Heath Lambert released a response to the criticism leveled at him by me and others. First, I want to say I’m thankful for him, his ministry, and his humility. In apologizing for his sermon, he hedged no bets. While I don’t know Dr. Lambert well, I had the opportunity to take a few classes with him at Boyce. I’ve only ever known him to be a fine, upstanding Christian. His response to the sermon only bears out what I already knew to be true of him.
However, I feel the need to defend myself a bit. I suggested that Dr. Lambert leveraged his position at ACBC to get Dr. Johnson fired. I called that fact “indisputable.” Lambert calls this charge “baseless,” “unsubstantiated,” and “slanderous.” Lambert says: “It would never occur to me to try to force, cajole, or blackmail [Dr. Mohler] into anything.”
Far from being baseless, it remains indisputable that Lambert used his position to professionally harm Dr. Johnson. If he did nothing else besides claiming his colleague was terrible at his job, a faithless teacher, etc. *That* was him putting Dr. Johnson’s job in jeopardy. Surely we aren’t supposed to believe Dr. Lambert expected the public to assume he was in favor of such a dangerous man teaching young pastors after hearing that sermon. Dr. Lambert cares too much for pastoral education to want a terrible theologian instructing students.
I don’t think Dr. Mohler was blackmailed. I think he was put in an unfair, untenable situation in which one faculty member publically accused another of being dangerous, if not unconverted. This in no way questions Dr. Mohler’s integrity, as Lambert implies. To the contrary, Dr. Mohler would have been derelict not to have seriously reconsidered Johnson’s employment after hearing Lambert’s allegation. I’m not the one who questioned Dr. Mohler’s integrity, Lambert did when he implied Mohler hired, aided, and abetted a wolf in the sheep pen.
Again, I don’t think there was some grand conspiracy which Lambert orchestrated. I don’t know what part, if any, Lambert’s well-known opinions of Johnson played in his termination. But I do know that Lambert leveraged his position to professionally harm Johnson. There is video evidence of him doing just that.
While I wish Dr. Lambert didn’t blame-shift on that last point, I’m still appreciative of the statement and consider him a brother in Christ. One mistake doesn’t make a man or an institution. I still heartily recommend Boyce College to students, and happily so!
“In apologizing for his sermon, he hedged no bets.” — I’m not sure I agree.
Lambert: ” My intention was to get people feeling superior about their own theological commitments, and then turn the tables on them by showing that we should not feel superior to those with whom we disagree, but must watch our own life and teaching… My rhetorical strategy was the same one Nathan used with David.”
I listened to the message after having read the apology, so I was waiting for the “table turning.” To my ear, it happened as a postscript, not as some climactic “you are the man!” He even circles back *after* the “turn” to pile more onto Johnson: “I actually feel sorry for him, because I realized he has rejected the Bible.”
???
This apology doesn’t satisfy me at all, but it’s a credit to Dr. Johnson that he’s accepted it.