There’s a video circulating of Al Mohler speaking at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., where something critical happens to him that stops him from speaking without explanation. The audience there and those who watch the video can hear him breathing heavily while whatever is happening inside his body transpires. After seconds that feel like minutes, he composes himself and says he’s OK and continues the speech.
Watch the video, and you’ll be hard-pressed not to assume he’s suffering a cardiac crisis. My first thought was he was having a stroke. It’s shocking no one in the audience called 911 to request an ambulance.
Mark Wingfield
The same thing reportedly happened recently in another public space as well. Together, these videos caused the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary to do something I’m sure he didn’t want to: He made a video to explain what’s going on.
Except he didn’t really explain anything.
He says he experienced “an episode” but doesn’t say an episode of what. He says he had “some very significant surgery” but doesn’t say what kind of surgery. He says when these “episodes” happen, they are “embarrassing” and “unpleasant.”
And, of course, being a Calvinist, he has to add this: “I’m sure God who is sovereign means this for my sanctification.”
Look, I’m not going to make light of whatever medical problem Al Mohler is experiencing. It’s clearly serious and, although he’s a public figure, he has a right to some level of privacy. But because he’s a public figure, he does have to keep the chattering class from chattering. He says on the video he has explained all this to his board of trustees and seminary faculty. That’s good.
I write as someone with real-life experience on such matters. In December 2017, I suffered a spinal cord bruise that by rights should have left me a paraplegic. Thankfully, the worst I endured was complete loss of using my right hand and arm for several months while slowly recovering about 75% feeling in my hand.
“I empathize with the situation Mohler finds himself in.”
At the time, I was serving as the associate pastor of a large Baptist church in Dallas and was in the fishbowl of the public eye every day. Well-meaning congregants would watch me on the chancel every Sunday to see what I was doing with my impaired arm and hand. That’s the price you pay for holding such a public role. I also wrote about this experience for BNG.
I empathize with the situation Mohler finds himself in. He was right to make the video to answer some of the questions. And none of us have the right to demand more of him. He can tell us what he wants to tell us, and it’s up to his governing board to determine whether he’s impaired beyond continued leadership. Sadly, he also does not model the kind of pastoral transparency and reassurance we might hope seminary students to convey someday in their own congregations.
What’s ironic is that he gives himself a lot more grace than he does the women he talks about constantly. Not just women who think God has called them to preach but especially women who think they ought to have medical power over their own bodies and not be owned by men.
If you listen to his “The Briefing” podcast and his other speeches, you’ll notice Mohler talks a lot about women and their bodies — often in much more detail than he’s willing to discuss whatever’s wrong with his own body. He talks about pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding and reproductive anatomy.
Again, I believe Mohler has the right to privacy on his own medical issues. We don’t need to get worked up over diagnosing him and creating conspiracy theories about his health. I just wish he would afford the same dignity to women.
Mark Wingfield serves as executive director and publisher of Baptist News Global and is author of Honestly: Telling the Truth About the Bible and Ourselves.