It seems as though Dr. Albert Mohler has taken some
heat for his recent foray into Mormonism by speaking at BYU. I say this because
here recently he wrote an article which amounts to an apologia for his speaking at BYU (you can find the article here).
I’ve already weighed in on the foolishness of Mohler of going to BYU in the
first place (article here).
Let’s look at Mohler’s apologia.
One would think that since Dr. Albert Mohler is
president of religious institution of higher learning, that he is a
self-professed believer, that he is a minister, that he is a Baptist, that he would go the Scriptures
for any justification for his actions/words. Yet, this is not the case. Instead,
he uses an ancient maxim, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” as the reason,
the justification for joining hands with Mormons concerning the societal attack
on marriage.
Mohler cites the foreign policy of the Allied powers
in World War II adopting this maxim with their joining with the Soviet Union in
order to defeat Nazi Germany. Any cursory study of that relationship clearly
shows the Allies and the Soviet Union were not “friends” by any stretch of the
imagination and in the end that alliance did irreparable damage to the
countries which would eventually become the eastern bloc of nations as the
“Iron Curtain” fell across Eastern Europe after the war. Read the sailor’s
report of this “friendship” as they arrive in Murmansk or Archangel with matériel
for the Soviet Union or the pilot’s accounts of treatment as they landed in the
Soviet Union either by deliberate plans or by an emergency and one quickly
comes away with the understanding we were not “friends.” For instance, the account
of plane eight of the Doolittle Raiders who bombed Japan in April of 1942 as
they land near Vladivostok. The Soviet Union was no “friend” to this American
crew. The five crewmen would eventually plan their own escape and reach Persia
in May of 1943. This maxim is hardly an “indispensable” or “inevitable” mandate
to be used in foreign policy or anywhere else for that matter.
Mohler concludes his article by stating, “In a time
of cultural conflict, the enemy of my enemy may well be our friend.” No, Dr.
Mohler, the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend, especially when we
are at odds with the Truth found in the Scriptures. Sorry, Dr. Mohler, your “reasoned”
approach using an ancient, flawed maxim to justify your stance with Mormonism
on marriage does not pass the test, the Biblical test (for starters, Rom 16:17;
II Thess. 3:6, 14; II John 7-11). The Mormon church stands diametrically opposed
to everything a Christian holds as Truth. They are indeed an enemy of the
Gospel of Jesus Christ. Any kind of accommodation of Mormonism will only enrich
Mormonism’s positions to the detriment of the Truth, just as the Allies accommodation
of Stalin lead to the detriment of Eastern Europe’s freedom and plunged the world
into a decades long Cold War.
There is a serious problem when men who supposedly
stand firmly on the self-sufficiency of the Scriptures go off into human
reasoning to justify their positions/actions. So much for Sola Scriptura being the call words of evangelicals, Mohler has
shown us that it is homo ratio
instead. Mohler has betrayed the very basic, the primary distinctive that
Baptists have clung to for centuries, that the Bible is the sole authority for
faith and practice.
