“I commend both men to you, but mainly I wanted to set before you the work of Mr. Dale Wilson, of which you may not be aware. His discernment critiques of Beth Moore were early, good, and remain today as a gold standard.”
(Elizabeth Prata – The End Time) Title on the site: The King’s Dale: A Commendable Resource for Beth Moore and Sarah Young Critiques and Book Reviews.
The popular definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.” For Christians with discernment, insanity is ‘being sure by the Spirit and the Bible, after research and prayer, that so-and-so is false, but literally NO ONE ELSE around you believes it or even entertains the notion for a second.’
After a while you begin to question yourself, or you question why others can’t see it, or you question God with pleading, upraised hands, ‘why, WHY can’t they see?’ All that. The definition of discernment is also often “Agony.”
It was like that for me, anyway, back in 2011-2012 when I started to question Beth Moore’s teaching.
The church I attended at the time was Southern Baptist in denomination, tradition, and church practice. The members were sweet and they loved Jesus and they were faithful. They had a blind spot about Moore, though. Her lessons were continually used in the Ladies Ministry, and I saw Moore’s books were cradled in more than one woman’s arms as we went about our church-activities.
I was graciously brought to a ladies retreat where the DVD of “The Hairbrush Story” was exegeted. I was also invited to a weekend Living Proof Live event. That was my first exposure to Moore, having been a recent convert and a transplant from the North, where women who wore flannel and LL Bean boots looked at women who said ‘honey’ & ‘y’all’ and wore hairbows with a degree of perplexity and wariness.
But I was now in the Land of Dixie, happily, and I threw myself into the new culture which God had led me, Beth Moore lessons and all. If this was church, I was in.
However, after the Living Proof event concluded, having listened closely to Moore’s lesson for three straight sessions, I was more than a little perturbed. When I arrived home I set to comparing her teaching (I was glad that as a journalist I’d taken copious and precise notes at the LPL event, which I still possess) to the Bible. What I was seeing in my Berean eyes didn’t measure up. But then again, I was a new convert and had just begun in church. I also looked online for credible ministries, pastors, or theologians who had also examined her work. I was a newbie after all.
What did I find? NOTHING.
Nowhere could I find any critique of Beth Moore. OK, that’s hyperbole, I found two, thank goodness! Otherwise I truly would have either gone crazy (hyperbole again) or been accused of being crazy (true fact, not hyperbole).
Research: