CONTROLLING OUR DESTINY AS TEXAS BAPTISTS

The firing of Russell Dilday reaffirms the fact that the SBC is going in the opposite direction from the BGCT. It raises many serious questions regarding the relationship between the two conventions. But most significantly, it raises the question of theological education.

Texas has more than 5,500 churches and missions. Most of the pastors are trained by Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Over the next twenty years, as those students are trained by a fundamentalist faculty, which Southwestern will become, and then go to Texas churches, our state could turn fundamentalist.

This must not happen. One possible solution is for Texas Baptists to fund a seminary that will have a traditional Baptist faculty. How to accomplish this needs study. It could involve Truett Seminary at Baylor or the formation of a new seminary, or both.

This may be the only way we can keep the BGCT from turning to fundamentalist leadership.

And at the same time, we need to find alternatives to SBC produced literature for our churches. If our people call fundamentalist pastors and read only fundamentalist literature, then over time, we could lose our state convention, despite our best efforts to prevent this from happening.

Think about it!

Home