Albert R. Mohler has been the President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS) for the last quarter-century. This summer, the venerated Southern Baptist tetrach is expected to be inaugurated as the sixty-fourth President of the Southern Baptist Convention itself. At this point, as is often the case with SBC presidential elections, the vote appears to be little more than a formality. In the mind of Mohler, the event is perhaps viewed more as a coronation than an inauguration and he is clearly perturbed that an upstart network of conservatives is interfering with the current SBC malaise. This morning, likely from the presidential mansion on the campus of SBTS in Louisville and likely from his company smartphone, Mohler tweeted the following.
Mohler’s passive-aggressive tweet is almost certainly a response to the recent formation of The Conservative Baptist Network, a group of Southern Baptists concerned with the leftward drift of the (arguably) Mohler-led SBC. For years Mohler has been publicly silent about the legion of problems in the Southern Baptist Convention. Ergun Caner’s charlatanry? Nothing from Mohler. LifeWay’s selling of heresy and false teaching in pursuit of filthy lucre? Nothing from Mohler. The invitation of a preacher who uses Game of Thrones to attract people to church to preach at the SBC Pastors Conference? Nothing from Mohler. Form a group to stop leftward drift? Mohler finally pipes up.
Throw a rock into a pack of dogs, the one that yelps the loudest is usually the one that got hit.
Southern Baptists finally understand what it takes to get Mohler, himself formerly a public liberal, to speak up. Rather than deal head on with the doctrinal drift of the SBC, Mohler is content to steer the ship into oblivion. Yes, Al Mohler will become the President of the SBC but of what kind of SBC will he become the President?
It will be an SBC in which Mohler makes hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to sleep in a mansion and lead a dying liberal seminary. It will be the same kind of SBC Mohler could have led if the Conservative Resurgence never happened. From liberalism to conservatism and back again, there will be one stalwart presence in the SBC: Albert R. Mohler.
*Please note that the preceding is my personal opinion. It is not necessarily the opinion of any entity by which I am employed, any church at which I am a member, any church which I attend, or the educational institution at which I am enrolled. Any copyrighted material displayed or referenced is done under the doctrine of fair use.
