"Brilliant" Al Mohler sets Evolution "straight"

[Gene Scarborough]

[Gene Scarborough]

Al--old budd---

For a man with an earned Doctorate / head of an institution of "higher learning" / spokesperson for Conservative Resurgence---you sure show some mighty large ignorance of the Bible!!!!

As I have watched you ascend the ladder of CR, you represent non-thinking the best I know. At SEBTS we studied Genesis and a quick look at just a few deeper understandings virtually eliminates your proposition that the Bible is "right" and science is "wrong." "Yam = indefinite period of time / there are, without question 2 different accounts of Creation / the Bible is telling in story form the SAME proposition of science: what we have today is a progression from nothing to something / science calls it "Big Bang" and the Bible says "In the beginning God / the Bible hardly takes into account more than the writers could see, feel, or touch in their world limited by their inability to fly nor see into the reaches of the universe with a Hubble Telescope.

Adam = mankind / Eve = womankind---and where the heck did their son's wives come from????

The 2 Genesis accounts are not identical in your "inerrant" Bible. If the first stories are different and one must now choose since it is "all the same", then the whole Bible starts with inconsistency anyone with a brain admits and then tries to resolve. J/E/P/Q sources does a darn good job of such---sorry!!! Without such understanding, you just have a mess of inconsistency.

Why is there your obsessive need to make it an either/or decision when one knowing much about the Bible has little cause to to say this? For me, both stories are simply the truth told from 2 different perspectives---one a world view which is consistent--the other a world view limited by the little technology they had then. It's just another way the CR folks love to divide and anger when Jesus wanted to enlarge understanding in his day and draw people to a life of joy and peace!

Al, many of us see your motives and hope you never fly in an airplane for you certainly will fall off this planet described in the Bible as a square waffer beneath the sky and between sky and water! If you have ever flown or taken a ship, you are a stupid idiot to hold your views---and totaly inconsistent!!

[Gene Scarborough]

Here is Mohler's actual post:

[Dave Roberts]

Al likes to hear himself spout off. He has found a receptive audience in the SBC to such unclear thinking. He does not consider such viewpoints of two creation accounts as having any conflict--just harmonize them to fit together regardless. I am grateful that my diploma from that institution was in the days of Bill Hull, Frank Stagg, Page Kelley, Clyde Francisco, J J Owen, Dale Moody, Wayne Oates, Swan Haworth, Joseph Callaway, Henlee Barnette, and others who wrestled with real issues when it came to scripture and life and who didn't enjoy tilting at windmills.

[Gene Scarborough]

Stupid is as stupid does!!!

I watched Mohler turn the Christian Index into a fluff piece as Jack Harwell, a friend to today, was fired.

Jack had the guts to start Baptists Today even though it gave him little or nothing in salary and cost him his first marriage. That's about as high a price anyone pays for the sake of integrity!

Mohler has a brown stain on his nose and his eyes are blinded by the same. If it will play for CR, Molher will provide it. I just can't belive such a stupid and arrogant rascal gets national play when they are seeking commentary from Baptists. Nothing I have ever seen coming from Mohler EVER makes us look other than "stupid" in the public eye. We can't control it---just distance ourselves from it.

Is it not about time the CBF declares independence so the media knows there is another kind of Baptist not this biased and stupid. He is a millstone around our neck and we have students stupid enough to think Patterson / Mohler / Akin in their fancy houses and private libraries are not just blow-hards putting on a show the naive appreciate? It offends every one of us with a decent education enough of the brown stuff to puke simply from the odor of it all!

Sorry to be so graphic, but it's like I see it.

[Neil Heath]

Chris and Dave are both saying things that need to be said about Mohler.

My wife and I also have degrees from the seminary that Dave attended, one I was proud to claim ... but it no longer exists. I am often embarrassed to be associated with the current school that occupies that campus, and even more so by the idea that popular media shows turn to Mohler and Richard Land for comments from Baptists.

When asked about my degree, I simply say I am an alumnus of a school that no longer exists. I quit referring students to any SBC seminary a long time ago, and instead encouraged them to go elsewhere.

[Dave Roberts]

My son will be graduating at BTSR in May, and I am grateful that schools like BTSR, Truett, Mercer, and others are there to provide an education in the world where indoctination passes for education.

[Gene Scarborough]

Don't forget the Baptist House of Studies at Emory where I graduated in 1967 and Duke where I wanted to go for an advanced graduate time of study at that fine Methodist school as well.

Emory taught me, not what to think, but how to analyse and reach reasonable positions on whatever issue was at hand. I well remember my first college level course in Bible at Emory. My topic was "The Suffering Servant--Was Jesus Him."

i was so proud of my paper formulated using my dad's study books and Concordances. I did it without having to use the Theology Library at Emory. It came back to me with a "C!!" How could that be with such great resources????

I found out when I read the note from Dr. Reese at the end: "You did an excellent job of presenting material about Jesus being the Suffering Servant / you said virtually nothing of the side he was possibly not such."My first lesson in real theological study and required at SEBTS of me and fellow students---examine all sides and then present a reasoned position as to where you are on this matter.

Sadly, most Baptist Seminary students now have no options other then the CR option. It's way too narrow for me---sorry!

[Ed Pettibone]

[quote="Gene Scarborough"]
-
Sadly, most Baptist Seminary students now have no options other then the CR option. It's way too narrow for me---sorry!

Ed: Gene take a look at this link and the additional ABC- USA affiliated schools, they seems to raise a question about your last statement above.

http://www.baptistlife.com/seminaries/

# Central Baptist Theological Seminary, Shawnee, Kansas [6]
# Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School, Rochester, New York [7]
# Evangelical Seminary of Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico [8]
# Morehouse School of Religion, Atlanta, Georgia [9]
# Shaw University Divinity School, Raleigh, North Carolina [12]
# The Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology, Virginia Union University, Richmond, Virginia [13]

And by CR are you talking about the Takeover of the SBC ? They can't have a resurgence of what never was.

[Haruo]

[Gene Scarborough]

You are totally right that I should have said, "Most SBC seminary students." Sorry for not being accurate enough.

The list posted above is a good one and appears to be complete. Having spent my lifetime as a Southern Baptist church member and participant since my pregnant mother carried me every Sunday to "hear" my father preach at FBC Liberty, SC, I think there may be few here who could claim to be more SBC than me!

My father was an Andover-Newton graduate and encounted quickly the strong influence of SBC seminaries on potenetial ministers being called to a church. He lost several great opportunities to serve large churches early in his career because the Southern Professors would just say, "Can you trust a northern seminary graduate?"

Looking back on my almost 65 years, if I had a crystal ball I would have stayed at Emory for the Candler School of Theology and admission to the ranks of UMC clergy. They have some ultra-conservative problems, but the DS's handle them. I always was close friends more to the UMC ministers than my fellow SBC clergy. Most of them would refuse to marry anyone who had a divorce in their background. I performed several ceremonies for such people who came to me for help!

I find a wise difference between UMC ordaination and the SBC. No UMC minister is ordained without formal education and personality evaluation with the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) or similar tools to detect abnormal personality and emotion. Hence, the SBC has some real wackos who say they are "called." Hearing voices and having a penchant for obsession with control hardly bespeaks a healthy personality, in my view. My BA from Emory was in Psychology and I know whereof I speak.

[Dave Roberts]

First, I was not trying to omit schools but to give thanks that alternative forms of education for Baptists had developed that did not depend on SBC seminaries. I could no longer recommend any of them to a student I might know.

Second, theology that simply rejects all science sounds like a revived version of that espoused by William Jennings Bryan in Dayton, TN. Mohler and his creationism only stance seems to echo a revised version of WJB at the Scopes trial.

Third, I am convinced that God is not bound to a process that we can understand or characterize. Genesis 1 is written in a poetic form paying tribute to the Who and why of creation, not to hows. I believe that God is behind it, but the mechanism is probably far more complex than my feeble mind has grasped. Actually, Genesis 1 is pretty good science for its day. To restrict God to a method that I can totally grasp is to deny that He is God. Yet, to deny the evidence of geology and paleontology is to pretend that God is a great deceiver who sets out false evidence to test out faith. That just doesn't square with God as I have experienced Him in Jesus of Nazareth. I think Mohler's theology often fits well in the 18th century and will come back to haunt Baptists who endorse it as the 21st century unfolds. That's just my humble opinion that I highly respect .

[Gene Scarborough]

Well said, Dave---well said!

Why should we take our brains out and insist the Bible came out of scientific minds, but knows all things "scientific?"

The Bible just says, "In the beginning God." That covers a lot of territory and doesn't have to be science for me. I just see no real conflicts when we know the meaning of the Genesis Hebrew.

[Dave Roberts]

I sense that Francis Collins and others are a threat to Mohler's faith--or at least the version he wants to present. I suspect that both he and Land have publicists who try to get them interviews at various places.

[Dr. James Willingham]

My take on Dr. Mohler and his comments on evolution is from the perspective of a former atheist who once believed in that perspective and thought all religious people who believed regardless of whether they accepted some biblical creation or evolutionary creation should be offed (to use a term from hippy days). It is always depressing to read believers making hash of each other without really giving due consideration to where each is coming from as to research, etc. The former regimes in Russia (the old Soviet Union) and the present in China and a few other countries along with the Nazi/Fascist holacaust along with experiments in the USA, et. al. in eugenics of sSocial Darwinism would be enough to raise a few eyebrows of skepicism re: every one's so-called scientific framework. About three years ago a science educator on her way to a Ph.D. in the field was shocked when I raised the issue that there were problems with the scientific method. She asked, "How did you know that?" I think it was a little much for her that a poor, dumb ignorant Baptist preacher could be so informed. Our problem today is that we might be afraid to really trust that the Bible could be true, fearing that science would catch us with our proverbial pants down, a very sorry reason to excuse our reluctance to trust our founding documents. As one whose mind was giving over to intellectual concepts, it occurred to me about 40 plus years ago to look at the Bible in the light of its being inspired by Omniscience. If it was and is so inspired, then it should reflect the depth of profundity commensurate with that fact. Our real problem is that the bible expresses that sagacity in starkly simple terms and story and we have a problem with grasping depth in such a medium as that. Like my friend of Catawba Indian descent who thought a mountain stream was only 2-3 feet deep as he could see the grains of sand rolling along the bottom. He almost drowned in 18-20 feet of water. And the Bible is like that in its intellectual nature, another medium with which our perceptions are distorted , the problem of perspicuity mentioned by the Reformers. So we reject even the evidence that is clear, because it violates our norms and we virtually drown in its depths.

[Stephen Fox]

I already had a post up about this topic, but congrats to Gene S; he seems to be having a good run here.

One thing that frustrates me in private email exchanges with Scarborough and Dr. Willingham, is that three months into the discussion neither, as erudite as they are have found a way to turn up a copy of Marilynne Robinson's Absence of Mind. Robinson needs to go on replacement show for Larry King with Mohler so we can further along to the truth on these matters as 110 comments and counting on the AbP story on evolution show much ignorance abounds but it doesn't stop the pontificating.

[William Thornton]

Oh, come on, Mohler is anything but stupid. I don't buy his young earth but find his blogging insightful.

And Gene, I was around when he replaced Harwell. The Index was immensely improved under Mohler.

[Gene Scarborough]

Bill--

I didn't find any improvement when Mohler took over the Index. For me it quickly became a "puff piece" rather one allowing for differences of opinion under Jack Harwell. Let's just call it a difference of opinon. It was as if CR did not exist as a separate invasion of Baptist tradition.

I see nothing which convinces me of his intelligence--sorry. How can your overlook this stuff about a "young earth" when Carbon-14 testing shows it to be billions of years old?

My Biology Professor at Emory gave a down-to-earth description of our planet's history likened to a year long movie whose title is "Earth." We enter the theater at the stroke of midnight and stay until midnight strikes at the end or the year. About 10 minutes 'til midnight at the end of that year, our human footprints begin to appear on this planet!

That is hardly in sync with the biblical view nor Mohler's = stupid to me--or just uninformed.

[William Thornton]

[David Flick]

[Gene Scarborough]

William--
Sorry for the "name insult" and thanks for the heads up.

You will never convince me that Mohler is an "intellectual." I'm an Emory Graduate who was taught how to form REASONED views on most any issue = you keep asking questions and pursuing their answer every day of the week. You also RECOGNIZE YOUR PRESUPPOSITONS on any issue which may or may not be accurateFor Mohler, his presuppositions rule.

He claims to have once been an "liberal" and reformed from such to be an advocate for Inerrancy. What I find with most such people is that they make such a change they have absolutely no respect for what they once were. Well, if they were such, it's more a sign of spiritual and intellectual schizophrenia for me. Paul suffered from the same affliction as a zealot to become equally zealous and totally un-appreciative of women's place in the Early Church. People like him cast Mary Magdeline as a harlot when there if virtually nothing to undergird it!!! He would never admit that the Gnostic Gospel of Mary had any place in Scripture transmission. You certainly are aware that "Scripture" referred to all "writings" circulating in his day and many did not make the Canon which was defined 100's of years after they first were circulated in the Early Church. They had to comply with the Nicean Creed--made by man's "intelligence"--over anything given witness by "scriptures" which were selected for admission. That is the same as BF&M 2000 now controlling any SBC literature and mission service.

David--at least you kept yours in symbolic crucifixion. My good friend, Bill Self, just turned his back in years ago. He just happens to pastor the John's Creek Baptist Church in metro Atlanta and has been one of the most successful members of the first SEBTS class.

[Neil Heath]

David, I took my diploma off the wall of my office while serving as a campus minister, for fear that students would think I endorsed it as a place they should consider going. I'm going to keep it as a reminder--by way of the signatures on it--that there was once an excellent school by that name, with credible faculty and administration that I was proud to claim as my mentors.

William, when Mohler was editor of the Index he used to write articles so densely worded and full of big words that it was hard to follow his arguments at all. I suspect many who read him were impressed by his writing, but would have to admit they had no idea what he said. At times I was one of them. I think he did it to impress people, not because he was trying to clearly address the issues he wrote about.

[Haruo]

I am probably not the greatest fan of Saul aka Paul, but I think you do him an injustice, Gene, in suggesting that he was totally unappreciative of women's roles in the church, and I think you'll find that most orthodox Christian Bible students don't think of the Gospel of Mary as Scripture. (I'm not even sure I do, really, and I'm probably as broad-net a canonicist as you'll find hereabouts.)

[Gene Scarborough]

Haruo--

Let's be clear about "scripture." It is the Greek word for "writing" = graphe. Used in Paul's letters, it referred to the many "writings" circulating in the days before canonization. The Gnostic writings were clearly part of this and, by good Baptist majority vote, were ruled "heretical" for several reasons: not written by an Apostle / not accepted by a majority of churches across the region / not in full compliance with the Nicean Creed adopted by the Roman Catholic Church.

At the time of canonization, organization / money / Papal authority were in place. The Greek Orthodox split had taken place. The average church attender had no real idea what the higher ups were talking about---and could really care less as long as they got their sacriments and were assured of Heaven---even if they lived daily in a world of selfish sinfulness.

Neil--

Both Mohler and Patterson love those 25-cent words to mystify and intimidate their underlings. Always remember, the smartest theologians, like a smart Doctor, can take a grade 5 educated person and draw pictures and explain technical things so they UNDERSTAND what is being said. Like Paul said in I Corinthians--"though I speak with the tongues of angels and have not love etc. I am nothing!" I see little or no love with Mohler and Patterson (both must be called DR). I see little love or real ability to reason nor communicate clearly in these "great" men---who use the same sewer as us mortals to live!!!

[Stephen Fox]

Mohler is up for some interesting explanations as the ABP Story on the upcoming Conference on Evolution takes place in a few days.

I am disappointed that while I was snowbound somebody hasn't provided the link.

Fundamentalists never forgave Harwell for Calling Martin King his Brother.

In time I hope to see Mohler's assessment of Martin King; at same time my thinking on billy Graham has been tweaked by a paragraph in Diarmand MacCulloch's magisterial Christianity, framing Billy as part of the Marshall Plan.

Marilynne Robinson trumps Mohler, maybe he Rachel Held Evans.

I hope Mercer sponsors Mohler, Evans and Robinson on panel soon, or maybe McAfee in conjunction with Emory in Atlanta.

Sfox, link to follow soon.