Al Mohler and Leftist Apologies

Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. Today we're going to be talking about corporate apologies.

I want to talk about something I noticed over the weekend. There was a headline in the Houston Chronicle. It says,

Leading Southern Baptist apologizes for supporting leader. Church at center of sex abuse scandal.

This was in the Houston Chronicle. Now, for those who don't know, the leading Southern Baptist is Al Mohler, but Danny Akin, who's the president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, just as Al Mohler is president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, was also interviewed.

Both of them essentially did the same thing in this article. They apologized for an association that they had with CJ Mahaney and Sovereign Grace Ministries.

In fact, when I visited Southeastern, I'm a graduate from there. I have an MDiv from there. In admissions, they used

CJ Mahaney as a draw card to get me to come. They knew I was a reformed guy. They said,

Mahaney was here just a couple weeks ago. He was telling some students that were visiting that it was

God's will that they come to Southeastern. For whatever that's worth, CJ Mahaney endorses us.

They were very comfortable at one point being associated with him. The same is true of Southern. Now, not so much because of allegations and some of the scandal, the sex abuse scandal.

I'm calling it that, that took place. It's interesting, though, the timing of all this.

I want to point out a few things. Mahaney has not been convicted of a crime, as far as I know.

There's no new information specifically indicting Mahaney that has come out since in May 2013.

A statement was put out by Al Mohler, by Mark Dever, and by Lincoln Duncan in which they affirmed their support and their confidence in CJ Mahaney.

So, nothing new that would specifically indict Mahaney has come out and no civil law has convicted him.

And yet, this statement was made. Why was it made? Is it a coincidence it was made right after there is another article,

I believe also in the Houston Chronicle, in which Southern Baptists are made to look like there's a scandal that's been going on for years and a sex abuse scandal in the

Southern Baptist Convention? Is this a coincidence? I don't think it is. It probably isn't, but my concern,

I have two concerns. One concern is the nature of the apology, where Al Mohler went to do this apology, that he went to Houston Chronicle.

Now, there was a statement released from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary the same day, but even if the statement came out first,

Mohler would have had to, or someone around Mohler would have had to let the Houston Chronicle know, hey, we're releasing the statement if you want an interview.

So, the media was notified immediately, and that was the first place effectively that the story got out.

And so, that's one of my concerns, is the source. Where are we going to do our apologies? And the other thing that concerns me is the church's prophetic voice.

Is it being lost, and are things like this indicative of that? So, I'm going to, this is the particular situation, but I want to have a larger conversation.

I want to take an intellectual step back and look at this, if we can, from a bird's eye view and decide, well, what does the

Bible say about apologies, corporate apologies especially? How should they be done? Are we to engage in them?

So, I need to state, first off, I appreciate Al Mohler. He's not the whipping boy for this, but I'm taking the opportunity since this occasion came up, partially because I respect

Al Mohler so much, to hopefully shed some light on this. And because Al Mohler is someone that I do respect,

I think it especially makes the situation more teachable for me and for those who are perhaps in the conservative, reformed, evangelical camp who maybe you're wondering why

Al Mohler did this. And we can learn from it, I think. And I respect, I can't say this enough,

I respect so many things about Al Mohler, but even great men make mistakes. And I think this was a mistake.

So, let's get into it. Despite my appreciation for Al Mohler, I am concerned. I stopped listening to the briefing,

I want to say about six years ago. I used to listen every day, and I got tired of hearing things, neo -abolitionist, historical paradigm he'd use.

It seems like even cop shootings and things of that nature were read through the lens of the Civil Rights Movement.

And not everything he said was wrong, but I got tired of hearing so many things about, that were imbalanced.

Things that, it just seemed like he would automatically gravitate towards taking the side of the media's alleged victims in cases of alleged racial shootings by policemen, like I said before, sins of America's past, these kinds of things.

Not all of that's wrong, but there was an imbalance. And I just said, you know, I don't want to listen to this anymore, nothing against Al Mohler.

He's great when it comes to so many topics, culturally speaking, especially when it comes to the sexual revolution. I've heard him say a lot of good things.

But, I just, there were other sources that I could get the information I wanted to, and so I stopped listening.

Well, in that time, I guess, something's happened, because in the last, we're talking a couple months, we're going back to September 2018, three things have happened that concern me about Al Mohler.

And the first one is, he did not sign the social justice and the gospel statement. That's not the thing that concerns me, it's that his explanation for why he didn't sign it was weird.

He said in September of 2018 that he thought the statement somehow denied, and this is a quote from him, victims of social forces of oppression.

Victims of social forces of oppression. Now, if you read the statement on social justice and the gospel, it does not deny that there's victims.

It talks about victimhood, and teaching people that they are victims, and sort of the leftist way of making someone feel like they're owed something.

That's not a right thing, and the inconsistencies with the gospel are pointed out in the social justice and the gospel statement.

But my point is not to get into that statement. My point is, Mohler's reasoning was just unusual, and he was fumbling over his words as he was giving his explanation.

You could tell he was uncomfortable, and I took it that he probably was influenced by political forces, and didn't know really what to do.

There's people on one side that he's associated with who are totally against the statement, and then you have

MacArthur who he's friends with, and people on the other side who are for it. So, it was unusual.

Well, then in December 12th, to be specific, a report on slavery and racism in the history of the

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary came out, and Al Mohler, there's some quotes from him, he said, He also said,

And the historian in me says, yeah, yeah, you as in Southern Baptist, because we don't actually study the formation of the

Southern Baptist, except usually to say slavery, slavery, slavery. We never actually get into the actual motivations behind them and humanize the people that were behind it.

But put that on the side here. Mohler is essentially, in the introduction to this report, apologizing for the

Southern Baptist Convention, especially Southern Baptist Theological Seminary's association with slavery and racism in the past.

Now, you may think, well, that's good. That's good. But the thing is, the Southern Baptist Convention apologized for this in 1995, and if you've been a part of Southern Baptist life for any length of time, just in the last five years, there have been a number of statements and attempted statements, like Danny Akin co -authored one that was an attempted resolution at the

Southern Baptist Convention last year, to apologize for slavery. Again, you'll know that this apology keeps happening.

And I've pointed this out in other videos, that this is perpetual. This is like the

Hebrews with the priests offering sacrifices over and over without actually gaining forgiveness. So this has been happening in Southern Baptist circles.

And Mohler comes out with another one. Now, the question is, when is he going to have to come out with another one? Is it going to be another year, and another statement denouncing racism?

If you remember at the time, the media, because this was pushed in the media, the media did not think,

I'm thinking of a story specifically in the Associated Press, they did not think that Al Mohler went far enough. This statement denies, it doesn't go far enough to essentially apologize for current racism, like support of Trump.

So the media, it's never enough for them. No matter how many apologies you give them, they will always believe.

So if you're a Southern Baptist, if you're really a Christian who's trying to follow Christ in general, they'll always believe you're a bigot of some kind, in some way, you're wrong.

And you can't really look to them to judge the case. But it seems like Southern Baptist Theological Seminary did, because this story went everywhere.

And then, it's interesting that this latest one was also weirdly timed with, like I said, the

Southern Baptist scandal, sex scandal, and sexual abuse scandal.

And Albert Mohler comes out with this statement denouncing C .J. Mahaney to the media. So it seems like, this is just a perception.

If you're not at Southern, if you're not listening to Albert Mohler daily, if you're just the run -of -the -mill Joe, the only time that you're hearing from Albert Mohler is when he's denouncing

Roy Moore to CNN or apologizing for something. I'm not sure if that's a healthy thing.

So I want to reiterate, I do respect Albert Mohler. I've gained a lot from him. I've read his books, some of them, and I do have a lot of respect for him.

But there is a concern that I have here. So what's the problem? Well, the first problem, I believe, is the nature of corporate apologies.

And this is where we're taking the intellectual step backward and getting into the nitty -gritty here. I'm going to read for you some verses.

This is from Judges, chapter 10, verse 6. It says, Then the sons of Israel did evil in the sight of the

Lord, served the Baals and the Ashtaroth, the gods of Aram, gods of Sidon, gods of Moab, the sons of Ammon, the gods of the

Philistines. Thus they forsook the Lord and did not serve him. Fast forward to verse 16.

The sons of Israel said to the Lord, We have sinned. Do to us whatever seems good to you. Only please deliver us this day.

So they put away the foreign gods from among them and served the Lord. And he could bear the misery of Israel no longer.

So in this passage, Judges 10, there is a corporate apology going on. Israel is apologizing for idolatry.

And I want you to notice a few things about this. Number one, there's a general statement made. Israel, again, did evil.

Everyone is participating in this. This is indicative of the religious state of Israel.

They are pursuing idolatry. The apology is also made to the Lord, not the idol makers.

Israel did not go out to those who perpetuate the idols. They didn't go to the Philistines.

They didn't go to Moab. They didn't say to them, you know, we've been really wrong to worship your gods, and we got to stop doing that.

Please forgive us. Or I just want you to know that we apologize, that we feel bad, and that's not who we are.

If Israel did do that, they would be caring about their reputation in the eyes of pagans. But they didn't do that.

They stopped. They repented. They stopped what they were doing, and they apologized to the Lord. Now, when a

Christian goes to the media, specifically, secular world, last

I checked, there's a Baptist press. There's ways to get the word out there in the Christian community if something wrong happened.

You can go to the same venues in which the wrongs took place. You know, like if Albert Muller said, he said, I love

C .J. Mahaney, and now I think he's not that great. He could have said it in the same chapel in which he delivered his affirmation of C .J.

Mahaney. But these apologies are being made, and I say apologies because it's not just Al Muller. This is happening with others.

I'm using him as an example. They're being made to media sources. Now, the media, why?

Aren't they the idol makers? I mean, they're the ones that have perpetuated the policies that have led to much evil, sexual evil, sin, abuse.

I mean, the over -sexualization of things pretty much has been pushed by media sources.

We'll get into that a little more later, but why would you go to them? Why would you go to the idol makers to apologize for participating in idolatry?

You don't do that. You go to the Lord or the people that you've wronged, that you've offended.

Acts 2 is similar in this corporate apology. We've individually sinned.

We have done evil things. All of us have done it. We've participated in something evil. We're repenting to the

Lord. That's not what was done here. I want to explain to you what the left's version of an apology is.

This will shed, I think, a lot of light on this situation and the situations that are to come, where you're see evangelical leaders,

Christian leaders going to media sources to throw something under the bus that they don't want to be a part of anymore, that was vilified by the media, or to apologize in some way.

This is what the left does. They apologize for systems of oppression and participating in those systems of oppression.

Sin is a power that is not equally distributed. Sin is power that is not equally distributed.

Even in this, the left are hypocrites because they use this mechanism to get power for themselves.

Essentially, that's why they will say there's white privilege, for instance, or now it seems like the oppressor classes just keep getting longer.

There's straight privilege. There's male privilege. If you're rich, there's privilege.

If there's anything that indicates that you are part of the oppressor class in the eyes of the media, you are vilified.

Of course, the media gets a free pass. The world that condemns tends to not point the finger at themselves.

If you're white and there's nothing else that you've done, you could be the least racist person in the world, but the fact that you're white means you're participating in a system of oppression because you have privilege.

You need to apologize for that. You need to repent of that. This is not sin in the biblical sense, but this is sin in the eyes of the world right now.

The left has controlled this narrative, I believe. Scripture does not deal with individuals according to systems, though.

This is where the problem lies. It deals with individuals according to their sin. Roman slavery, for instance, did not comport, it did not conform to the rules in place for Hebrew slavery.

Roman slavery compared to slavery is very abusive. But what did Paul do? He said to individually follow

God's law. He said to slave masters to treat their slaves, to regulate themselves, to obey God's law, treat them with respect.

So that's what he did. Again, meat sacrifice to idols, 1 Corinthians 10.

It's okay to participate in this system in the sense that the meat was being purchased.

You're not individually sinning. But Paul said it's okay if you want to participate not in idolatry, but in purchasing this meat because these idols have no power over you.

So the Bible does not draw this distinction. You don't have to apologize for being part of some system, even though you're not participating in the evil.

What would Daniel do? He is the leader in a pagan system. Everyone under him, when he first became in charge, were basically soothsayers.

They were wicked, and Daniel has to survive in this system.

So what would he do? Is he guilty of being part of this horrible system? Well, he tried to be a light in that system, and he was commended by God for it.

He prayed three times a day. He regulated himself, and he made sure that he was pure in the context of a horrible pagan system with much abuse in it.

So that's how Scripture looks at sin. It looks at us more individually. Now, if everyone in a group is individually pursuing idol worship, then they need to repent to God, as in the case in Judges that we just read.

So this is the reason that people like Edwards, Whitefield, Robert Louis Dabney, or any preacher that's associated with the

Confederacy at all, they're automatically guilty because they were part of a system of oppression, even if they never sinned.

So if Edwards, Whitefield, Robert Louis Dabney, these guys believed in regulating slavery according to a biblical principle, and they tried it.

No one's perfect, of course, but their attempt was to, in this system, individually regulate themselves.

Even if the laws were not always, as Dabney points out in Defense of Virginia in the

South, even if the laws regulating slavery were not righteous and conforming to a biblical standard in every sense, that doesn't mean that anyone who participated, everyone who participated in it, was in and of themselves sinful.

There could be people with good Christian motivations who, even out of the goodness of their heart, and to teach

Christianity, to rescue someone from an abusive relationship, I mean, the list goes on. There's a lot of justifications for participating in an ungodly system, but not participating in the sin of the ungodly system.

But nowadays, evangelical leaders, and I went over this in my last video, they want to just condemn someone, throw them overboard, because, well, they were in this system.

And what does that say about us? What do we do in this system, in this American system in which abortion is so prevalent, pornography?

I mean, we can go through all the lists of the evils in the system we live in, and maybe Christians 100 years from now will want to throw us all overboard.

I sure hope not, because we're trying to be salt and light. We should be. But this is not, there's no grace in the left's concept of repentance.

Repentance is not really, or I should say, there's no forgiveness for an apology. So white people, or pick your oppressor category, they must apologize even though they never sinned.

And this is not true apologizing. I'm going to give you an example. Liam Neeson, if you were paying attention, this was like, what, two or three weeks ago.

He said he's not racist, but like 40 years ago, he had a friend who was raped, and he was asking for descriptors of the rapist, because he wanted to basically maybe have some vigilante justice served, which isn't right.

But one of the descriptors was it was a black person. And so Liam Neeson for about a week is going to these neighborhoods where he might find the person who did this horrible thing, and maybe he'll get into an altercation, and he can get some of his vigilante justice out, which sounds a lot like Liam Neeson.

That's the characters he plays. But anyway, so he's on Good Morning America with Robin Roberts, and he is struggling.

He's being very articulate, but he keeps repeating himself if you watch the interview, because he keeps saying, you know, there was this rage in me, and it wasn't right.

He keeps saying this, and Robin Roberts, she's an African American woman, but she's not letting him off the hook.

She says to him, essentially, how does this make us feel, us in the black community?

How are we supposed to feel about this? He's like, I know, it's horrible that I thought this. I'm not racist.

It was just this primal urge I had 40 years ago. He's trying to reach out his hand to her at the end of the interview, because she is not letting him get off the hook, and there is no forgiveness in this.

She, at one point, asks him, you know, what lessons have you learned, or what are we supposed to take away from this, is what she asked, and he says to her,

I don't know, you tell me. He's afraid. He wants her to be the spokesperson for this, and he's begging for, you just see it in his body language and everything, he's yearning for some kind of forgiveness for what he did 40 years ago, and so I'm using this example to show that, if anything, maybe, you know,

Liam Neeson was wrong, because he wanted to punish this person who did this crime, and take the law into his own hands.

He wasn't sinning against all African Americans, or in this case, he was in Ireland, so it would be,

I guess, African Irish, but all black people in this category, he wasn't sinning against all of them, past, present, future, because he wanted to deal out some vigilante justice to one person, something he regrets now.

That's absolutely insane to think that way, but that's how the left thinks. You have to apologize for the system of oppression, because that's the evil.

The evil is in the systems. It's not in individual hearts. Total depravity is denied. Original sin is now what you're born into.

If you're born into an oppressor class, that is original sin. It has nothing to do with your heart, and we have to recognize this, and I think

Mueller, unfortunately, and others are falling for a trap, because they're starting to assume the same things the world assumes, and I don't want to be part of this system.

I need to separate myself, so we're going to get into this a little more, but this is why we can welcome in someone like Martin Luther King Jr.,

and he's into the fold of heroes that we have, but Nathan Bedford Forrest, for instance, he is part of the oppressive group, so we can't have him in, and just for those who don't know,

Martin Luther King Jr. disobeyed God's laws in many ways. There's many good things he did, but having affairs, believing in heresy, not good things, and we welcome him into the fold.

We, as evangelicals in general, welcome him. They put him in churches and events and so forth.

He's a good guy. Well, is he a good guy personally in his life? Did he repent of these sins?

It doesn't look like it, so take someone like Nathan Bedford Forrest, who's a complicated figure, but there's a lot of bad things that he did, a lot of things that were not good, and he even had the racial views of his time that were not good, and then at the end of his life, towards the end of his life, getting towards the end, you could see this man becomes a

Christian. He's basically an early civil rights leader with a speech he makes in Memphis, kisses a black woman on the cheek, but he is castigated because of his association.

I mean, he even ended the Klan in a sense or tried to, but he's castigated because of his association with the Klan in the early days and his association with the

Confederacy, with slavery in general, so we throw him overboard.

Horrible man. Gospel Coalition has put out, or maybe it's Desiring God, they probably both have, put out articles against this guy, and yet MLK is welcomed into the fold.

There's some hypocrisy going on here. Why is MLK welcomed in? Well, I think it's because of what

I just described. He's not a part of this oppressor class, and your status is elevated if you are able to be in a quote -unquote victim group.

Even if you are sinning against the Lord, there's a pass that's given, whereas Nathan Bedford Forrest, that pass isn't given.

He's white. He participated in these things that we find abhorrent. Even if he legitimately became a

Christian, and just he's an example of what a Paul is. Paul, who is persecuting the

Christians and then turns his life around by the grace of God. Great God did this, and he's a hero to the church.

Would modern Christians be able to accept a Paul? Would we be able to forgive that?

Or at least, it's not even up to us to forgive, it's up to God to forgive, but if he had, let's say, hurt us specifically, would we forgive him?

So that's my first concern with the statement by Al Mohler and similar statements.

It's the nature of the corporate apologies. These aren't Christian corporate apologies. We have sinned.

Forgive us Lord. It is, we don't want to be part of this system. The world finds abhorrent.

Hey world, we just need to let you know that's not us. That's not me.

I'm going to separate myself from the pack here. The other concern I have is the prophetic voice, I think, has been lost.

So if you go to 1 Corinthians chapter 6 verses 1 through 11, I don't want to read the whole thing, but essentially,

I'm going to read the first few verses. It says, Does any one of you, when he is a case against his neighbor, dare to go to the law before the saints?

Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? If the world is judged by you, are you not competent to constitute the smallest law courts?

Do you not know that we will judge angels? So he goes on, Paul, and he makes this case that, look, the world does not have moral superiority over you.

It's ridiculous for you to be going to court over things. You're going to be judging these guys. You're going to be judging the world.

You're going to be judging that judge who you're in front of to settle a dispute between two

Christians, or more than two. So what does this have to do with the Moeller apology? Well, Moeller's not going to a court.

You can say, oh, it's out of context. This isn't court. Well, there's a greater moral point, though, that's being made here, and that's that the saints will judge the world.

So we could call it the court of public opinion, if you want, but that's where some of these evangelical leaders seem to want to go.

They want to go to the court of public opinion to point out that they are not in accord with some of the things that this court of public opinion thinks about, the greater group they're part of.

So they're going to an individual or an entity that has no moral superiority.

They're not capable of granting forgiveness. Why would you go there? 1

John 4, I was just reading this this morning, so I figured I'd incorporate it, but verse 7, beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows

God. For one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this, the love of God was manifested in us, that God sent his son into the world so that we might live through him.

And this is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

Now, what does that have to do with it? Well, where does love come from? So I'm taking this an extra step.

I'm saying, not only is the world incapable of forgiving, but the world just doesn't even understand the concept of love.

Why would you go to them to communicate your love, let's say, for victims of something horrible?

I mean, I'm not saying it's wrong necessarily for the world to pick up on a story. I'm not saying it's wrong necessarily to, even if the situation comes up, the topic comes up, say to non -Christians,

I think it's important for them to know that, you know what? I did something that was wrong, and I was wrong.

But you're not apologizing to them, and they shouldn't be the first person you run to, to get the word out about something.

And they certainly don't, they don't have any moral authority to judge a situation. So why go to them, especially first?

Why? In matters of faith, in matters of forgiveness.

So they don't have the capacity to love. So that's one of my concerns.

Where does the prophetic voice go? If every time a Christian leader comes into the world, the realm of the media and so forth, it's to apologize for something or to admit a fault, there is no prophetic voice.

You know, I'm sure all the prophets in Scripture had their faults. They did. But when they went to speak prophetically to evil, to say, conform to the will of God, repent, they're not there saying, you know what?

I'm wrong too. I've done my share of evil. I just want to, you know, that's not, that's even missing from this.

There's nothing in this that indicts the world. So there's no prophetic voice. It's just, it'd be like the prophet coming in to the king and saying, you know,

I'm just so wrong. And I hope you'll get the hint that you should consider maybe whether you're wrong or not, but I'm not going to say that because I don't want to offend you, but I want you to look at my example.

There is, there is a sense. I'm not saying you shouldn't ever judge by, there is no setting an example. But what

I am saying is, that's not a prophetic voice. And maybe, you know,

Al Mohler here is not trying to be a prophetic voice. That's fair. But when is he going to be the prophetic voice?

Is it only talking to Christians? Or when he has the opportunity to be in front of the world, is he going to be the prophetic voice?

And this isn't just about Mohler, right? I'm using him right now, like I said, because of the situation that happened over the weekend.

But, you know, pick your leader. So what would motivate this? Why would Mohler or another leader want to go to the media first to pay attention to what they say and get the word out about some moral failure through them?

I think one is separating themselves from other sinners. So this is a self -protection strategy, perhaps.

There's pressure from the world, I think, that's dictating how Christians behave. This isn't pressure from the

Word of God, necessarily. This is pressure from the world. So right now, the pressure is Southern Baptist Convention, sex abuse scandal.

The pressure would be to separate from that and to show that, hey, I'm not part of that. That's not me.

Is it bold to apologize for something the world applauds? Is it bold?

It's not. If the world is applauding you for throwing under the bus maybe some entity that they hate, that's not necessarily a bold move.

That's a self -preservation move. And I think that might have something to do with this. And my evidence is because, number one, the source is the media that evangelical leaders seem to want to go to sometimes, some evangelical leaders.

And last I checked, there's ways to get the word out about some moral failure through your denomination or Christian sources.

Or like I said, the sources in which the offense took place. If it was in chapel, apologize in chapel. And there's no new information in this case with Al Mohler and C .J.

Mahaney. No new information has come out to indict C .J. Mahaney. But now there's an apology. The timing's unusual.

And like I also said, the media has no power to forgive. So why go to them?

What's the motive in going to them? I think it's self -preservation. I don't see another way here. The Lord's Prayer says that we should forgive others as God has forgiven us.

The media has no power to forgive us for offenses that we did not commit to them.

We haven't wronged them. So it's for those reasons that I suspect, highly suspect, to the point that I'm like 99 % sure there's some self -preservation going on here.

And maybe there's some nobility behind it. Maybe Mohler in this case, he wants to not just preserve himself, but maybe the institution he's part of.

This is not going to win you favors though. This is not going to do it because the media will always want more.

In fact, in the article that broke from the Houston Chronicle, there was even a quote in there.

I didn't write down the gentleman's name, but there was a quote in which someone who had been associated with C .J.

Mahaney and had left basically says, Mohler hasn't gone far enough. He just hasn't done it. He's got to call up all the victims. It'll never be enough.

That's one of my points. So here's the hope. Ultimately, every sin is against God.

But God's forgiveness is on the basis of the finished work of Christ. And he is far more forgiving than the media.

The media will not forgive you. They will hold up their version of the law, which is a false version. It's idolatry.

And they will say, you still don't meet our standard. And you never will if you're a Christian. I'd rather go to God.

I'd rather go to him. I'd rather go to fellow believers who I've wronged, if the case is in the context of fellow believers, than go to the media.

Media cannot dispense grace. They can get the word out that you're maybe a little better than the other people they hate, but they still hate you.

I think we need to pray for Al Mohler. He is in a tough spot. And I don't pretend to know in every sense what he's going through.

He must be under so much pressure. I don't know exactly what I would do if I was in his spot right now.

So I need to say that. The man, as far as I can tell, has been very godly. He means a lot.

And if Al Mohler ever watches this, you mean a lot to me. And I have no reason to think he will.

But I just want you who are watching this video to know I respect him very deeply. And I know

I have moral failures that go beyond what he just did in this case,

I'm sure. But this is a problem. This is a problem. And it's a trend.

And it's becoming more and more widespread. And people are taking the cues, others, to do the same thing, to go to the media, to throw under the bus other

Christians. And I just don't think this is not only is it not right, it's not conforming to biblical understanding of repentance and forgiveness.

It is not a good strategy, just from a logical standpoint, just knowing how the media treats these things.

So that's what I wanted to get out there today. Corporate apologies. When are they right?

When are they not right? And I want to end on this note of hope.

So like I said, pray for Albert Mohler. And thank God that we can come to him and be actually forgiven. Just because someone doesn't like you in the media or even on social media.

Just because you're hated by some. Jesus said you're going to be hated, right? That's not the end of the world.

We don't need to rely on human beings, especially those in the world, for our forgiveness.