Paul's Passing Thoughts

In an article written by Albert Mohler,  President of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky and posted on Christian Headlines.com, he bemoans Bible illiteracy among Christians. It begs the question: is he really this blinded by orthodoxy, or is he just gaming the herd?

You can read the article for yourself which chronicles examples of how bad it is, but I think it’s common knowledge for the most part, no pun intended. Even among Christians that are regarded as knowledgeable, including those with university degrees from religious institutions, they know little that is beneficial. Orthodox Christianity is the blind leading the blind and always will be.

First of all, his bemoaning defies the very major tenets of the Protestantism that he claims to represent as a leading authority. Protestantism is predicated on a loathing of human reason and a faith exemplified by blind trust in those whom God has supposedly “appointed to save His people from ignorance”; this according to Mohler at a 2011 pastors conference (mark 1:14:00). This same mentality came from the Catholic Church that gave birth to the Reformers and believes that Bibles in the hands of the great unwashed is like a loaded gun held by a toddler.

Secondly, Mohler’s admission that Protestantism at large is biblically illiterate is a stunning admission and revelation regarding his real belief in the herd’s aptitude. If a vampire is a pastor and says he advocates daylight saving time, that is apparently good enough for the herd, and raises no questions in their minds whatsoever. Mohler knows he can get away with verbalizing these metaphysical absurdities. Al Mohler is a leading figure in the evangelical industrial complex that makes billions of dollars from the massive distribution of Christian teachings via books, church events, conferences, the internet, printed media, recorded media, movies, and radio. How could Christians possibly be biblically illiterate? This is proof positive that content is indeed the issue. REAL knowledge empowers people and would threaten the authority of the Protestant church. The harlot that gave birth to Protestantism merely outlawed knowledge; Protestant leaders have to skin the cat another way because people started printing Bibles upon pain of death.

Go to any Catholic Church, the parishioners don’t have any Bibles with them. Go to any Protestant church and watch the people carefully during the sermon; they refer to their Bibles little if there is any need to open them at all. The general mentality is that they are not qualified to understand it anyway. In fact, there is no reasonable difference between Catholic ex cathedra and elder authority according to the likes of Mohler himself and the Protestant hierarchy in general.

Lastly, Mohler has the audacity to suggest that lack of knowledge is the issue when Protestant academia denies that the Bible is for the express purpose of knowledge to begin with. Pastors continually fustigate those who read the Bible to gain knowledge because “Jesus is a person, not a precept.” Simply stated from a true Protestant perspective, the Bible is a metaphysical narrative about salvation and EVERY verse is about the gospel/justification/salvation. Few parishioners deem themselves as able to see Jesus in every verse, so they merely close their Bibles and listen.

Mohler calls Biblical illiteracy a “scandal.” And why not? After all, a popular mantra in today’s Protestant church refers to their faith as a “scandalous gospel.” And what is the scandal? That God would save sinners and fill His church full of them. But alas, our temptation is to think that we can actually do a good work, and the primary purpose of the Bible is to keep us grounded in faith which seeks to see ourselves more and more for the sinners that we are which results in a deeper and deeper gratitude for our salvation. That’s why every verse in the Bible is supposedly about salvation.

So what knowledge is Al Mohler talking about exactly? With all things Protestant, it depends on what the definition of “is” is.

paul