Are the seminaries of the Southern Baptist Convention now promoting the social justice narrative? Unfortunately, the answer is yes—even at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, where conservative icon Al Mohler is president.
On December 28, 2019, Griffin Gulledge, Director of Marketing and Communications at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina, posted this on Facebook and Twitter:
In 1976, Noel Wesley Hollyfield wrote a thesis on the degree of Christian orthodoxy at SBTS, where he was a student. What he found was astounding.
By the end of their M.Div. program, only 60% of students believed faith in Jesus was essential for salvation. Only 63% of all students agreed “Jesus is the Divine Son of God, and I have no doubt about it.”
42 years later, I have no doubt that number is at 100%. We are unbelievably blessed to live in an era where every SBC seminary stands completey on the authoritative Word of God and teaches a Gospel of faith in Jesus for salvation.
It’s easy to take for granted sometimes, but the reality is that across the span of history in the SBC, we are as much or more doctrinally faithful now than likely ever before.
On Facebook, Jon Harris of Conversations That Matter responded to Gulledge. He stated that while he’s glad the seminaries have rejected modernism, it is extremely disturbing that they not only have not rejected postmodernism1 but now are even teaching its tenets to their students. (You may remember that in early 2019, Jon released a podcast titled “Social Justice and the Downgrade of SEBTS.”)
Ask students at SBC seminaries today, Jon said, if they believe the “blessings” of “white privilege” are inherently sinful, if they believe the white race is guilty of oppressing minorities, if Jesus’ primary mission was liberating the physically and emotionally oppressed, and similar questions, and you’ll find that SBC seminaries and their students are buying into the lies propagated by postmodernism, the social justice movement, CRT, and similar ungodly ideologies.
I believe Jon is 100 percent correct, and I said so on Facebook. Moreover, the social justice movement and its components constitute a gospel different from the one the Bible presents (see Gal. 6:1-10).
Al Mohler himself is on video saying that even though Southern Baptists have apologized for and repented of their past racism, the stain of racism will taint them until Jesus returns. Here is an audio recording of his statements.
This idea is directly contrary to the biblical teaching that Jesus’ blood is fully sufficient to wash away the sins of all who come to Him for forgiveness. Further, it promotes the unbiblical notion that living in a perpetual state of guilt is legitimate, even if sins have been confessed and repented of. And it advertises the false teaching that offended Christians do not have an obligation to forgive those brothers and sisters in Christ who’ve sinned against them (see these Bible passages). All of this is consistent with critical race theory (CRT).
While Al Mohler has negatively criticized CRT in the past, the statement to which I have alluded indicates that he is an adherent of CRT! So does the fact that various professors at SBTS are pushing the social justice narrative “right under Dr. Mohler’s nose.” The unbiblical nature of Mohler’s statement about racism in the SBC alone should disqualify him as a candidate for the denomination’s president — yet Southern Baptists have officially endorsed CRT and intersectionality as “analytical tools” for use in studying and assessing groups in society.
Woke ideology, of which all of this is a part, has permeated the SBC, and it is strengthening its grip, especially in the seminaries. It is spilling over into the churches as well.
It is blatantly unbiblical to try to make people feel guilty for sins they haven’t committed — like, for example, lynchings and sexual abuse (a favorite topic now of Russell Moore and the ERLC).
Regarding sexual abuse, earlier this year SBC President JD Greear
called on Southern Baptists to enter a season of repentance of allowing a culture “that has made abuse, cover-ups, and evading accountability far too easy.” He called for a “season of sorrow” to “culminate at the 2019 SBC annual meeting as we have a time for prayer and lament on the subject of abuse” (original source, quoted here).
Of course, we must condemn racism, sexual abuse, and other such sins wherever and whenever they occur. That said, it appears to be all to easy to make generalizations regarding all Southern Baptists and Southern Baptist churches when certain abuse cases have been uncovered in some churches and discussions about how to address the issue across the denomination are occurring against the backdrop of the #MeToo movement.
Let’s return to the issue of racism for the moment. Our leaders are encouraging believers who are innocent to confess their guilt. This is unconscionable! These leaders, including but not limited to SBTS provost Matthew Hall (also go here and here). SBTS president Al Mohler, SBTS faculty member Curtis Woods, SEBTS president Danny Akin, and ERLC president Russell Moore, have bought into unbiblical ideologies and are pushing them in our denomination.
One qualifier with a warning: Obviously it is appropriate to encourage Christians to be more sensitive to those who have been mistreated and abused, as well as to encourage greater sensitivity toward the less fortunate. However, all too often our leaders are not doing this. They instead are promoting a victim mentality consistent with the teachings of CRT and the social justice movement. They are talking about the poor and their unfortunate situations in ways that promote the social justice movement’s recommendation of government redistribution of wealth. This, too, is unconscionable. The Bible commends generosity among God’s people. It does not give the job of alleviating the needs of the poor to the government.
Seeing the pushback, Griffin Gulledge deleted his original post, along with responses people had offered, from Facebook.
Respectfully, I disagree with Mr. Gulledge. I believe Southern Baptists are going to have to wake up and realize the perilous direction the SBC is headed by way of its seminaries, the ERLC, and many of its leaders.
As Southern Baptists, we must repent of allowing our denomination to be carried along by a cultural tidal wave of unbiblical ideology. May God give us clear and biblical discernment!
Copyright © 2019 by B. Nathaniel Sullivan. All rights reserved.
Note:
1These observations from this article are key (please check article itself for citations): “Postmodernists long for a time when all of society’s ills and abuses will be eliminated and social justice will prevail. Richard Rorty elaborates his vision for America: ‘[Walt] Whitman and [John] Dewey tried to substitute hope for knowledge. They wanted to put shared utopian dreams—dreams of an ideally decent and civilized society—in the place of knowledge of God’s Will, Moral Law, the Laws of History, or the Facts of Science…As long as we have a functioning political left, we still have a chance to achieve our country, to make it the country of Whitman’s and Dewey’s dreams.’…The Postmodern understanding of social justice revolves around the “other,”…[a reference to] those who are marginalized by society—the poor, unemployed, migrants, Hispanics, blacks, women, gays and lesbians. This is equivalent to the Marxist idea that virtue resides only among the oppressed and forms the foundation for identity politics. Social justice in the Postmodern sense means giving oppressed groups their due in society. Oppressed groups have traditionally been identified according to their race, sex, or gender as well as their economic level. To achieve economic equality requires governmental redistribution of wealth—take from the rich and give to the poor—a common theme among leftists.”
top image: Matthew Hall, Provost, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary / SBTS
Additional resources:
Southern Baptists: Danger Ahead!
Watch Glenn Beck explain postmodernism here.