Or Why Al Mohler was not elected President of the Southern Baptist Convention.
If history is a guide, Al Mohler should have been President of the Southern Baptist Convention.
He has the credentials. He has the right tone. He projects the image of the scholar and gentleman.
However, behind the carefully crafted image is the scheming Southern Baptist prince who was out Machiavelli-ed by his protégés.
Al Mohler lost the SBC Presidential election because of his high negatives. This is a combination of factors.
His famous temper (Mohler called top Old Testament Hebrew scholar Russell Fuller an idiot during a faculty meeting as just one example of the foot-stamping toddler-like behavior.)
His leadership of all things Calvinist created some reluctance among many other Southern Baptists who share every other one of his views. Some still view Mohler as the architect of a Calvinist-inspired takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention’s entities. This map shows the extent of Mohler’s influence and why it alarmed many.
Fair or not, Al Mohler’s negatives were as high as Hillary Clinton’s negatives during the 2016 US Presidential election. Some people just don’t like Al Mohler.
However, that is only part of the story. Al Mohler lost the SBC Presidential election because many of his former acolytes threw in their lot and actively promoted Ed Litton.
This was most clear in the use of NAMB events to promote Ed Litton. These SEND events in various states platformed Litton. This was Kevin Ezell’s knife-to-the-back of Al Mohler.
Even Adam Greenway’s Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (SWBTS) sponsored an event that served as a Litton campaign event. Greenway was yet another, dot on Al Mohler’s map of influence in the Southern Baptist Convention.
The dots availed Mohler little.
Mohler could not even make the runoff in the SBC Presidential race.
The event is a humiliation for a man who conceived himself the leading Southern Baptist of this age.
Al Mohler was the kingmaker in the SBC for the last 20 years.
That’s over. The new center of power in the Southern Baptist Convention is not Louisville but Alpharetta.