Review: Beth Moore’s All My Knotted Up Life
Beth Moore’s autobiographical work All My Knotted Up Life: A Memoir begins in the scenes of her childhood in rural Arkansas. She initially speaks in her thick, Arkedelphia accent in the audiobook version’s first chapters, as this was accurate to her story before the family’s move to Houston.
Circling through the people, places and ideas that formed her faith, Moore sweeps you up into both the dysfunctional family love and drama which created the guideposts for her earliest years. With many decades to cover, she starts slowly, adding in dripping details to contour the scenes of her life, fumbles, questions and foibles. With sharp clarity and literary finesse, Moore relays how her mother’s suffering mental health, her grandmother’s doting deep-South love and the abuse she experienced from her father as a child served as catalysts for her search for significance. Of her family’s dysfunction, Moore says: “Denial makes for a terrible lifestyle but a pleasant lunch.” With both poignant insight, creative metaphor and sharp wit, she untangles her childhood and the spiritual milestones throughout.
As she grows older, the chapters become more topical as they span longer periods, covering subjects such as her marriage shadowed by her husband’s severe PTSD, her children and eventually, the phases of her evolving career. Moore harkens back to her early years of ministry, relaying how she became an accidental aerobics teacher and Bible study leader in one of Houston’s largest Baptist churches. Over time, she navigated the challenges of motherhood while also traveling to speak and teach at every opportunity. She shared about those along her path who taught her the skills of exegesis and biblical interpretation. Though she only attempted higher education in Biblical skills, it is evident she took study seriously, filling her home with commentaries and creating a minister’s hovel in the comfort of her own kitchen table. Her love of the Bible is palpable throughout the story, as she voraciously studied book by book, offering more insights to the women in her classes and conferences she so longed to teach.
As her career grows, so does her notoriety and the resulting backlash from male leaders within her own tradition, the Southern Baptist Convention. Moore unveils her journey from accepting and protecting the complementarian theology she believed in prior to experiencing the underside of its male-centric worldview for what it is. She also narrates the disillusionment she experienced in the rise of Trump politics within her denomination and the onslaught of criticism aimed at her in response to tweets she wrote criticizing actions of the then-acting President. She described this onslaught aptly as being “washed out to sea.”
Finally, circling back to questions she demanded of God in a moment of sheer desperation regarding her husband’s mental health, the book closes similarly to how it began: slow, quiet, metaphorical, detailed, insightful. After looking back over decades of following hard after her Savior and experiencing challenges, victories, love, betrayal, joy and pain, she rediscovers a sense of community, a sense of church belonging and a sense of God’s love.
This book is both love letter and prophetic critique to the community which raised, discipled, platformed and finally discredited Moore. Her institutional, theological and relational knowledge of the Southern Baptist Convention has both depth and breadth. Her love and commitment to the people and networks that afforded her influence make the betrayal of the institutional and personal rejection all the more stark in the end. But her commitment to truth as she understood it in scripture proved stronger than any institutional tie, allowing her to tie up the loose ends of her story with a cord of hope.
Though her story delves into charged topics such as mental health, gender, politics, denominational conflict, marriage challenges, family dysfunction and forgiveness, racism, biblical interpretation, dark nights of the soul, foster care and more, Moore writes decisively from her social location as a white, female, American evangelical. She does not delve into the theology or social commentary of these topics or other hot-button issues of today. She writes only from her own experience. Though strong in her convictions and remaining steadfast in some common evangelical assumptions, Moore does not necessarily build a stated case for egalitarian belief, anti-racism or a particular political position. She shares only her own experiences and her resulting gleaned insights into how she believes God works.
When one reaches the end of the decades-long journey from the childhood home in Arkedelphia to sold-out arenas of Houston back to a small country house in Texas in her twilight years, one word comes to mind: faithfulness. Moore emphasizes the faithfulness of God to her. But one can’t help but observe the faithfulness of Moore toward God. Hers is a life spent following hard after God amid questions, heartache, sports practices, aerobics classes, Sunday School lessons, conferences, kitchen-table studies, social media firestorms, family funerals, church conflicts.
What comes to mind is the fruit of what Eugene Peterson calls the “long obedience.” In both obscurity and notoriety, Moore stewarded what she was given with a desire to serve. This story’s power lies not in the accumulation of power, fame or success — there are more than enough books about that. This story is unique in that she was willing to give it all up in the end.
With few evangelical, Baptist female leaders with the same level of both longevity and prominence, this work is a unique glimpse into a woman’s view of complementarian leadership circles and her journey into a theology beyond them. She rose to fame in and through a system that welcomed her but only to a point. She outgrew the system and it turned on her.
Wherever one may fall on the theological spectrum, ultimately, Moore’s work is a narrative of faithfulness in the small things over decades. The antithesis of the ubiquitous get-famous-and-rich-quick narratives of our current environment, All My Knotted Up Life communicates a much harder message.
In an environment that applauds outward success more than inward faithfulness and integrity, this autobiography is a study in long-game obedience. It is evident in Moore’s account that impact comes not from forging the perfect formula, honing one’s talent or collecting followers, but from a life lived in surrender, wherever it leads. Moore embodies the idea that whether applauded by thousands or invisible and rejected by the many, faithfulness is the only thing that truly counts.
