Learning From an Internship at TBC
by Brent Beasley
TBC Intern

At the end of a six-month internship with TBC as part of my degree program at Truett Seminary, the key question for me is : What did I learn? I learned a lot of things.

I learned that the family ranch is a big part of David Currie’s life.

I learned that the term “marking a lamb” is a euphemism if there ever was one and not something a city boy like me wants to be a part of.

I learned that discovering a gar on a trot line at midnight while sitting in a canoe is a scary moment (David jumped almost as much as I did.)

I learned that discovering the night sky at midnight while sitting on a canoe fifteen miles outside Paint Rock, Texas is a wondrous, holy moment.

I also learned a few things about Baptist life in Texas and beyond. One of the things I learned is that there is a real need for ministers and lay men and women who are willing to take an interest in and take a stand for traditional Baptist principles in the face of fundamentalism. The need for the young men and women of my generation to step forward and participate is extremely acute.

I now fear that in fifteen or twenty years our BGCT will fall to fundamentalism. If this does occur, it will be a more gradual or incremental transition than what occurred in the SBC.

If the BGCT does follow the lead of the SBC and forsake its heritage for fundamentalism, it will be because the leaders of my generation do not take up the torch. It will be because we do not care, are not interested, or do not have the courage to speak and to act.

Most Baptists of my generation want absolutely nothing to do with the controversy that has plagued the SBC over the last eighteen years. It seems to most a tragic, colossal waste of time.

A friend expressed his feelings concerning the controversy recently to me in response to my working with TBC: “I don’t believe when we get to heaven God is going to ask whether we were moderates or fundamentalists.”

He and others like him are right. It is time to move beyond the bickering and the fighting. But, before we can move forward, we must make a decision about which direction we are going to go.

It is too late now to pretend that nothing ever happened. The fundamentalist takeover of the SBC has forced each one of us to make a decision. You either support the SBC with your time, money, energy, etc. or you do not.

The same is true within the BGCT. Either you support the current leadership of the BGCT or you support a fundamentalist takeover. You must decide. I have decided. And I have tried to move beyond the fighting and the bickering.

I now realize the Southern Baptist Convention left me a long time ago. In fact, it began leaving me in 1979 when I was only eight years old. It only seems logical that I would not want the BGCT to do the same thing and that I would be willing to work to prevent it.

Frankly, I am tired of reading the letters that come to TBC and hearing comments made to me that essentially say, “I don’t like what the fundamentalists did, but I don’t like what you’re doing either. I wish you would just leave it alone.”

If you don’t like what they did, then quit supporting them. Quit paying Paige Patterson’s salary. Stop giving Southern and Southwestern seminaries the money to mass produce more and more fundamentalist ministers.

If you don’t like what the fundamentalists did, why did you help pay for the locksmith who locked Russell Dilday out of his office? Only when more Texas Baptists of my generation finally decide whether they support the fundamentalist movement or not will we be able to put the controversy behind us.

My friend is right. When I get to heaven God is not going to ask me if I was a fundamentalist or a moderate. But, I hope when I do move on to heaven it can be said of me that I made a choice between what I believed was right and wrong and had the courage and integrity to stand up and be counted.

June 1997