Yesterday was the anniversary of Lottie Moon’s birth 175-years ago. Since the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Missions Board has lost tens of millions of dollars over just the past two years, and is selling-off property and recalling missionaries to make-up the shortfall, there is a huge push to make this year’s annual Lottie Moon collection for missions the best ever.
Today would be 175th birthday of Lottie Moon. Let’s make the 2015 LM Offering for World Missions a record breaker. https://t.co/QmZ5BvGP9Y
— Albert Mohler (@albertmohler) December 12, 2015
Don’t fall for it: Lottie Moon’s ruined, miserable life is the exemplar for what is sick in Baptist teaching and why nobody should have anything to do with them.
Moon was engaged to a Southern Seminary professor named Crawford Toy. Toy went to Germany on a yearlong sabbatical to learn about the new methods of historical criticism which were then emerging, and came back skeptical of the literal truth of Genesis. He was fired. Moon eventually broke-off the engagement, explaining “God had first claim on my life, and since the two conflicted, there could be no question about the result.”
Toy went to Harvard, converted to Unitarianism, married, and had a long and well-regarded career. Moon went to China, from which she sent home letters complaining about loneliness. Eventually she went mad and was recalled; she died alone aboardship in a Japanese Harbor.
Daniel Akin, the president of Southeastern Seminary celebrated Moon’s decision not to marry:
Moon lived a sacrificial life in giving everything, including her chance to marry and even her own life, to reach people with the Gospel, Akin said.
“There is one living sacrifice Lottie made that I especially wish to draw to your attention,” Akin said. “Miss Moon never married, though she did receive a proposal that she would turn down.”
Because, you know, marriage interferes with total devotion to the cult. Bah.