Beth Moore and her "Sorry" drummer

Dear Beth,

     I’ve kicked this around for over a week now. I thought maybe I just didn’t care about you, or your BS ramblings and misandry enough to respond to your kneeling-drummer trick. But I thought about it and decided I needed to vent. Men are under attack these days and sadly, you’re leading the charge.

     I’ll spare you a lot of bible verses about men and women and the way God ordained the relationship between the two. I mean it’s not like you care very much what the Bible says about that stuff. You’ve picked and chosen what to obey and what to ignore and made quite a cottage industry out of it. You’ve made a boatload of money for yourself and for Lifeway, which is -as we all know—what really counts. You must be “anointed” otherwise your materials wouldn’t sell like they do. In the evangelical world, we know that pastors with big churches and authors with big sales numbers achieve these things only because God blesses them. It’s a sign of His hand upon them, right?

     Let’s skip all that and talk about that emasculated drummer of yours, and this rampant man-hate thing you have going on. That and the “But Ricky…I’m a victim tooooo! Waaahhhhh!” that you’ve served up as a narrative for the last three years or so.

     When I heard that your drummer – an alleged male of the species—dropped to his knees and “apologized on behalf of all men…” I vacillated between wanting to vomit and wanting to find that little candy-xxx and punch him in the throat. All men don’t owe women an apology, princess, and it’s best you realize that and stop milking this school of thought to sell more books.

     Let me tell you about one such man.

This guy was deeply in love with his wife. They were married three years. Almost to the day. She divorced him, not because he abused her, not because he had affairs or didn’t go to church or didn’t show her enough attention. He adored her. He set aside every dream he ever had, (except, of course, the dreams of a wife and family and a home and a fiftieth wedding anniversary) and he devoted himself to making her dreams come true. And if it meant that none of his did, then he was okay with that, so long as her’s did.

But she got better offers from wealthy doctors and eventually she left with the highest bidder.

      This guy was devastated. They had an eighteen-month-old daughter who he absolutely adored. He was a devoted father. His daily life that once revolved around his little princess was reduced to once a week and every other weekend.

     Without his family he was lost. He roamed his house like a ghost. He would wake up many nights in the fetal position on the living room floor, with his fingertips bleeding, because he’d fallen asleep there, after sobbing for hours and clutching the carpet fibers so tightly that they cut into his fingertips. He sat alone in church every Sunday, feeling as if everyone was staring at him and yet not even seeing him. There were support groups for the women going through divorces, but not for the men. He was relegated to the shadows. He wore his sorrow like a trench coat.

     He endured almost yearly court battles because his wife, who remarried after a few years and was making plenty of money, would take him to court for increased child support if he showed even the slightest hint of success. The judge who heard each case, was herself, a five-time divorcee. Five times. Yet nobody dared question her objectivity. They didn’t dare. She ran her courtroom like a dictator and jailed any man who dared speak up.

     There were no books in Lifeway to help him find his way across this lonely sea. None. Not one. Nobody in Christian publishing cared about his plight, because men don’t buy books the way women do, and even though there is a screaming need…a dollar is a dollar.

     His ex-wife’s new husband was a drug-addled monster. He attacked their daughter in vicious, cruel ways. He killed one of her pets. He destroyed her property. He tried everything he could think of to come between my friend and his daughter. Yet my friend endured, because he loved his daughter and because that’s what good dads do. His ex-wife sided with her new husband, even to the point of siding against her own daughter. My friend lost his job in 2008 when the market collapsed. He tried to find work but could not. He could not move to a city where employment was better because his daughter was at risk. So, he stayed, even though that meant living in his car.

     By 45 years of age he was homeless. He shivered in the winter and sweltered in the summer. Six years of this could not dim his love for his daughter, or his fierce determination to remain in her life. He protected her from the deepening horrors at her mom’s house as best he could. Finally, when his little girl could not take it anymore, and her mom finally saw things for what they were, she let him take their child and move to another state.

     He’s been a single dad for almost five years now. He has lost many a night’s sleep over the pain his little girl has been suffering. He thought he was going to lose her about two years ago. He has shelved all his own dreams and accepted a job that pays not nearly enough, but it provides her college tuition and so he endures every day and works a side job in virtually every spare hour, just to make sure she has enough.

     He does this willingly, because that’s what good men, good dads, do. It was nine years before his ex-wife would even admit to her sins that led to their marriage dissolving. He held no grudge. He speaks no ill of her to their daughter, even though there is ill to speak if he wanted to. He chooses to show her respect.

     In the twenty years since they divorced, he has never had a woman over to his house. Never dated seriously. He chose to remain single because he knew his daughter needed to know that at least one of her parents was going to put her first. He did it because he was afraid a woman would not understand his devotion to his child. Most of them did not.

     He has never left his daughter home while he spent the night with a woman. Even though she is almost 21 and could certainly stay home alone. He has never allowed another woman to intrude on his ex-wife’s sacred motherhood. (Even though for so many years she did not return this courtesy.)

     This man has always treated women with respect. He did this for his daughter. He did this because he is a man.

     By now, Beth, you’ve likely guessed that this man is me. I endured homelessness. I sobbed many nights on my living room floor because my heart was shattered. I sat alone in church every Sunday, because nobody knows how to reach a man in the midst of a divorce…and they don’t care.

     If anyone wanted to play the victim card, I certainly could. If anyone wanted to develop a severe case of woman-hate, I could have. Maybe even should have. But I did not. I behaved like a grown-up and refused to affix blame to all woman.

In view of this, where your beta-male drummer and his embarrassing “apology for all men” is concerned…count me out. I don’t owe you any apology. I don’t owe you sXXX!

You’ve grown amazingly wealthy playing this victim card of yours and writing book after book teaching other women how victimized they really are too. You’ve developed your own army of brittle, bitter Bettys who refuse to drop their claim of victimization and relinquish their man-hate. To do so would require them to grow the hell up and God knows we can’t have that. God knows we can’t put that stuff behind us, because we might actually be forced to be responsible for our actions…you know, like big people. Then who would you sell books to?

     Your drummer owes me an apology. He doesn’t speak for me and to lump me in with abusive men…to lump any other men in with abusers, is an outrage.

Until you address the sins of woman with the same outrage and venom that you do the alleged sins of men, you have no validity. None.

     Your drummer was wrong. And whatever “fell on you” at that meeting was not the Holy Spirit. The truth is that women wound men at least as much as men wound women. To say otherwise is to lie. To perpetuate your man-hate issues and teach them to another generation is a sin.

Where’s my apology?