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SOUTHERN
NEWS AND NOTES
Mohler issues a call
for confessional fidelity
By Jeff Robinson
The Christian faith includes essential doctrinal
content that the church must believe, teach
and confess, R. Albert Mohler Jr. told students
and faculty members during the
annual fall convocation Aug. 21 at
Southern Seminary.
Preaching from Hebrews
11:1-6 and Acts 16:30-31, Southern
Seminary’s president said a
clear articulation of central Christian
doctrines in a confession
of faith is more important than
ever for evangelical churches and
seminaries because they minister
in a postmodern culture that
denies the existence of objective
truth.
“We must understand that
Christianity is not a mood,”
Mohler said. “It is not an emotion.
It is not a feeling. It is not
an amorphous set of beliefs. It
is established by the truth of
God’s Word, by the saving reality
of God’s deeds in Jesus Christ,
around certain definite doctrines
without which it is not possible
to exercise the kind of faith that
saves.”
“The faith” of which Scripture
speaks includes an irreducible
body of truths such as the character
and attributes of God and the person
and work of Christ, Mohler said, noting that
creeds and confessions are important summary
statements of these truths that have a
long and venerable history.
“One of the problems of our contemporary
age is that when people hear the word ‘faith,’
they tend to think of faith in faith,” he said.
“They tend to think of faith as some sort of
mental or spiritual exercise. They think of faith
“Christians must
believe, teach
and confess the
central teachings
of their faith.”
as a mere act of the will. They are not thinking
of faith that is scripturally defined in terms,
first of all, of the truth that is there affirmed,
the content of that faith. We are not saved by
faith in faith, we are saved through faith in
Christ. There is a huge difference there.”
Southern Seminary is a confessional institution,
adhering to the Abstract of Principles,
a statement of faith that Basil Manly, Jr., a
founding faculty member, penned and the
school adopted when it opened
in 1859. Professors must sign the
document, agreeing to teach “in
accordance with and not contrary
to” its doctrines.
Four members of the Southern
Seminary faculty signed the
Abstract prior to Mohler’s sermon:
T.J. Betts, assistant professor
of Old Testament interpretation;
Greg Brewton, associate professor
of church music; Mark Coppenger,
professor of Christian
apologetics; and Randy Stinson,
dean of the School of Leadership
and Church Ministry.
“It is important for us to
remember that this is not an innovation,”
Mohler said. “We did not
come up with this.
“This comes out of a tradition
of confessional subscription, out
of a creedal and confessional history
of the church whereby God’s
people, particularly churches,
have received the stewardship
of biblical truth and have sought
to articulate that truth, to perpetuate
that truth, to make that
truth a matter of common accountability and
common faith…It is done before a watching
church by a teacher who says ‘these are the
things that I believe. I take my stand upon
these doctrines, defined and definite.
Southern Seminary Magazine | Fall 2007 page 23