Don’t Cry for Al Mohler

Albert Mohler enabled the Leftward Drift of the Southern Baptist Convention. He empowered and promoted professors teaching Critical Race Theory. But none of that was good enough for the Left.

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS) President Albert Mohler was savaged by the progressive Religion News Service. In a hit piece by the infamous promoter of progressive evangelicalism Jonathan Merritt, Mohler was attacked over racial issues. However, race was only the line of advance.

It was an obvious message that liberal evangelicals would not tolerate Mohler’s decision to vote for Donald Trump and the Republican Party.

It was a message.

It was savage.

Think Godfather with the horse head.

Of course, that was not the real news of the weekend. Liberals crying racist is an old, non-story. Dog bites man.

The real news was the revelation that former Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Professor Dr. Russell Fuller sat for an interview with Enemies Within the Church. Dr. Fuller is on video in a released trailer confirming that there is a serious problem at SBTS with Identity Politics. Specifically, Fuller affirms there are professors at Southern teaching Critical Race Theory.

So, it was a bad week for Dr. Mohler.

But don’t cry for Al Mohler.

He brought this on himself.

Mohler spent the last decade building his networks. He cultivated political power. He spread his influence.

A map of the SBC leadership shows how many are beholden to the power in Louisville.

There is a historical person featured in the writings of Winston Churchill that fits Dr. Mohler.

No, not Louis XIV, who strove to dominate the map of Europe in no less a manner than Mohler dominates the SBC’s map.

Louis was an obvious villain. Churchill described le Roi Soleil as the “high-heeled, beperiwigged dandy, strutting amid the bows and scrapes…to the torment of his age.” No. Not Louis.

There is a better picture of Mohler in the writings of Churchill—Mr. Speaker Harley.

Robert Harley was a man of the middle. He played both sides of the partisan divide to pursue his own power. He advanced by intrigue and built a political organization dedicated to his middle-way.

Harley was at first loyal to the Common Cause. However, in time, his personal ambition brought to ruin all that John Churchill strove to attain. Harley was noted for “perplexing the issues.” He was at heart a moderate but could exploit the right-wing of the Tory Party and the left-wing of the Whigs.

This image fits Mohler. He professes Identity Politics is evil. Yet, his very own provost promotes the vile Critical Race Theory and other professors like Jarvis Williams regularly teach it. It was one of Mohler’s employees at Southern who forced Resolution 9—the promotion of Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality as “Analytical Tools”—on the Southern Baptist Convention.

Mohler continues to employ Provost Matthew Hall and Professor Jarvis Williams. And, at the same time Mohler fires the only SBTS faculty member who signed the Dallas Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel.

As the respected former professor of 22 years Russell Fuller said, “We are living a lie when we say Critical Race Theory—Social Justice—has never been taught on this campus. We are living a lie.”

Mohler pretends to be one thing—a conservative stalwart—when in fact his actions belie him. Not only his leadership of SBTS but now his very principles are under scrutiny.

As a fan of Winston Churchill, Mohler will appreciate yet another Churchill reference. In a 1938 House of Commons speech, Churchill quoted the Bible in pronouncing a grim picture of the Western democracies. It seems worth borrowing here:

Our loyal, brave people… should know the truth. They should know that there has been gross neglect and deficiency in our defenses; they should know that we have sustained a defeat without a war, the consequences of which will travel far with us along our road; they should know that we have passed an awful milestone in our history, when the whole equilibrium of Europe has been deranged, and that the terrible words have for the time being been pronounced against the Western democracies:

Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting.

And do not suppose that this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning.

Winston S. Churchill

This is only the beginning of the reckoning.

That deserves special emphasis.

This is only the beginning of the reckoning.