Whatever the beast is that’s devouring basic Christian orthodoxy at Southern Seminary, it should be killed with fire. Or maybe it’s the type that only goes away with prayer and fasting, dunno. But it’s awful and it’s destroying the place like The Nothing in The Neverending Story.
For those concerned that Social Religion has replaced the real Gospel in the hearts of American evangelicals and Southern Baptists in particular, Southern Seminary regularly provides a case in point for exactly how fast false teaching can leaven the lump. Once a bastion of Christian conservativism (or so we thought), Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has been chewed up by rank heresy faster than Kyle J. Howard eats away his racial trauma.
A tweet by Dr. Michael Haykin, a prominent professor at Southern Seminary and head of its history department has left some Christians wondering who spiked the kool-aid at the institution with race riot punch while many other Christians know darn well it was Albert Mohler.
As someone who daily tracks the Downgrade (defined as “a theological-dumbing down” – taken from Spurgeon’s Downgrade Controversy) at Southern Baptist institutions, let me tell you, Haykin’s comments even left me gape-mouthed. It’s genuinely jaw-dropping.
THE MOST INSANELY UNORTHODOX COMMENT FOR A SOUTHERN BAPTIST…EVER?
Theologians specializing in the field of polemics generally agree that all sub-Christian false teachings are on roads that eventually lead to Rome. We all got a front-row seat to that this week, as we watched Francis Chan embrace Catholics as spirit-filled Christians (apparently Sola Fide be damned).
Any branch of heresy still masquerading as a Christian sect will eventually take a road trip to the Vatican to be baptized in the Tiber and dash their head with ashes. The reason for this may seem mysterious at first, but if you consider that Roman Catholicism is the Whore of Babylon, it’s not surprising. The Catholic Church is a harlot and she hides heretics in the hem of her skirt (not easy considering it’s always hiked up like a hussy).
Before we give out Michael Haykin’s tweet, I’ll recall for you an urgent email I sent him several years ago, when we discovered that a gay-affirming, animal rights activist named Karen Swallow Prior was scheduled to speak at the Andrew Fuller Center. Haykin kindly responded to us, declining to click dozens of hyperlinks to primary sources detailing her liberalism, with an assurance that Russell Moore endorsed her and “Russell Moore is certainly no liberal.”
And all God’s people chortled.
Anyway, Haykin – apparently influenced positively by Chan’s widely publicized cannonball into heresy this week – repeated Chan’s talking points:
LET US DISSECT THIS MONSTROSITY OF UNPARALLELED HERESY-PEDDLING FOR YOU
Haykin begins by saying, “I wonder…”
This is perhaps the most recognizable tactic of today’s subversive agents in evangelicalism, particularly as it was manifested in the Emergent Church circa 2010 (which has since collapsed, with most of its followers jumping over to Social Religion as their new heresy addiction). Haykin’s employed tactic has been recycled by Social Religionists, and it’s still all the rage in their anti-apologetic.
The tactic is called deconstructionism. The notion underlying this technique is clear enough: if you’re going to build a kingdom you have to tear apart the old one, and what better place to start than the language itself? The Emergents were famous for this strategy, and now deconstructionism has found a warm, inviting home in the halls of modern seminaries.
To exemplify the deconstructionism of trailblazers like Rob Bell, we might ask, “Does hell really imply eternal, conscious torment?” and answer with, “Love wins, bro.”
To give credit where it is due, Satan invented the strategy with his question in Genesis 3:1, “Yea, and hath God really said?” The heretic employs this strategy for two reasons. The first is to open up the plausibility of the false doctrine under the auspices of simply “provoking conversations,” – this is ultimately aimed at undermining orthodoxy. The reason any serious theologian would want people to question God’s Word is obvious – they’re a theologian for the wrong team.
Yo bro, is justification really by faith alone? I’m just asking the question…
The second reason for this strategy is deflection and plausible deniability. When called out for promoting annihilationism (as with the example above), works-righteousness, or whatever kind of heresy the seminaries are selling on clearance these days, the subversive teacher can take two steps back and say, “Whoah! Whoah! I wasn’t saying this was so, I was just asking…It would be a fascinating study!“
Sadly, Haykin already tried to moonwalk out this controversy (more on that in a minute) using this technique before we were able to put out this article, rendering us unable to say “I told you so,” which as you know is one of our favorite things to say.
Nonetheless, even with a sophisticated back-pedal engaged, we must rebuke this supposedly austere religious scholar for “thinking out loud” in social media, even if his goals aren’t devious.
Haykin presupposes that there is a “large-scale evangelical failure to honor our Lord’s mother.” I don’t think I’m alone in asking what the ^#$& he’s talking about. Who argues this? I mean, Francis Chan obviously argued it this week, but who else argues this besides Romanists?
Chan said something similar only a couple of days ago, which was no doubt read by Haykin and subconsciously affirmed as totes legit…
Or not that I don’t question [Roman Catholic] theology, because I do, but I have a reverence. I tell people it’s like the Virgin Mary. Like if I lived in that day and I knew the Virgin Mary was carrying my savior, that Jesus was really in her womb, how would I treat Mary, Ok? She could throw a rock at me And I’ll be like, okay, but Jesus is in you. My point is if Jesus is in her I’m gonna be really, really reverent with her. Honor her. And so if I believe the Holy Spirit of God is in you, I’m just not so quick to say anything like strongly against you.
Francis Chan, interview with Remnant Radio
Also, the Pope was down to clown on some Mary worship this week, which some kind soul managed to correct for him (HT Cody Libolt)…
Of course, the Romanists don’t respect Mary. They venerate a bitch-goddess manufactured from the leftovers of pagan fertility religion. Simply put, Jesus’ mother is not the idol manufactured by Romanist myth who was herself immaculately conceived, without sin, and who also rose again from the dead. Jesus’ mother would never have called herself a co-redemptrix with Christ. Neither was Mary a virgin for long, much to the chagrin of Romanists.
Forgive us all if we refuse to be lectured by pagans worshiping who God portrays in Revelation 17 as a promiscuous skank. The Roman Catholic “Virgin Mary” is no more Mary than the Pope is the head of the church.
Haykin’s argument is identical (nearly word-for-word!) to the Catholic Answers defense for Mariology made against them by Protestants. Rather than acknowledging that they worship a false goddess who they look to for their salvation and intercession, they just act as though veneration (worship) is the same as respect.
Again, this brings up the question of who in Hades is disrespecting the real and biographical Mary? Where are the Protestant effigy-burning parties? No, really. I want Haykin to be specific…who is disrespecting Jesus’ mom?
Mary, who served as the mother of Christ’s human nature, must surely have been a great gal. Protestants all recognize this. We value her so much that we don’t pray to her or worship her because it would really, really make her mad.
Haykin’s argument seems to imply that we mistreat Mary. I wonder how, exactly, this opinion is formed. He does not say (and cannot say, because it’s utter nonsense). The Romanist argument that Protestants do not respect Mary is entirely and 100% due to their belief that she should be worshipped as the means of our salvation. So when a supposed Protestant says such a stupid thing (repeating the Catholic talking-point), I want to see their math.
Haykin suggests that we don’t focus enough on the “vital place of a holy woman in salvation history.” We would argue that proportionately to the New Testament, we probably give Mary too much attention. The reason is simple, and it’s because Mary isn’t even mentioned by the Apostles in the entire canon of their epistles.
One would think that if Haykin was right, and Mary is due more pomp and circumstance among Protestants, that the Apostles would have constantly reminded the church of her contribution to “salvation history” in their letters. But instead, it sufficed to mention Mary in the biographical sketches of Jesus’ life as little more than an asterisk, only to go on and ignore her entire presence in the early church from there forward. Never in any of the apostolic epistles did the inspired writers take a break from Gospel-preaching to speak to the significance of Mary.
Out of Mary’s womb came the Christ-child. Mary called him her savior (she needed one like anybody else), regularly doubted him and was repeatedly scolded by Christ. Nonetheless, in obedience to the Fifth Commandment, Christ honored her request for a miracle in John 2 – begrudgingly – and made sure before he died to find someone to take care of her. That’s the gist of what the Bible says about Mary, so forgive our focus on Christ rather than his mom because we’re just following the lead of the Apostles.
Haykin also presupposes in this dumpster-fire of a tweet that there is “toxic masculinity” in our ranks. Again, Haykin doesn’t say of whom he speaks. We presume it’s John MacArthur or anyone else who isn’t ready to get down on their knees and repent of (real) complementarianism. And frankly, we don’t trust any of the latte mafia’s sniveling, bowtie-wearing, limp-wristed assessments of what is and is not masculinity. These are the guys cheerleading that homo-priest Sam Alberry and his gaggle of Gospel Coalition lesbians while thinking Jonathan Merritt and Paul Tripp are anything but dandies.
No thanks.
We shouldn’t forget that the term “toxic masculinity” itself is a loaded term and handed to us on the plate of Social Religion. The term was born in the emasculating Mythopoetic Men’s Movement of the 1980s and has continued to be used primarily (if not exclusively) by leftists who think men should be neutered and that Jackie Hill Perry should pee standing up.
Using the term is itself a betrayal of Biblical notions of gender roles, as though there is anything toxic about masculinity. It’s simply not used by people who believe men should be manly and women should be feminine. It’s used by feminists, effeminate men, and Beta Males who prefer to be lorded over by their wives.
Not only does the use of the term betray Haykin’s liberalism (much like the use of the term “reproductive justice” is a dead giveaway for someone’s political leanings), Haykin’s tweet makes a startling presupposition. He presupposes that men are indeed a source of “toxically masculine” in “our ranks,” which ostensibly is conservative evangelicalism. He doesn’t name names for the same reason a sniper doesn’t wear reflective tape, because it will betray his position.
THE BIG PICTURE
Unfortunately, this isn’t an isolated incident in which an otherwise-solid brother stumbled via a poorly-advised and poorly-worded tweet. This is yet another full-time Social Religion activist (check out Haykin’s social media) being a tad too honest about his beliefs.
I don’t know if Haykin means what he said and is a secret Romanist or if he’s just an ideologically promiscuous man who’s dry-mounting evangelicalism’s bad doctrine of the week.
It doesn’t matter.
Albert Mohler should be under investigation for what appears to be an intentional theological derailment of Southern Seminary. If Occam’s Razor is accurate and the most obvious answer is the most likely, then Albert Mohler was never converted to conservatism shortly before taking over SBTS, as he claimed. Mohler has always been a liberal, playing the long game to corrupt a conservative institution.
There is no other explanation for who he hires, the promotions he’s given the worst of the Social Religionist offenders, and his refusal to lift a finger to stop the rank heresy in his institution.
Ultimately, Haykin would go on to say he’s not promoting Mariology. Of course, heretics are damned liars, so that’s of little surprise. But we make no assumption that Haykin is a Romanist. Rather, we are asserting that Haykin – like Mohler – is fundamentally adoctrinal and will whore after whatever polls well this week in evangelicalism.
HAYKIN WALKS IT BACK, APPEALING TO HIS CONSERVATIVE CONFESSIONS
After some rightful outrage, Haykin ran to hide behind Southern Seminary’s Confession of Faith.
The term we invented for this strategy years ago is “website orthodoxy.” This is when a rank heretic appeals to his Confession of Faith as a defense against whatever he said that was squarely against his Confession of Faith, usually pointing to a hyperlink on their website. It’s very common among leftists and liberals – people from Rick Warren to Beth Moore – used to defend themselves against discerning Christians who have smoked out the devil’s foxes.
It works like this…
- Step 1, say a liberal thing.
- Step 2, when discerned, quote your Confession of Faith, which you have already clearly undermined by the liberal thing you said.
- Step 3, portray your liberal thoughts as the epitome of conservatism.
This is how the Overton window is moved in evangelicalism. It usually begins with, “I’m a strong conservative, but I believe [liberal garbage].” It’s as genuine as The Lincoln Project arguing, “We are strong conservatives, but we want you to vote for Democrats this election.” It would be like a socialist arguing, “I’m a strong Capitalist, but let me tell you why Universal Basic Income is a great idea.”
There is nothing Reformed or evangelical about Michael Haykin, other than that he’s paid to be one by Southern Baptist tithe-givers and hasn’t fulfilled his end of the bargain. As J. Gresham Machen pointed out, liberals have to pretend to be conservatives in order to stay employed in our institutions. They’ll always swear up-and-down they’re conservative, just as the moderates in the Conservative Resurgence fraudulently claimed about themselves.
Notice how even in his follow-up tweet Haykin again presupposes that Protestants are “silent” about Mary. This is fundamentally untrue. It’s just that we don’t mention her any more often than the Scripture does, which is seldom.
Haykin’s is a Romanist argument. Period.
Haykin then quotes Calvin about the incarnation of Christ, which apparently proves something or other. I suspect that Calvin would think no higher of Michael Haykin than of Michael Servetus.
