Albert Mohler Addresses the Papacyfrom ABPNews by Bob Allen, 14 March 2013
“Evangelical Christians simply cannot accept the legitimacy of the papacy and must resist and reject claims of papal authority,” Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said in a podcast commentary March 14. “To do otherwise would be to compromise biblical truth and reverse the Reformation.”
Mohler said the reformers rejected papal authority during the 16th century for good reasons that are seemingly forgotten today by “some liberal Protestants and careless evangelicals” seeking theological consensus and common ground on social issues like marriage and the sanctity of human life.
“First and foremost, evangelicals must affirm that the doctrine of justification by faith alone is an essential, because that is the very definition of the gospel itself, and there is nothing more core, central and essential than the gospel,” Mohler said.
“The reformers were absolutely right in saying that any understanding of justification – even the understanding that justification is by faith and something else — is another gospel, is anathema to the gospel of Jesus Christ,” Mohler said. “The only way of understanding salvation by grace alone through faith alone is defining justification as the Scripture defines it, and that is justification by faith alone.”
