Name: R. Albert Mohler, Jr.
Why you should know him: Dr. Mohler was listed in a TIME magazine cover story as one of its "50 for the Future". Christianity Today described Dr. Mohler as one of forty emerging evangelical leaders and Time.com called him the "reigning intellectual of the evangelical movement in the U.S".
Denomination: Southern Baptist
Position: President and Professor of Christian Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary -- the flagship school of the Southern Baptist Convention and one of the largest seminaries in the world; Host of "The Albert Mohler Program," a daily radio show distributed nationwide by Salem Communications; Editor-in-Chief of The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology
Previous: Editor of The Christian Index; Associate Editor of Preaching
Education:
B.A. Samford University
M. Div. Southern Seminary
PhD Southern Seminary (in systematic and historical theology)
Postgraduate study/research at the St. Meinrad School of Theology and Oxford University (England)
Area of expertise/interest: Evangelical theology; Southern Baptist doctrine; cultural issues
Books: Contributed chapters to several books including Here We Stand: A Call From Confessing Evangelicals and The Coming Evangelical Crisis.
Other writings: Maintains a weblog at Crosswalk.com; Submitted an entry to the EO Symposium on Torture.
Assessment: Dr. Mohler is a prime example of the type of evangelical leader who has a profound impact on our country while remaining relatively unknown outside of Christian circles. He was one of the key figures in the conservative resurgence within the Southern Baptist Convention, a monumental change that affected the largest Protestant denomination in America.
As bold as he is intelligent, Mohler often takes positions that are “politically incorrect” (e.g., his claim that Jews and Muslims don’t worship the “same God” as Christians) or that would raise the eyebrows of his fellow Baptists (i.e., his view that couple who choose “deliberate childlessness” are in violation of God’s moral order). He is also an eerily prolific writer, producing a quality article on culture and society for his weblog every weekday.
Anyone who wants to know the direction that conservative evangelicalism will take in America would do well to keep track of this influential theologian.
(This post is #7 in the "Know Your Evangelicals" series.)
1
I wonder why Time refers to him as "the reigning intellectual of the evangelical movement in the US"" Mohler is obviously extremely intelligent and also extremely well-read, and I appreciate his leadership. But when I think of "reigning intellectual" I think of scholars who produce scholarly books or journal articles that affect whole fields of intellectual pursuit. It seems to me that Mohler serves the evangelical community well, but I would suggest Mark Noll, Nathan Hatch, Alvin Plantinga, Nick Wolterstorff, Christian Smith, and Eugene McCarraher as scholars who make a difference in the intellectual realm.
posted on 05.19.2006 5:47 AM2
Personally, I consider Dallas Willard as "the reigning intellectual" but then again, isn't that like saying who is the most beautiful?
Much too subjective of a claim.
3
When I hear "reigning intellectual of the evangelical movement," I think Pat Robertson.
That was a joke.
Seriously, while I disagree with him about most things, I do respect Mohler for the quality and quantity of his output. He's not an especially original thinker, but he is a very good synthesizer and commmunicator. BTW, he has cut back from daily commentaries to a more human output of just three a week.
And Eva Longoria is the most beuatiful woman alive.
posted on 05.19.2006 1:33 PM4
Mohler strikes me as a rock-solid thinker, but I can’t always agree with him. For instance, in his stance against deliberate childlessness, he makes sure to point out that there should be no stigma against those that want children, but can’t have them. However, by bringing up the subject in the first place, any childless couples who enter Baptist churches will be asked (in a nice, roundabout way) why they don’t have kids. Then they’ll be forced either to disclose uncomfortably personal medical information as a price of continued fellowship, or dodge the question, and (probably) lose their welcome. Maybe he thinks the ostracism of a few disappointed pairs of would-be parents is a fair price to keep the real heathens out.
posted on 05.19.2006 3:20 PM5
Why would you say that Southern seminary is the "flagship"? Southwestern, for instance, is larger.
John M.,
That's just not the case where I've been! No one has been all that curious about childlessness. Of course, I haven't been privy to all the female conversations - but I assume you haven't either.
6
No, I'm not privvy to all the female conversations, but I AM married, and my wife tells me that this is one of the first things women get asked when the arrive in a fellowship situation. The reason being that women with children devote a large percentage of small talk to anecdotes about their kids, and women who can't contribute do get (politely) interrogated.
posted on 05.22.2006 2:50 PM7
Ah, and once again, we see that if we don't fit into the WASP, 2.4 kids, SUV paradigm, we're expected to conveniently disappear. Exactly why I stopped going to "church".
posted on 05.30.2006 10:52 PM