Thread by @scott_m_coley

Excellent question. (QT for thread)

Regarding the why: two recent books at the intersection of history and sociology address the politicization of conservative evangelicalism:

https://twitter.com/AnnetteDzedzy/status/1324955543635701761

'Jesus and John Wayne', by @kkdumez ; and
'Taking America Back for God', by @socofthesacred and @ndrewwhitehead .

Both books are excellent and I commend them to anyone interested in the interplay of politics and religion in the context of American evangelicalism.

Regarding any formal connection between Mohler's official role at Southern Seminary (or within the SBC broadly) and his enthusiasm for broadcasting personal political views that are unrelated to his expertise in theology:

I can't think of an instance in which Mohler has presented his personal views on politics or culture as *the* official position of all Southern Baptists.

That said, two related observations are in order.

The first is that Mohler regularly argues in a way that obscures the distinction between his own personal views and the official position of the SBC.

The reasoning often goes like this: "I affirm X; and because I affirm X, I'm committed to Y."

For 'X', he'll offer some stance that is widely or universally affirmed among Southern Baptists.

And then for 'Y', he'll assert some personal view that he wants others to adopt.

What his argument obscures is that his inference from X to Y is by no means obvious or uncontroversial.

For example, in his recent endorsement of the current POTUS, Mohler reasons roughly as follows.

"I affirm the sanctity of human life. Since the current POTUS defends the sanctity of human life, I must vote for the current POTUS."

As a class, Southern Baptists are committed to the sanctity of human life.

Of course, the degree to which the current POTUS actually defends the sanctity of human life is, at best, a matter of some controversy.

Mohler's reasoning intentionally ignores all of POTUS's policies that visit death and destruction on marginalized groups of people in and around the U.S.

So he draws a highly questionable inference from the sanctity of human life (which all Southern Baptists, as such, affirm) and his support for POTUS (which is nothing more than his own personal conviction).

In so doing, he lends the impression that "good Christians" support POTUS--glossing over the fact that those who agree on the sanctity of human life might reasonably disagree about how that conviction should be expressed in the voting booth.

(He does the same thing with debates concerning the role of women in the church. While all in the SBC are committed to the inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture, there's a diversity of views within the SBC on how to interpret Paul's statements on the subject.)

The second observation is that it would be surprising if Mohler doesn't leverage any human resources or infrastructure from his official SBC post in the production of his *daily* podcast (and transcripts thereof, website and so on).

There's precedent for this in Southern Seminary's subsidy of @CBMWorg --an organization with no formal ties to the SBC that has maintained offices on the campus of Southern Seminary, rent free, for more than a decade.