The Gospel Coalition

Edgar Young Mullins (1860-1928)

Southern Seminary’s fourth president (1899-1928) stands as one of the most important theologians in Baptist history. During his presidency, the seminary experienced dramatic growth in enrollment and faculty. It was during Mullins’ tenure as president that the seminary moved to its current location in Louisville. (Mullins’ office is now occupied by the Dean of the School of Theology – Russell Moore.)

Mullins is unique in that he is claimed as a hero by both sides of the recent Conservative-Moderate controversy in the Southern Baptist Convention. He is the theologian to first use the term “Soul Competency,” and though he was a theological conservative, he opened the door to a certain theological direction that would prove detrimental to the seminary in later years.

Mullins grounded the truth of Christianity both in human experience and in historical facts. I confess that of all Southern’s presidents, Mullins intrigues me the most. A consummate politician, an evangelical statesman, a Baptist theologian and a servant of the church – Mullins offers us both an example to follow and pitfalls to avoid. Here are two quotes from Mullins I enjoy:

“There is a certain view of God and nature and man and the world in the background of our faith. But Christianity is a historical religion, and a religion of experience. It is grounded in facts. The Christian worldview rests upon these facts.”

“In Jesus is made known to us the ultimate reality of God as a moral and spiritual being. In Jesus, God appears as righteous love. In Jesus, God comes near for our salvation. In Jesus, the grace and power of God are manifested for our redemption. In Jesus, God takes the initiative in seeking us. We are found and awakened by the gospel. But our sin binds us. We know ourselves alienated in heart and life from God. We are unable to redeem ourselves. We belong to a kingdom of evil and are held captive. We need forgiveness and reconciliation. Through his atoning work Christ brings God near in forgiving grace. We need moral and spiritual transformation. Christ supplies the motives which lead to repentance and the new life. ”In Christ” is the phrase which expresses the total meaning of the new life. He is its source, its structural law, and its goal. We are, in other words, regenerated and spiritually constituted in Jesus Christ.”

“From the fact that other religions, including Judaism, have in them the idea of sacrifice and propitiation, it is concluded by some that it must be a false idea. Fundamentally this assumes that everything in the non-Christian religions must be wholly false. Is it not far more likely that a universal religious idea has in it an element of truth than that its universality is a mark of its falsity? Christianity purified and fulfilled all religious ideas of human beings, emptied them of their transient and superficial meanings, and revealed their true inward meaning. The atonement of Christ in a very special manner does this. In it God appears in Christ, not as a distant, implacable and angry being, requiring a satisfaction for sin which humans cannot supply. Jesus himself, as holy and loving and yearning to save humanity, provides the satisfaction.”

Related Posts:
Edgar Young Mullins: An Intimate Biography
A Man of Books and a Man of the People