A Baptist Public Intellectual

One of the interesting news items of the week, both via Bene and via the Lexington Herald Leader, is the candidacy of Al Mohler to be head of the Southern Baptists. He's currently president of their flagship seminary in Louisville, so the jump to being head of the denomination wouldn't be that huge of one.

The interesting thing about Mohler is that he's a blogger; many of the contentious items that were featured in the Herald Leader piece, like a thought experiment about genetically modifying a child in utereo that had genetic tendencies that would lean it towards being homosexual, flowed from blog entries where he (as the Herald Leader puts it) comments "on moral, cultural and theological issues."

That kind of fits the description of the old-school public intellectual; no, a Baptist public intellectual isn't an oxymoron. It doesn't fit the description of the megachurch (or near-megachurch; if you have one service on Sunday, you're not going to be in the hunt) pastor that normally gets the gig of running a denomination, nor does it sound like your stereotypical tight-sphinctered seminary chief.

It's rare to see a Southern Baptist leader who people outside of Southern Baptist circles might have heard of prior to his becoming leader (or prior to the week of the national convention where the leading candidates start getting mentioned in the general media); Joe Sixpack might not have heard of Mohler, but Joe Evangelical Blog Reader will have. Even if Mohler wasn't in your bookmarks (and he wasn't in mine until now), he was in the bookmarks of one of your regular reads.

If elected, he'll be an interesting president.

Comments

[Bene D]

Grace and Truth to you has an interesting perspective on why Mohler wouldn't be a good candidate and a hint someone will be put forward who will be a strong challenge.

On the other end of the spectrum some conservative SBC feel Mohler wouldn't make a good SBC pres because he deviated from the conservative takeover position on homosexuality.

And it's what, six months to go before the convention?