Where is Pastoral Discernment?

Yesterday as I was reading my morning e-mail and eating breakfast, I received this interesting letter:

I want to thank you for posting about Beth Moore on your website. I live in a small town on the coast of British Columbia. I had been going to a Baptist church in town until the emergent movement teaching showed up there. I was very distressed about this and went in to share my concerns with the asst. Pastor and our Bible study leader. The response that I received was that they did not know what I was talking about. So, I left that church and began to go to a small sister church out here in the country where I live. The ladies’ Bible study there, led by the Pastor’s wife, was on Beth Moore’s video “Believing God.” At first I thought, well maybe this is ok, so I went a few times. I even shed some tears a few times over things that she said in the videos, but something deep inside troubled me a bit. I did not know what it was though. One time after the study I asked myself, is this really sound doctrine or is it a mix of truth and psychology? It also bothered me how often she would say, “God told me” this or that. I would think to myself, something is wrong, I do not believe God talks like that. There were about 12 sessions. I attended 4, missing the rest on purpose because I was so troubled. The ladies there are all pumped on Beth Moore, especially the Pastor’s wife. I was going to print out your reviews and bring them to the Pastor but I don’t think I have much clout compared to Beth Moore. I am still looking for a church here. Some are emergent, others are signs and wonders…. Why can’t so many Christians see? especially the leadership?

Well I responded to the young lady, and then I thought about doing a blog comment using her as an example, so I asked permission to use her comments (without her identity). In her response, granting me permission, she included this additional information:

I feel really heartsick but at the same time, pleased that the Lord opened my eyes a little at a time. Actually, I think He opened my eyes a bit at a time as I sought to know the truth. It sure did not come all at once and I am still learning much. Another thing they did was to make some crocheted blue bracelets that we were supposed to wear during the weeks of the study but, lol, I refused and tucked it into my notebook. Also, before each study we had to stand up and do that mantra thing with the sign language, “I believe God,” which I also refused to do. I am so very thankful to the Lord that He has been opening my eyes to all this stuff. … I was finding more stuff online about Beth Moore - wow, it’s not easy to find - and thinking about her teachings most of last night and now realize that she is very dangerous because she is leading people to open themselves up to and depend upon revelation instead of God’s word. I think that her teachings are just as dangerous as those of, for example, the Word of Faith Movement.

My first thoughts were, “What a discerning woman to see the problems with Beth Moore!” Then I looked back over her letter and was saddened by the lack of discernment by pastors she has encountered.

Look at the first one she mentioned: She identified that emergent teaching was coming into the church and when she talked to him, he had no idea what she was talking about. This is unconscionable; every shepherd out there should know about the emergent heresy so as to protect their flock from it.

The second pastor’s wife is teaching Beth Moore, apparently without her husband’s objection. Where is this pastor’s discernment? I find that a lot of pastors’ wives are indeed great fans of Beth Moore; where is the discernment of these husband-pastors who permit their wives to fill their minds, and the minds of other women, with the false teaching and pop-psychology presented in Beth’s “studies”?

This woman sent me a follow-up e-mail with some more thoughts about the study:

I realize now that a major factor that drew me to the Bible study at church was the longing for fellowship with other Christian women. I also noticed the emotional response of the women present after each video viewing. They seemed very emotionally charged and kept saying things like.. "Oh, I love the part were she said this" or 'Oh, I loved it when she talked about that, I never seen it that way!" … I am not sure which video it was, but it was the one where she was teaching about labels that people put on women. She had women on the stage with jackets and letters on their backs to represent labels that we wear. But, I noticed that repeatedly she kept saying, you need to do this or you need to do that. There was no mention of the fact that we cannot do anything outside of the grace of God operating in our lives. I was thinking as I listened, this is really sounding a lot like a combination of self help/new age/emergent/ psychology. She seems to me to be the female-good looking- well dressed-entertaining-charismatic-don’t have a clue about sound doctrine-version of Joel Osteen.

Now, there are a lot of problems in the “Believing God” series which this woman has astutely identified, yet pastors, the leaders of our flocks, don’t seem to have a clue about. Why is it that our church leaders completely lose objectivity about Beth Moore and turn a blind eye to the need for meat among their women members? Is it because she is popular and they don’t want to step on toes? I think that is a major factor.

What about the need for fellowship among women, which this lady identified? Should there not be mature, discerning women identified in the body who can disciple women properly without resorting to the shows put on by Moore?

With the popularity of Beth Moore, I think the most important thing for pastors to do is use the pulpit as a place to tell their whole congregations that she is not a good teacher, that she may have a lot of good things to say but that her teachings are laced with such error as to be a spiritual danger to those who follow her. Until our leaders have the courage to do this, Beth Moore will continue to fill the minds of our Christian sisters with false teachings.