Earlier this week we called your attention to Al Mohler’s attack on David French. Mohler was very upset with French’s support of the Respect for Marriage Act. Get up to speed here.
David French has now hit back against Al Mohler and others who have questioned his Christian faith.
Here is a taste of his piece in The Dispatch:
It’s been an interesting few days. Ever since I wrote (first in The Atlantic and then on Sunday here in The Dispatch) in support of the Senate version of the Respect for Marriage Act, I’ve been subject to an absolute torrent of online criticism, mainly from fellow Christians. The culmination of the critiques came from Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, who took to the pages of World Magazine to pen a piece called “The Parable of David French.”
“This is how conservatism dies,” he wrote. “This is how marriage is surrendered.”
That’s dramatic! But it’s not as extreme as other critiques, including those who questioned whether I am truly a Christian, who told me I should face church discipline, and who compared my support for the Respect for Marriage Act to support for slavery. I kid you not.
Whew. That’s a lot. It’s always a struggle to know when to keep addressing an argument and when to just move on, but given the continued attacks—now running into their sixth day—I think it’s important to go one more round. And this time I’m going to take a bit of a different approach. I’m going to address directly, from the ground up, why the debate is so confused and why the distinctions between Christian marriage (what I’ll call “covenant marriage”) and civil marriage matter so very much.
And this:
But Mohler isn’t content with citing incorrect conclusory legal assertions. He has to light a straw man on fire. His big beef, it turns out, is with my commitment to pluralism. Here’s Mohler:
“In a recent book, French explains, ‘I recognize pluralism as a permanent fact of American life and seek to foster a political culture that protects the autonomy and dignity of competing American ideological and religious communities.’ But what, dare we ask, are the allowable boundaries of respectable pluralism? In answering this question, David French is particularly unclear. If he is clear, his view would undermine any stable public morality based on any objective moral truths.”
I’m sorry, but this is absurd. He’s making an assertion about my principles that is completely undermined by the very book he quotes and by countless other examples of my work. My view undermines any “stable public morality” based on any “objective moral truths”?
How do you write that with a straight face?
I could go all day, but let’s give some counterexamples. Honesty is a profound moral value. I’ve strongly supported defamation litigation—which protects individuals and institutions from harmful lies—including the harmful lies advanced by Mohler’s chosen political candidate in 2020, Donald Trump and his team.
Protecting women from exploitation and abuse is also an indispensable element of a “stable public morality,” and that’s a key element of my work. It includes protecting women from harassment and abuse by people like Mohler’s candidate, Donald Trump.
I believe all human life should enjoy legal protection, from conception until natural death. And not just as a matter of religious morality. There is a secular case for life as well.
Finally, let’s not forget the context here. This argument is occurring after hundreds of thousands of gay marriages have been performed, and I have yet to hear a compelling argument why the “stable public morality” requires Christians to support ripping legal recognition and stability from those families.
Can you imagine waking up one morning and hearing the state no longer recognizes your marriage and that suddenly everything from medical decisions to child custody to basic inheritance and ownership rules were up for grabs? And the people telling you “stable public morality” requires your pain and sacrifice have also told America that a vote for a thrice-married, multiple adulterer who faces multiple, corroborated claims of sexual abuse, and who appeared in Playboy Video Centerfold: Playmate 2000 Bernaola Twins was an urgent moral imperative?
Someone once called Al Mohler the “evangelical pope.” This has apparently gone to his head. This is a guy who sits in his luxurious office in Louisville and casts aspersions on fellow Christians. I think it’s time to start ignoring this guy. He represents a new fundamentalism–one which condemns the faith of anyone who does not conform to his views on every issue.
I would love to see one–just one–faculty member at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary call Mohler out for his attacks on French and other Christians who disagree with him. (His remarks on the death of Ron Sider, for example, were horrifyingly vicious, ugly, and un-Christlike). This is unlikely to happen because their jobs will be in jeopardy if they speak out against Mohler. Or perhaps there are no faculty members at SBTS who disagree with Mohler.
Here are some of the Twitter attacks French is receiving from the Mohler orbit:
Carl Trueman essentially argues that French is a useful heretic who will help people like Trueman draw “orthodox” boundaries. Trueman can’t seem to let go of this “evangelical elites” argument.
A professor at Union College. Here is some context to Baker’s reference:
I think you get the idea.
I have a deep admiration for David French, and I find the vitriol that he’s had to endure form the illiberal right really disheartening. I consider myself an “old school” liberal (or perhaps, in the 2020 political landscape, a “radical centrist”) who’s been trying to bridge the Red/Blue divide, and French’s newsletter has been a godsend. I guess I read all of this as a reminder (if any were needed) that “cancel culture” thrives on both the left and the right. It’s seldom aimed at the opposing political side, it seems. Its real victims are the most insightful, balanced voices who are engaged in dialogue and refuse to take a hard-line stance in the culture wars.