Pirate Christian vs Beth Moore
By Elizabeth Prata
I love Chris Rosebrough of Fighting for the Faith. He has been “Fighting for the Faith” for a long time. Fighting for the Faith is a discernment ministry that compares what popular pastors, preachers, teachers, conference speakers, self-proclaimed prophets and prophetesses and self-appointed apostles and apostlets say to the word of God. He is known by the moniker “Pirate Christian.”
He is also a Lutheran pastor with a congregation in Minnesota.
If you need a discernment person, Chris Rosebrough would be a safe discerner. (Along with Justin Peters and Steve Kozar). Rosebrough has been discerning for a long time. I remember looking (and looking and looking) for material discerning Beth Moore back in 2011 and there was very little that wasn’t 100% approving of her. One of the three pieces that I found back then was a review Rosebrough did on her Hebrews speech published in 2006. So, a long time.
As he says in his tagline above, he compares what self-professed Christians say to what the Bible says. Last week he reviewed a speech Beth Moore made on her Youtube channel, where she allegedly explained the David & Goliath event in 1 Samuel 16.
What Rosebrough does in this video is…well…a lot! He announced at the outset of the video that Beth Moore is not a sound teacher. But he does more than just announce. He then turns to the Bible and reads the entire passage from the Bible that the teacher is presenting. He reads before and after, for context. Rosebrough explains the passage as he reads; the context, the history, the background, the meaning of certain words. Full explanation. By the time he is finished the listener has a solid grasp on the passage.
Then, and only then, near the end of this video, Rosebrough turns to the Beth Moore speech. The reader has by now been given such a solid grounding, he or she can immediately see why Moore’s explanation of the verse is not only ridiculous, but nearly blasphemy.
His discernment technique is more than pointing a finger and saying “don’t listen to her!” He teaches (pastorally), he models discernment (spiritual gift usage), and he is clear (“able to teach”).
A few points from the video:
narcigesis: this is a combination of two terms, narcissism and eisegesis. Narcissism because Moore inserts herself and the reader into the text and makes US the point, and eisegesis because that is an interpretive method where the interpreter inserts a preconceived meaning INTO the text instead of exegeting it (drawing meaning FROM the text.
If you are listening to a teacher explain a passage and you realize they have made it all about you, or made it where we are the hero of the story and not Jesus, it’s narcigesis. You might think, “Well DUH!” but satan is subtle and often times you do not realize the passage has been twisted. But listening to Chris Rosebrough, you will learn how to spot it.
Rosebrough ends the video this way:
Beth Moore is not a sound biblical teacher … She took a text that’s so obviously about Christ and makes it about you and about me shows that she’s not skilled at all in rightly handling God’s word and and pointing you to yourself as your own savior.
Please listen to the video to see not only why Moore is not a solid teacher, but how to approach a biblical text and how to approach discernment.
Links to Pastor Chris Rosebrough’s work:
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Fighting4theFaith/featured
FaceBook facebook.com/piratechristian
Twitter twitter.com/piratechristian
Instagram instagram.com/piratechristian
Fighting for the Faith Podcast fightingforthefaith.com
Pirate Christian Radio piratechristianradio.com
Patreon patreon.com/PirateChristian
Join Our Crew piratechristian.com/join-our-crew
