Mohler and Wallis Debate Justice and the Church

"The separation in our minds," T.S. Eliot once wrote, "which results simply from dwelling constantly upon the adjective social may lead to crimes as well as errors." The logic of Elliot's claims highlights how qualifiers occasionally obscure what they originally qualified.

This tricky relationship was on full display in last Thursday's debate between Jim Wallis, founder and editor of Sojourners magazine, and Albert Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. The question was whether "social justice is an essential part of the mission of the church," with Mohler staking his ground around the negative and Wallis the affirmative. Debates themselves have limited usefulness, but as far as they go this was a helpful and instructive one. 

The formal remarks were largely preparatory for the final 15 minutes of direct conversation, during which I wondered why the whole time wasn't spent this way.

Yet if the formal remarks seemed less than exhilarating, it is largely because Wallis and Mohler's styles made it seem as though they would spend the evening talking past each other. Wallis peppered his remarks with personal narratives, biblical exegesis, and stories of those pursuing the sort of social justice he sees as "integral" to the mission of the church. Mohler took a different tack, systematically defining terms and making a general biblical case for why the unique mission of the church is the proclamation "that Christ died according to the Scriptures."   Keep Reading >>>