Kevin Bauder Discussing: Al Mohler’s “Occasional Inconsistency?”

Recently Dr. Kevin Bauder made some brief personal remarks about T4G leader, one of the so-called “conservative” evangelicals, Dr. Al Mohler and his signing the Manhattan Declaration. I have listened to and transcribed those remarks. Dr. Bauder's commentary was recorded on April 27, 2010 at the Foundations Conference.1

“Al Mohler felt liberty to sign the Manhattan Declaration. Other conservative evangelicals not only did not feel that liberty, but were critical of Mohler for doing that. Personally I think that in signing the Manhattan Declaration Mohler is acting inconsistently with his own principles, but I think we give a man a certain amount of liberty for an occasional inconsistency. Which of us isn’t occasionally inconsistent? I don’t think the occasional inconsistency is what establishes a position. I think we take Mohler and others in terms of their overall conduct not in terms of a single episode.”

In December 2009 I produced the second in a series of articles that addressed the Manhattan Declaration (MD) and a number of issues in regard to it. That article is Al Mohler Signs the Manhattan Declaration : Was This a First Time Foray Toward Ecumenism?2

In that article I provided irrefutable documented evidence of a long running pattern of “inconsistency” in the ministry of Al Mohler. Kevin Bauder is not unaware of these incidences in Mohler’s ministry. Signing the MD was NOT a “single episode” of inconsistency. Kevin Bauder knows it is not Mohler’s first or only episode of “inconsistency with his own principles.”

Al Mohler signed the MD, which gave Christian recognition to the deadly “enemies of the cross of Christ” (Phil. 3:18). Al Mohler entered into fellowship, a common cause with Roman Catholic priests, new evangelicals and apostates through the MD, which compromised the Gospel. None of this was worthy of so much as a mention by Bauder.

If Mohler were a novice Christian signing the MD might be excusable. He is, however, a seasoned pastor with an established track record of missteps, such as have been documented in Al Mohler Signs the MD: Was This a First Time Foray Toward Ecumenism. Missteps such as:

Billy Graham School of Missions and Evangelism
Al Mohler became president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS) in 1993. In all fairness, therefore, arrangements for honoring Graham, the high-priest of ecumenical evangelism, by naming the school for him in 1994 probably preceded Mohler’s presidency.

Honoring a Liberal Theologian
In June 2009 SBTS celebrated its 150th anniversary. Following Dr. Mohler’s message, the seminary honored its seventh president Duke K. McCall by announcing the dedication of its new pavilion in his honor. 

Billy Graham Crusade in Louisville, KY.
Dr. Al Mohler served as chairman for the 2001 Billy Graham Crusade in Louisville, KY. Billy Graham has turned thousands of (alleged) converts over to Roman Catholic and modernistic churches. Mohler knew this when he accepted the chairmanship of Graham’s Louisville crusade.

To these we can also add that Al Mohler has for years and still today sits on the board of directors of Focus on the Family.3

Later this year Al Mohler has another opportunity to demonstrate whether or not his established pattern of inconsistency will continue. He is one of the keynote speakers at John Piper’s Desiring God conference in October. John Piper also invited Rick Warren as a keynote speaker.4

Will Al Mohler join Rick Warren on the platform at Desiring God?

At the end of the day and this discussion: There is nothing occasional about Dr. Al Mohler’s “inconsistency [and] overall conduct.” Closing with the addition of an excerpt by Gordon from the first comment in the attached thread,

“I disagree with Dr. Bauder that Dr. Mohler was inconsistent to his own principles in the matter. On the contrary, I believe that Dr. Mohler revealed to us his principles by signing the MD.”

LM

Addendum (12/26/13)

The closing quote from the original article above was prophetic. To the list of Mohler’s ecumenical compromises above you can add:

What Does John Piper & Al Mohler Have in Common? Rick Warren!

Al Mohler Joins Hands with the Mormon Church

Al Mohler’s RAPPIN’ T4G

To date (12/26/13) Dr. Kevin Bauder has continued his pattern of either ignoring or giving his blessing to these each. Kevin, furthermore, joined Mohler in cooperative ministry, and heaps “lavish praise” upon him. 

For a related article please continue to, A Pure Church or a Pure Gospel: Does it Really Matter?

1) Foundations Conference
See Conservative Evangelicals & Fundamentalists for the audio recording. The transcribed portion begins at 3:58 ending at 4:40.

2) Al Mohler Signs the MD: Was This a First Time Foray Toward Ecumenism?

3) Focus on the Family is, “a component of the American Christian right, it is active in promoting interdenominational work toward its views on social conservative public policy.” (Wikipedia, [accessed, June 4, 2010].)

4) John Piper to Feature Rick Warren at 2010 Desiring God Conference

From D.A. Carson’s For the Love of God, volume 2, Jan. 23 entry:

“One of the most striking evidences of sinful human nature lies in the universal propensity for downward drift. In other words, it takes thought, resolve, energy, and effort to bring about reform. In the grace of God, sometimes human beings display such virtues. But where such virtues are absent, the drift is invariably toward compromise, comfort, indiscipline, sliding disobedience and decay that advances, sometimes at a crawl and sometimes at a gallop, across generations.

People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, and obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord.

We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.” (bold added)

I could not help but recognize that Carson’s comments (in bold above) describes the drift we are seeing from men like Kevin Bauder and Dave Doran when it comes to the men and actions of the so-called conservative evangelicalism.

To dismiss Al Mohler and Ligon Duncan signing the Manhattan Declaration as merely a, “wrong decision based on bad judgment,” (Doran) and “occasional inconsistency…single episode,” (Bauder) has the look and feel of a “downward drift toward compromise” of the Scriptures (2 Thess. 3:6, 14-15; Rom. 16:17), in the form of tolerance for the sake of fellowship.