The Sunday Story: An evangelical superstar left her church but kept her faith

Up First from NPR

NPR

Daily News, News

4.5 • 52.8K Ratings

🗓️ 11 June 2023

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

For almost three decades, Beth Moore was a committed evangelical Southern Baptist. She was also a superstar in the Southern Baptist Denomination. Moore shared her love of Jesus and the Bible with millions of evangelical women at Bible study gatherings across the country, events that often drew stadium-sized crowds. But when the infamous Donald Trump Access Hollywood tape surfaced, Moore was stunned. She's a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and felt Trump's comments bordered on criminality. When the Southern Baptist Denomination said nothing and continued to support Trump, Moore made the decision to walk away from the Church.

Today on The Sunday Story our new host, Ayesha Rascoe, talks to Moore about her faith and childhood and why she felt it was time to share her experiences in a new memoir, All My Knotted Up Life.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey, it's Rachel and this is the Sunday Story.
0:05.2	And today I want to introduce you to someone.
0:07.6	But if you listen to NPR, you probably already know her.
0:10.8	Hi, Aisha.
0:12.4	Hello, how are you?
0:14.4	Hello, I'm doing well.
0:16.4	So this is Aisha Roscoe.
0:18.5	She is, of course, former White House correspondent for NPR and for the last year,
0:23.0	the host of Weekend Edition Sunday.
0:25.3	And as of today, she is the host of this very program.
0:30.1	Because you just did not have enough going on in your life, did you?
0:33.8	Clearly, clearly.
0:34.9	I just have a lot of free time.
0:36.6	And so, you know, I just like to pick up, you know, some things here and there to do.
0:42.8	To round out your schedule.
0:44.4	So I am leaving the Sunday Story in your most capable hands
0:48.7	because I'm doing this new project.
0:51.8	And I know you know a little bit about it, but I'll tell her more.
0:57.0	Yeah.
0:57.5	So we've called it Enlighten Me.
1:00.0	And this is basically an excuse for me to talk to all kinds of people
1:06.0	about the really deeply existential questions that I have right now in my own life
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.