I read Mohler’s weblog fairly regularly, although I have done very little specific reading there lately. This one caught my eye “Why Doctrine Matters”, and after reading it, and Mohler’s version of what doctrine is, I am further convinced that the decline in the “doctrinal knowledge” that he becries is because of the utter lack of relevance of just that type of “doctrine” to which he calls us to pay more attention. I came way from that article asking “So why should I care?” There’s nothing there that gives a good reason to belive that it is, in fact, important . It’s the same reason why I believe that such an “intellectual”, unattached theology is dangeerous to our culture, especially when it aligns itself to political movements that have little else to do with Christianity other than the fact that they woo voters with promises of moral governing.

In the article, the only “social issue” that is talked about is that of sex (a particular problem for the fundamentalists, a nd alsways has been….but it’s their ranting and raving about “personal morality” issues to the exclusion and ignorance of more systemic, political, a nd economic problems and the surrounding justice issues that makes their obsesion with the “traditional” Church issues seem less and less relevant. Now , I certainly see sexual problems and the decline of responsibility ion sexual relationships, but to limit the “teachings of the Church” and “Biblical Christianity” to these is an embarassment to me. It gives “doctrine” a bad name. We need more people like Tony Campolo and Jim Wallis in the media’s coverage, to bring a sense of cultural and social relevance to the picture.

To even suggest that “if you just believe al the right stuff” (which to them, means ‘intelllectual assent’) then all these “other things” will take care of themselevs, this is an affront to intelligence. To suggest that “Bush is our man” and even “God’s man” is an affront to the Biblical emphasis upon peace and the call to beat swords into plowshares.

After readings like this, I wonder why I keep reading there at all, since more often than not, Mohler is talking about things which don’tmatter a bit. And this is from a Seminary president ( but, oh yeah, a seminary in a denomination whose leadership continues to move further away from Baptist principles and closer to isolating themseleves as some cultural oddity proclaiming themselves as the model community based on things they “believe in their head” —it’s all pretty nonsensical — but it’s a way of “claiming to be on God’s side” while fashioning a “doctrine” which has nothing to say about the world and everything to do with reciting a creed; one of those attributes Baptists have always been dead-set against)

Whoa, here’s another gem just filled with irony:
After all, we do not call persons to profess faith in faith, but faith in Christ.

This is an obvious truth that seems to be lost on the Southern Baptist Convention’s leadership. They behave as if the oppostite were true. They have next to ZERO trust of any conscious human being’s ability (other than that of their own) to satisfactorily arrive at a concept of who Christ is based on their own experience, or be able to assess for themselves their place in a historical faith. The fact that they have stripped the denomination of everything to the left of center (and not quite all the way to center from the right ) is testimony to their self-proclaimed theological dictatorship. With all their moaning about the heirarchical nature of Catholicism, theirs is a model of virtual stranglehold on authority. They want ot the people to have a faith not in Christ, but in THEIR CHRIST, which is not always one and the same (and often glaringly NOT SO).