Thursday, September 27, 2007
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Martin Luther Is Turning in His Grave
I have come up with a device on which anonymous charges can be leveled without fear of consequences, retribution, or having to answer for one's own obvious faults and inconsistencies. I will soon be selling self-destructing tape recorders (I'm an old school "establishment" guy, after all) for anyone who can't quite muster the courage of Luther to nail your theses to the cathedral door. You can record your charges and then they will self-destruct as soon as they destroy the object of your disdain.
I am concerned about one slight inconvenience, however. I can't limit the scope of buyers. They won't be sold only to SBC pastors who enjoy criticizing leaders, but to their church members as well. In fact, I anticipate that a few spouses will order them, too. After all, if we believe that airing our gripes publicly rather than privately is optimal, wouldn't that strengthen our marriages? Seminary professors might be shocked to find that their students are buying them, too. Imagine the irony of a professor who makes charges against a school president having to face accusations of his students that he intimidates them or is simply a lousy teacher.
I think the tapes aren't the only thing I see self-destructing.
iPod models are soon to follow.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Mohler's Motives and Ministry
I have a wonderful, complicated, frustrating, fulfilling and enjoyable relationship with R. Albert Mohler, Jr.
As a close friend he simultaneously makes me laugh, examine myself, suffer aggravation, marvel at his uncanny intelligence, and wonder why he doesn’t see things the way I do. We have shared holidays together, indulged our mutual fascination with Sir Winston and Lady Margaret, prayed for one another’s children, and confessed our amazement that we each married such an unbelievably perfect (for us) woman. When I felt that I needed another voice speaking truth in one of my children’s ears, I have enlisted his help and found him willing to put my son’s needs at the top of his priorities. When one of his children has needed a special word of encouragement, I have tried to give it.
I don’t even know what memory of him I would list as my favorite. The first time I spoke with him was soon after he was elected President of Southern. He had been attacked in the press, especially in the Western Recorder, and I looked up his number at the Christian Index just to call him and assure him that at least one pastor in Kentucky was overjoyed that he had been chosen to lead the flagship seminary. I was a bit stunned when in that conversation he immediately began to recite the history of Ashland Avenue Baptist Church, of which I was the pastor.
That was 1993, but I didn’t actually meet him until the summer of 1996, at the Southern Baptist Convention. Evangelist David Miller introduced us and I immediately liked him. Later that fall he invited me to preach in Southern’s half-empty chapel and afterward we went out to lunch. I asked him who he planned to get to teach preaching. I can say in all honesty that at that moment the thought of teaching preaching at Southern had not even entered my mind. I certainly didn’t think a New Testament and Greek guy like myself would even be allowed to teach preaching. But by March of 1997, I had been invited to come to Southern and, after much prayer and struggle, I had accepted.
The Lord uses a lot of things to guide us in His will. I can summarize what He used in my life in two words: Al Mohler. At Ashland Avenue I had a great vision for a great church, but when Dr. Mohler shared his vision for Southern and for the world with me, I was caught up in it. I had discovered someone with a bigger vision than mine, someone with the potential for real kingdom impact that would even go beyond this generation. I wanted to be a part of it.
Dr. Mohler had to appoint me to the faculty in 1997, because that faculty would never have elected me. From the day I arrived I felt the disdain and resentment of many. The Western Recorder even dredged up the Whitsitt controversy and all but blamed it on me in their blatant ridicule of and opposition to my appointment to the faculty. I left a great church that I dearly loved, the financial security of the pastorate, and the prestige that comes with being a leader of a significant church, but what I got in return was a friend. Al and Mary Mohler befriended the Yorks in gracious and loving ways that I will always treasure.
As much as I enjoyed him as a friend, I relished him as a leader. I watched as he selected top-notch faculty and forged them together with a common purpose. We were all there for theological reasons and to be a part of the miracle that was unfolding each day before our eyes, to be sure, but we were also there for him.
I have never seen an institutional leader with such expansive knowledge of every facet of his organization. He can predict the anticipated life of the flooring in Norton hall, explain and locate the labyrinthine sewer system beneath the “Josephus bowl” (a name he has tried to eradicate by renaming it the “Seminary lawn”), rattle off the portfolio and conservative investment strategy of the endowment fund, and then quote his favorite lines from “Nacho Libre.” He does a killer Jack Black.
Once we were at Sea Island, Georgia, for a meeting and we took a side trip to the Anglican church founded by Charles Wesley. The old chapel boasts many stained glass windows, most notably a Tiffany. A woman in the crowd asked the docent about the other windows. “Who made them?” she wondered. Immediately I saw two reactions I recognized. The first was the docent’s obvious discomfort that she couldn’t answer the question. I found the throat clearing, the stall, and the squirm of ignorance all too familiar. At the same time, I saw a look on Al’s face I would see many times through the years. He bore the visage of embarrassed knowledge. I could tell he knew the answer to the woman’s question, but he was deciding whether or not to tell. He certainly didn’t want to humiliate the docent, but he knew that if he were asking the question he would want the answer no matter who gave it. So he sheepishly raised his hand and proceeded to name the stained glass school that produced each of the windows and to point out their characteristic marks. He was, after all, an educator.
I sometimes don’t see eye-to-eye with him, yet I have always enjoyed and availed myself of the right to voice those disagreements. Most people at Southern could affirm two statements about me: no one is more loyal to Al Mohler (though many are certainly as loyal), and no one is more honest with Al Mohler. I sometimes think I see him rolling his eyes when I walk through his door because he senses I have come to tell him that he is doing something wrong or failing to do something that needs to be done or done differently. We’ve had a couple of very sharp disagreements. I once disappointed him terribly by unintentionally divulging information of a personal nature that I had no business sharing. On more than one occasion he has angered me to the point of me telling him exactly what I think in less than the kindest way. We have argued like, well, brothers.
That's why I find the vague accusations and gossip that Boyd Luter has both leveled and repeated ludicrous, and I cannot let them go unchallenged or unanswered. Al Mohler is far from perfect, but he is gifted for leadership and has a heart for the Lord and for the good of the kingdom that I see in few people. He may be an imperfect leader but he's my imperfect leader.
Dr. Luter has presumed a role and a talent that he neither possesses nor has earned. His assertion that Dr. Mohler was somehow in sin when he gave the seminary report at the SBC this year is breathtakingly arrogant and reveals far more about Dr. Luter than it could ever say about Dr. Mohler.
I didn't much like Morris Chapman's report and I find myself increasingly disenchanted with his leadership or lack thereof, but I don't see myself as his Nathan nor capable of judging his heart. I might go into Al Mohler's office, as I have, and tell him he's crazy, as I have, but I am not going to tell him he's in sin unless I can show him definitively that he has violated the Word of God. I might tell him he had better be careful, that he needs to strengthen certain weaknesses, that he needs to pay attention to certain things that seem to escape his notice, but I am not going to label human weaknesses and flaws sin, at least not any greater sin than that with which all of us live by virtue of our human condition.
I want to examine Dr. Luter's juvenile logic. Premise number one: Being angry overnight is sin. Premise number 2: Al Mohler was angry the night before he gave his report. Premise number three. Al Mohler was angry when he gave his report the next day. THEREFORE: Al Mohler was in sin and needs to repent before the entire convention.
Is anyone else finding this as crazy as I am? This is precisely the kind of scatological writing that earned the spanking for SBCOutpost it has gotten from once-friendly SBC execs.
Let me answer these things. I know Al Mohler's anger. I was friends with Al Mohler's anger. That, sir, was not Al Mohler's anger.
Really. I know the man well, and he simply wasn't angry when he gave that report. Now we can have a legitimate discussion about whether or not he needs to work on certain communication techniques. I am confident that he doesn't want to be thought of as angry when he's not angry. I haven't discussed any of this with him, but I don't have to. He has a passion to improve himself and if the criticism had been that he needs to work on the perception he creates, he would listen to and consider that. But who gets the right to tell someone what he was thinking, and how does one answer it other than to truthfully deny it?
Also underlying this moral accusation is the assumption that all anger is sin, and it simply isn't. "Let not the sun go down on your wrath" is written in the context of getting along with our brothers. If anyone is in sin here, it would be Dr. Luter for ripping a verse out of context and misapplying it. He should read the preceding verse that reads, "Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another." At what point did he make an attempt to speak the truth with his neighbor, Dr. Mohler? He has fallen prey to the same disease that has infected so many other bloggers: they mistake blogging about their brother for going to their brother. It sounds to me from his barrage of anti-Mohler posts that HE'S the one with the anger problem.
I have had very public disagreements with men like Dwight McKissic and David Rogers, but I love each of those men as brothers in Christ and I am confident that they would tell anyone they found me not only open and honest but also loving and gracious. That is certainly my testimony about them. I might think their theology a bit aberrant on certain minor points, but I find their character sterling. I choose to see the best in them and I believe they have done the same for me, and we are all better for it. When disagreement devolves into denigration and accusation no one wins.
Dr. Luter or anyone else is free to question Al Mohler's policies, beliefs, and actions. He is a big boy and can handle it. But don't dare think you can read his heart when you don't even know him. Jesus said "Go to your brother," not "blog on your brother."
Then, after repeated personal attacks on Dr. Mohler, Dr. Luter published an an anonymous letter from someone who talked to someone who either works or worked at Southern and he repeats things of which neither he nor the author of the letter has any firsthand knowledge. Now folks, the Word of God has a few words for that. Gossip will suffice for my purposes.
When someone in my church comes to me with an accusation about a brother, I make them write it and sign it or I don't act on it and I tell them that they are a gossip. If they aren't willing to stand behind the accusation they best keep their mouths shut. That unwillingness to personally confront shows not only that the information can't be trusted, but also that the motive of the person making the accusation cannot be one of helping the brother he believes in error.
Some men just need to quit shopping at Victoria's Secret and start hanging out at the Bass Pro Shop.
Well, THIS SBC professor is speaking out, too, and I don't care who knows who I am or who agrees with me. Printing this kind of gossip, all while telling others they are in sin, is sort of like a bunch of drunks heckling jaywalkers.
But since the accusations against Dr. Mohler are out there, I am going to deal with them. In the interest of full disclosure, I have not discussed this article with Dr. Mohler, I have not asked his permission to publish it, and I am convinced that even he won't like everything I say. I am not sure he'll be pleased with this, but I am not afraid of any reprisals, of him exacting any vengeance. That's just crazy.
In all candor, Dr. Mohler is just like everyone else to whom I have offered criticism. He takes it a little hard at first, then he thinks about it and acts on it, either rejecting it or accepting it. He hasn't done everything I have suggested. I think I can say he hasn't done most things I have suggested. But his door--and his heart--remain open. Can I really expect more than that?
Let me take on the anonymous professor's accusations. First, I have to address the charge that morale has suffered among the faculty. That might be true for some. I don't know. Everyone on this faculty can with justification look at much of what Dr. Mohler does (for he does much) and say we wouldn't do that or we wouldn't do it that way. Fair enough. I am not Al Mohler and I would certainly lead the seminary differently than Al Mohler. I would probably be more pastoral to this faculty than he. We're different like that. There are a few things I wouldn't have done. I wouldn't have grown this into the largest seminary in the world. I wouldn't have become the "reigning intellectual" of evangelicalism. I wouldn't have had the foresight to start Boyce College. I wouldn't have protected the seminary's endowment fund from the high risk investments so popular in the 90's. I wouldn't have endured threats, being burned in effigy in the Josephus Bowl--um, excuse me, Seminary Lawn--and being spit on by students. For my part, I think if you are on this faculty and you need frequent face time with the president and lots of affirmation from the administration, you are in the wrong place. We've grown too big for that. If I taught at the University of Kentucky I wouldn't expect that. Why would I here?
We have over 4000 students now. And do you know the number one reason? They come here for Mohler. They see him on CNN. They hear him at Desiring God or the Shepherd's Conference, or the SBC. He connects with these kids because he speaks truth to them. You should see him when he walks that goofy dog of his on the Boyce campus in the evenings. He drops in their dorm rooms, walks down their halls, and listens to their music--which I never thought I would see. They love him. Fourteen years ago students stood with their backs to him while he spoke in chapel. Now they crowd in the place on the days he preaches--which is frequently. While some students may come for the faculty, they come for the faculty he assembled.
Let's be honest. If Southern Seminary had maintained an enrollment of 1600 students, if Mohler had focused only on the seminary and not on the larger context, if he didn't preach in great pulpits or have great interest, no one would care. In that case he could affirm a much-smaller faculty, he could have a lot more time. But who would be the voice of orthodox Christianity speaking truth to the Mormons, denouncing Dawkins and Hitchens, interacting and engaging the culture?
The pusillanimous professor also suggests that Dr. Mohler's ". . .fits of anger, selfishness and disrespect toward his administrators have hastened or prompted the departures of more than a half dozen." OK. Who are you talking about? Administrators that left to become the president of a sister seminary? the president of Lifeway? The president of Criswell College? The president of Union University? Two vice-presidents of Lifeway? If indeed the lilly-livered letter writer teaches at Southern (which I, for one, doubt), he ought to beg Mohler to hurt his feelings and drive him away to head an agency and make a lot more money elsewhere! In fact, that must be on the top of any search committee's list of qualifications: must be hurt, angry, and bitter, willing to leave. Give me a break. Southern has obviously become fertile soil for sprouting SBC leaders. Surely Mohler ought to be lauded rather than criticized for his ability both to choose and to develop great leaders.
I have been in just about every faculty meeting in the last ten years and not once have I ever seen Dr. Mohler show inappropriate anger. Frankly, I can't remember him showing anger of any kind before the faculty. At just our last faculty meeting I and others vocally opposed a recommendation from the administration and then the faculty decided to do something other than the administration recommended. Dr. Mohler's chairing of the issue was some of the best leadership I have ever seen. He forced the faculty to think through all sides of the issue, taking every piece of information into account. Then when I made a motion different than the administration proposed, the faculty voted unanimously. After the vote, Dr. Mohler commended the faculty on their careful deliberation of a very difficult matter. I did not fear a scolding, reprisal, or payback and none came.
Dr. Mohler is like every one of us. To those with whom he is close he may show more emotion. I certainly do. I am not saying the man is perfect. Far from it. I am saying the man is a great man who has flaws that he seeks to overcome by God's grace. From time to time I tell Dr. Mohler one of those areas that he needs to work on. On a few occasions he has returned the favor. That's what people who care for each other do. You just can't love someone anonymously. Anonymity is for attackers, not brothers.
Little men with lots of time find it easy to discover faults in great men with little time.
As a close friend he simultaneously makes me laugh, examine myself, suffer aggravation, marvel at his uncanny intelligence, and wonder why he doesn’t see things the way I do. We have shared holidays together, indulged our mutual fascination with Sir Winston and Lady Margaret, prayed for one another’s children, and confessed our amazement that we each married such an unbelievably perfect (for us) woman. When I felt that I needed another voice speaking truth in one of my children’s ears, I have enlisted his help and found him willing to put my son’s needs at the top of his priorities. When one of his children has needed a special word of encouragement, I have tried to give it.
I don’t even know what memory of him I would list as my favorite. The first time I spoke with him was soon after he was elected President of Southern. He had been attacked in the press, especially in the Western Recorder, and I looked up his number at the Christian Index just to call him and assure him that at least one pastor in Kentucky was overjoyed that he had been chosen to lead the flagship seminary. I was a bit stunned when in that conversation he immediately began to recite the history of Ashland Avenue Baptist Church, of which I was the pastor.
That was 1993, but I didn’t actually meet him until the summer of 1996, at the Southern Baptist Convention. Evangelist David Miller introduced us and I immediately liked him. Later that fall he invited me to preach in Southern’s half-empty chapel and afterward we went out to lunch. I asked him who he planned to get to teach preaching. I can say in all honesty that at that moment the thought of teaching preaching at Southern had not even entered my mind. I certainly didn’t think a New Testament and Greek guy like myself would even be allowed to teach preaching. But by March of 1997, I had been invited to come to Southern and, after much prayer and struggle, I had accepted.
The Lord uses a lot of things to guide us in His will. I can summarize what He used in my life in two words: Al Mohler. At Ashland Avenue I had a great vision for a great church, but when Dr. Mohler shared his vision for Southern and for the world with me, I was caught up in it. I had discovered someone with a bigger vision than mine, someone with the potential for real kingdom impact that would even go beyond this generation. I wanted to be a part of it.
Dr. Mohler had to appoint me to the faculty in 1997, because that faculty would never have elected me. From the day I arrived I felt the disdain and resentment of many. The Western Recorder even dredged up the Whitsitt controversy and all but blamed it on me in their blatant ridicule of and opposition to my appointment to the faculty. I left a great church that I dearly loved, the financial security of the pastorate, and the prestige that comes with being a leader of a significant church, but what I got in return was a friend. Al and Mary Mohler befriended the Yorks in gracious and loving ways that I will always treasure.
As much as I enjoyed him as a friend, I relished him as a leader. I watched as he selected top-notch faculty and forged them together with a common purpose. We were all there for theological reasons and to be a part of the miracle that was unfolding each day before our eyes, to be sure, but we were also there for him.
I have never seen an institutional leader with such expansive knowledge of every facet of his organization. He can predict the anticipated life of the flooring in Norton hall, explain and locate the labyrinthine sewer system beneath the “Josephus bowl” (a name he has tried to eradicate by renaming it the “Seminary lawn”), rattle off the portfolio and conservative investment strategy of the endowment fund, and then quote his favorite lines from “Nacho Libre.” He does a killer Jack Black.
Once we were at Sea Island, Georgia, for a meeting and we took a side trip to the Anglican church founded by Charles Wesley. The old chapel boasts many stained glass windows, most notably a Tiffany. A woman in the crowd asked the docent about the other windows. “Who made them?” she wondered. Immediately I saw two reactions I recognized. The first was the docent’s obvious discomfort that she couldn’t answer the question. I found the throat clearing, the stall, and the squirm of ignorance all too familiar. At the same time, I saw a look on Al’s face I would see many times through the years. He bore the visage of embarrassed knowledge. I could tell he knew the answer to the woman’s question, but he was deciding whether or not to tell. He certainly didn’t want to humiliate the docent, but he knew that if he were asking the question he would want the answer no matter who gave it. So he sheepishly raised his hand and proceeded to name the stained glass school that produced each of the windows and to point out their characteristic marks. He was, after all, an educator.
I sometimes don’t see eye-to-eye with him, yet I have always enjoyed and availed myself of the right to voice those disagreements. Most people at Southern could affirm two statements about me: no one is more loyal to Al Mohler (though many are certainly as loyal), and no one is more honest with Al Mohler. I sometimes think I see him rolling his eyes when I walk through his door because he senses I have come to tell him that he is doing something wrong or failing to do something that needs to be done or done differently. We’ve had a couple of very sharp disagreements. I once disappointed him terribly by unintentionally divulging information of a personal nature that I had no business sharing. On more than one occasion he has angered me to the point of me telling him exactly what I think in less than the kindest way. We have argued like, well, brothers.
That's why I find the vague accusations and gossip that Boyd Luter has both leveled and repeated ludicrous, and I cannot let them go unchallenged or unanswered. Al Mohler is far from perfect, but he is gifted for leadership and has a heart for the Lord and for the good of the kingdom that I see in few people. He may be an imperfect leader but he's my imperfect leader.
Dr. Luter has presumed a role and a talent that he neither possesses nor has earned. His assertion that Dr. Mohler was somehow in sin when he gave the seminary report at the SBC this year is breathtakingly arrogant and reveals far more about Dr. Luter than it could ever say about Dr. Mohler.
I didn't much like Morris Chapman's report and I find myself increasingly disenchanted with his leadership or lack thereof, but I don't see myself as his Nathan nor capable of judging his heart. I might go into Al Mohler's office, as I have, and tell him he's crazy, as I have, but I am not going to tell him he's in sin unless I can show him definitively that he has violated the Word of God. I might tell him he had better be careful, that he needs to strengthen certain weaknesses, that he needs to pay attention to certain things that seem to escape his notice, but I am not going to label human weaknesses and flaws sin, at least not any greater sin than that with which all of us live by virtue of our human condition.
I want to examine Dr. Luter's juvenile logic. Premise number one: Being angry overnight is sin. Premise number 2: Al Mohler was angry the night before he gave his report. Premise number three. Al Mohler was angry when he gave his report the next day. THEREFORE: Al Mohler was in sin and needs to repent before the entire convention.
Is anyone else finding this as crazy as I am? This is precisely the kind of scatological writing that earned the spanking for SBCOutpost it has gotten from once-friendly SBC execs.
Let me answer these things. I know Al Mohler's anger. I was friends with Al Mohler's anger. That, sir, was not Al Mohler's anger.
Really. I know the man well, and he simply wasn't angry when he gave that report. Now we can have a legitimate discussion about whether or not he needs to work on certain communication techniques. I am confident that he doesn't want to be thought of as angry when he's not angry. I haven't discussed any of this with him, but I don't have to. He has a passion to improve himself and if the criticism had been that he needs to work on the perception he creates, he would listen to and consider that. But who gets the right to tell someone what he was thinking, and how does one answer it other than to truthfully deny it?
Also underlying this moral accusation is the assumption that all anger is sin, and it simply isn't. "Let not the sun go down on your wrath" is written in the context of getting along with our brothers. If anyone is in sin here, it would be Dr. Luter for ripping a verse out of context and misapplying it. He should read the preceding verse that reads, "Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another." At what point did he make an attempt to speak the truth with his neighbor, Dr. Mohler? He has fallen prey to the same disease that has infected so many other bloggers: they mistake blogging about their brother for going to their brother. It sounds to me from his barrage of anti-Mohler posts that HE'S the one with the anger problem.
I have had very public disagreements with men like Dwight McKissic and David Rogers, but I love each of those men as brothers in Christ and I am confident that they would tell anyone they found me not only open and honest but also loving and gracious. That is certainly my testimony about them. I might think their theology a bit aberrant on certain minor points, but I find their character sterling. I choose to see the best in them and I believe they have done the same for me, and we are all better for it. When disagreement devolves into denigration and accusation no one wins.
Dr. Luter or anyone else is free to question Al Mohler's policies, beliefs, and actions. He is a big boy and can handle it. But don't dare think you can read his heart when you don't even know him. Jesus said "Go to your brother," not "blog on your brother."
Then, after repeated personal attacks on Dr. Mohler, Dr. Luter published an an anonymous letter from someone who talked to someone who either works or worked at Southern and he repeats things of which neither he nor the author of the letter has any firsthand knowledge. Now folks, the Word of God has a few words for that. Gossip will suffice for my purposes.
When someone in my church comes to me with an accusation about a brother, I make them write it and sign it or I don't act on it and I tell them that they are a gossip. If they aren't willing to stand behind the accusation they best keep their mouths shut. That unwillingness to personally confront shows not only that the information can't be trusted, but also that the motive of the person making the accusation cannot be one of helping the brother he believes in error.
Some men just need to quit shopping at Victoria's Secret and start hanging out at the Bass Pro Shop.
Well, THIS SBC professor is speaking out, too, and I don't care who knows who I am or who agrees with me. Printing this kind of gossip, all while telling others they are in sin, is sort of like a bunch of drunks heckling jaywalkers.
But since the accusations against Dr. Mohler are out there, I am going to deal with them. In the interest of full disclosure, I have not discussed this article with Dr. Mohler, I have not asked his permission to publish it, and I am convinced that even he won't like everything I say. I am not sure he'll be pleased with this, but I am not afraid of any reprisals, of him exacting any vengeance. That's just crazy.
In all candor, Dr. Mohler is just like everyone else to whom I have offered criticism. He takes it a little hard at first, then he thinks about it and acts on it, either rejecting it or accepting it. He hasn't done everything I have suggested. I think I can say he hasn't done most things I have suggested. But his door--and his heart--remain open. Can I really expect more than that?
Let me take on the anonymous professor's accusations. First, I have to address the charge that morale has suffered among the faculty. That might be true for some. I don't know. Everyone on this faculty can with justification look at much of what Dr. Mohler does (for he does much) and say we wouldn't do that or we wouldn't do it that way. Fair enough. I am not Al Mohler and I would certainly lead the seminary differently than Al Mohler. I would probably be more pastoral to this faculty than he. We're different like that. There are a few things I wouldn't have done. I wouldn't have grown this into the largest seminary in the world. I wouldn't have become the "reigning intellectual" of evangelicalism. I wouldn't have had the foresight to start Boyce College. I wouldn't have protected the seminary's endowment fund from the high risk investments so popular in the 90's. I wouldn't have endured threats, being burned in effigy in the Josephus Bowl--um, excuse me, Seminary Lawn--and being spit on by students. For my part, I think if you are on this faculty and you need frequent face time with the president and lots of affirmation from the administration, you are in the wrong place. We've grown too big for that. If I taught at the University of Kentucky I wouldn't expect that. Why would I here?
We have over 4000 students now. And do you know the number one reason? They come here for Mohler. They see him on CNN. They hear him at Desiring God or the Shepherd's Conference, or the SBC. He connects with these kids because he speaks truth to them. You should see him when he walks that goofy dog of his on the Boyce campus in the evenings. He drops in their dorm rooms, walks down their halls, and listens to their music--which I never thought I would see. They love him. Fourteen years ago students stood with their backs to him while he spoke in chapel. Now they crowd in the place on the days he preaches--which is frequently. While some students may come for the faculty, they come for the faculty he assembled.
Let's be honest. If Southern Seminary had maintained an enrollment of 1600 students, if Mohler had focused only on the seminary and not on the larger context, if he didn't preach in great pulpits or have great interest, no one would care. In that case he could affirm a much-smaller faculty, he could have a lot more time. But who would be the voice of orthodox Christianity speaking truth to the Mormons, denouncing Dawkins and Hitchens, interacting and engaging the culture?
The pusillanimous professor also suggests that Dr. Mohler's ". . .fits of anger, selfishness and disrespect toward his administrators have hastened or prompted the departures of more than a half dozen." OK. Who are you talking about? Administrators that left to become the president of a sister seminary? the president of Lifeway? The president of Criswell College? The president of Union University? Two vice-presidents of Lifeway? If indeed the lilly-livered letter writer teaches at Southern (which I, for one, doubt), he ought to beg Mohler to hurt his feelings and drive him away to head an agency and make a lot more money elsewhere! In fact, that must be on the top of any search committee's list of qualifications: must be hurt, angry, and bitter, willing to leave. Give me a break. Southern has obviously become fertile soil for sprouting SBC leaders. Surely Mohler ought to be lauded rather than criticized for his ability both to choose and to develop great leaders.
I have been in just about every faculty meeting in the last ten years and not once have I ever seen Dr. Mohler show inappropriate anger. Frankly, I can't remember him showing anger of any kind before the faculty. At just our last faculty meeting I and others vocally opposed a recommendation from the administration and then the faculty decided to do something other than the administration recommended. Dr. Mohler's chairing of the issue was some of the best leadership I have ever seen. He forced the faculty to think through all sides of the issue, taking every piece of information into account. Then when I made a motion different than the administration proposed, the faculty voted unanimously. After the vote, Dr. Mohler commended the faculty on their careful deliberation of a very difficult matter. I did not fear a scolding, reprisal, or payback and none came.
Dr. Mohler is like every one of us. To those with whom he is close he may show more emotion. I certainly do. I am not saying the man is perfect. Far from it. I am saying the man is a great man who has flaws that he seeks to overcome by God's grace. From time to time I tell Dr. Mohler one of those areas that he needs to work on. On a few occasions he has returned the favor. That's what people who care for each other do. You just can't love someone anonymously. Anonymity is for attackers, not brothers.
Little men with lots of time find it easy to discover faults in great men with little time.
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