Christianity Today Defends Viral ‘Elisabeth Elliott Might Have Been Bisexual’ Post

Christianity Today’s new Chief Content Officer and Editor-in-Chief, Erik Petrik, has reassured the author of the now-infamous article “What We Know—and Cannot Know—About Elisabeth Elliot’s Sexuality,” which suggests that the famed missionary’s wife, author, and lecturer was bisexual, that its temporary removal from their website had nothing to do with disagreement about it.

Article author Lucy Austen shared the vote of confidence in a post on X, explaining that she received a “thoughtful note” from Petrik assuring her that the article’s temporary disappearance “was not an issue of” her “reporting, writing, or point of view.”

Instead, she said they took it down because “They wished to add an explanatory note at the beginning of the piece,” which now states:

Which doesn’t make sense, as the explanatory note doesn’t add any new framing that is not already in the article.

In his article for World mag, Denny Burk explains why Austen’s article is so egregious, writing in part:

The scandal here is not Elliot. The scandal is that Austen’s article provides exactly zero evidence to support the claim that Elliot was a bisexual. Zero. None. Nada.

Rather, the entire case rests on a single interview with the late Mollenkott who recounted a story not of a lesbian affair with Elliot but of Mollenkott threatening to smear Elliot as a lesbian if Elliot outed Mollenkott.

As even Austen admits, we don’t even know if Mollenkott’s account is true. The event she recounts happened 50 years before the interview, has not been corroborated by anyone, and both of the principals are dead (Elliot and Mollenkott). But even if it were true, there is no admission of bisexuality on Elliot’s part

That is why it’s entirely tendentious and salacious to spin this brief confrontation between Elliot and Mollenkott as evidence of a lesbian relationship. It’s preposterous, actually. We have one recollection from an aging Mollenkott recalling what is at best an ambiguous statement from half a century in the past.

A brief perusal of Austen’s responses so far indicate that she doesn’t see what the problem is.

Still, Austen has been responding to critics accusing her of attacking Elliot, pointing out that even if Elliot was sexually attracted to other women, there wouldn’t be anything wrong with that.

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