There are real-life consequences of the Social Justice Movement that extend well-beyond the daily Twitter orgy that regularly has evangelical SJW’s in a dogpile of slathering, self-flattering, virtue-signaling accolades and sensual backslaps. What the Social Justice Movement represents is an absolute undoing of evangelical conservatism. And we are seeing that undoing particularly in the realm of perceived gender roles.
Our argument has been that progressive and leftist agitators have been infiltrating historically conservative evangelical circles through primarily New Calvinist parachurch organizations like 9Marx, The Social Gospel Coalition, The White Horse Inn, the ERLC, and Southeastern Seminary. These organizations all take money (lots of it) from leftist financiers like James Riady, George Soros, and the Kern Foundation. And their goal, so we have argued, is to convince conservative evangelicals that they can maintain their conservatism while also embracing leftist positions on important social issues that are ideologically grounded in political theories like Cultural Marxism, Critical Race Theory, Intersectionality, and Liberation Theology. And most recently, we have seen the consequences of the Great Awokening for our position on women in ministry.
So-called “conservative” evangelical leaders, who Pulpit & Pen has been telling your for a decade are leftist change agents – Ed Stetzer, Russell Moore, Thabiti Anyabwile, and most at the Gospel Coalition – have circled their wagons around the wild-eyed charismatic prophetess, Beth Moore, as she has pressed hard for full egalitarianism. Letting her do their dirty work of changing the evangelical mindset on women preaching, they have encouraged her frenzied social media activism. Absurdly and with all the subtleness and craftiness of Satan, these evangelical leftists are still insisting they are complementarian, even though they oppose everything that complementarianism stands for. They are trying to retain the word, while outright rejecting its position.
Moore here quotes Roy Honeycutt, a former (liberal) president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary who was tossed from power in the Conservative Resurgence, largely for his views on women in pulpit.
Albert Mohler issued a rare critique of Beth Moore (albeit without stating her name), who is supported strongly by almost everyone in his personal orbit, including his mentee and denominational padawan, Russell Moore.
There seems to be little grasp from Mohler that he’s personally responsible for creating the Evangelical Intelligentsia machine that is now systematically undoing his contributions to evangelical conservatism.
Moore eventually deleted her tweet after outrage. She made the mistake of being too blatantly honest about her position, as the evangelical social justice strategy is nuance, not clarity. However, the Social Justice Warriors came out in full defense of her and even accused Mohler (and others who disagree with Moore) of “bullying” and “attacking.”
Wade Burleson, a progressive Southern Baptist (perhaps one of the most progressive) wrote a blog post entitled, An Open Letter to My Calvinistic Friends in the SBC, in which he accused online critics of Moore of “cyberbullying” her.
Do you know why Beth deleted that Tweet? I can’t say for sure, but I’ve been around the block a few times, and I know bullying tactics when I see them.
You (Tom), Owen, Al, et al., are cyberbullying Beth Moore.
She’s family, guys. Cut it out.
Burleson, who also commends The Shack author, Paul Young, and Jimmy Carter as fellow Christians in that same blog post, misses the mark in addressing his open letter to Calvinists. While he took exception with Tom Ascol and Albert Mohler’s rebuke of Moore (and both men are Calvinists), what Burleson fails to realize is that the list of Calvinists defending Moore is longer than the list disagreeing with her. Likewise, there are no doubt numerically more ‘traditionalists’ who disagree with Moore than Calvinists (Burleson, who is Paige Patterson’s nemesis on this issue, should recognize this).
Consider the support of Moore from Ron Burns (who goes by his Black Nationalist name, Thabiti Anyabwile), who claims to be a Calvinist and is associated most heavily with 9Marx founder, Mark Dever.
Burns (Anyabwile), who used his blog at The Gospel Coalition to endorse Hillary Clinton for president, referred to disagreements with Moore as “attacking” her. Burns went on in his Twitter thread to (predictably) engage in victimology common to Critical Race Theory and Cultural Marxism, making Moore into a victim.
Apparently, in Burns’ view, we are to let women do everything men do, except we are to treat them more gingerly because they’re women. In other words, if women espouse false teaching, we are to put on kid gloves. It’s no wonder the SJWs need a woman to champion their cause; it makes them untouchable and makes us liable for accusations of mistreating women if we disagree.
Newsflash: You don’t get to act like a hairy-pitted, bra-burning feminist and be treated like a lady at the same time.
The assault on complementarianism probably began to amp-up about the time this post came out from Jonathan Leeman at 9Marx. In it, he argued against Piper’s assertion that women shouldn’t teach men in seminary and posited that Piper’s view was, “narrow complementarianism.” And suddenly, just like that, two different kinds of complementarianism were born.
These leftist agitators can’t just come out and say they are egalitarians; they would be marked and avoided far too quickly. Instead, they have to hold onto the term, complementarian, while effectively taking the egalitarian position.
Watch it, people. These are theological and political leftists who are trying to pitch a tent in our camp by misapplying the term complementarianism, while actively opposing its meaning.
Be forewarned.
