Southern Seminary launches the ‘Evening M.Div.,’ an innovative residential seminary experience May 15, 2018

R. Albert Mohler Jr. today announced a new course scheduling initiative that will allow students to complete a Master of Divinity degree while working full time. The “Evening M.Div.” from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary will allow students to complete a Master of Divinity program in four years exclusively through courses offered in evenings.

“This is another bold statement of our basic commitments as The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary,” Mohler said. “We are committed to the training of pastors, which means we are committed to the master of divinity program. We are committed to offer the finest, most accessible master of divinity program available anywhere.”

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Pursue faithfulness, not worldly success, says Mohler at Boyce graduation May 11, 2018

The good life is the faithful life, R. Albert Mohler Jr. told 150 college graduates at the May 11 commencement ceremony of Boyce College, the undergraduate school of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. The graduates who received diplomas were part of a 170-person graduating class, which is the largest in the history of the school.

Each May across the United States, graduating college students listen to inspiring messages about how successful they can be. They are told they can achieve anything they put their minds to and are encouraged to do something significant. Mohler suggested the Christian gospel — and by extension a student’s education at Boyce — inspires a more mundane kind of achievement: faithfulness.

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Mohler at NRB: America is Witnessing a Collision Between Religious and Sexual Liberty May 4, 2018

Albert MohlerWASHINGTON (NRB) — The most basic liberties enshrined in the U.S. Constitution are today “confused, contorted, and sometimes even condemned,” said R. Albert Mohler Jr. to Christian leaders gathered Thursday (May 3) for the National Religious Broadcasters’ First Amendment Lunch in Washington, D.C.

“Religious freedom, freedom of speech, and the freedom of the press — along with the other rights recognized and respected within the Bill of Rights — are all threatened even as other rights are marginalized,” said Mohler, who is president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, during the event on Capitol Hill, sponsored by In Touch Ministries and held on the National Day of Prayer.

“Even more distressingly, a new regime of invented rights threatens to replace the rights that are clearly enumerated within the text of the Constitution,” he said.

Speaking specially to invited guests who were in Washington for events related to the National Day of Prayer, Mohler shared how religious liberty “becomes fragile in a secular age,” as do all liberties.

Religious liberty, he suggested, is viewed today by some as “problematic and out-of-date” and “injurious to human freedom, sexual liberty, transgender liberation, and a host of new imperatives.”

Some people think the freedom of religion is no longer a right, but a privilege, he added.

Mohler quoted a 2016 official report from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in which the chairman, Martin R. Castro, writes, “The phrases ‘religious liberty’ and ‘religious freedom’ will stand for nothing except hypocrisy so long as they remain code words for discrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, Christian supremacy or any form of intolerance.”

Mohler noted: “The commission’s report included both religious liberty and religious freedom in scare quotes as if they are merely terms of art — linguistic constructions without any objective reality. We are now witnessing a great and inevitable collision between religious liberty and newly declared and invented sexual liberties.”

He went on to share past statements that predicted the inevitable conflict, and recent events that illustrate how the collision is now taking place.

Before concluding, Mohler encouraged Christian leaders to hold on to the truths expressed in the Declaration of Independence, and to defend these truths “that should be, but often are not, recognized as self-evident.”

And to the generation of young people who are committed to the gospel of Jesus Christ but assume that the defense of religious liberty is political, Mohler said they also need to be committed to the free propagation and voicing of the gospel, without which sinners will not hear the gospel.

“We’re in a fight that’s worth fighting,” Mohler said. “And we understand that as we contend for the freedom of religion, and the freedom of speech, and the freedom of press, again, we’re doing this not just for ourselves and for our children; not just for our churches, but for the world.”

He concluded: “Let’s pray that God will give us wisdom to hold these truths in perilous times.”

Steve Gaines, president of the Southern Baptist Convention and pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee, after the event called Mohler’s address was the “greatest word I’ve ever heard on religious liberty. Grateful for him.”

Gaines, who is also an NRB member, gave the benediction at the event.

Editor’s note: This article has been edited with permission from NRB communications staff for the specific purposes of Southern Seminary. The original, full report appears here.

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Mohler: George Washington’s public virtue, though laudable, is insufficient May 3, 2018

George Washington, the first president of the United States of America, embodied classic public virtues but also had one significant, staining flaw: his views on race. This is according to R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, who made this argument to a packed Heritage Hall on the campus of Southern Seminary during the Leadership Briefing, April 26.

Mohler suggested that, in many ways, Washington is the consummate American success story: He overcame great disadvantages in his upbringing and became a leader fit for a new model of government. Washington was not the most educated, eloquent, or ambitious of the Founding Fathers — but he left behind perhaps the strongest legacy.

“People listened to Washington because of his character and because of the importance of what he was saying — not how he would say it,” Mohler said.

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Trustees of SBTS elect first-ever African-American board officer, affirm strategic plan at spring board meeting April 18, 2018

Members of the Board of Trustees of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary elected the first African-American board officer in the 159-year history of the school. By a unanimous vote during the April 16 board meeting, Alan “Keith” Daniels, a businessman from Texas and a member of MacArthur Boulevard Baptist Church (SBC) in Irving, became board secretary.

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The church must remain holy, urge evangelical leaders at T4G April 16, 2018

Anyone who has grown up in the church has heard the command to be holy. It is one of the distinctive marks of Christianity, even in the derogatory intent behind the common secular claim that Christians act “holier than thou.” This is not by accident — the Bible’s call for holiness spans both the Old and New Testaments, from Leviticus to 1 Peter. Moses, Isaiah, Jesus, and Paul all talked about it. Numerous books have been written on the topic by evangelical giants such as the late R.C. Sproul.

Yet the church has a problem. The world still seems so alluring, and the church consistently struggles to balance Jesus’ desire in John 17 that his people be “in the world” but not “of the world.” Western culture only grows more resistant to Christianity.

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The SBC is a ‘force multiplier’ for local churches, argue Dever and Mohler at T4G April 14, 2018

The Southern Baptist Convention is a “force multiplier” for local churches, argued Mark Dever yesterday during a public conversation with R. Albert Mohler Jr.

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Mohler at T4G: The church must hold itself to a holy standard April 13, 2018

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (SBTS) — Christians must guard themselves against the corrosive effects of sexual sin — both for the health of their souls and the reputation of the church, said R. Albert Mohler Jr. at his Thursday address at Together for the Gospel in Louisville, Kentucky, April 12.

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SBTS Press releases ‘Essential Reading on Leadership’ April 11, 2018

The secular world is preoccupied with leadership in the abstract, writes R. Albert Mohler Jr. in a new book from SBTS Press. The church’s approach to leadership is different, though — it comes from a passionate love for the church and a strong desire to teach God’s people. Essential Reading on Leadership, released today, challenges pastors and ministers to cultivate this kind of leadership.

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Boyce College announces summer academy program

Often the first major decision teenagers face in their lives is where to attend college. A new summer program from Boyce College will make that decision easier.

The Boyce Academy, starting in the summer of 2018, promises to give rising sophomores, juniors, and seniors the chance to experience a Christian college campus while earning course credit, announced R. Albert Mohler Jr. today.

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