Albert Mohler

Richard Albert Mohler Jr. (born October 19, 1959) is an American evangelical theologian, the ninth president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, and host of the podcast The Briefing, where he daily analyzes the news and recent events from an evangelical perspective.

Mohler was born on October 19, 1959, in Lakeland, Florida.

During his Lakeland years, he attended Southside Baptist Church.

Mohler attended college at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton in Palm Beach County as a Faculty Scholar.

He then received a Bachelor of Arts from Samford University, a private, coeducational Baptist-affiliated college in Birmingham, Alabama.

His Master of Divinity and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in systematic and historical theology were conferred by the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

In addition to his presidency at SBTS, Mohler was the host of The Albert Mohler Program, a nationwide radio show "devoted to engaging contemporary culture with Christian beliefs."

He currently produces a weekday podcast on the news, The Briefing, in which he provides commentary on current events from a Christian point of view, often providing a historical background as well.

He also regularly broadcasts interviews with various different people on a podcast called Thinking in Public.

He is former vice chairman of the board of Focus on the Family and a member of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.

Mohler has presented lectures or addresses at a variety of conservative evangelical universities.

Mohler served as editor of The Christian Index, the biweekly newsletter of the Georgia Baptist Convention.

Mohler joined the staff of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1983 as Coordinator of Foundation Support.

From 1983 to 1989, while still a student, he had served as assistant to then-President Roy Honeycutt.

From 1985 to 1993 he was Associate Editor of the bi-monthly Preaching Magazine.

In 1987, he became Director of Capital Funding, a post he held until 1989.

In February 1993, Mohler was appointed the ninth President of the seminary by the institution's board of trustees to succeed Honeycutt.

Mohler is an Evangelical and an exclusivist, a position that holds Christ is the only means of salvation.

While identifying as an evangelical, he refused to sign the "Evangelical Manifesto" because the definition of that term was so broad as to be meaningless.

As a Calvinist, Mohler believes that human salvation is a free gift from God which cannot be earned by human action or will and is only given to the elect.

He has publicly advanced this position with respect to Judaism, Islam, and Catholicism.

Mohler also served on the Advisory Council for the 2001 English Standard Version (ESV) of the Bible.

Mohler previously blogged on Crosswalk.com, a web site maintained by Salem Web Network of Richmond, Virginia.

Mohler currently blogs on his website, where his podcasts can also be listened to for free.

He believes Muslims are motivated by demonic power and in the months after the September 11, 2001 attacks, Mohler characterized Islamic views of Jesus as false and destructive:

"...as a Christian theologian, the biggest problem with Islamic theology is that it kills the soul. The bigger problem with Islam is not that there are those who will kill the body in its name, but that it lies about God [and] presents a false gospel, an un-gospel..."

Mohler appeared on MSNBC's Donahue on August 20, 2002.

The subject was Christian evangelization of Jews.

Mohler and Michael L. Brown, a Messianic Jew, debated this subject as well as Mohler's insistence that salvation lies exclusively in the personal acceptance of Christ before the afterlife with Donahue, a Catholic, and Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, an Orthodox Jew.

In a 2003 interview with Time magazine, Mohler further argued that faith must be differentiated from ideas of race or ethnicity:

"The secular world tends to look at Iraq and say, well, it's Muslim, and that's just a fact, and any Christian influence would just be a form of Western imperialism. The Christian has to look at Iraq and see persons desperately in need of the gospel. Compelled by the love and command of Christ, the Christian will seek to take that gospel in loving and sensitive, but very direct, ways to the people of Iraq."

On April 15, 2003, Mohler was interviewed by Time on the subject of evangelizing Iraqi Muslims in the form of Christian aid groups.

On May 5, 2003, Mohler appeared on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross to discuss the issue of evangelization of the Iraqis.

In 2006 he stated "any belief system, any world view, whether it's Zen Buddhism or Hinduism or dialectical materialism for that matter, Marxism, that keeps persons captive and keeps them from coming to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, yes, is a demonstration of Satanic power."

In 2018, Mohler labeled turmoil in the Southern Baptist Convention as the SBC's "own horrifying #MeToo moment" and said it stemmed from "an unorganized conspiracy of silence" about sexual misconduct and abuse.

He wrote that the SBC's "issues are far deeper and wider" than the controversy surrounding Paige Patterson, who'd been moved that day from president to president emeritus of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

In early 2019, explosive newspaper reports of sexual abuse by church leaders and volunteers shook the Southern Baptist Convention, and Mohler called for independent third-party investigations.

Just days after the Houston Chronicle's 2019 report of allegations of hundreds of sexual abuse cases (some of which were not reported to law enforcement), Mohler apologized in an interview with the newspaper for supporting a religious leader who was accused of helping conceal sexual abuses at his former church.

Some have lauded Mohler, while others have questioned the timing and motivations of these comments.

One day after Mohler's remarks to the Houston Chronicle, his Southern Baptist Theological Seminary office released a related statement by him.