Al Mohler’s pompous piety can’t make chicken soup out of the chicken-poop argument invented to justify slavery

Last updated on: November 13, 2015 at 3:49 pm by Fred Clark

Al Mohler’s pompous piety can’t make chicken soup out of the chicken-poop argument invented to justify slavery 2015-11-13T15:49:23-05:00 Fred Clark

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The following is a recent blog post by Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president Al Mohler, which he originally published November 5, 2015, as an op-ed in Louisville’s local paper, The Courier-Journal.

Mohler’s op-ed is 16 paragraphs long. I have reposted 11 of those 16 paragraphs verbatim. None of those 11 paragraphs mentions any particular issue and, as a whole, they outline Al Mohler’s argument about any issue and about every issue. It’s something of a generic, one-size-fits-all argument — one that doesn’t need to be adjusted or altered to work for anything Mohler is asserting or defending.

Those 11 paragraphs can sound very religious, very devout and pious and sincere. They sound as if they could be the words of a man speaking from deep conviction and firm principle.

But they cannot be the words of a man speaking from conviction or principle. Those pious-seeming 11 paragraphs are utter hogwash. And Mohler knows it. We know that he knows it. And he knows that we know that he knows it.

To demonstrate that — to prove it, really, to anyone who isn’t a historical amnesiac — all we need to do is tweak just a few words in those other five paragraphs to bring them into line with the origins of Mohler’s Southern Baptist argument. That is what I have done below.

And that is all I have done below in the few places where you see underlined words or phrases. I’m not inventing words to put in his mouth — I’m simply bringing Mohler’s words back into alignment with the words of generations of Southern Baptist leaders who came before him. I am reminding him of the way his generic argument was originally applied — the reason for which it was originally invented by the men whose names adorn the buildings of his seminary and whose portraits still hang in its halls.

Al Mohler is not saying anything Southern Baptists haven’t said for 170 years. He is only taking their argument and altering a handful of words in five paragraphs to apply it to a new subject. By restoring his op-ed to something more like the original ca.-1845 template Mohler is copying from and re-applying — the template created by earlier generations of Southern Baptist defenders of “the faith once for all delivered to the saints” — we can see not just how and why Mohler’s argument is wrong. We can see how and why Mohler himself has to know that it has been wrong all along.

Reasserting and recycling an argument that you know to have been wrong is not an act of pious conviction. It’s a fraud.

LEFT: Abysmally, utterly, perversely and completely wrong on the most important biblical and theological question of his day. RIGHT: Still repeating the same argument. Still wrong.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

“Why Can’t Christians Just Join the Revolution?”

by Albert R. Mohler Jr.

Why not just join the revolution? This question seems obvious to many people who look at conservative Christians and honestly wonder why we cannot just change our views on slavery, emancipation, and the entire abolitionist constellation of issues.

We are constantly told that we must abandon the clear teachings of the Bible in order to get “on the right side of history.”

It’s not that we don’t understand the argument – we just cannot accept it.

Clearly, many more liberal churches and denominations are not only accepting that argument, they are running away with it. Each of these churches once defined slaves as rightful property and a blessing from God, and every one of them once taught obedience to earthly masters in agreement with the Bible and with historic Christian teachings.

Now, at least some people seem genuinely perplexed that conservative Christians will not just go along with the program to redefine Christian morality, institutions, and doctrine.

We will not because we cannot. Unlike those who embrace liberal theology, we do not see Christianity as a system of beliefs that we can just change as we see fit. We do not see the Bible as a mere collection of ancient religious writings that can be disregarded or reinterpreted to mean something other than what it says.

Instead, we understand the Bible to be what it claims to be, nothing less than the inspired and inerrant Word of God. We understand Christianity to be grounded in specific truths as revealed by Christ and the Apostles and given to us in the Holy Scriptures. We believe that Christianity is defined by what the Bible calls “the faith once for all delivered to the saints.”

These days, we find ourselves opposed, dismissed and ridiculed for holding to truths that the Christian church has taught for 2,000 years.

The reality is that Christians who define Christianity in terms of historic Christian doctrine and moral teachings do not believe merely that these teachings are true, but that they point to the only way that will produce real and lasting human happiness. We are not merely opposed to abolition because we believe it to be contrary to Scripture; we believe that anything opposed to Scripture cannot lead to human flourishing.

There can be no question that we are living in the midst of a vast revolution in moral values. We see it, sense it and do not deny it. The more liberal churches and denominations can simply accommodate themselves to this moral revolution and move on. But in so doing they are abandoning, not only the clear teachings of the Bible but also the essence of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

That Good News promises salvation to anyone who believes in Christ as the crucified and resurrected Lord and who repents of sin. If we misunderstand or misrepresent what sin is, we undercut the work of Christ and our knowledge of the fact that we need a Savior. Furthermore, if we abandon the teachings of the Bible on property, we confuse the world – and ourselves – about repentance.

The Bible is not merely an inspired book of doctrinal truths. It tells a story of God’s act of creation and of the reality of human sin, of the depth of God’s saving love for us in Christ, and the story of where history is headed. The Bible also warns us against any effort to change that story or to tell it wrongly. Yes, it warns us against the sin of teaching what the Bible calls “another gospel” than the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The current American landscape includes more liberal churches that are doing their best to join the moral revolution and conservative churches that cannot follow. Simple honesty requires acknowledgment that it is the conservative churches that are teaching what Christianity has taught for two millennia.

We are told that holding to biblical authority and the historic Christian faith will lead to our marginalization.

Perhaps so, but it is the more liberal churches that have been hemorrhaging members by the millions for the last four decades and, even in a secularizing age, it is the most secularized denominations that have suffered the greatest membership losses.

We do understand what is at stake in terms of the human judgment of history, but we are far more concerned about the divine verdict of eternity. We must speak the truth in love and seek to be good neighbors to all, but we cannot abandon the faith just because we are told that we are now on the wrong side of history.

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