Al Mohler & Social Justice

Conversations That Matter

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00:01

Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. Man, I'll tell you what, for political commentary, this week leaves no shortage of information.

00:11

You had, now it's old news, but you had the really pornographic displays at the Super Bowl halftime show last

00:17

Sunday. I was surprised to see some of the woke crowd people in conservative evangelicalism even, or what used to be called that, making fun of the prudes who objected to it.

00:28

Now, I didn't see the whole thing. I saw little clips, and that's all I want to see. But that's how you know your culture is being destroyed, when these supposed religious conservatives are in a kind of a roundabout way defending that kind of display by making fun of anyone who would object to it.

00:45

I saw Mr. Den Hollander, and I saw Jonathan Merritt saying things along those lines, and I did not do a deep dive on Twitter to find out who was saying what, but that alone just, it surprises me.

00:55

I thought for the woke crowd, objectifying women was a problem, but apparently not as much as I thought. And then you had the

01:01

State of the Union speech, which by the way, that, I don't know if it's a context we're living in, that was one of the best speeches for the

01:07

State of the Union I think I'd ever seen, if not the best. I just, I don't know, I just, it could be that we're bombarded with negative news coming especially from the radical, radical left, that this was such a contrast,

01:22

I don't know, but it was like the Democrats were attending a funeral and the Republicans were attending a wedding.

01:28

The contrast could not have been more stark, and if President Trump doesn't win re -election,

01:33

I don't know this country. I mean, and by the way, I did not vote for Trump in 2016, and that's why

01:40

I want to make an episode at some point about Donald Trump and kind of my thinking on whether to vote for him or not.

01:48

I probably will this next time around. But because I was a never -Trumper in a way, probably for different reasons than most of the never -Trumpers out there, hopefully maybe

01:57

I can get through to them, we'll see. Maybe that's a long shot, but yeah, there's so much.

02:03

Kirk Douglas also, by the way, was buried. Most of you may not know if you're my age or younger than me, you probably don't know who

02:11

Kirk Douglas is, but 20 ,000 Leagues Under the Sea, you gotta go watch that movie. I always loved

02:16

Whale of a Tale. I mean, I was a little kid, you know, I had a little sing -along thing, but I loved Captain Nemo, and I forget the character he played on that, but Kirk Douglas, 103 years old.

02:28

Man, I did not know he was that old. But yeah, so much going on, but I'm not going to really talk about any of that today.

02:35

Oh, one more thing, actually, before I get to the main course here, I did attend a conference called the

02:41

Churchman Conference on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, down in Jupiter, Florida, and had a good time, and met some of you, and I know some of you are probably listening now.

02:53

There's probably, I don't know, four or five people who recognized me, came up to me, a few of them thanked me, and said they were listeners of the podcast, so yeah, thank you for that.

03:05

It was an encouraging time, and on the plane ride back on Wednesday, when I was coming back home,

03:10

I ran into this guy on the plane. I sat next to him and asked him, so what were you doing in Florida?

03:18

And he says, well, I actually work for a company that grows marijuana, basically, or I guess they supply material to farmers who grow marijuana.

03:30

It's a company that deals with that business. And I said, oh, that's fascinating.

03:36

I'm sure that's a growing business. So we got to talking, and how do you prepare for this kind of a worldview?

03:42

So I share the gospel with him, go through some of the Ten Commandments, he's not a good person, right, we do all that, and we're talking about there being an immaterial world, a spiritual world that he says, kind of leans in, and he kind of whispers in my ear, he goes,

04:00

I believe there's 14 levels of reality beyond this one. And I looked at him,

04:08

I said, 14? You're sure it's that exact number, 14? He said, yep, it's 14.

04:13

I've been to all of them. I said, oh, this is going to be an interesting conversation. So where, how did you go to 14 levels of reality beyond this physical world?

04:23

Well, it turns out, this gentleman went to South America, and he said he was with some shamans there.

04:31

He paid over $3 ,000, I guess, to go through this program that was about a week where these shamans,

04:38

I guess, give him hallucinogenic drugs, and he heard voices, and he saw visions.

04:46

And so he asked me, he says, who do you think, the main voice he heard, he goes, who do you think it was that was talking to me?

04:52

I said, I don't know. He says, it wasn't God, it wasn't Jesus. It was me, the only voice I had never been listening to.

04:58

And this voice showed me all these microtrauma events in my life, and how they've shaped me, and I just,

05:06

I release so much of the bad energy I have. And he went on to explain that everything's connected by this energy field, and plants even, plants scream when you cut them, because even though they don't have a nervous system, they have energy.

05:17

And it was very interesting. So he was a pantheist. We sort of got to the bottom of it, and I asked him,

05:23

I said, how do you make distinctions between myself, and you, and the chair, and everything else in this world?

05:30

You're talking to me, we have personhood and identity, how do you make those distinctions? How do you, when someone does something evil, because we had already gone through the

05:38

Ten Commandments, and he seemed to have a sense of justice, I said, how do you create a civil penalty for someone, if they're just part of everything, you know, there's no identity in them?

05:52

And he didn't really have an answer for that, and I think it intrigued him, hopefully he'll think about it. But, yeah, just, it was interesting, and it just reminded me of how, in our postmodern day and age, we're not dealing, most of the time, with traditional religions.

06:06

This guy grew up Catholic, Roman Catholic, but he clearly was making up his own religion as he went.

06:14

And that's why it's good to ask questions, and to have a good foundation, I tend to take more of a presuppositional approach to apologetics, doesn't mean

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I don't like evidence, I do, but I definitely think there's deep philosophical reasons that people tend to go the way they go and believe what they do, and for him, he really thought that he was his own

06:35

God, that's ultimately what it amounted to. Self -connection was the big thing, you just gotta be connected to yourself.

06:42

And so I asked him, I said, so who allowed all these micro -trauma events to affect you then?

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He said he was believing lies. I said, who allowed you to believe these lies? And he said it was me.

06:55

I said, so it sounds like you're the problem, which is exactly what scripture says about us, we are the problem. And so hopefully it gave him something to think about, but pray for him,

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I think his name, it was an unusual name, I think it was Rex, and anyway,

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God knows who it is, and it was just a fascinating conversation, and it just reminded me of kind of the times that we live in.

07:16

But the main course today, the main thing we're gonna be talking about is something that I have been asked over and over and over, probably the most common question

07:24

I get asked. And that is, where is Al Mohler? Where is

07:29

Al Mohler? With all the woke stuff going on, some of his own professors, there's at least four of them that have been promoting ideas consistent with critical race theory, where is he in all this?

07:41

I mean, he says things against critical race theory, but what about his own backyard? What about the major issues that take place in the convention?

07:48

And I want to address this, and I've tried to be careful, I wanna sort of take you on my own personal journey here a little bit.

07:57

I joined the Southern Baptist Convention because of Al Mohler, that's really the main reason.

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I was at the Master's Seminary in California, and had always been more a part of that kind of John MacArthur crowd growing up, and because of Al Mohler's speaking at the

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Shepherd's Conference, and because he was respected by John MacArthur, and because he was so big into public theology, engaging culture, quote -unquote,

08:29

I really gravitated towards that. I had a sort of semi -political background and a political interest, but I also really wanted to know the

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Bible, and I thought, you know, I want to get involved in the Southern Baptist Convention. If it's going the direction of Al Mohler, I really like what

08:43

I'm hearing, and this was 10 years ago or more. Now, about maybe seven or eight years ago,

08:49

I started listening to the briefing every day, and this was before I joined the Southern Baptist Convention, but I actually got a little, not a lot, but a little concerned with some of the things

08:59

I heard on the briefing. And I noticed that, because I have a history background, and I noticed when

09:04

Al Mohler ever talked about history, he tended to read it, if it was ever something that you could sort of bring an aspect of, a racial aspect into it, he would sort of read it through the civil rights movement.

09:20

And not just history, but even present -day things, he would, I remember there was one instance where there was a shooting, and before the evidence had even come out,

09:28

Al Mohler on the briefing made this whole statement about the black experience and their relationship with the police and how this is something to be expected.

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It's the pattern, and this is kind of indicting the guy, the police officer, before the facts had been known.

09:49

And I think for the most part, Albert Mohler is very careful. I think he's very calculated, in fact. But there was a few things he said along those lines that I just thought, you know,

09:58

I can get my information somewhere else, but I still absolutely respected Al Mohler. People who listened,

10:05

I wasn't on a campaign to say you shouldn't listen to him. I was encouraging people, read his books, you know, really good stuff.

10:12

But there was a little, I just wanted to say there was a little part of me that thought, you know, something's slightly off, and I can't completely put my finger on it.

10:20

But I still was attracted to the Southern Baptist Convention, and I of course went to a Southern Baptist school and saw the transformation there, and any of you who listen to this podcast regularly, you know what

10:29

I'm talking about. So all that to say, I owe a debt to Albert Mohler for shaping my own thinking.

10:35

I respect some of his stance that he's taken in the past. I am concerned with some actions that he's taken as of late, and I want to go over some of those with you.

10:47

My goal though is to give him every benefit of the doubt possible, and I want to just present to you what

10:53

I'm seeing, present to you the publicly available facts, and you can make your own determination at the end of this. I don't want to necessarily steer you, obviously

11:00

I'm going to have my own biases, but I'm not trying to steer you towards the idea that he's either liberal or conservative or an opportunist necessarily.

11:08

I do have my own thinking on this, but I want to show you what I'm looking at, and then, and at the end,

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I will tell you kind of where I lean based on that information. But I want you to see the information first, and make up your own mind.

11:23

Come up with your own paradigm that makes sense of all the facts available. And the reason for that, the reason that's important I think is that Albert Mueller is running for president of the

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Southern Baptist Convention. That's probably one of the reasons I get this question a lot. And I think conservatives are very afraid because of Al Mueller's stature, and because of the great things he's written in the past, because of just how politically damaging it would be if you were in the

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SBC to say anything negative about him. I think they're afraid, and I'm not.

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I think that it's good. It's a good, healthy conversation to have, and so I'm going to have

12:00

E .S. Williams with me later to talk about this. He's done a lot of digging. And by the way, you can go to the info section.

12:06

You can watch both of Dr. E .S. Williams' videos on Albert Mueller and see what you think about that.

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I would encourage you, really, go watch those. He's done probably a lot more time on this than I have, but I do have a perspective to share with you.

12:21

So I want to bring this up. I want to start this out by talking about some recent things. Just recently, a couple days ago,

12:28

Albert Mueller put out a tweet, and he said, Southern Baptists are up to the challenge of talking to one another about difficult questions. And really, what he's retweeting here is a

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Baptist Press article from the Resolutions Committee on the Southern Baptist Convention, where they're talking about Resolution 9.

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And what happened is, essentially, to sum up this article, the

12:49

Resolutions Committee for the Southern Baptist Convention says, yeah, you know, we're concerned about Resolution 9, too.

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We're the ones that, they essentially rewrote the resolution. It doesn't hardly even resemble the resolution that was presented to them by the pastor out in California.

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And they introduced critical theory as this useful analytical tool. And then they're saying how, yeah, we're concerned about that language.

13:11

Now the thing that's been pointed out, I know A .D. Robles, who, by the way, you should subscribe to his channel. A .D.

13:16

Robles pointed out, Tom Askell introduced a friendly amendment that would have alleviated all these concerns, all the things they're saying they're concerned about now, how this is a godless philosophy, the damage it can do.

13:31

Tom Askell introduced an amendment with language to that effect, and it was not, Curtis Wood said that they did not accept it as a friendly amendment.

13:38

And you've seen what's happened to Tom Askell since then. And now, all of a sudden, they're sounding a little bit like Tom Askell.

13:44

And it's unusual. And they're acting like, yeah, we were always this way. Our intentions were pure from the beginning.

13:52

And Albert Mueller supports them in this, says, yeah, I think, again,

13:57

Albert Mueller, he did not make a public stand against Resolution 9 during the actual procedure.

14:04

It was the next day on his program that he came out against it. And I don't know.

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There's political calculations. He's probably in, and I don't pretend to know all of those, and perhaps there's a reason for that.

14:19

But Albert Mueller has been on record saying he doesn't really agree with this. And at the very least, it makes him very uncomfortable.

14:25

But the resolutions committee now, he's saying that they're striking the right tone. He's encouraging them, complimenting them.

14:33

And I just have to wonder, isn't the right thing to do in this? If this was a wrong resolution, to just apologize, to just say, you know what?

14:40

We messed up. Here's why we messed up. And we're going to correct it. We're going to get rid of Resolution 9. We're going to vote against it at the next convention.

14:47

That's not what's happening. There's kind of a rebranding of it. And Albert Mueller seems to be somewhat complicit in that.

14:53

And so this is the curious behavior, though, because just last week or a week and a half ago or so, he was on The World and Everything In It.

15:02

And you can go look at that. And Albert Mueller is swinging hard against critical race theory. And so the question has been, how can you be so against something in the abstract, but then when it's concrete, when there's actual names attached to it, when it's actually in the purview of your control, you don't really do much about it?

15:22

That's I think the tension that people have been wrestling with. And I want to make a quick comment about, though, the resolutions committee and whether they were genuine.

15:29

This is just one little sample. You can do the Twitter deep dive. I mean, I did it just on this one guy, Keith Whitfield, who's a professor at the

15:38

Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He was on the resolutions committee and, you know, he would have been part of this article,

15:44

I guess, on the resolutions committee and how they're kind of concerned about some critical race theory now.

15:51

But look what was said at the time. Look, look, he he liked a comment by Matthew Malcolm Yarnell or Malcolm Yarnell says that essentially it was it was they displayed the wisdom of Solomon.

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They displayed the wisdom of Solomon. And Keith Whitfield says, thank you, Dr. Yarnell. But now, yeah, we're really concerned about critical race theory.

16:14

Doesn't sound like, you know, the two are compatible either. You know, you can't have this resolution nine, which adopts critical race theory and intersectionality as analytical tools.

16:24

You can't have it be the wisdom of Solomon. And at the same time, yeah, you know, we're really concerned about the impact of this.

16:31

It's one or the other. And of course, you know, you can I'm not going to take the time to read all these things.

16:36

But obviously, Keith Whitfield was very proud of the work the resolutions committee did when it at the time it was passed there.

16:45

There doesn't seem to be any concern on on his part, at least publicly, about this resolution and the impact it would have and the dangers of critical race theory.

16:55

He's circling the wagons with everyone else around this and saying it was it was great. We needed resolution nine.

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So that's why, you know, I have a hard time believing this latest article. If you think you got it wrong, it's simple.

17:09

Just repent of it. Just say we were wrong. We're going to we're going to get rid of that resolution. We're going to have another resolution that corrects it.

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That's not what's happening now. So pay attention to those kinds of things and see if, you know, the actions match the words.

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Now, there's three ways to view Albert Mueller, basically. I haven't thought of a fourth one. I've been thinking about this for a year.

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I've been watching Albert Mueller's actions because, you know, people immediately after Shepard's conference

17:33

Q &A wanted to jump in. And I mean, I even had some insiders at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary telling me things about Al Mueller.

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And, you know, I did not want to come out and say much about him before I watched his action.

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So it's been almost a year now, and I think there's been enough actions to watch to create a paradigm to try to form an understanding.

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The first way to view Albert Mueller's actions, though, is he's liberal. He's a liberal.

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And that's just all there is to it. He's posing as conservative. He's really liberal. And you can look at things like this.

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I'm just going to give you a few examples. You can look at, you know, how in the world did Curtis Woods get his dissertation through the

18:15

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary? How did Albert Mueller allow this to happen? Go to his abstract for his dissertation on Phyllis Wheatley.

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Chapter three, it says, and I'm quoting, chapter three, it says, Chapter three assesses Wheatley's critique of exemplary or open American exceptionalism through the lens of Chateau slavery.

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Critical race theory becomes the analytical lens to understanding the intersection of religion, race, class, and gender on Wheatley's sociopolitical imagination.

18:40

Literally, you have the chairman of the resolutions committee for resolution nine, who was teaching at the

18:46

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary right under Albert Mueller's nose, presenting a dissertation which was accepted by the institution where he is using critical race theory as an analytical tool.

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And it says it in the abstract for his dissertation. That was his work at Southern. Is he liberal?

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Is he liberal? Is Albert Mueller liberal? Now, look, this is guilt by association. Albert Mueller didn't write that dissertation. Curtis Woods did.

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But it's at his institution. You'd think he'd know about it. You'd think he'd be working against that kind of thing somehow.

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But instead, Curtis Woods is teaching there. Instead, he's on the resolutions committee and not just on it, but the chairman of it.

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Then again, you have things like this, Albert Mueller in the summer, in August, he really appreciated

19:32

Curtis Woods again and Jarvis Williams, a contribution to Christianity Day magazine.

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Now, listen to this quote from this article. You can read the whole article, but listen to this one quote and see if you can see the perspectivalism or standpoint epistemology, this idea that, you know, the way that there's this worldview that comes from or essentially a way of looking at the world that comes from a sociopolitical cultural group.

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And that impacts everything else. It's the elimination of objectivity, the adoption of subjectivity, according to social groups.

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If you see that in this sentence or paragraph, I'm going to read from where we sit, starts off from where we sit.

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So our perspective as what? As African -American Christians. OK, so now you're already now starting down that path.

20:19

From where we sit as African -American Christians, racism and white supremacy are opposed to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and they pose a threat to all diverse image bearers in our churches.

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Brown immigrants and people of color, families like Jarvis's with a Hispanic wife and a mixed African -American Hispanic son,

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Curtis's with an African -American wife and children are genuinely afraid that white supremacists may murder us and our kids because of the color of our skin.

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These fears are present in many of our churches. So Albert Mueller, you know, he endorsed this on some level.

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Now, you could say he didn't write that. He doesn't believe in perspectivalism.

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And you can read the rest of the article and see kind of where they're coming from. Obviously, white supremacy is wrong, but there's more there's more in that paragraph than just that.

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There is a fear that comes from, in their minds, this perspective that they have based on the social group that they're part of.

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And this has now been adopted in the reading of the Bible and the hermeneutical lens in many places, especially southeastern.

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What does Albert Mueller think about this? I don't know. I don't know. I would assume he'd be against it. So, I mean,

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I could give you more, but and you will see more things later on. But that's one paradigm.

21:35

That's one way to look at this. Another way to look at it is, well, he's, you know, he's actually a conservative.

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I mean, look, here's a tweet that he put out in May last year against Beth Moore. And it was in favor of complementarianism.

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He doesn't name Beth Moore, but he certainly is alluding to something Beth Moore had said. There's the episode right after Resolution 9 passed that he put out on the briefing, and he's against critical race theory.

22:07

So, you know, look, he is conservative. That's another way of looking at Albert Mueller.

22:13

Maybe he's conservative. And there's a third way. The third way of looking at Albert Mueller is he's really not liberal or conservative, but he's an opportunist.

22:22

And I have had people sending me this to try to demonstrate that. When I met

22:30

Dr. Mueller in 1984, he was in the president's office serving as a special assistant to Roy Honeycutt.

22:37

Al was the epitome of all the Southern Seminary men. And in relation to women in ministry,

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Southern Seminary was very supportive at that time of women in ministry and various leadership positions within the church.

22:50

At the Southern Baptist Convention in 1984, I believe it was, they passed a resolution prohibiting women from being pastors.

23:07

Why, he got up, he started a protest movement of his own right here on this campus against that kind of thing.

23:16

It was published in the Courier Journal. For all around us, we see the ruins of once great churches and once great denominations, which in the name of tolerance and modernity and inclusivity forfeited their integrity.

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Coming to the New Orleans Convention, whispering to me in the press room on Tuesday morning, knowing that I was a moderate, that it did not look good for our side.

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And then after we had been defeated at that point and Roy Honeycutt declared that any politicizing for my part was over,

23:49

Al Mohler returned to Georgia and his editorials took a hard right and began to become very political and very fundamentalist.

23:58

There's this great story that always gets told about Southern Seminary that, in fact, you may have noticed while you were on campus that there's not a cross on top of the chapel.

24:10

In fact, there's a weather vane on top of the chapel. And the story goes that every morning everyone has to go out on the lawn to see which way the theological winds are blowing.

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So they'll know what to teach that day. And Al Mohler, in my assessment, pretty much personifies that story.

24:28

Dr. Al Mohler is a man who lives his convictions with courage.

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For me, having known Al and watched this transformation of Al, when other people would call him a fundamentalist,

24:45

I would correct them and say he's an opportunist, that there's a difference of conviction.

24:52

Well, it's very simple. He, I think he wanted to be president of Southern Baptist Seminary.

25:01

I think he wanted to be a leader in the denomination and to be a leader in the denomination, you've got to think, you've got to act, you've got to do what the leadership of the convention requires.

25:20

Now, interestingly enough, I was reading a book not too long ago and I came across this.

25:27

It's called The Evangelicals by Francis Fitzgerald, and he's a liberal guy.

25:33

There's no doubt about it. But he writes this. He says when Honeycutt resigned in 1992, weary of the struggles between the faculty and the trustees, the search committee, with Honeycutt's support, appointed

25:42

Mohler, then just 33, on the assumption that he could resolve the differences better than the candidates from the outside.

25:49

Instead, Mohler moved the seminary abruptly to the right, adding positions on abortion, homosexuality and women in the ministry to litmus tests for future professors and causing turmoil in the faculty.

25:58

So here's the narrative when people say this, that he's just an opportunist. What they're saying is, look,

26:04

Honeycutt did not know, and the liberal professors there, they didn't really know that Albert Mohler was a complementarian before he took over Southern.

26:14

And when he took over Southern, it was right at the point where the conservative resurgence was the popular thing.

26:21

Complementarianism was cool with the bigwigs in the SBC. And Paige Patterson, Adrian Rogers had done, they had taken most of the shots.

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Albert Mohler got to benefit from what they did on the convention level, and he implemented some of their ideas at Southern Seminary.

26:38

And he's an opportunist, and people close to him, you see in that video, he's an opportunist. That's who he is. And people are drawing parallels.

26:44

They're saying, well, look, critical race theory was taught for years at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Look at all the things happening under Albert Mohler's nose.

26:51

He doesn't say anything. And all of a sudden, now when it's a concern and there's a political issue and maybe critical race theory is not so cool, even the resolutions committee is trying to backpedal on it.

27:02

Now, Albert Mohler is all of a sudden, you know, really going hard against it in the convention.

27:08

That's what they say. So that's the third way of looking at this. There's three basic ways.

27:14

Now, what was Albert Mohler's defense to this back in the 90s is what he said. I've been very, very, very clear about my own convictions and I will always be just that.

27:31

Now, in order to test this, in order to see where Albert Mohler lines up on these issues,

27:37

I think it's good for us to be clear about the three issues. And really, they are basically in this current liberal debate.

27:47

Complementary and gender roles is coming back up, critical race theory and LGBTQ normalization.

27:53

Those are the three categories of consternation for Southern Baptists.

27:59

What do we do about this? Now, on the complementarian gender role thing, I showed you Albert Mohler essentially came out against something

28:07

Beth Moore said earlier this year. And that's really all I know about Albert Mohler's stand on that.

28:13

He hasn't said much otherwise. And I think we should just take him at his word. He's a complementarian.

28:20

I know in the abstract, without naming names, he's also said other things in favor of complementarianism over the past year.

28:25

And I just believe him. I think there's no reason for me not to. He's a complementarian.

28:31

He doesn't believe in any sense. I mean, you saw this in the Founders documentary that women should ever be pastors.

28:38

So he seems to have been consistent on that over the years. Now, the other issue is critical race theory.

28:46

We will spend the lion's share of this podcast talking to Dr. E .S. Williams about critical race theory and where Albert Mohler stands on that.

28:55

But let's jump to the third one. We'll save critical race theory for last, LGBTQ normalization. Now, the reality is

29:02

Albert Mohler has changed his stance on same sex orientation.

29:08

And I'm going to show you some clips that demonstrate that. One in particular, where Albert Mohler apologizes for getting this wrong.

29:16

That is a switch and that is a concerning switch, because that is really the that that is the basis on which this whole revoice, not saying

29:25

Dr. Mohler agrees with revoice or everything in revoice at all. But that that is kind of that Trojan horse behind everything regarding the soft peddling of homosexuality in evangelical

29:37

Christian circles. Start with the idea that it's an innate orientation, something that is perhaps unchangeable, something that is is part of who a person is, doesn't come from scripture at all.

29:51

Completely comes from it's it's a Freudian psychological idea. Even people like Rosario Butterfield acknowledge this.

29:59

But Albert Mohler adopts this on some level. All right.

30:04

I'm not saying he's an eight Collins who graduated from Southern, but he he does adopt this on some level.

30:11

So here are the clips. What about the nature of homosexuality?

30:55

Only being is fraud, Mohler says.

31:02

Further, Mary, as you said in the interview, we've used the choice language when it is clear that sexual orientation is a deep inner struggle and not merely a matter of choice.

31:21

Those words that allegedly have come from you,

31:26

Dr. Mohler, I'm especially interested in how you can fact these words were spoken in an interview.

31:37

How evangelicals broadly and Southern Baptists particularly have, quote, lied, unquote, about homosexuality and in practice homophobia.

31:50

This is part of the greatness of the Southern Baptist Convention. We get to have a conversation and this is the kind of conversation we're having.

31:58

And thank you for the question, my brother. And I'm glad to tell you that I was asked that question and I made those statements.

32:03

They're not alleged statements. They're actual statements. So there is no way that anyone can, in fair mindedness, be confused about what

32:10

I believe about homosexuality because I published over 200 articles on the subject. Not that I'd expect you to go home and read them all this evening.

32:18

Now, that's that question. I responded that I did because I believe then and I believe now with my whole heart that that is a part of our challenge as we now face the responsibility not only to speak the truth about homosexuality, but to minister to a very militant community of homosexuals and also to a large number of persons in our churches, whether we want to acknowledge this or not, who are struggling with this issue.

32:43

The reality is that we as Christian churches have not done well on this issue. And I think if we're unwilling to admit that, it is further to our pain.

32:53

For instance, evangelicals, thankfully, have failed to take the liberal trajectory of lying about homosexuality and its sentiments.

33:01

We know that the Bible clearly declares, not only in isolated verses, but in the totality of its comprehensive presentation, the fact that homosexuality not only is not

33:10

God's best for us, as some try to say, but it is sin. It is particularly identified, for instance, in Romans chapter one, as a sin indicative of the total wickedness and sinfulness of humanity as a whole.

33:24

The point of following Romans chapter one is that if people will do this and rationalize it, then human beings are able to do anything in terms of sin and come to terms with it.

33:35

So we as evangelicals have a very sad history in dealing with this issue. We have told not the truth, but we've told about half the truth.

33:44

We've told the biblical truth, and that's important, but we haven't applied it in a biblical way. For instance, we have said to people that homosexuality is just a choice.

33:51

Well, it's clear that it's more than a choice. That doesn't mean it's any less sinful, but it does mean it's not something that people can just turn on and turn off.

33:59

We are not a gospel people unless we understand that only the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ gives a homosexual person any hope of release from homosexuality.

34:08

The gospel is what we stand for, and the gospel is the only one that is for sin. And we have also exhibited a certain form of homophobia of which we must, absolutely must, in gospel terms, repent precisely because we believe in all the scriptures teach us about homosexuality and all the scriptures teach us about sin.

34:27

We must recognize that our job isn't done until our churches look exactly like the church described in 1

34:33

Corinthians 6, where those very sins are articulated, and then it says, but such were some of you, but you were wise.

34:41

Our job is not done. Until sin and the sins among us are those of whom it is said,

34:46

I once was that. As we say, I once was something else.

34:52

We are sinners saved by grace. Until there are those who have been trapped in that sin sitting among us, we know we've got a gospel job to do.

35:01

You understand there are those who are now, in terms of these biblical texts, there are rejectionists. There are those who are saying that the human flourishing will only take place if these texts are stared down and rejected.

35:12

And then there are others who are following a revisionist argument saying, no, we can, we can make peace with this sexual revolution by understanding these texts in a way the

35:20

Christian church never understood them before, because data was lacking then that we have now. And undoubtedly data was lacking then that we have.

35:28

Now, one of the things we should not be embarrassed to say is that we are learning. One of the embarrassments that I have to bear is that I have written on some of these issues now for nearly 30 years.

35:39

And at a couple of points, I have to say I got that wrong. And we got to go back and correct it, correct it by scripture.

35:46

Now, early in this controversy, I felt it quite necessary in order to, to make clear the gospel, to deny anything like a sexual orientation.

35:52

And, uh, speaking at an event for the national association of evangelicals, 20 something years ago, I, I made that point.

35:59

I repent of that. I believe that a biblical theological understanding of a robust biblical theology would point to us that, that human sexual effective, uh, profiles that who we are sexually is far more deeply rooted than just the will, if, if that were so easy.

36:16

But Genesis three explains that helps us to understand that this complex of same sex challenges coming to us as something that is deeply rooted in the biblical story itself.

36:28

And, and something that we need to take with far greater seriousness that we've taken in the past, understanding that that requires a far more robust gospel response than anything the church has come up with here to full.

36:39

So yeah, even, even apologizing, uh, for his previous stand is, is just, it's a curious thing to me and it's an interesting thing.

36:46

Um, and I'll let you make up your minds on what you think is going on in Dr. Mueller's mind and why he would change his stands on those things.

36:54

Was it biblical or was there another concern that, um, made him go that direction? Now, uh, last but not least, we're going to spend most of our time talking about critical race theory and where Albert Mueller stands on that.

37:07

And I'm going to bring you through a lot of information. So fasten your seatbelts. Here we go. I am privileged today to have with me as a guest,

37:21

Dr. E .S. Williams, who is a medical doctor and author and a member at the Metropolitan Tabernacle Church.

37:29

And, uh, for those who don't know, that's actually a famous church, uh, within especially reformed Christian circles, because that was where Charles Spurgeon, uh, preached.

37:38

And, uh, so Dr. Williams, though, uh, caught my interest because he put out a video and the video was about Dr.

37:44

uh, Al Mueller at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. And it was about an hour long. I would encourage you to go watch it.

37:50

I'll put the link in the info section below. Uh, you can click on it and watch it there. But, um, you know,

37:56

Dr. Mueller has been an enigma for many in the conservative Christian camp because some wonder, why isn't he doing more?

38:04

Why is he making some of the decisions that he's making? And they scratch their heads and they say, well, maybe he's got a bigger plan.

38:10

Maybe he's waiting to come out swinging for conservatism, perhaps when he's the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, if he wins that.

38:18

Uh, and then, you know, others are saying, I don't think Al Mueller is with us. I think he's perhaps playing politics and he's, uh, or, or even worse, maybe he's liberal as some people think that.

38:28

So I want to have Dr. Williams, um, weigh in on this because he spent a lot of time thinking about this.

38:35

And so, uh, with that long introduction, Dr. Williams, thank you so much for joining me. No, it's an absolute pleasure to be with you.

38:43

And Dr. Williams, I want to ask you the obvious question first is, uh, you are in England and you decided to make this one hour documentary for lack of a better term on Albert Mueller.

38:54

And, um, and I think I just want to ask why, why, why did that interest you all the way over there in England?

39:02

Because American Christianity has an enormous impact in the UK. Many of the celebrity pastors visit the

39:10

UK frequently examples would be, uh, the famous Mark Driscoll, who was invited to speak at the

39:18

London men's convention in the Royal Albert Hall to about 5 ,000 evangelical

39:24

Christians. Um, and he had an enormous impact, especially on young people.

39:30

John Piper, um, with his, uh, desiring God website and books that was invited to the

39:38

Methodist central hall in London about a year ago, Dr. Tim Keller, um, has been invited to the evangelical ministries assembly, speaking to thousands of evangelical pastors, teaching us what the gospel really is.

39:58

So there's no question that celebrity pastors from the U S have a great influence in the

40:06

UK and Albert Mueller was in the UK speaking at the Ligonier conference.

40:12

And of course the books of these famous men are widely available in most of our evangelical churches.

40:20

So I had done a podcast where I think of the title is Al Mueller and leftist apologies, and people can go look it up.

40:27

I believe it was around April or so. Um, and I pointed something out that just a trend

40:32

I had noticed, um, that if Al Mueller is ever on a, you know, network television or, um,

40:41

I shouldn't say network cable news really, or, um, if he's in the newspaper for something it's, it's because he's usually apologizing for something or, um, you know, he opposed, uh,

40:53

Roy Moore, who was a conservative, um, uh, chief justice, uh, down in Alabama, who was running for Senate.

40:59

He, that was about two years ago. Thank you so much for joining us here on CNN, Mr. Mueller, we appreciate it.

41:05

Let's talk about this scandal surrounding the Senate candidate. Roy Moore is forcing Christian voters in Alabama to make a really tough decision.

41:12

How is an evangelical Christian voter supposed to choose which is more important, their politics or their faith?

41:21

Well, you know, that's a very good question. It's a crisis of conscience that evangelicals are facing right now, acutely in Alabama.

41:28

And, uh, you know, Don, the first thing we have to understand is the severity of these charges. If, if, if we're united on anything in terms of moral judgment as a people, surely it is the fact that, uh, no 30 year old man has any business having anything to do with a 14 year old girl.

41:43

The sexual abuse, uh, which is all that it can be called of a minor is something, thanks be to God, even in this morally confused age, there's still a strong consensus is just absolutely wrong, the inadequacy of judge

41:56

Moore's response and, uh, and his denials, uh, they just were far too elastic, even though in the 2016, there was a real division amongst evangelicals about the election conservative, biblically minded evangelicals.

42:11

Uh, I think there's a lot more unanimity. A lot more consensus in this case. And I'm thankful for that.

42:16

There is no groundswell of evangelical leadership, pastors and evangelical leaders, uh, saying this is not a big deal.

42:23

It is a big deal. I really enjoyed this conversation. I appreciate your perspective. Thank you so much for coming on this smaller.

42:29

Thanks for having me done. Uh, he, um, then was in the media again for the statement on slavery, uh, about,

42:38

I don't know about a little over a year ago, the 71 page document is thoroughly researched and unsparing in an introductory letter.

42:46

Seminary president, Albert Moeller summarizes the founding fathers of this school, all four of them were deeply involved in slavery and deeply complicit in the defense of slavery.

42:56

Moeller writes many of their successors, he says, advocated segregation and the inferiority of African -Americans.

43:04

We knew in generalities that the founders of the seminary owned slaves. We knew in generality that they'd been very much a part of Southern culture.

43:12

The culture of reconstruction and, uh, even legal segregation, but it had never been documented.

43:19

The report written by six current and former faculty members draws heavily on the seminary's own archives.

43:25

It acknowledges the only reason a separate Southern Baptist denomination was formed back in 1845 was because Northern Baptists refused to appoint slaveholders as missionaries.

43:37

The Southern Baptist convention more than 20 years ago, apologized for its connection to slavery.

43:43

Last year, it passed a resolution condemning white supremacy. The Southern Baptists today are distinguished from others, mainly by their more evangelical and politically conservative identity.

43:55

Alison Green, a historian of religion at Emory University, says this new report is significant, but she wonders what might follow.

44:03

Making a statement about Confederate monuments might be a next step or taking a stand on questions of voting rights in the 21st century.

44:11

There will be more changes, says Albert Mueller, though he can't say what. Um, he had a formal apology in the

44:19

Houston Chronicle for endorsing C. J. Mahaney's ministry and no new information had come out about Mahaney and he had publicly defended

44:28

Mahaney, but, uh, all of a sudden during the me too movement, he comes out, uh, not in a

44:34

Baptist press or Christian publication of some kind. He comes out in secular media, the Houston Chronicle.

44:40

Uh, and so I noticed this trend. I just thought it was unusual. You know, why, why is

44:46

Al Mueller? The only time I ever hear from him is when he's saying something against a conservative or, uh, apologizing for something that Christians have done.

44:57

And, um, and then, you know, last year, the social justice and the gospel statement came out and he did not sign it, which

45:05

I mean, it was okay if he has a legitimate reason, but his reason was weird. Uh, I did not sign the document and, uh,

45:12

I did not sign the document because I would not express, uh, even some of the concerns I share with those who frame the document in the way that that, uh, document was, uh, was written in specific language and, uh, and contextualized.

45:26

It's not in the fact that I don't share many of the concerns and, and, and certainly the rejection of any secular notion of, uh, or, or conception of social justice, which is incompatible with the

45:38

Christian worldview of scripture and the gospel. Uh, I, I would say that, uh, a part of, of this, this situation is that you have a statement and you have statements about the statement, including people who are writing articles and blog articles who have signed the statement and are explaining it and, uh, you know,

45:57

I, I, I think that one of the greatest issues of concern I have is, uh, is with the question of victims.

46:05

Um, because, uh, the statement itself talks about entitled victims. Well, I understand that there's a, certainly a wrong kind of entitlement that comes with a victim mentality of a society that tries to define everybody as a victim and, and, but, but more than that confuses victimhood with some kind of moral innocence.

46:21

And, uh, and, and that's, uh, that, that's, that's just not right. But, uh,

46:27

I think any biblical worldview would help us, uh, insist that, that in fact mandate that we understand there are real victims.

46:34

We were just talking about sexual abuse. There are real victims, uh, in sexual abuse. I can't avoid understanding the reality of race and the, and the deadly, deadly reality of claims of racial supremacy and in particular white racial supremacy.

46:50

That's not a theory. Uh, that's a reality. There are ongoing manifestations, uh, of this same, uh, racism, which is the great stain, uh, against, uh, the

47:02

American nation and the great stain against much of American Christianity. And so he couldn't sign it in good conscience.

47:09

And, uh, and, and so this was all strange to me, partially because there's language in the statement on social justice in the gospel that you can go read and I'm sure

47:18

Al Mohler's read it, but it should have alleviated the concerns that he has. For instance, in the section on justice, section three, we affirm that societies must establish laws to correct injustices that have been imposed through cultural prejudice.

47:29

Um, the statement on race and ethnicity, it says all sinful actions and their results, including evils perpetuated between and upon ethnic groups by others are to be confessed as sinful, repented of, and repudiated.

47:40

Now, of course, there's denials. They deny that, you know, sons are responsible for the sins of their fathers and so forth and so on.

47:47

You can go read it. I encourage you to read it and I encourage you to sign it, but I don't quite understand why

47:53

Dr. Mohler is using the reasons that he's using for not signing the document.

48:00

If he read the document, it addresses the concerns that he seems to have.

48:07

Uh, furthermore, he said that he wanted to have a conversation about this that was healthy.

48:14

So I am hoping for a healthy, holy conversation here, and I'm hoping that it brings strength.

48:23

And, uh, and good repute to the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. The problem in my thinking though, is that when this opportunity came up to actually have this conversation at the

48:35

Shepherds Conference in 2019, this is what happened to what you said about, um, incremental changes that promote that sort of liberalizing tendency.

48:48

And, and realize that just last year at both the Gospel Coalition and together for the gospel,

48:55

I was hearing some rhetoric that actually I first heard from Jim Wallace and Sojourners 20, 30 years ago.

49:02

And so I think what I'm asking you is, uh, in fact, what I am asking you is, do you not see that, that the evangelical movement, even the, even our constituency, the most conservative end of the evangelical movement is becoming a little more susceptible to that?

49:22

But Phil, you've known me for a long time. You know, the answer to the question is yes, but I'm not going to be forced into a situation before thousands of people in which

49:29

I have to say, I'm going to do it your way. Sorry. Okay. I'm just not. And if that's a test of fellowship amongst us, this would be a good time to find out.

49:40

So I'm genuinely confused along with many others. And to make matters worse, over the last year, it has been difficult for people like myself, even who value

49:53

Albert Mueller's legacy, um, who want to think of him as conservative, he's made it very difficult for us to come up with a paradigm to defend him because there's just been a pattern of public actions he's taken that don't seem to line up with the image that we have in our minds of him.

50:10

And I'll give you some examples. Uh, this isn't exhaustive, but, um, it's certainly enough. Um, he says in July that, uh, this is his favorite section at the

50:18

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. And he takes a picture of the new academic arrivals and they're, they're right there in the front are, um,

50:25

Jamar Tisby, Color of Compromise, Eric Mason, Woke Church. And I I've heard because Albert Mueller was called out for this and asked to explain himself,

50:32

I've heard that behind closed doors, they made a decision to get rid of those books. However, um, that being said, uh, there was no public that, uh, that I could find, um, explanation from Dr.

50:43

Mueller. There was no, um, I mean, this would have been the opportunity. These ideas are ripping the Southern Baptist convention in two, and he says he doesn't agree with them.

50:51

So if that's true, then he could have taken this opportunity to say, I know I gave the impression that our institution endorses these books.

50:57

Actually, we don't. And here's why. And he didn't do that. Um, I mean, the impression that's still out there, uh, publicly is that these carried out the

51:06

Boyce College and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary bookstore, um, you know, as a positive thing.

51:12

Um, and then you have, uh, in July, the founder's ministry trailer drops and Albert Mueller's apparently friends with Tom Askell, but instead of giving him benefit of the doubt, he comes out with this statement saying he's alarmed at how some respected

51:24

SBC leaders are represented and that Southern Baptist expect and deserve a respectful and honest exchange of ideas.

51:29

So he's saying basically Tom Askell and founders ministry aren't engaging in respectful and honest exchanging of ideas.

51:36

Um, I don't know what to make of this. Uh, you keep going. Um, the next month, uh, there was a video that went viral of Matthew Hall saying that he was a racist.

51:47

He's a white supremacist. I am a racist. I am. I'm going to struggle with racism and white supremacy until the day

51:54

I die and get my glorified body in a completely renewed and sanctified mind, um, because I'm immersed in a culture where I benefit from racism all the time.

52:05

One of the reasons why I love Dr. Hall is because, you know, he's well versed in critical race theory and history.

52:12

And, uh, this is identified by Curtis Woods as critical theory and Jarvis Williams, Curtis Woods, and Matthew Hall, uh, all, um, are basically caught in a sense, uh, in this video montage put out by enemies within the church, uh, promoting critical race theory ideas for years.

52:30

In the plain open site at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, where Albert Mueller is the president, you think he know what his provost is doing.

52:37

Uh, and it, I mean, it happened so many times, uh, it's, uh, it's incomprehensible that he wouldn't know what's going on on his own campus.

52:45

Yet, uh, what Albert Mueller did in reaction to this was he put out a tweet about Matthew Hall signing the abstract and principles, and I pointed out at the time

52:56

I wrote an article, um, about how faith statements can't save us, but I pointed out that, you know, if you give up objectivity and truth, then, uh, which is really what's at stake in critical race theory and any of the critical theories, then you can sign that document all day long.

53:10

It makes no difference. And, um, and Albert Mueller though, seems to be defending, uh,

53:16

Matthew Hall, no explanation, no retractions, just he's, I've got my stamp of approval on this man and he's, you know, set to take over from Al Mueller.

53:25

Uh, he's the one that Al Mueller has raised up. This is concerning. Um, then of course, uh,

53:31

Dr. Williams, Dr. E .S. Williams video on Albert Mueller, uh, focusing on the stand of racism comes out and, uh,

53:38

Albert Mueller's, uh, reaction, uh, to that the very next day is to, uh, it looks like, and I don't know for this for certain, but it looks like Matthew Hall or Albert Mueller trying to get

53:50

Matthew Hall to do this. Maybe Matthew Hall heard, got a phone call from Mueller. I don't know, but they, they reacted like within one day with Matthew Hall writing an article about where he stands on critical race theory.

54:00

And essentially he tries to say, I don't agree with that, but I did, as I pointed out in an episode, uh, right after this, that none of the ideas that Matthew Hall or Jarvis Williams or Curtis Woods advocated were actually contradicted.

54:13

Um, there's a lot of, uh, abstract language in there to try to appease those who don't like critical race theory and know that it's dangerous.

54:22

But what he doesn't do is actually retract the statements he's made that are consistent with critical race theory.

54:29

And so it's inadequate, um, in my mind, and Albert Mueller's a smart guy. He should know that, you would think. Uh, then you have, um, what

54:37

Albert Mueller has done, uh, with Tom Askell. I mean, again, they're supposed to be friends and yet, um, it seems like every step of the way

54:45

Tom Askell gets really hit hard online and Albert Mueller doesn't seem to ever come out and defend him, which it's a curious thing because he'll defend

54:54

Matthew Hall. He'll defend others as we'll see, but he won't defend, um, uh,

55:00

Tom Askell. And, uh, so Tom Askell, uh, was critical of Southern Baptist or I should say

55:06

Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary where Danny Akin's the president. They hired a professor who doesn't have a great track record on the same sex attraction and, uh, sort of homosexuality debates in the convention.

55:18

Uh, she's, she's more coming from the left. And so Founders Ministry, um, uh, wrote an article about this and Albert Mueller's, uh, reaction, uh, was to kind of circle the wagons around Danny Akin and he calls

55:32

Danny Akin, he's one of my, my closest colleagues for more than two decades and a man I would trust with my whole heart, he is a brother who has fought the good fight for his entire life.

55:42

And of course he retweeted Adam Greenway's statement that calls Danny Akin conservative to the bone, convictional in every way and confessionally committed to a high view of scripture and the

55:51

Baptist faith and message. So, you know, this is a curious thing because there are legitimate, um, concerns brought up by Founders Ministries and Tom Askell and Albert Mueller, without addressing any of those things, just endorses

56:05

Danny Akin. He's conservative to the bone, you know, don't question this man seems to be the narrative coming out of that.

56:12

And then you have, um, Robert Oscar Lopez, uh, in December, uh, getting fired for his position.

56:19

I mean, talk about timing, right? Right after, uh, this, this other professor Karen Swallow Pryor is going to Southeastern, uh, or as it's announced that she's hired and there's, um, a debate over this because of her, uh, endorsement of the revoice, essentially what revoice is trying to do their message.

56:37

Uh, then you have Robert Oscar Lopez who has contradicted the revoice message, who is conservative, who, uh, does not believe in this innate same sex orientation concept.

56:46

You don't find in scripture and he gets fired. And instead of Albert Mueller, uh, addressing concerns, um, about this, he comes out with a statement on his

56:56

Twitter. Again, I have full confidence in the biblical fidelity of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and the commitment of its leadership to a robustly biblical vision of human sexuality and gender.

57:06

Southern Baptists are well served by six seminaries committed to biblical fidelity. And so the timing of all this shows that it's a reaction.

57:14

He's reacting to what's happening at Southwestern and wants to say that, no, that they actually are, um, faithful.

57:22

They are, uh, consistent, uh, with their, um, uh, application of the word of God.

57:27

And, uh, you know, nothing to see here seems to be the, the narrative. And, and I look at the other side,

57:34

I look, okay, you know, Dr. Mueller has defended, uh, all the, you know, the liberals, essentially the institutions and, um, those who run these institutions who are liberal, who have, uh, done liberal things.

57:46

Dr. Mueller will defend them against the conservatives, you know, roughly speaking, but when conservatives are attacked,

57:53

Dr. Mueller doesn't seem to do hardly anything, really nothing, um, that I can see. And I'll give you some examples of that.

57:59

Um, John MacArthur and Albert Mueller from, from what I know, they're, they're good friends. I thought they were. And yet when

58:05

Lincoln Duncan, Danny Aiken, and JD Greer go after John MacArthur hard, hard guys after the whole, um, go home comment, uh, about Beth Moore, uh,

58:17

Dr. Mueller says nothing, not, not one thing, not, not even, you know, I wouldn't have phrased it the way

58:22

John MacArthur did, but you know, he's a good friend and I understand what he meant. Nothing. It doesn't say anything. Um, you have, uh, you know, the

58:30

Naples, uh, SBC Naples thing. And, and I don't know if, uh, John or, um,

58:35

Dr. Mueller was friends with, uh, Hayes Wicker at all, who was the former pastor there. I'm not sure what his relationship is, but this was kind of a big deal.

58:44

Last November, uh, you had, uh, a church essentially called, well, the church itself, the leaders of the church came out with a statement saying, yeah, our people are essentially racist.

58:55

We have a contingent of them in the church and we're dealing with them. We apologize to the convention. And then you have all these big wigs,

59:01

Southern Baptist coming out and saying, yeah, you know, racism's horrible. And we got a problem in the

59:07

SBC and Albert Mueller, you know, doesn't say anything and he's not necessarily obligated to,

59:12

I'm just saying he weighs in on these other things. Why not weigh in on that? And why not, um, at least caution, let's make sure we get all the facts.

59:19

Um, I did go down there, I have gotten the facts and, uh, it is not anything close to what was portrayed.

59:26

Um, you have James White, James White and Albert Mueller, you know, supposedly they're on friendly terms. They seem to interact well.

59:33

And James White is attacked by Eric Mason for being supposedly a racist. James White's a racist.

59:39

And this gets, uh, in, you know, this Christian post even runs with, with that story and of course,

59:44

Albert Mueller says nothing, I'm looking at this trend and I'm saying, what makes sense of all this?

59:50

And then I saw your video and your video, um, was very interesting to me.

59:56

And the thesis behind it seems to be that Al Mueller for a very long time has had a guilty conscience about,

01:00:03

I guess, past racism in the Southern Baptist convention. And he's promoted this idea that there's a stain of racism that we just can never get rid of.

01:00:12

I can't associate with any assertion that we do not have a massive problem in the society and in the church with claims of racial superiority and with historic patterns of claims of white racial superiority.

01:00:32

And with the fact that remnants and ongoing manifestations of those claims of white racial superiority continue.

01:00:43

Even though in 1995, there was an apology. It just, we need to have more resolutions. We need to do something.

01:00:48

We need to lament more. Um, how did you figure that out? Cause I didn't even see that.

01:00:55

Well, to me, this was the big thing as I studied Mueller, particularly as he had to do with the

01:01:00

Dallas statement and wondered why he didn't sign it. And the more I looked into Mueller, I realized that the big thing is around racism and of course, the book that has just been published is

01:01:13

Removing the Stain of Racism from the Southern Baptist convention. And I found this remarkable that there should be such a great influence, uh, interest in the subject of racism.

01:01:27

And of course, Mueller in 2015 preached a sermon in which he used coined the phrase, the stain of racism, which he called demonic, and he identified this as the big problem in the

01:01:43

Southern Baptist convention, and so they needed this book to help Southern Baptist realize that they had to repent and change and that racism was the great problem that they were facing.

01:02:00

And of course, critical race theory teaches that institutional racism exists in every structure in society.

01:02:10

And according to this theory, racism is ingrained in the fabric of American society.

01:02:18

After all, slavery is ended. Segregation is no more. Indeed, despite the defeat of the civil rights statute of 1990, there remain more civil rights protections in the law today than at any other time in our history.

01:02:32

Racism is not a group of bad white people whose discriminatory propensities can be controlled by well -written civil rights laws vigorously enforced.

01:02:43

Rather, there is a deeply held belief in white superiority that serves as a key regulative force in an otherwise fragile and dangerously divided society.

01:02:54

Indeed, it's difficult to think of another characteristic of societal functioning that has retained its viability and its values to social stability from the very beginning of the

01:03:05

American experience down to the present day. And whites are described as the oppressors because they have the power conferred on them by the color of their skin.

01:03:17

And Moeller, I found this incredible, believes that white racial superiority continues to be a massive problem in the

01:03:26

SBC. In other words, saying that all these Christians are actually racists.

01:03:34

And as you mentioned, he has said that the stain of racism is so deep that it cannot be removed until the second coming of Christ.

01:03:44

And when we see Pastor David Platt, a former president of the International Mission Board of the

01:03:51

SBC, saying that white Christians are immersed in racism.

01:03:58

And so the whole focus of the Southern Baptist Convention appears to be on the issue of race.

01:04:06

It does seem to be the Achilles heel. The other movements like soft peddling homosexuality at the

01:04:13

Revoice Conference. Now, feminism is coming in, but it does seem to be this whole movement seems to be advancing with this racism emphasis on the front of it.

01:04:30

That's what Southern Baptists seem to be very guilty of.

01:04:36

And, you know, I went to a Southern Baptist seminary and I never once in all the churches that I visited and attended down there that were

01:04:43

Southern Baptists at the seminary, I never once met any white supremacist. But I heard all the time how the

01:04:51

Southern Baptist Convention has a problem with white supremacy. And it was confusing to me at that point. Who are these people?

01:04:57

I'd like to meet them so we can correct this. But it was never there was no names or faces given to it.

01:05:05

It was just everyone knows this is a problem. And you're right. That does sound like it's consistent, at least, with critical race theory.

01:05:14

Is this a problem in England as well? This idea that we're just racist even though we don't know it or we can't identify someone?

01:05:21

Well, it is a problem and it's becoming increasingly on the BBC and the mass media that there's racism in football and wherever you cricket and wherever you look in society, but not to the degree

01:05:36

I would say that it is in the USA. And of course, the problem with this is that once an accusation of racism is made, the person's life can be destroyed and there can be no defense.

01:05:49

If you're accused of racism, you cannot defend yourself. We just learned that with the congregants at FBC Naples in Florida.

01:05:59

A bunch of them were accused of racism and there's no evidence for it, but they were excommunicated from their church on this basis.

01:06:05

Big Southern Baptist Church. Danny Akin's son, Jonathan Akin, is now the interim pastor there.

01:06:11

And it's just it's a mess. And it really makes me sad because we don't do this with other sins.

01:06:20

We don't go around and call people, you know, child molesters or something like that without evidence.

01:06:26

Well, you see, yeah. When I was thinking about this, how do we get?

01:06:33

Understand what this whole issue is and this whole argument. And in my experience, what we then need to do is set aside all human thought and turn to the scriptures.

01:06:46

And what is that? What do the scriptures say about racism? Well, the first thing that we know is that racism is not mentioned in the scriptures.

01:06:55

In fact, it is a sociopolitical construct. But scripture does speak on this issue, particularly in the book of James, in James, chapter three, where scripture speaks of two kinds of wisdom, the wisdom of God, divine wisdom, which is from above and false wisdom, which is from below.

01:07:17

And I believe that this helps us to understand what is happening. So the wisdom that is from above, divine wisdom, is, according to scripture, first, pure, peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy, good fruits, and without partiality.

01:07:39

And I think that's essential because what we are dealing with and what the script is dealing with is the sin of partiality.

01:07:46

That's right. Now, the false wisdom, earthly wisdom, this wisdom does not come from above, but is earthly, sensual, and scripture even uses the word demonic.

01:07:59

For where envy and self -seeking exist, confusion and every kind of evil thing are there.

01:08:09

So false earthly wisdom is characterized by the sin of partiality.

01:08:15

And this is what we're speaking about, not racism. There is no such thing, not in scripture.

01:08:22

There is a sin of partiality. And this is a sin which is against the character of God.

01:08:28

It is ubiquitous to all people, black and white. We are all partial.

01:08:34

And the cure of this sin, not the cure, the way this is redeemed is through the gospel.

01:08:43

So Christians who were at once partial and under the power of this sin, once they are born again, are no longer slaves to the sin of partiality.

01:08:54

And this is the greatness of the gospel of Christ. We are new creatures in Christ.

01:09:00

The old is gone, the new has come. We partakers of the divine nature. And so we then get the big issue.

01:09:07

Can a Christian be a racist? And in my understanding of scripture, the answer is no.

01:09:14

A regenerate Christian who is born again of God's Holy Spirit is no longer a slave to the sin of partiality.

01:09:24

So Christians cannot be controlled by impartiality or by partiality.

01:09:32

That's not possible. And of course, the whole thing of Christianity is that we are commanded to love our enemies and even more.

01:09:43

We love our brothers and sisters in Christ. So Christians do not need to strive for racial reconciliation.

01:09:51

We are reconciled in Christ, as Vowdy Bausham says in his excellent sermon on this issue.

01:09:59

So there is no racial divide in the true church of God. We are reconciled by the blood of Christ.

01:10:06

We have the same heavenly father, the same savior, black and white. And of course, we see this very much in our church, which is evenly divided between black and white.

01:10:18

There is no feeling at all, ever, of any racism. We don't have to be sensitive.

01:10:23

We're brothers in Christ. We work together. We love one another. Doesn't exist.

01:10:31

It is in my understanding, the false church that is obsessed with racism and the search for racial reconciliation.

01:10:39

It's a false church, not the true church. That's interesting that you say that.

01:10:45

And that's a very fascinating distinction that you just made, because we wouldn't call someone, you know, let's say someone came from a culture where stealing was common.

01:10:55

We wouldn't say, well, they're just a Christian thief or something like that. We would say maybe a

01:11:00

Christian can engage in that, but we don't define them by that, which is it sounds like to me that's what you're saying is that we don't define

01:11:05

Christians by a sin. Yeah. And so I'm just anticipating here some pushback because like you,

01:11:16

I have attended for years a church that is multi -ethnic. We were never trying to pursue multi -ethnicity.

01:11:22

We just preach the gospel and God called people from all different backgrounds and we love each other. But there are areas, even areas, you know, in the north and in the west and outside the south in this country.

01:11:36

There are there are areas in which you have a church that is associated with one ethnicity and a church that is associated with another ethnicity.

01:11:45

So you might have a church that's Chinese and a church that's African -American and a church that is white or Anglo or something, you know, and people will think of these churches in ethnic terms.

01:11:58

I don't know if you have that as much in England or not. But what do you say to the people that look at that and they say, well, isn't this a problem?

01:12:04

Isn't racism the problem here? Well, I don't think so at all.

01:12:11

If Chinese people wish to worship together as a group, that's perfect.

01:12:18

Why are we concerned about it? Because we, again, this goes to this whole concept of race.

01:12:24

Let's forget about race. We are one in Christ. We believers. It's interesting when we see the difference in the approach between David Platt, who preached his famous sermon on racism and the need for reconciliation and how the church is immersed in racism, which

01:12:45

I found incredible. And of course, his message was we need to have multi -ethnic churches.

01:12:50

No, we don't. We need true believers. We need to preach the gospel. Much of the problem is because people in the church are not born again.

01:13:00

They're nominal. Now racism, this becomes an issue. But if people are believers, does it matter with whom we are worshiping?

01:13:10

And of course, black and white people will worship together. It's natural. Yeah. So getting back to Al Mohler, then,

01:13:21

I think the reason I asked the previous question is because I think he's looking at this supposed divide within there's black churches, there's white churches, there's

01:13:32

Asian churches. You know, or Chinese or Hispanic or whatever. He's looking at that.

01:13:38

And I think he's saying, well, that must be racism. That's at least the common. I don't know a direct quote from Al Mohler where he says that exact thing.

01:13:47

He doesn't, you know, diagnose the whole thing. David Platt is inferring that in his sermon. I hear it all the time that that's the reason that we still have racism is because look at the evidence that, you know, that's the proof.

01:13:57

And so in order to do something about it, we have to employ critical race theory.

01:14:04

Or in the case of Al Mohler, it sounds like we have to lament this, the past injustices that people in the

01:14:14

Southern Baptist Convention participated in. And somehow that's going to bring us forward to some kind of racial reconciliation.

01:14:23

And anyway, Al Mohler doesn't, he certainly does not contradict what

01:14:29

David Platt says or what anyone else says about it. And it seems consistent, his actions with what they've said.

01:14:35

Do you think that's what's motivating him? That he just, number one, the guilt of the past and what's happened, and number two, looking around and seeing different ethnicities attend different churches?

01:14:47

Well, I mean, I think the book Removing the Stain, which he writes with these men who are, from what

01:14:55

I can see, all committed to the critical race theory, and he associates with these people absolutely and agrees with them.

01:15:06

There's no, in my understanding of just looking at this, not knowing the details of these individual men, they are completely, this is an obsession, and they're forcing this upon the church.

01:15:24

So I think that Mohler has, and Mohler said, judge me by those who I platform with, those who might promote.

01:15:30

Well, he is promoting people who support critical race theory. Yeah, yeah, unfortunately, that's a good point.

01:15:37

What do you say to folks who, and I've heard this many times, they say, you know what,

01:15:43

Al Mohler, he's just trying to survive in this highly woke environment, and he's going to come out swinging for the conservatives soon.

01:15:52

Just watch. It takes a long time to turn the SBC around, and he's got it under control, but we just have to give him time and have patience.

01:16:03

Well, I would say Mohler is prone to change his mind, as he has on many occasions.

01:16:12

So how much faith you can have if he makes some statement. I mean, we've seen that in the

01:16:17

LGBT thing, where he's changed completely from his view of sexual orientation, where he said it was sinful and unacceptable, and then he repented of it.

01:16:28

And I think the other examples of him changing his mind. The other thing about Albert Mohler is

01:16:35

I think it's very difficult to know what he's actually saying. Contrary to my frustration at reading some long articles that he writes, and at the end of it saying, well, what actually has he said?

01:16:47

And I find it just confusing, and you can interpret it any way that you like.

01:16:53

And then there's the links that he's got with Russell Moore, and what's his organization called?

01:17:02

The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission for the Southern Baptist Convention. And I think that Russell Moore is at an extreme with his left wing ideas.

01:17:14

Why does Mohler so fully support him? And of course, this was the reason Mohler wouldn't sign the Dallas Statement, the

01:17:20

Gospel Coalition. These are compromised organizations. I don't think you have to be very knowledgeable to know that these organizations are not true to the gospel.

01:17:34

So if these are the people that Mohler promotes and associates with, scripture says we know them by their friends, fruits, and the friends, those that they associate with.

01:17:49

I suspect, and I could be wrong about this, but I predict that Al Mohler, since he's running for the

01:17:55

SBC presidency, he is going to shift to the right in his rhetoric pretty soon.

01:18:01

And he's been given a lot of room to do that because you have people in the SBC who want women preachers and so forth.

01:18:07

So I expect him to come out swinging against egalitarianism and perhaps against some of the more radical

01:18:16

LGBT type stuff. I know what you said about him changing his views on orientation, which is true.

01:18:25

He has changed his views on that, but he is against the action of homosexuality.

01:18:32

And I expect him to start swinging against those things. But he will probably retain this idea that there is a stain of racism in the

01:18:40

SBC. And that's just my prediction. But from what you're saying in the video that I encourage everyone to go watch that you produced, that's a bridge too far for me to believe that, to think that we have to continually lament for something that we're not even individually guilty of because of churches of different ethnicities that exist or because of things that have happened in the past.

01:19:11

You know, it was always there, but you somehow made it make more sense.

01:19:17

I don't know why. Maybe it's because you're looking at this from a distance. But also, if you look at the venom of those who promote this ideology, there's almost a hatred in some of the that I observed against other

01:19:32

Christians. Now, this is very serious matter. This is the Church of God.

01:19:38

And if people attack the Church of God, that's terribly serious. And to me, this is what

01:19:44

I saw, a real hatred in this whole racial obsession that runs through the

01:19:51

SBC. And Moeller is the man who has led it. He knows about it and he's gone along with it and promoted it in every possible way.

01:20:01

And how can you be? I mean, he understands cultural Marxism. That's right.

01:20:08

So it's not a mystery to him, and yet he's gone along with it and promoted it and is in fact, destroying the

01:20:16

Southern Baptist Convention, in my opinion. I think that's what has people confused more than anything else is what you just said, that he understands cultural

01:20:25

Marxism. If you listen to the briefing, he has talked about cultural Marxism and he will take the battle to the left in the political arena or in other denominations like the

01:20:36

United Methodist Church. But for some reason, in the Southern Baptist Convention, he hardly ever talks about the leftward drift there.

01:20:44

And if he does, it's certainly not the way he talks about it in other institutions.

01:20:49

Where can people find you? Do you have a website, Dr. Williams? I know your books are for sale at the

01:20:58

Metropolitan Tabernacle, so people can go there. And they're all on Amazon. What's our website?

01:21:07

I mean, we've got the New Calvinist website, the newcalvinist .com. OK, I just ordered one of your books on ecumenism,

01:21:16

I think it's called, about the Lausanne Covenant. So I have that now.

01:21:22

I ordered it and looking forward to reading that. It's on Kindle for like five dollars.

01:21:27

So I appreciate it. Thank you for giving me your time. And I hope this is helpful for those who are trying to make sense of this.

01:21:37

Thanks so much for the time and being able to talk about these important issues. My pleasure.

01:21:42

I know. Well, I know that was a long one, but I think it was necessary to go over all of these things so that we can try to come up with a paradigm for explaining all these actions.

01:21:52

And again, it's important. He's running for president of the SBC. Now, I'll tell you where I come down. I do think there's an element of opportunism.

01:21:58

I don't know how else to make sense of some of the actions, especially over the past year. If that's true, what

01:22:04

I would expect is he will start taking little shots here or there at the URLC.

01:22:09

Russell Moore, Beth Moore, people that are more safe, people that are on the fringes in some people's minds, the more liberal wing, like really liberal wing of the

01:22:18

SBC. And he'll probably ignore things happening on his own campus that have happened on his own campus, things that are happening on at other institutions.

01:22:29

He'll probably circle the wagons when it comes to those who are really the big players in the actual convention.

01:22:35

That's that's my prediction. Maybe that's not true. Maybe you come to you come to a different conclusion, have a different way of looking at all these things.

01:22:44

And if you do, please comment. I'm certainly open. I've been listening to people for the last year tell me all sorts of things about how they see it.

01:22:51

And I'm just telling you how I see it now. Do I think he's a complete opportunist? No, because I think he's pretty solid on complementarianism.

01:22:58

And it does seem I want to believe and I don't see any evidence to the contrary that that probably is a conviction of his.

01:23:05

But there is some expediency, some political expediency on the other two major issues. And so I hope this was helpful.

01:23:12

Let's pray for him. Let's pray for the SBC. Let's pray for the convention. Conservatives like Tom Askew in the convention going forward, we can either go away from evangelicalism or we can remain true.

01:23:23

And obviously, I pray we remain true. And my prayer is that God will use us as his means by which the convention does remain true.