The following is excerpted from “Cotton Candy Faith: How Popular Women’s Bible Teachers Are Leading Many Astray,” The Disntr, Apr. 7, 2025:

It’s been said that if you want to see the theological temperature of the modern American church, you don’t go to the pulpit. You go to the fellowship hall where a circle of women sit cradling pastel-covered workbooks with Beth Moore’s name stamped across the front like a branding iron. The giggles are warm, the tears are real, the coffee is mediocre, and the doctrine is nowhere to be found. But this is not a Bible study.

It’s emotional group therapy with a spiritual twist and a three-chord worship song humming in the background. And what passes for teaching in these circles is so syrupy and hollow, you’d think the goal was to disciple hummingbirds. Welcome to the world of Evangelical ladies’ Bible studies, where feelings are exegesis, self is savior, and God is little more than your best friend with benefits.

At the center of this estrogen-fueled ecosystem are the usual suspects: Beth Moore, Priscilla Shirer, Christine Caine, Ann Voskamp, Kelly Minter, and a whole army of inspirational Pinterest prophets serving up spiritual soy lattes to a generation of theologically starved women. They call it empowering. We call it emasculating, effeminate, and utterly allergic to the sharp edge of truth.

Yet, these women didn’t sneak into the spotlight. They were launched. Propped up by publishing houses like Lifeway and Christian conference circuits, desperate to monetize female piety. They were gift-wrapped and shipped to churches with the promise of being ‘safe’ alternatives to dangerous, doctrinally robust theology. They were marketed as relatable, down-to-earth, and winsome; code, of course, for doctrinally neutered, emotionally indulgent, and conveniently soft on everything that matters.

Their rise wasn’t organic. It was orchestrated. If Christian publishing were a dating app, these lady-preachers were the algorithm-approved matches for a generation of women who think discernment is a spiritual gift for mean people. At the heart of their collective teaching is a singular, unwavering false gospel: You are enough. Not Christ crucified. Not sin repented of. Just you—flawed, fabulous, fiercely loved, and in desperate need of absolutely nothing but a slightly more poetic journal entry. In fact, these women do not preach or teach the gospel at all. Instead, they preach therapeutic narcissism. And they do it with flair.

Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.
1 Timothy 2:11,12

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