The comment might have been made tongue-in-cheek, watching the boisterous American bishop give an irreverent sermon at the royal wedding between Harry Mountbatten-Windsor and Meghan Markle. However, the pro-gay women’s conference speaker, Jen Hatmaker, might not have been kidding. Hatmaker came out in affirmation of sodomy in April of 2016, demanding that churches accept and approve of both homosexuality and homosexuals in a Facebook post. This followed up on a 2014 comment by Hatmaker, regarding the brief World Vision gay employment scandal, that the Bible was not sufficiently clear on the topic of sodomy. After the April 2016 Facebook post, Hatmaker went on to do an interview with homosexual journalist, Jonathan Merritt, and definitively embraced sodomy, which finally received the attention of the mainstream Christian news and caused a bit of controversy. It takes a lot of heresy to have Lifeway pull your books, and Hatmaker crossed that threshold, which is not an easy feat to do.
However, Lifeway’s highest-selling Cash Cow of Bashan, Beth Moore, has repeatedly stood up for Hatmaker in defiance to her paramours and peddlers at the Southern Baptist retailer. As we explained in October of 2017, Beth Moore has been one of the few remaining evangelical voices who have stood loud and proud with Hatmaker since her open support for sodomy and sodomy-based relationships. The two regularly share positive and affirming exchanges in social media, without a hint of criticism from Moore to the heretical Hatmaker.
Hatmaker’s comment over the weekend came apparently from an appreciation for Michael Curry, who delivered a jovial and ethnic-themed homily for the royal wedding. Acting as a jester before the royal court, the Episcopal bishop entertained with his folksy humor, which drew laughter and guffaws from the crowd of high-society Britain that attended the affair. Curry also laced his message with numerous points of political correctness and progressivism, which is for what Curry is best known.
Curry is the presiding bishop of the Episcopal church and focuses his messages primarily on social justice, gay rights, and environmentalism. The U.S. Episcopal Church is one of only two Anglican churches worldwide that allow gay marriage, and much of that is due to the ‘leadership’ of Curry. He has repeatedly compared the plight of pre-Civil Rights black men and women to the struggle of the LGBTQ today.
Curry told the New York Times in 2016, for example:
What I was attempting to do was to describe the deep pain for L.G.B.T. folk who’ve had to live with not being accepted by the church of Jesus Christ. And sometimes by families and loved ones, and by society. I wanted my brothers to know that our actions would bring them real pain. I said, anytime anybody is excluded, it hurts. I can tell you in all honesty my brothers listened. They did listen.
And so, having blessed a myriad of gay “marriages,” Curry blessed the union of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. This should be enough to make most Christians utter John 11:35.
For Hatmaker, though, it was enough to make her want to join the Episcopal church.
She said on Twitter, “I think I just became Episcopalian and I need to know if [Michael Curry] will baptize me and administer the sacraments.”
Bishop Michael Curry responded, “The Episcopal Church welcomes you!” This, of course, is not surprising, considering that the Episcopal church would welcome literally everyone, regardless of the content of their character or soundness of their theology. By the time you’re ordaining sodomites, you’ve already passed the turn-off for heretical lady preachers. Being warmly welcomed by the Episcopal church is like being warmly welcomed under a bridge overpass sheltering a homeless community and shantytown; they take anyone, and so it’s not a compliment.
While it shouldn’t surprise us that Hatmaker, who has largely been confined to extremely liberal quarters in evangelicalism (although she is quoted in the news more than ever) and her speaking platforms shrunk terribly, would find the Episcopal church to be an envious place, it should surprise us that one of the leading ladies in supposedly conservative evangelicalism would “like” Hatmaker’s comment. After all, Beth Moore is speaking at the upcoming women’s meeting at the 2018 Southern Baptist Pastor’s Conference. This is a woman whose material is heavily promoted (and published) by the Southern Baptist-owned Lifeway Christian Resources.
Some might argue that Moore liked Hatmaker’s comment because it was only a joke (although again, to be honest, who knows?). We might then ask Moore exactly what about Michael Curry and the Episcopal church is funny. Or, we might ask Moore exactly what about Jen Hatmaker is funny. We might ask Moore what about any of this is funny. It’s not funny; it’s John 11:35-type sad.
Actual Christians – the real kind – are fed-up with the herd of cows from Bashan in the evangelical industrial complex who have no business leading women or teaching theology. We are tired of the back-slapping and bad doctrine. We are tired of the thinly veiled feminism cloaked in the language of empowerment. And most of all, we are tired of Beth Moore.
