A CRUEL PURGE

This editorial appeared in Louisville, Kentucky’s The Courier-Journal.

The on-going witch hunt at Louisville’s Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has taken a sad, even sadistic turn.

With the dismissal, shortly before his retirement, of veteran librarian Paul Debusman, the seminary’s administration has proven yet again that its orientation more closely parallels the Spanish Inquisition— or the English Star Chamber— than it does a 20th Century institution of higher learning. The episode to which we refer was described in a story in Wednesday’s Courier-Journal by religion reporter Leslie Scanlon.

She reported that Mr. Debusman, 64, wrote a private letter to the Rev. Tom Eliff, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Oklahoma City and president of the Southern Baptist Convention, to react to the latter’s comments at a Sept. 16 chapel service.

Dr. Eliff had declared on that occasion that he doubted whether he would have been welcome to preach when “moderates” controlled the seminary.

The letter from Mr. Debusman—who has been a reference librarian at the seminary since 1962—expresses his view that people of all ideological perspectives had been welcomed in years gone by.

Instead of reacting as a gentlemen— and a scholar—might do, Dr. Eliff turned the letter over the authorities, meaning the pharisees who run the seminary. They hauled Mr. Debusman into the office and fired him.

We’ve never believed that it is our place to debate the seminary about its prevailing views on theology. However, it is not debatable that in the past five years or so a stream of able, contributing people of faith have left Louisville for other places because of the ideological purge going on there. This trend is going to have a significant effect on a variety of institutions— including those that minister to the needy, the troubled and the sick.

Beyond that, it is just wrong to dismiss an employee with years of good service, near retirement, because he voiced his view of the truth. It’s the sort of thing that Americans of good will have long denounced.

We commend Mr. Debusman for speaking his mind. He joins a long line of people of conscience who have spoken their views, not fearing the truth.

But he didn’t deserve this. And our neighbors at the seminary should feel the sting of their community disapproval for their narrow-minded and cowardly action.

We wonder how long it will take the many Southern Baptists of good will, who cherish freedom, to realize how much damage these petty, thin-skinned bigots are doing to their denomination.

Copyright 1997, The Courier-Journal, reprinted with permission.

December 1997