A Religious Equation
I realize that some who read this may not be familiar with the name, Dr. Albert Mohler. Dr. Mohler is, among other things, the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. Among those “other things” is hosting a podcast to which I listen on a fairly regular basis. The podcast deals with news items, various societal trends, etc. from his perspective as a religious leader. While some of the rest of this post may be enough evidence to suggest that I do not agree with some of his theology, I still find his “take” on things to be interesting.
One of the features of his podcast is that he will answer questions from those who contact him. On the podcast of April 19, 2024, Dr. Mohler received what I thought was an interesting question. As I discuss this, I will be reproducing the question and a portion of Dr. Mohler’s response from the transcript of the podcast. That transcript can be found at albertmohler.com.
The question as it is found in the transcript is…
“And since the Bible doesn’t mention the denominations we presently have, how can any Christian identify with the denomination? The denomination of Christ seems the only appropriate label to me. Your thoughts?”
My first thought is that my high school English teachers and university English professors would not be pleased with starting a sentence with a coordinating conjunction, but that is not what is important for this discussion. What I believe is important for this discussion is the following portion of Dr. Mohler’s response:
In the United States, as the late historian Sidney Mead said, “Denominationalism is the shape of Christianity in America.” And he helped to explain it in a way that I think is just extremely helpful. He said, “To understand why denominations exist in the United States, you just need to understand a matter of basic math.” And I have found this helpful ever since I first heard it when I was just a very young seminary student.
Sidney Mead said, “The math is this: Religious conviction plus religious liberty equals denomination,” If you’re in a situation in which there is no religious liberty, you can be told that the only acceptable form of Christianity is one that, for instance, believes is baptizing babies. And that’s exactly the situation that helped precipitate the American experiment in religious liberty.
What I find fascinating is that material is the “mathematical formula” suggested by Sidney Mead. I suppose that I had never before seen or heard a theological position expressed as an equation. At least I do not remember that ever being the case.
With that in mind, I respectfully suggest another “equation”:
An open Bible plus an open mind equals unity in Christ.
I may never have either the educational credentials or the notoriety of either of the men mentioned above. I do, however, remember what Jesus prayed shortly before going to the cross. Instead of accepting or maybe even promoting denominationalism or any sort of religious division, Jesus prayed this for all of His followers:
that they all may be one… (John 17:21)
I’m thinking that the one who asked Dr. Mohler the question was on to something. Don’t you?
AUTHOR: Jim Faughn