R. Albert Mohler Jr.: Evangelicals Are Homophobic?

The Wall Street Journal published Albert Mohler's non-response to recent criticism by Evangelicals who accused him of selling out the Gospel to genetic and biological causes for homosexuality rather the ultimate cause: original sin and the sinful nature. Mohler's response never answers the criticism of his remarks about homophobia at the Southern Baptist Convention. Instead he returns to the fact that Evangelicals are bound to stand with Scripture against the prevailing culture. But interestingly Mohler cannot tell us why. He is inconsistent with himself. Do we exalt human reason above Holy Scripture as the only infallible rule for faith, practice and morality? Or do we allow natural revelation and science to rule over Scripture? One cannot have it both ways.

Furthermore, Mohler comes off sounding more like an Arminian than a Calvinist. He says the ultimate answer for sin is the Gospel. That is only half the truth. The Gospel without the efficacy of particular atonement and irresistible grace is powerless to change anyone. The golden chain of salvation begins with election, not the preaching of the Gospel. The Gospel is the instrument God uses to save His elect and not one of God's elect will be lost. Perhaps Mohler should stop trying to appease the Arminians and the liberals and simply preach God's Law and the Gospel and "let God sort 'em out"?

Here is an excerpt of Mohler's response:

In this most awkward cultural predicament, evangelicals must be excruciatingly clear that we do not speak about the sinfulness of homosexuality as if we have no sin. As a matter of fact, it is precisely because we have come to know ourselves as sinners and of our need for a savior that we have come to faith in Jesus Christ. Our greatest fear is not that homosexuality will be normalized and accepted, but that homosexuals will not come to know of their own need for Christ and the forgiveness of their sins.

This is not a concern that is easily expressed in sound bites. But it is what we truly believe.

It is now abundantly clear that evangelicals have failed in so many ways to meet this challenge. We have often spoken about homosexuality in ways that are crude and simplistic. We have failed to take account of how tenaciously sexuality comes to define us as human beings. We have failed to see the challenge of homosexuality as a Gospel issue. We are the ones, after all, who are supposed to know that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only remedy for sin, starting with our own.

We have demonstrated our own form of homophobia—not in the way that activists have used that word, but in the sense that we have been afraid to face this issue where it is most difficult . . . face to face.

My hope is that evangelicals are ready now to take on this challenge in a new and more faithful way. We really have no choice, for we are talking about our own brothers and sisters, our own friends and neighbors, or maybe the young person in the next pew.

There is no escaping the fact that we are living in the midst of a moral revolution. And yet, it is not the world around us that is being tested, so much as the believing church. We are about to find out just how much we believe the Gospel we so eagerly preach.

To read the rest of Mohler's article in the Wall Street Journal, click here: R. Albert Mohler Jr.: Evangelicals and the Gay Moral Revolution - WSJ.com