buying into the idea that women are fragile creatures who need 1,000 different obsessive gender-based affirmations just to make it through life.This resonates again.
Today's feminist needs safe spaces to hide from the gender oppressive partiarchy. They need trigger warnings, AKA advance notice that something in a syllabus or lecture might trigger unhappy memories and hurt their feelings. They make strident demands so they can cower wimpily. They want no negative repercussions for their emotional hand-wringing. The 1960s-1970s feminist strode out to take over the world. Today's feminist retreats from the world because some words in a lecture hurt their feelings.
As the movie review author said, today's feminism is just "a giant, manufactured angst magnet!"
Isn't Beth Moore a giant, manufactured angst magnet? Aren't her studies aimed at making more giant, manufactured angst magnets? The comparison is immediately apparent. The National Review author continues:
About that, though: Even though I grew up before seeing the supposedly life-changing new Wonder Woman movie, I always believed I could pursue whatever career I wanted, as long as it wasn’t professional bowling. (Trust me. You do not want me on your bowling team.) I had both male and female role models as a child, and no one told me I had to see my exact facsimile in a job before I could pursue it. When I heard about the new Wonder Woman movie, I thought, "Hooray! It looks like a fun and well-executed summer blockbuster, rather than a giant, manufactured angst magnet!" This is because I'm a fairly normal and well-adjusted person who hasn't yet let modern feminism melt my brain.As a Christian women who hasn't let feminism or its Christian-y counterpart, women's Bible studies melt my brain, let's take another look at Edith Bunker, Louise Jefferson, Margaret Houlihan...these 1970s TV show characters I was told not to model myself after. Is there anyone stronger than Ma Walton or Caroline Ingalls? Women who held their families together through extreme financial hardship, often during lengthy periods when the husband was off at a long-distance job?
Or Edith Bunker showing how to stay married to a difficult man? Or Margaret Houlihan, regular-army head nurse of the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital who was a leader of a large number of personnel, in war?
Or Louise Jefferson, a woman who raised her son and worked alongside her husband so hard that the two of them "made it", as black people penetrating the racial layer of the upper crust of NY City's East Side and settling into financial security and professional recognition?
None of those women needed a safe space. None of them were "in a pit" loaded down with "insecurity". They were too busy getting on with things.
I know these women on TV and movies are just fictional representations. But they're messages too, and our girls absorb them whether we want them to or not.
I'll repeat to us Christian women what the author of the Wonder Woman review had said in her essay, just to a different audience. "Please, Sisters, for everyone’s sake, avoid buying into the idea that women are fragile creatures who need 1,000 different obsessive gender-based affirmations just to make it through life."
Any woman who has been married for any length of time knows how hard it is. Any woman who has become a mother knows how hard it is. Anyone who has to keep a home and work outside the home knows how hard it is. Anyone who's single and struggling to make ends meet alone knows how hard it is. We don't need any version of Feminism to buck us up nor any wimpy women's Bible study to buck us up either.
Jesus is our All in All. He gives us the wisdom, strength, provision, and the everlasting Word to rely upon. We don't need the world's messages to lead us like wounded deer from safe spaces to peer at the big bad world through our insecurities and baggage. I'm not in a pit, Jesus already went to the abyss. I'm not weighed down by baggage, He already carried our sins to the cross and threw them as far as the east is from the west.
I'm tired of the feminist message, be it the 1970s version or today's. I'm also tired of these 'Bible' teachers perpetuating the lies that mirror the feminists'. Sisters, all we need to do is focus on Jesus of the Word, and the rest falls into place. Whether you're taking a Bible study or whether you're simply reading the Bible, the simple truth is that we are who we are: sinners, saved by grace and forever cherished with the power to slay sin, resist the devil, and serve the Most high with honor and dignity. That's a Wonder Woman
The takeaways:
1. The false teachers will always mirror the world, because they are of the world. It takes discernment to parse where and how.
2. Worldly philosophies change. The racism of today is not the racism of the 1960s which is not the racism of the 1920s. Feminism has already undergone three waves, and some would argue we are in or about to start the fourth. The false teachers' messages morph also.
3. Feminism is counter to Biblical Womanhood.
4. Beth Moore is a false teacher.
Back when I was first began researching Moore and her teaching methods five years ago, it was extremely hard to find anything comparing Moore to scripture and less so to find a piece pronouncing Moore as anything but wonderful. In 2013 an excellent analysis of Moore appeared on a blog called The King's Dale. It was the first discerning piece I'd read about Moore. I was so relieved. Here it is.
Beth Moore - False Teacher
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