Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, and candidate for president of the Southern Baptist Convention, attacked Word&Way Editor Brian Kaylor for urging Mohler to resign.
“He’s a liberal nitwit,” Mohler said of Kaylor in the Louisville Courier-Journal on Friday (Jan. 8).
R. Albert Mohler Jr. (Adelle M. Banks/Religion News Service)
Mohler’s remarks came the day after Kaylor penned a Word&Way editorial urging Mohler to resign as SBTS president and withdraw from the SBC president race. Kaylor wrote the piece after a pro-Trump mob broke into the U.S. Capitol. Mohler, who endorsed Donald Trump for president in 2020 despite blasting Trump in 2016 as morally unfit for office, refused to apologize for that support after the insurrection.
Kaylor pointed to Mohler’s endorsement of Trump and criticisms of Critical Race Theory as reasons why Southern Baptists need Mohler to step aside.
“After White Supremacists stormed the U.S. Capitol, waving both Confederate and Christian flags during their insurrection, our nation needs Christian leaders who can bring healing, truth-telling, and justice,” Kaylor wrote Thursday (Jan. 7). “Mohler should step aside so the nation’s largest Protestant denomination can serve as a balm in Gilead.”
“Mohler helped sow the wind, and now we are reaping the whirlwind,” Kaylor added. “We need an SBC that instead of doubling-down on its historic support of White Supremacy will work toward healing and justice. Mohler disqualified himself as a leader for that hopeful future.”
The Courier-Journal, which called Kaylor “a prominent Baptist journalist,” quoted several lines from the editorial. And the hometown newspaper of SBTS asked Mohler for a response. Mohler resorted to name calling and claiming Kaylor just opposed the SBC’s conservatism.
UPDATE: Read Kaylor’s response to Mohler in the Courier-Journal.
