Al Mohler, the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has been listed, long with his seminary, as a defendant in Dr. David Sills defamation lawsuit against the Southern Baptist Convention. The lawsuit surrounds an affair that David Sills had with Jennifer Lyell, at one time the most powerful woman in the SBC as a LifeWay executive. In 2019, Jennifer Lyell retconned her narrative to absolve herself of personal responsibility, sin by recasting herself as a victim of an unconsensual, abusive relationship. The SBC ran with this narrative, and Al Mohler was a key player in running with the obviously fake and feminist narrative. The Sills filing posits a theory as to why Al Mohler would champion Lyell of all people.
- Ms. Lyell, a seasoned writer and publishing executive, including at one time for Defendants SBC and LifeWay, coordinated and implemented a devastating attack against David Sills after he ended their consensual adult relationship. She did not act alone.
- In Spring 2018, Ms. Lyell confessed to Defendants Geiger, Lifeway, SBC, Executive Committee, Seminary, and Mohler, about her affair with Dr. Sills. Lyell had not anticipated the significant amount of negative reaction she would receive within the SBC community. The negative opinions threatened her powerful vice president position at LifeWay, a subsidiary of SBC.
Sills asserts that Lyell’s position at LifeWay would have been threatened had she not retconned the narrative.
- In this same period, Defendant Mohler was presented an opportunity. Mohler was reeling from public scorn for having publicly supported his friend, C.J. Mahaney, the former leader of Sovereign Grace Ministries, after Mahaney allegedly covered up incidents of child sex abuse. Mohler was looking for, and found in Lyell’s story, an opportunity to restore his own reputation in the SBC, particularly on the subject of concealed sex abuse. Notably, in a subsequent statement made in February 20L9, in an effort to distance himself from Mahaney, Mohler said that when he signed a statement in 2013 supporting Mahaney, he thought an independent investigation of the allegations of sexual and domestic abuse had been initiated. He said at the time that he didn’t learn until the prior year that Mahaney and other Sovereign Grace Ministry leaders had not participated in that investigation. Mahaney presently maintains his position as a senior pastor in Louisville, where Mohler lives.
Al Mohler has a situation where his support of CJ Mahaney. Mahaney was a Big Eva star because he was a Arminian turned Calvinist and also charismatic. He was the leader of Sovereign Grace Ministries, an organization that collapse because of sex abuse scandal. Sills contends that Al Mohler used Lyell to rehabilitate his image.
Mohler has a lot of history flip flopping, and has lately been seen as an ally by those in the Conservative Baptist Network, despite his fueling of the liberal drift in the convention. This is because of recent posturing that began after Mohler’s surprising defeat in 2021.
- The SBC had also not anticipated the public reaction and sought to control it. Unable to withstand the backlash, in March 2019 Ms. Lyell rebranded what she had first reported about the affair. ln furtherance of that effort, and directly reporting to Defendants Geiger, Lifeway, SBC, Executive Committee, Seminary, and Mohler, Defendant Lyell offered to write about the affair. Specifically, Ms. Lyell, the highest-ranking woman in the SBC at the time, offered to write for the public relations arm of Defendant Executive Committee, namely, Baptist Press. Defendants Mohler and Seminary urged Lyell to write the public relations piece.
Al Mohler is accused by David Sills of urging Lyell to write a public relations piece that would save face for both of their reputation in the SBC.
We have known that Al Mohler was one of the people who peddled the false victimhood narrative of Lyell, but this defamation suit connects the dots as to why Mohler would involve himself in Lyell’s conspiracy.