SOUTHWESTERN SEMINARY: Slowly Slipping Away
By David R. Currie,
Coordinator

Southwestern Seminary is slowly slipping away from traditional Baptists. The slippage is not dramatic like that which has occurred at Southern, Southeastern and Midwestern seminaries, where virtually entire faculties have left or been fired since fundamentalists became president.

Southwestern is changing quietly but dramatically. Texas Baptists should face that reality.

CHAPEL SPEAKERS

A couple of illustrations: Who will the students be listening to in chapel in the Spring of 1997? Read this lineup: W.A. Criswell; O.S. Hawkins; Paige Patterson, president of Southeastern seminary; David Kelly, president of New Orleans seminary and Patterson’s brother-in-law; Al Mohler, president of Southern seminary; Mark Coppenger, president of Midwestern seminary; and Morris Chapman, president of the SBC Executive Committee.

FACULTY CHANGES

Faculty changes are another illustration. Yes, there are still several fine, excellent professors teaching at Southwestern who are not fundamentalists. And, according to what I hear, they are not interfered with by the administration. You can still get a quality education at Southwestern if you pick your professors carefully. But most new faculty being hired are solid fundamentalists. AND, more importantly, good people are not being hired because they are not fundamentalists.

I know of three non-hirings first hand. Two potential professors last year, unanimously recommended by the faculty in their respective departments, were never taken to the trustees to be hired. Why? One is pastor of a church which gives to CBF and the other attends a church which gives to CBF. They were politely told that it would be impossible for them to be approved by the Southwestern trustees.

The latest non-hiring is Steve Harmon, who is mentioned in several articles of this newsletter.

Southwestern president Ken Hemphill may be staying out of Texas Baptists politics publicly but this is not the case nationally. He was a featured speaker at the Evangelism Conference sponsored by the new fundamentalist Virginia state convention — the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia.

CANCELING JOURNAL

But the worst “bad news” is the canceling of the Spring issue of the Southwestern Journal of Theology by President Ken Hemphill. Hemphill raised the question of the “possible perception of unbalanced treatment” of the topic, the Southern Baptist Convention’s Baptist Faith and Message.

Hemphill, who said he had not read the articles, acknowledged that the action was influenced by the contributions of three high profile Baptist moderate scholars: Bill Leonard, Molly Marshall and William Hendricks, former Southwestern theology professor. Other contributors included Larry Baker, pastor of First Baptist Church, Pineville, La., and former executive director of the SBC Christian Life Commission, and William Estep, long-time Southwestern church history professor.

“It would have been inappropriate for Southwestern to provide these authors with such a platform without opportunity for balanced response,” Hemphill said in a statement.

Where is the balance in the chapel speakers? Is Hemphill not concerned about that balance?

Personally, I do not blame Hemphill for inviting who he has invited to speak for chapel. The fundamentalists control the seminary. Hemphill was hired to fulfill their vision for the school. I also do not blame him for canceling the journal. It would not meet the goals of the fundamentalist agenda.

What I am saying is that we traditional Baptists need to face reality.

The current SBC is a place where Bill Hendricks and Bill Estep are not “proper role models” for true Southern Baptists. Estep, Hendricks, Baker, Marshall and Leonard are out and Jerry Falwell, Paige Patterson, Al Mohler and Mark Coppenger are in. Hemphill and the Southwestern trustees want the students to emulate Falwell and the others, not Bill Hendricks or Bill Estep. This is the real world of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1997.

These are the FACTS! What it means is that over time, local churches will have to be very careful when calling a pastor with a Southwestern degree if they do not want a fundamentalist pastor who considers Jerry Falwell his model. It is sad, but true, Southwestern is slowly slipping away.

April 1997