Mohler Strikes Again

[Dave Roberts]

I was fascinated yesterday by how easily the SBTS president can offer perfect judgment on people and churches of which he knows nothing for the decisions made by adults who might have grown up in that church.



The protest that there is somehow a failure to teach or to prepare young people because they decide to become members of Christian groups other than Baptists or "evangelical bodies," as Mohler expressed it, seems filled with a hubris that does not become any of us. The idea that we who educate children and young people are responsible for making certain that they do not leave the fold as adults cuts across the grain of the doctrine of free will and that of personal responsibility, so glorified by conservatives.

I have been personally acquainted with some of the pastors from First Baptist in Elkin, NC, over the past forty years. They have hardly been drones who did not discuss theology and Christian practice, as Mohler implies. In fact, it has been a leading church in NC for giving to Baptist mission causes across the last century, the developing ground for a number of ministers who now serve in Baptist life, and a church that has sought to offer an informed faith. It ill becomes the guru of all things conservative to criticize a church over what was published about two brothers who have chosen non-Baptist paths to express their faith. Does he still believe in the old SBC address from around 1950 that Southern Baptists are "God's Last and Only Hope?" If so, he needs to get out of the ghetto once in while.

[Tim Bonney]

Outside the SBC Al Mohler, if he is known, has become an example of what is most wrong with some Baptists.

The opinions he expresses here are incredibly condescending, divisive, and judgmental not only towards Anglicans and Roman Catholics but to anyone who felt led to leave their Baptist family for another Christian denomination.

Also since Anglican doctrine is essentially Methodist doctrine, with a few shifts in emphasis on grace and holiness, most Methodists could look at his statements as an attack on our denominational teachings as well.

The best thing Mohler does for me in the article make me glad not to be a Southern Baptist and that the Bishop and the Priest in the article found their way out too.

[KeithE]

Guess he has to blame the attendance loss in the SBC to something:


(I’ll fit in a plot anytime I find one!)

God certainly would not have pre-destined such losses (oh wait, He must have).

My son Todd left the SBC-fold because of his preference for Wesleyan theology and the Calvinistic trend in the SBC (Mohler being its chief advocate)

My daughter Brandy left the SBC-fold due to her marriage into a Catholic family (mother essentially runs that Catholic Church). But they plan to join Todd’s church after re-appointment in June, if he is somewhere close. Both families are cool with whatever their choices are. Interesting that my son-in-law does the lighting for Casting Crowns (popular Baptist rock group) and his dad runs the audio at Whitesburg BC (possibly the most conservative BC in HSV).

Now if Mohler were to know this and know about my church’s current story, he would certainly call the departures as strong evidence for coercive (or at least forceful) brainwashing efforts (God I guess not being powerful enough).

[William Thornton]

Unless a parent or congregational leader is perfectly comfortable with his tradition or whatever else comes along that might attract those in his or her charge, I would think that one would expect the leader of our flagship seminary, whom we expect to train and educate the young theologs most of whom will have responsibility for maintaining orthodoxy from the pulpit and educating others as to a biblical faith and practice, to say such things and issue such warnings.

Why wouldn't we warn that failure to properly instruct and educate in our churches easily leaves our members open to faith and practice not in accord with biblical revelation? Why wouldn't we expect our leaders to speak candidly about public cases like this one?

If being a baptist has nothing more biblical than catholic faith and practice then I would agree with the criticism of Mohler.

It is not polite to actually say that as baptists we are more biblical in that we believe scripture teaches that many catholic doctrines are false; however, either we believe it or we don't and if we act as if we don't there's not a lot to discuss.

There are many factors in individuals leaving the faith tradition of their family. Inadequate teaching and indoctrination (as in catechism) is one.

The graph of SBC declining membership is common to mods, libs, and cons. Straight line consistency from the halcyon days of the baby boom '50s. Nothing relevant there to this discussion...but a nice graph nonetheless.

[William Thornton]

Would any of my mod/lib friends not admit that travelling from Baptist to Catholic involves a considerable sacrifice of doctrines we hold dear?

[Haruo]

Yeah, like the priesthood of the female believers....

[Haruo]

The hubris involved in thinking that the Baptist take on God is "the faith once for all delivered to the saints" and the Catholic take is not is, to me, mind-boggling. I have no doubt that both Mohler and Francis, if they could get in a room with a neutral interpreter and Jude, would find they had much more in common with each other than either of them had with the epistle-writer, in terms of what the "faith once for all delivered to the saints" contained. As for the Bible, I think they would find that Jude was heterodox as to canon.

[Tim Bonney]

[Tim Bonney]

[KeithE]

[Haruo]

Amen. Doctrine kills, but the Spirit gives life. Biblical teaching is all about love overcoming death and reconciling enemies and finding and restoring the lost.

[Tim Bonney]

The best Churches/Denominations are those who understand and admit that they don't have all the answers. Beware of any group claiming to have THE direct pipeline to God and right doctrine.

[Dave Roberts]

Mohler's hubris makes him very unpalatable. The pride that he has all the correct answers leaves me very cold.

William, I was brought up in a Baptist home, a strong Baptist church, and I was educated in two Baptist schools. The thing I heard repeatedly in all of them was that a Baptist by upbringing had to become a Baptist by conviction. If I could not be a Baptist by conviction, then I needed to find my way to another place in the Christian faith. I would never be comfortable in a Catholic church, but I have found that I have lots of brothers and sisters who have found their place in it. It takes a great deal of ego to say that God could never lead one to express the Christian faith in something other than a Baptist church.

[William Thornton]

[Tim Bonney]

[Ed Pettibone]

Ed: Tim, Methinks thou to be tilting at windmills.

[Tim Bonney]

[KeithE]

[Sandy]

[Sandy]

[Dave Roberts]

I would not for one moment disagree with Al on the importance of teaching children and young people. My initial problem is with his assumption that if such teaching is done well, there will not be departures from the Baptist/evangelical camp. We live in an adult world where people often change religious affiliations. Sandy may have hit the point, the numbers joining the "nones" or "dones" is far greater. Indoctrination does not get it.

[Ed Pettibone]

[Tim Bonney]

[Ed Pettibone]

Tim, Bonny wrote "Even at that, when I perform adult baptisms in the UMC (and I've performed several in the last couple of years) I offer all three forms of baptism (immersion, pouring, sprinkling) and I've yet to have anyone take me up on immersion. In fact they were all sprinkled."

Ed: Of course many baptist would say you haven't really Baptized any one in the past few years.

As I have said before I am persuaded that you are far too enamored with the term "mainline Denominations".

And I think some former SBC pastors who work hard at justifying their move, have done more damage to the name Baptist than has the SBC itself.

[Tim Bonney]

You really do miss my points pretty badly at times Ed. Much of the time I think we are just talking at cross purposes or cross understandings even. Why on earth would I try to justify being a former SBCer?? I'd be more likely to try to justify why I was ever in the SBC in the first place.

And yes Ed, I recognize your unorthodox view of baptism that most American Baptists no longer accept. Two of the three ABC churches I pastored recognized non-immersion baptisms as valid. And that is in ABC-IN, a rather conservative region.

As to the use of the term "mainline denominations," I'm just used since the 1920s. Your denomination is in the list of the "seven sisters of the mainline" so I'm not sure why you don't like it. (Or maybe that is why you don't like it?)