Rev Thomas Littleton 2/16/2019
The recent Houston Chronicle story about sexual abuse followed by years of cover up in the Southern Baptist Convention was the saddest commentary possible on the state of affairs in the church today. The scandal is smoking out leaders who have been part of the cover up . This includes Dr. Albert Mohler head of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in multiple rounds of apology .
https://www.chron.com/houston/article/Leading-Southern-Baptist-apologizes-for-13618120.php
http://news.sbts.edu/2019/02/15/statement-r-albert-mohler-jr-sovereign-grace-churches/
VICTIMS IGNORED
What is striking in this long , now exposed, history is the oppression of the voices of the innocent and harmed- by the people who are in the position to prevent it or at least who had the voice to expose it.
GOOD OLE BOYS FILL THE PULPITS
Part of what feeds the cultural underbelly among evangelical leadership is the “frat house ” mentality among a competitive and often egocentric group of good ole boys. The ties that bind tend to run along theological camps, alumni , and mentor/mentee relationships . Few ministers will speak against their friends with whom they conference and in whose circles they align or against someone whose influence might be needed for their own advancement . This holds true for some – it would seem- no matter how ugly the hidden realities are or how others may have been harmed or stand to be harmed .
A new wave of heavy handed authoritarian local church governance is also playing a role in intimidating and silencing those who report abuse. The faith of many in the circles in which Albert Mohler operates is now firmly under the thumb of both denominational/coalition and local church policy and polity .
BEHIND THE SCENES IN THE MOHLER SPHERE OF INFLUENCE
As this abuse cover up apology came forward – yet another example of Mohler’s own abuses surfaced. This one was in fact the abusive use of his position and authority to aid in the cover up of the abuse he has now apologized for . It involves Christian radio host Janet Mefferd for one -who tells her own story here.
https://janetmefferd.com/2019/02/al-mohlers-incomplete-apology-my-story/
“I began covering the Sovereign Grace Ministries scandal in 2012, on my previous nationally syndicated Christian radio show. As I dug more deeply into sexual-abuse victims’ accusations in a class-action lawsuit, spoke with some of those affected and began to conduct interviews to glean more information, I stated that the SGM scandal was American evangelicalism’s biggest sex scandal to date.”
“My assessments back then are no more significant than the parallel or subsequent assessments made by many others along the same lines. But as a Christian radio host who was covering the story, I was subject to strong and uncomfortable pressure behind the scenes, which others may not have experienced in the same way.”
“And Al Mohler was at the center of that pressure.”
“In 2013, several months after I had been covering the SGM scandal, I was blindsided by two executives from my former radio network’s corporate headquarters on an extended conference call.”
“They told me that they had received a call from “Al Mohler’s office” that expressed “concerns” over my radio interviews with Detwiler, who had weighed in on the class-action lawsuit filed against Mahaney and others. They communicated to me that Mohler’s office did not believe Detwiler was a good guest choice.”
“Knowing that Mohler served on our company’s editorial board, I said, “‘Mohler’s office’ didn’t call you. You mean Al Mohler called you.”
“Neither executive denied it.”
(Read the rest at https://janetmefferd.com/2019/02/al-mohlers-incomplete-apology-my-story/ and the 2012 story where Mefford and others were attempting to bring attention to the growing poblem of abuse/ cover up among evangelical leaders. https://baptistnews.com/article/radio-host-says-evangelicals-ignoring-abuse/#.XGgcOOhKjIV )
VERY TELLING MOHLER INVOLVEMENT BEHIND THE SCENES
Janet Meffords story is well worth your time to understand the efforts Mohler made to continue the cover up and protect his friends. These kinds of unseen forces and pressures are part of what some call the “Evangelical Industrial Complex “or “Big Eva” and what this writer has dubbed “The Evangelical Deep State”. The wider the window opens into and the longer one looks at this underbelly – the more disturbing it becomes .
MOHLER’S APOLOGY HABIT – WHILE COVERING UP SEXUAL ABUSE -HE DROVE THE ADVANCE OF “GAY CHRISTIANITY ” INTO THE SBC IN 2014
In 2014 Albert Mohler advanced the homosexual agenda in the SBC by asserting / accepting and apologizing for being “wrong about homosexual orientations” on behalf of all Southern Baptist and Evangelicals. Sexual Orientation is an American Psychological Association “discovery ” and priority with zero biblical basis
https://albertmohler.com/2014/10/29/erlc-2014-ministering-in-a-post-modern-marriage-culture/
Mohler was only too eager to make this apology, ( unlike the sex abuse cover up issued on February 15th 2019 ) ,and thus allow for this set of “victims” in the LGBT activist community to be given voice in and against the mainstream evangelical church. By doing so Mohler launched an ongoing conversation totally outside the context and bounds of the Word of God and steeped in the language and ideologies of activism for “Social Change” in the church.
Mohler knew what was at stake when he apologized . He knew that allowing for the “discovery ” of “sexual orientation ” to be viewed as an undeniable reality would take the Christian Conversation outside the realm of Biblical authority .
MOHLER PREFERRED VICTIMS
Again Albert Mohler ignored and discounted real victims of abuse and sought to silence them and those who spoke up for them in the church while using an apology in 2014 to launch the promoting the of LGBT+ “victim narrative” into the SBC and evangelical mainstream.
He says so VERY plainly in 2005 comments below .
THE 2005 MOHLER ASSESSMENT OF THE “ORIENTATION ARGUMENT ” AGAINST A SOLID BIBLICAL BACKDROP
https://albertmohler.com/2005/10/04/homosexuality-in-theological-perspective-part-two/
The Homosexual Movement has employed a well-documented hermeneutic suspicion toward biblical texts which address homosexuality. Their efforts have been to prove that the actions proscribed in biblical passages (notably Genesis 19 and Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13) do not refer to consensual homosexual acts, but to homosexual rape and prostitution.
The net result of this hermeneutic of legitimation has been confusion in the churches. It has become the standard and politically-correct perspective assumed in most sectors of the academy, and it is increasingly prevalent among members of the mainline Protestant denominations. Disappointingly, a number of evangelicals have been taken in as well.
The revisionist hermeneutic, as applied to Romans 1:26-27, has been employed to argue that the text means something quite different from the Church’s traditional interpretation. By employing circumventions, circumlocutions, and contortions, the text’s meaning is revised so as to negate its judgment upon homosexuality.”
( Most important point he makes in 2005 is that accepting orientation argument takes the discussion totally outside Biblical framework )
“The critical issue used as a hermeneutical device by the revisionists is the concept of sexual orientation. The modern “discovery” of sexual orientation is used to deny the truth claim clearly and inescapably made within the biblical text. For example, in regard to the Romans text, Janet Fishburn of Drew University Theological School argues: “Yet, some biblical scholars point out that this passage can only refer to the homosexual acts of heterosexual persons. This is because the writers of the Bible did not distinguish between homosexual orientation and same-gender sexual acts. If this distinction is accepted, the condemnation of homosexuality in Romans does not apply to the sexual acts of homosexual persons.”
WITH A WELL TIMED APOLOGY MOHLER SOLD THE EVANGELICAL FARM TO THE FALSE VICTIM LGBT NARRATIVE
Mohler makes it very clear the high cost of allowing “orientation ” to be taken as factual in 2005 but then -as seen below – admits to the unproven / APA based assertion concluding that those with homosexual desire are in some way “born with it ” and therefore cannot be expected to change. Once this 2014 apology was made then Dr Mohler and his protege’ Russell Moore began to rebrand the SBC and to force a public rethink of LGBT in its ” conversations”.
MOHLER AND MOORE WELCOME NATIONAL LGBTQ+ ACTIVIST
This 2014 meeting not only included many SBC pastors/ staff and ministers but also a host of LGBT+ activist organizations and their leaders who met behind closed doors after hearing the self assumed head of the SBC apologize on all our behalf and settle the conversation on LGBT and Marriage firmly within the activist playing field . These conversations advancing the activist talking points continue to this day .
https://albertmohler.com/2014/11/13/sexual-orientation-and-the-gospel-of-jesus-christ/
MORE MOHLER BACKSTORY – AND IT AIN’T PRETTY
Sam Allberry was introduced to a stateside audience at these 2014 meetings and took his “SSA but celibate” talking points into the bold beyond. Now Allberry’s ministry Living Out,based in the UK, has introduced a radical LGBT Inclusion Church Audit which will “regulate” or “police” private conversations, our pulpits , and calls for the ordination and hiring of SSA staff in our churches . The Audit also says that Christians need to go along with “sharing our children” with SSA in the church .In November 2018 Mohler pal Mark Dever introduced the radical Allberry/ Living Out Audit stateside in 3 of his churches- his own Capitol Hill Baptist and two affiliates .
Allberry spoke at the 2018 ERLC family conference near Dallas and has since been advocating for churches to support him as an SSA /gay priest in promoting “singles adoption and foster care”. It just keeps getting more bizarre and it was all launched by the Albert Mohler Sexual Orientation “apology ” and timed with an abandon of “Ex gay therapies”.
MOHLER AND REVOICE LGBT+ FLOURISHING IN OUR CHURCHES MOVEMENT
At the same time Russell Moore was planning the 2014 ERLC conference -a Mohler / SBTS student and teacher/father and son team were working together with Exodus International leadership as the organization collapsed from within and public support of ex- gay therapy with it. Once Exodus news hit the media it helped to vilify all efforts to help people out of unwanted homosexual desires. That SBTS student / teacher was Nate Collins who founded the Revoice Conference /Movement and who is now working to take the Mohler apology to the next level. The unbiblical / activist sexual hermeneutic Mohler described in 2005 in now in full swing in the evangelical community and Albert Mohler both educated the leader of the newest most radical element of it in the SBC / PCA/ Evangelical circles and launched it all with his 2014 “Apology”
Conclusion
Albert Mohler’s teammate Russell Moore seemed way too poised in advance for the Houston Chronicle Story .
https://www.russellmoore.com/2019/02/10/southern-baptists-and-the-scandal-of-church-sexual-abuse/
“The report is alarming and scandalous, the courage and grace of these survivors is contrasted with the horrific depravity of those who would use the name of Jesus to prey on them. So how should Christians think about this latest revelation?”
Nothing is worse than the use of the name of Jesus to prey on the vulnerable.
“The first is to see with clear eyes what is before us. Some have ridiculed this concern as being some irrational sweep into a secular #MeToo moment, implying that the problem is “political correctness” over an issue that is no real problem within church life. Others have suggested that the church should not concern itself with questions of “justice,” and that preaching the gospel itself will resolve matters of injustice. Others have implied that the horrific scandals we have seen in the Roman Catholic church are due to the theology of Catholicism, the nature of a celibate priesthood and so forth. All of these are not only wrongheaded responses, but are deadly dangerous both to the lives of present and future survivors of these horrors and to the witness of the church itself”
DOES A CONFUSED RUSSELL MOORE CONTRADICTS HIMSELF THREE DAYS LATER ?
More denies the SBC abuse issue is part of the secular #MeToo movement BUT then looks to be writing that it is exactly that -just three days later.
https://www.russellmoore.com/2019/02/13/southern-baptists-face-their-metoo-moment/
After years of racial apologies and advocating for “victim narratives” while ignoring and accusing actual victims – and abusing /threatening those like radio host ,reporters, researchers, bloggers and other who speak up – the apologies themselves are wearing thin and are totally lacking in credibility .
The greater danger ahead for people in our churches is the possibility that the current talking points and open door policy of Russell Moore/ Albert Mohler etc. to this sexual activism in our houses of worship will prove to be an invitation to more abuse .
Dear Al
Perhaps this apology was just another strategic launching pad to further the SBC into the #MeToo movement after all. It could be another set up for spiking the ball like your 2014 orientation apology or your recent SBTS racial purge apology in order to move us deeper into the Social Justice false gospel. Sorry Al but many of us out here in the pews are not buying it.
thirtypiecesofsilverdotorg 