I am curious as to what you mean (or Ellis) by comparing and contrasting Mullins, as a moderate, with the fundamentalism of his day. How can Ellis say that the SBC was generally moderate? Is this a fundamentalism that was strict and legalistic? Or is this fundamentalism the more conservative kind? I’m just not clear.

Thanks…JHG

Mullins fought for religious liberty for Baptists in Romania (a cause near to my heart).

Joseph Tson – the most important Romanian evangelical pastor/theologian in the past 50 years – was led to the Lord by a Romanian man who studied at Southern Seminary in the 1920′s under a scholarship provided by the school during Mullins’ tenure.

Longlasting kingdom impact. That’s the best of Mullins’ legacy.

I do think it is a compliment to be compared to Mullins – at least in his denominational leadership and pastor’s heart (I don’t think I’m anywhere near his stature, nor will be – so the compliment doesn’t work except in its referral to aspirations).

Mullins was a pastor-theologian in that he never lost his connection to the local church. He was a pastor before he was a seminary president.

No, I don’t see Mullins as the prototype Southern baptist as necessarily being a good thing. I think we are more experience-based than we should be. What is interesting is that the entire great SBC controversy is a working out of two poles in his theology: theological orthodoxy versus his experience-based apologetic. The liberals went one way. The conservatives went another.

With all do (sic) respect, I meant the comparison to be a complimentary one. Although the issues you list in your points 1 and 2 may loom large in your denomination, they do appear to this observer to be something akin to hair-splitting. I was attempting to encourage a brother in Christ who seems to me to embody the best of Mullins, at least according to the review.

With all do respect, I don’t think I would want E. Y. Mullins to remind others of myself!

A few clarifying questions:

1) Do you think Mullins saw himself as a pastor-theologian? I’m not sure he saw himself as a pastor, though he certainly saw himself as a servant of pastors.

2) When you say Mullins is “the prototype Southern baptist,” do you mean this as a compliment/good thing? I am personally troubled by his Axioms and the influence they eventually came to have on rank-and-file Southern Baptists, especially through the popularizing of Hobbs. What is your perspective on his Axioms of Religion?

I look forward to hearing your thoughts!

Blessings.