I'm Thrilled That You Can Earn Your MDiv Online…Now, Please Don't

I'm delighted to have played some tiny role in rolling out the myriad online educational options available to Southern Baptist seminarians today. (Excursus: My role? Other people dreamed it up, did all of the work to plan the specifics, climbed the mountain that is accreditation, named it, packaged it, priced it, sold it, and implemented it. I said "Aye" in a committee meeting.) It is a wonderful and amazing world in which a missionary kid living in Bhutan can earn a Masters of Divinity degree at SWBTS. Thank you, Lord, for redeeming the Internet to do a little good alongside the torrent of bad.

Now that these degrees are available, I'm writing to beg you not to avail yourself of them unless it is impossible (and I don't just mean "inconvenient") for you to attend an actual bricks-and-mortar seminary campus. Here are a few reasons why:

1. Most people don't learn as well online: Really, I'm just nearly comfortable saying NOBODY learns as well online, but having received a face-to-face education of some significant quality, I've learned to be wary of universals and superlatives.

   I'm thankful for online classes because I'm personally indebted to them. I would never have been able to take German face-to-face at SWBTS. I was in my first year at FBC Farmersville. Taking German would've required that I drive to Fort Worth daily. Not possible. So I took it online. I did well enough in German to pass the tests and gain admission into the Ph.D. program. In fact, I did well enough to read books and articles in German for a lot of my papers.

   And yet, out of the languages that I have studied (French, German, Greek, and Hebrew), there's no question that German is the weakest of them all. The fact that I took German online is a significant factor in that reality. I'm thankful that I was able to get German online, but I sure am happy that I didn't get anything else that way. Whatever you learn in an online class, you're probably not going to know it as well as you will know something you've learned in a classroom setting.

2. A seminary education is about more than just the mere accumulation of facts. Last night I sat in Dr. Matt Queen's Personal Evangelism class at SWBTS. For the first fifteen minutes of the class session, I heard student after student as they told stories about the people with whom they had shared the gospel as a part of the "Second Mile" campaign on the SWBTS campus. Dr. Queen and a whole host of SWBTS faculty are out with students walking door-to-door throughout this region of Fort Worth sharing the gospel. That's difficult to replicate in an online class.

   There's the experience of chapel. As a student, the chapel experience at SWBTS blessed me many times. No, not every time, but many times! The online student is missing the entire environment of seminary. I think that environment, even for the commuting student that I always was, is quite an important aspect of a seminary education. Think twice—think twenty-two times—before you relegate that aspect of seminary education away to unimportance.

3. Am I crass to mention networking? There's the network of friends you will meet in your classes. My seminary friendships endure to this day. For example, I commuted to SWBTS with Ken Miller, who now works at NAMB. I sat in seminars with Joe Early, James Egan, David Goza, Greg Tomlin, Rex Butler, Scott Maze, and a whole host of others who remain my friends to this day.

   But they are more than just friends. They are also the peer group to whom I often turn when I don't know what to do or when I just want to learn to do something better than I am doing it. Being a part of this cohort is an important part of my life.

   Beyond that, there are the relationships that I built with professors. I occasionally get to sit down to lunch with James Leo Garrett. I have an ongoing friendship with Malcolm Yarnell. I have gleaned much from the many who have taught me, and by the blessing of God, those gleanings have extended beyond my time with them in their classrooms.

   I could not name a single person with whom I shared an online class. Furthermore, when a church comes to a professor and asks for a recommendation of someone to fill their pulpit, I don't think that they very often reply, "You know, student 'godrules1384' in my Introduction to Philosophy of Religion class seems like a really sharp guy." I think they're going to mention someone into whose eyes they have looked.

4. Enrollment Does Not Equal Graduation: Online ENROLLMENT is through the roof, not just in theological education at places like Liberty but also in the broader educational world at places like the University of Phoenix. But how many of those online enrollees make it all the way through to graduation? Not nearly as many as you might think. The dirty little secret of Internet education is that such an astounding number of people quit long before they graduate. Easy in; easy out.

   Whether it should or should not, the obstacle of moving to a seminary campus to pursue theological education is a testing point for many people with regard to how serious they are about their calling to ministry. The person who has left behind a job, sold a house, uprooted a family, and relocated to Fort Worth is a person who is committed. In moments of horrific sacrifice and despondency, that person can reach the point where it is easier to press forward and finish than it is to go back. Not so for the online student. It is so, so easy just to quit or postpone (indefinitely).

   Burn the ships, my friend! Burn the ships! Climb out onto the limb. No turning back; no turning back!

Unique Opportunities for Teacher Training

Within the past month, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary has released a triple-whammy of historic changes that, I believe, add up to an incredible opportunity for churches. Let me spell it out for you.

First, Southwestern announced the debut of a new degree plan: The Master of Theological Studies (MTS).

The standard degree for the training of pastors is the Master of Divinity (MDiv). The MDiv is a 91-hour degree. I spent four years obtaining mine. It is one of the lengthiest Masters degrees around, and with good reason. The MDiv is actually something like a stretch limousine—take the material that you might expect to be in a Master of Arts (History, Languages, Philosophy) and then weld in the components of a vocational degree (practical training in Pastoral Ministry, Preaching, Educational Administration, Missiology, Evangelism, etc.) to lengthen the frame.

If the MDiv is a stretch limo, the MTS is a Smart Car. Only 36 hours of study will get you one. What's in it? You can look for yourself, but basically it contains a lot of the MDiv material sans the practical pastoral training and the languages. You will spend 18 hours becoming more adept at reading and interpreting the English Bible (B. H. Carroll would approve!), with classes in Old Testament, New Testament, and Biblical Hermeneutics. You will spend 9 hours in the study of Church History (I feel good about that), including a single three-hour course studying Baptist History. Twin Systematic Theology courses occupy 6 hours, followed by three-hour courses in Apologetics and in Ethics that round out the degree.

Second, Southwestern announced that this entire degree would be available online.

And so, access to Southwestern's world-class faculty and to the very same classes that have been training pastors, missionaries, professors, and denominational statesmen for decades are now available apart from the formerly attendant pilgrimage to Fort Worth. No matter where you live, you can obtain this degree so long as you have reliable Internet access.

Third, Southwestern has announced a new 30% discount for people who enroll in the MTS who are serving on a local church staff.

You can find out more of the details about this discount by looking here, on Dr. Thomas White's blog. Basically, this entire MTS degree is available to church staff members for a mere $7,200. That's a great deal in a market (higher education) that is remarkably devoid of great deals.

And so, here's the opportunity part for local churches.

Most churches have one or even several pastors who have completed the longer residential degrees at SWBTS (MDiv, MACE, etc.). Many churches, however, also have staff members who have arisen entirely out of the membership of their church (or even from another church) who serve without the benefit of any formal theological education. Sometimes these are part-time roles or lesser-paying roles in the church staff. These employees may not be at the stage of life or may not have the financial wherewithal to pull up roots and go to SWBTS for theological study. With the new MTS an opportunity exists for these staff members to take a significant step forward in their personal theological development, and to do so for amazingly little expense. Many churches will just want to underwrite the cost of the degree in light of the benefits to the church in having a better equipped staff member.

Also, although the cost would be higher (a little more than $10,000), an opportunity also exists here for churches to encourage non-staff teachers (Sunday School teachers, etc.) to obtain the MTS. Not every Sunday School teacher will want to do this, and indeed, it will be beyond the reach of some Sunday School teachers (an accredited Bachelor degree is prerequisite). Nevertheless, some of your master teachers would truly enjoy obtaining a degree such as this one and would benefit greatly from it. I can envision this even being a distinctive emphasis for some churches—professionally trained Sunday School teachers.

Some of your teachers might even find a benefit at their places of employment for having obtained an accredited Masters.

I'm interested to see what becomes of these developments. There is no doubt that the explosion of online educational options is changing the landscape of higher education. Also, it is indisputable that we are riding this roller coaster while they are building the track in front of us—no one knows what lies around the next curve. But the opportunities to open our seminaries to more people, to bring theological education closer to the local church, and to lower individual costs in theological education are major, unprecedented developments. The teaching ministry of our churches could be changed forever by such things.

On Teaching at Seminary

God has called me to be a pastor, and I intend to be faithful to that calling, in just that context, until God clearly and definitively calls me elsewhere (or until no congregation will suffer me to serve any longer). This has been the primary reason why I have rebuffed opportunities to put my degree to work as a faculty member somewhere.

But there has been another reason, secondary to the first, but powerful.

I have suspected that serving as a seminary professor would be boring to me. Teaching Introduction to Church History would be, the first time I did it as a full-time faculty member, very exciting, I'm sure. I'm sure it would still be exciting the second time through. But how would I feel about it the sixth time I dusted off those notes and started in once again on good old Church History I?

I suspect they'd have to lock me in a rubber room.

And for this reason, I've felt some pity toward those who teach at seminary and are locked in such a repetitive job. One thing you've got to say about serving as the pastor of any local church—every day is different!

Last night that changed for me. Last night I attended Dr. Ryan Stokes's lecture "The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Origin of Satan." A light bulb went on last night and I saw some things that I think are pretty winsome about serving as a seminary professor.

Seminary profs get unparalleled access to their colleagues' research and to the seminary's resources. They get to attend lectures and colloquia. I don't know that every seminary professor takes advantage of the opportunity, but they regularly get chances to learn a lot from their peers. That would be enjoyable to me. And from the times I've passed by, for example, Dr. James Leo Garrett spending an entire day at work in the library feeding his curiosity, he's never looked bored to me.

Seminary profs have the opportunity for enriching collegiality. Dr. Patterson has built a faculty at SWBTS that includes a lot of strong friendships. Especially with regard to many of the newer faculty members, the fraternal kinship among these professors is hard to miss. I think that seminary professors may have a far better opportunity to build deep friendships with peers than do most pastors in local churches. Of course, down through the years I've also seen a few occasions of deep enmity springing up among faculty members, and in the past those experiences have sometimes led me to think that faculty tend to be a petty and easily-offended lot. But I was wrong about that, and my eyes have been opened to see how deeply these people can come to care about one another.

Of course, I've always known that seminary professors have a great opportunity to achieve widespread impact for the advance of the gospel. The best faculty members (in my opinion) relish in their contribution to souls won, churches strengthened, and believers equipped.

So, my seminary-professor friends, I'm thankful for you. I hope you're having fun doing what you're doing. Dr. Patterson, I'm thankful for your work to build a community of faithful scholars at SWBTS. I'm proud to partner with the lot of you under the lordship of Christ until He comes.

"The End of Christianity"; The Beginning of the Discussion

William A. Dembski's The End of Christianity: Finding a Good God in an Evil World is an interesting and provocative book. I have not yet finished it, and will supply my own thoughts about the book once I have done so.

In the meantime, I would direct your attention to a review of the book written by Dr. David Allen. Allen's review notably includes a preamble by Dr. Paige Patterson and a clarifying statement by Dr. Dembski himself about some of the more innovative portions of the book.

I will not go into a review of the content of the book, since I am saving that post for when I have actually completed the book myself. I will not offer at this time any opinion about the content of the book, the helpfulness or lack thereof of the theories proposed therein, or the compatibility of Dembski's book with Southern Baptist beliefs. I will, however, take a moment to highlight something particularly noteworthy about this review. Consider the following statement from Dr. Paige Patterson in the preamble to the review:

As president of Southwestern, I seized the occasion to meet with Bill Dembski. As a young-earth creationist, I do not agree with Dembski’s views of the age of the earth or the retroactive effects of the Fall. Indeed, as a “young earther,” my own position, which I naturally hold dear, is heavily critiqued in Dembski’s book.

You may have read on occasion the allegation—the deliberately dishonest allegation—that Dr. Patterson or other much-maligned Southern Baptists require that people agree with them on every point of theology or else they will not cooperate with them. Here we have a perfect test case to see whether this is or is not true. Dr. Patterson bluntly states that he "[does] not agree" with Dembski, and even that Dembski has authored a book "highly [critical]" of Dr. Patterson's own system of belief. Understand me plainly: A professor at SWBTS, working for Dr. Patterson, has authored and published a book that Dr. Patterson (rightly) perceives as highly critical of Dr. Patterson's own theological viewpoint.

We have here an example of a person who does not agree with Dr. Patterson at all points of theology, and of all things, with regard to the creation account in Genesis. If there is any truth whatsoever to the charge that Dr. Patterson will not tolerate and cannot cooperate with anyone who does not agree with him at all points of theology, then we are certain what we will read next: A ravaging Philippic against Dembski's book followed by a press release announcing Dembski's dismissal from the SWBTS faculty. If we do not read precisely that, then those allegations have been false witness borne against Dr. Patterson.

So, what do we read next?

The meeting with Dembski confirmed my previous judgments that Dembski is a biblical inerrantist, accepts the historicity of Genesis 1–11, including the special creation of Adam and Eve, and in every other way is teaching as an enthusiastic supporter of the Baptist Faith and Message 2000. Beyond that, Bill is one of the most humble of the great intellects whom I have ever known personally. In gentleness and great Christian grace, he discharges his duties to family, church, school, and denomination. . . .

. . . . As the case ought to be among brethren, colleagues, and sister seminaries, Southwestern and its president wish to express gratitude to Tom Nettles for alerting Bill Dembski and all of us to possible problems in his presentation. This is what friends should do. That this can take place in our Southern Baptist Zion with positions stoutly stated but without acrimony demonstrates that diversity of a tolerable variety exists within the unity of our broad fellowship—a unity motivated by love and trumped only by truth.

So, like most Southern Baptists, Dr. Patterson is someone who sees Southern Baptists as a people who enjoy "the unity of our broad fellowship" within which "diversity of a tolerable variety exists." Which matters belong in which category? Which ones belong to the necessary foundation of "the unity of our broad fellowship" and therefore cannot be compromised? Which ones pertain to the "diversity of a tolerable variety" within our unity which we overlook for the sake of unity? I may answer that question differently at some points than does Dr. Patterson. You may have answers that differ from both of ours.

But any honest person must admit that the mere categorization of a few items of doctrine into different categories does not in any non-demagogic way constitute requiring that people agree with you totally before you will cooperate with them. It does not constitute any attempt to drive out of the convention anyone who disagrees with you about anything. Anyone who tells you differently is flying in the face of the facts and is trying to hoodwink you.

Beyond the mere wording of this preamble is the action represented by the fact of its existence. Dr. Patterson has gone to the extraordinary action of defending Dr. Dembski's work against a severe review of it—against a severe review that itself came from the vantage point of Dr. Patterson's own beliefs. Dr. Patterson is defending the scholarly work of the professor who critiques Dr. Patterson against the review of the professor who agrees with Dr. Patterson.

So here we have the truth, not only stated in words but also demonstrated in actions. Praise God for the truth. Stand by for the spin, sure to follow soon.

Be wise, my friends. Don't believe everything you read.

SWBTS: Showing How Faithfully the Bible Has Been Transmitted

I'm delighted to direct your attention to this press release detailing the acquisition of several fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls by Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Seminaries and the Cooperative Program

I just wanted to direct you to Dr. Thomas White's latest post. Since I've been blogging a good bit about the Cooperative Program lately, it seemed appropriate to direct you to it.

And one other thing: I've decided to re-open my CP series. Most of the previous material, plus a few extras, went into my article for the Southern Baptist Texan. I had thought that I would exhaust all that I had to say there, but then I remembered why I love blogging—none of the word-count limitations inherent to print media. I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to contribute to what I consider the greatest state paper in Southern Baptist life, but I think that there is enough material left on my cutting-room floor to stitch together another thing or two.

God Intended It For Good

Today I sat humbled and impressed with the solemn responsibility and honor entrusted to me as a trustee of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Since I drove up to Fort Worth from Baylor University in 1989, I have loved SWBTS for its love for the Lord and obedience to Him. Most trustees only have the honor of being approved as one among a large slate of nominations. I give thanks to the Lord, who by His unmerited grace has given me the relatively rare honor of having been individually affirmed by name by the messengers of the SBC for this position of service. May I in no way disappoint Him in this sacred charge.

My Advice to SWBTS

Because I love my alma mater, I offer this sagacious advice. Everyone from the President down to the bottom of the organizational chart should be required as a condition of employment to "leak" at least one piece of information to Wade Burleson each semester. No locale breeds more petty and inaccurate rumors than an educational institution. Let the yellow journalists of the SBC Tabloid Press publish more reports of meetings that didn't happen with Presidents who weren't even in town on that day. Let the Jerry Springer of SBC life "revise and extend" his remarks thrice daily to try to cover his derri-errors. Those whose "leaks" make it onto a blog should receive a bonus per occurrence.

No approach that I can imagine would do more to reveal gossip for the sin, slander, and error that it is.

One Man's Trash...

Today I direct you to a recent article at SBC Outpost. They derive pleasure from attacking Dr. Patterson and SWBTS. I like to say good things about them. Rarely can we both take pleasure in the same material.

But today marks that rare occasion. Dr. Patterson, according to SBC Outpost, does not believe that anyone receiving a CP paycheck at SWBTS ought to be a member of homosexuality-affirming Broadway Baptist Church of Fort Worth. SBC Outpost wants you to know about this in the hopes that you will think less of Dr. Patterson and SWBTS for their uncompromising standards. People in the comment stream over there are scandalized to think that a Southern Baptist seminary wouldn't have professors serving as members in any old church that they want.

I direct you to this post because I'm proud of any stand SWBTS takes against this blatant abomination before God.

In Greensboro Dr. Mohler gave thanks that, because of the Conservative Resurgence, Southern Baptists weren't having to debate things like homosexuality. Now, apparently, a conversation has broken out regarding the kind of "narrowing of parameters" that would have Southern Baptist seminary professors not hold membership in homosexuality-affirming churches. But I predict it to be a short-lived conversation.

By the way, where in The Baptist Faith & Message does it say that seminary professors shouldn't be members of homosexuality-affirming churches?

Happy Birthday, SWBTS

This year the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary celebrates the 100^th anniversary of its own founding in Waco, Texas. Born in the postmillennial fever that anticipated "The Christian Century" (yeah, right), Southwestern has endured more hardship than perhaps the witnesses to its founding could have imagined. But through it all, God has used the seminary to accomplish much for His Kingdom and to make deep marks upon the visage of the Southern Baptist Convention. The founding of SWBTS was, I believe, significant to the larger history of the Southern Baptist Convention in several ways.

1. The founding of SWBTS demonstrated that the Southern Baptist Convention was large and healthy enough to keep multiple seminaries afloat. A mere forty years earlier it was not at all a settled question as to whether Southern Baptists needed even one seminary. I believe that the founding of Southwestern Seminary is, in this way, a testament to the burgeoning success that Southern Seminary experienced during the New South period.
2. SWBTS's founding both gave evidence of and accelerated a major westward shift of the center of influence within the Southern Baptist Convention. During the nineteenth century, people from Atlanta, Richmond, Nashville, and Charleston dominated the Southern Baptist Convention. The twentieth century witnessed the rise of Memphis, Jackson, Dallas, and Waco to positions of significant influence. Certainly the bare facts of westward migration account for some of this shift, but the existence of SWBTS ameliorated the "brain drain" that resulted from putting all of the most promising preachers from Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Oklahoma onto Louisville-bound trains. SWBTS arrived on the scene as the convention was passing a baton from Boyce, Broadus, Manley, Howell, Graves, and Dagg to Gambrell, Carroll², Truett, Buckner, and Burleson.
3. The founding of SWBTS hastened the waning of Calvinism in the Southern Baptist Convention. The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary is the fountainhead of Calvinism in the SBC and has been since its inception. SWBTS emerged not so much as an anti-Calvinistic seminary but as a seminary a bit more disinterested. Over time, some organized resistance to Calvinism grew among some of the SWBTS faculty. For an earlier research project I read through all of the papers of W. T. Conner. His growing dissatisfaction with Calvinism (which he regarded as Southern Baptist "orthodoxy") is a passionate focus within some of his personal correspondence. Of course, Calvinism was on the wane at Southern as well during the twentieth century (Dale Moody, anyone?), but the emergence of alternatives to Southern seminary within Southern Baptist life served to erode Calvinistic hegemony over the theological education of Southern Baptist pastors.
4. Although B. H. Carroll may have anticipated a save haven for Landmarkism at SWBTS, quite the opposite eventually developed. Of course, the basement of Fort Worth Hall is the birthplace of The Trail of Blood, but J. M. was quickly replaced with other voices. The influence of Baker and Barnes, Estep and McBeth, built a Church History department that, as much as any institution in the convention, waged war on Landmarkism.
5. SWBTS elevated more-pragmatic, less-ideological subjects as academic disciplines in their own rights. The role of the Evangelism department at SWBTS is emblematic in this regard. The concept has spread far beyond SWBTS. On the one hand, it has served to guard us against a cold, intellectual orthodoxy. I believe that the emphasis upon pragmatics at SWBTS is one reason why advancing Modernism and Neo-Orthodoxy did not enjoy quite as much success in Fort Worth as it did in other climes. On the other hand, perhaps the SWBTS mindset has played some role in the propagation of the bald pragmatism that has such a stranglehold on our denomination today. I offer this one not so much as a conclusion I have drawn, but as a hypothesis I'm stirring around in my brain.

I could go on, but I'll bore you no longer. Seminary Hill has helped to shape the history of the SBC. Much in the past century is worth celebrating. I exercise my gift for understatement when I say that Southwestern Seminary has been a blessing to my life. I offer thanks to B. H. Carroll for his inspirational vision of seminary education. I offer thanks to Lee Scarborough for persevering through the worst of times. I offer thanks to our brethren in Louisville, whose financial bailout in the abyssal of the Great Depression preserved Southwestern to endure to this day. Most of all, I thank the teeming masses of Southern Baptists whose Cooperative Program dollars and other contributions have provided for me to attend SWBTS.

May the next century eclipse the first.

Seminaries and Professors? Churches and Ministers? A Case Precedent Worth Considering

Last January, in the initial days of the Klouda lawsuit, I pointed the attention of the blogosphere to the earlier precedent set by Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. As I noted last year, this case involves the same institution and essentially the exact same question as the current Klouda case.

The entire section quoted below is relevant to current circumstances. One sentence I find most interesting. It appears that even in the Dilday administration more than twenty years ago Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary expected that faculty "[model] the ministerial role for the students." Not all ministers are pastors—other schools exist beyond the School of Theology and other degrees exist beyond the MDiv, after all. But the raison d'être of the School of Theology is to train pastors. If faculty are expected to be model pastors for future pastors, does it not make sense that they be qualified to serve as pastors? And even if you disagree, mustn't you concede that such an argument is reasonable?

A. Is the Seminary a "Church"?

We come now to the crux of this case: the proper characterization of the Seminary. The EEOC describes the Seminary as a religiously affiliated institution. The Seminary claims it is wholly religious.

Since we have already distinguished Mississippi College on this issue, see Part II, supra, we turn to McClure. Our task in discerning the nature of the Seminary and the role of its employees is more difficult than that the court faced in McClure. There, all parties agreed that the Salvation Army was a religion and McClure was a minister, id. at 556. Clearly, the Seminary is an integral part of a church, essential to the paramount function of training ministers who will continue the faith. It is not intended to foster social or secular programs that may entertain the faithful or evangelize the unbelieving. Its purpose is to indoctrinate those who already believe, who have received a divine call, and who have expressed an intent to enter full-time ministry. The local congregation that regularly meets in a house of worship is not the only entity covered by our use of the word "church." That much is clear from McClure. In the Baptist denomination, the Convention is formed to serve all participating local congregations. The fact that those who choose to participate in the Convention do so voluntarily renders it no less deserving of the protection of McClure. Since the Seminary is principally supported and wholly controlled by the Convention for the avowed purpose of training ministers to serve the Baptist denomination, it too is entitled to the status of "church."

B. Who are the "Ministers"?

This is a more difficult question. The parties have identified three categories of Seminary employees: faculty, administrative staff, and support staff. The district court concluded that the first two groups should be considered ministers, while the latter group were not "ministers in the formal sense." To the extent that these findings indicate determinations of fact by the district court, they must be accepted unless clearly erroneous. Fed.R.Civ.P. 52. The status of these employees as ministers for purposes of McClure remains a legal conclusion subject to plenary review. The Seminary urges that all its employees serve a ministerial function. While religious organizations may designate persons as ministers for their religious purposes free from any governmental interference, bestowal of such a designation does not control their extra-religious legal status.

The district court found that the Seminary makes employment decisions regarding faculty members largely on religious criteria. This finding is supported by the record. As previously discussed, the level of personal religious commitment of faculty members is considered more important than their devotion to the Baptist church or their academic abilities, though all of these qualities are desirable. According to Dr. Dilday, President of the Seminary, there is no course taught at the Seminary that has a strictly secular purpose; Dr. Naylor, the Seminary's President Emeritus, testified similarly. Though the record indicates that ministers are ordained by local churches and not by the Seminary, most of the faculty have been ordained. The Seminary expects the faculty to teach by example as well as by other means. The faculty models the ministerial role for the students. Based on the district court's findings of fact, we conclude that the faculty at the Seminary fit the definition of "ministers" for the purpose of applying McClure.

Klouda Refused To Take Position at SWBTS

Recent publication of documents over at SBC Outpost (thanks for all that research, guys) reveal that SWBTS offered Dr. Sheri Klouda an ongoing position working in Roberts Library with no reduction in salary or benefits. Klouda rejected the offer and announced that she was going to take a position at Taylor University.

Of course, that is Dr. Klouda's prerogative. She wants to teach; therefore, she chose to take an available teaching job over a job directing the writing center at Roberts Library. I don't blame her for that.

Nevertheless, the revelation does significantly change things. Previous anti-Patterson, anti-SWBTS spin now falls pretty flat:

1. Klouda's alleged reduction in income, change in health benefits for her husband, and necessity of selling a house in the DFW area are now clearly shown to be a result of her own decision. The administration at SWBTS gave her an opportunity to avoid any and all of those inconveniences, which she declined of her own free will.
2. Funds were solicited to meet the resultant financial hardship, all upon the pretext that Dr. Klouda had been forced to move and take a lower salary against her will. That now appears not to have been the case. She was apparently required not to teach Hebrew at SWBTS and not to serve on the faculty of the School of Theology, but it does not appear that anyone at SWBTS required her to suffer any loss of income or benefits, nor that anyone required her to change residences.
3. The position offered to Dr. Klouda is admittedly a much less prestigious position than her former professorship. Nobody will characterize this as a step up (or even a lateral move). Angered at the loss of her professorship, perhaps Dr. Klouda didn't want the seminary's help. It's an emotion that we've all probably harbored at some point or another, and with which we all can likely sympathize to some degree. Many would perhaps swallow pride if the livelihood of the family were at stake.
4. But the fact that SWBTS employed Dr. Klouda for two additional years and then offered her another ongoing position certainly reflects that the seminary administration made extensive good-faith efforts to deal compassionately with Dr. Klouda in the aftermath of their theological disagreements. Anyone who has served in a leadership or supervisory capacity can also sympathize with the difficulty of giving bad news to someone, of trying to soften the blow and extend every courtesy in light of the circumstances, and yet encountering someone so angry over the state of affairs as to reject offered kindnesses and lash out.
5. Dr. Blaising apparently labored to help Dr. Klouda find another teaching position. From all that we've read from many in the blog world, Dr. Klouda is an exemplary academic and a teacher par excellence. Since we also know that our Southern Baptist seminaries are among the lowest paying jobs in Christian academics, can't we have some optimism that a highly qualified scholar will soon be earning far more than she earned in Fort Worth? A degree in Hebrew is not nearly as parochial as my Baptist History credentials.

All of that simply to show that the seminary has not imposed any financial hardship upon Dr. Klouda. Now I know…many of you out there have theological and ideological objections to the events surrounding Dr. Klouda at SWBTS. The seminary has opined that those training pastors ought to be capable of serving as pastors. Dr. Klouda disagrees. So do a number of blogging brethren. It is a theological disagreement.

I respect your right to hold your theological views. I respect Dr. Klouda's right to hold hers. I respect Dr. Patterson's right to hold his, and Dr. Blaising's right to hold his. I respect the right of the trustees of SWBTS to form seminary policy according to their theological convictions as guided by the study of scripture and the will of the convention expressed in the history of our institutions, our statement of faith, and the practice of sister entities.

What I do not acknowledge or respect is the right of the United States Government even to hold a theological viewpoint, much less to adjudicate it.

SWBTS and Political Parties

SBC Outpost has reported that Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary rented facilities to the Tarrant County Republican Party (insert horrified gasp here).

I just completed an email conversation with the person who first handled these arrangements for SWBTS. This person no longer works at SWBTS, and in fact, no longer works in Southern Baptist denominational life at all. This person is not, to my knowledge, a close friend of the Pattersons and has no personal or professional reason to tell anything other than the truth about what happened.

Here's what I learned, for those actually interested in the truth.

1. This SWBTS employee personally made it known to the Tarrant County Democrat Party that the facilities were available for them to rent as well.
2. Not only did the seminary not promote the GOP event, but SWBTS also sponsored its own competing election watch party in a separate part of the same facility, advertising it in the newspapers inviting all of the community to attend.
3. The idea to rent the facility to the GOP did not originate from the President's office and initially met with some skepticism from upper echelons of seminary administration.
4. One condition of the rental attracted the notice of local media: The Tarrant County Republicans had to forego alcohol in order to use SWBTS's facility.

Exposé

After a lengthy undercover investigation, Praisegod Investigations has unearthed the following shocking example of high-level corruption at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary: President Paige Patterson has a reserved parking spot. The above photograph was taken by our hidden cameras earlier today. Our investigators have reason to believe that this parking space has been constructed and maintained by Cooperative Program dollars—thousands down through the years. What hubris! What waste! To think that, in the few short years of Patterson's tenure, we now have a presidential parking space! I ask you, my friends, did Jesus have a parking space? Furthermore, we have no record of anyone ever having heard the gospel on this parking space. And all of that asphalt is just contributing to global warming, by which the world may become a lifeless rock and the millennium be thwarted in just mere months from now. It just isn't like the old SWBTS any more, when Dr. Dilday parked his bicycle out in the student parking lots and hiked into his office like the rest of us. According to exclusive PGBB sources, no female president of SWBTS has ever had a reserved parking space. I guess this is just one of the perks for the "boys." Really, it just serves to illustrate the ills that plague the Southern Baptist Convention today. COOPERATION, my friends, is all about SHARING. Yet Dr. Patterson is apparently unwilling to share his parking space with anybody else. No wonder the seminary is in such an ungodly mess these days. Fundamentalists are all the same—misogynistic animals. We have been unable to confirm rumors that CP-funded seminary employees are required as a part of their job duties to keep people from parking in the wrong parking spaces, but rumors suggest that the employees in question may even be armed. With guns. Tomorrow I may take down my two SWBTS diplomas from my wall in shame.

Good Common Sense on the Homemaking Concentration

I had compiled and uploaded the first installment of the Praisegod Podcast, a discussion of the homemaking concentration at SWBTS, when I read the latest opinion article by Gary Ledbetter on the subject. His is so good and so in line with what I said that I'm scrubbing my podcast and linking you to his article instead. A Silly, Dangerous Idea? by Gary Ledbetter

Interpretation of Statistics

Figures won't lie, but liars will figure. -Charles Grosvenor

I am not saying that my good friend Ben Cole is a liar. In my opinion, he is among the more honest people involved in the debates of the past year. He is the Lady Godiva of Southern Baptist dissent—whatever his thoughts, opinions, and motives have been, we have all seen them in their unvarnished state. Personally, I like that kind of openness, even when there is disagreement. I hope to contribute to the total and unrestrained defeat of whatever shenanigans Ben has in store for this year's SBC meeting, but my desire for his defeat is not a desire for his disgrace or destruction. Ben has conceded (see here) that his comparison between SWBTS and DTS was less than completely accurate. A concession is in order from me. I will concede that enrollment at SWBTS has gone down. Ben's metanarrative, of course, is that Dr. Patterson is the cause of declining enrollment at SWBTS. Here is the point of my initial quote: although statistics are solid and unwavering in and of themselves, it is when people attempt to interpret them that statistics can make liars of us all. Thus, in the interests of the truth (and, of course, out of my love for SWBTS), I offer the following factors other than Dr. Patterson's presidency that must be considered in order to interpret Ben's statistics accurately.

1. Ben's good friend Paul Powell (of Truett Seminary) and the fine folks at Logsdon Seminary and the B. H. Carroll Institute are hard at work every day trying to convince people to attend their schools rather than attend SWBTS. The effects of these schools are relatively new phenomena, and they would be in operation whether Dr. Patterson or even Ben Cole (insert uncontrollable shudder here) were president of SWBTS.
2. Ben's good friends at Baylor University and their colleagues at a wide array of Baptist undergraduate institutions have all but sworn a blood oath to steer students away from SWBTS and to ban the hiring of SWBTS graduates regardless of their personal beliefs or qualifications.
3. All of these folks and their henchmen at the BGCT have gone so far as to deny exhibit space for SWBTS at the BGCT's annual meeting—an unparalleled occurence in Southern Baptist history.
4. What were the enrollment and graduate trends at SEBTS under Patterson? Could Bro. Ben enlighten us with those statistics? As I have already mentioned in another post, the robust growth of other seminaries in the Southern Baptist system cannot help but impact the numbers at SWBTS.

Finally, let me concede yet another point. If I were a liberal, I would not want to attend SWBTS. I do not doubt that Dr. Patterson's presence at the helm of the seminary discourages some people from attending there. I will lose no sleep over this fact. I have no desire for the SBC to subsidize the education of liberals (whatever you believe that word means, you must concede that whoever is a liberal, he would think twice about attending SWBTS right now). But I do not believe that this factor is any more determinative of the enrollment trends at SWBTS than the other factors I have already listed. Ben's statistics are (now) sound; the problem is with his metanarrative.

Congratulations DTS

Dallas Theological Seminary held their commencement services today, graduating more students than they have ever graduated before (a total of 379). Bill Brown, president of Cedarville University in Cedarville, OH, was the commencement speaker. Dr. Brown was once a youth minister here in Farmersville, and he is staying with members of my church this weekend. It was my pleasure to meet Bill and his wife Lynne yesterday and to get to know some more about Cedarville. It is a shame that this bright day for DTS is for Bro. Ben Cole just another occasion to take pot-shots at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (see here). Before you happen to stroll over to BaptistBlogger, it might help you to know that Bro. Ben is comparing DTS's once-a-year commencement number to SWBTS's Spring-semester-only commencement number. Of course, Ben was careful not to say erroneously that DTS graduated more students than SWBTS, but he was also careful not to say anything that would get in the way of every reader walking away with that impression. Sometimes you don't have to lie to be dishonest. Here are the numbers giving the full picture: SWBTS graduated 263 students in December, bringing the annual total for the seminary to 510, some 35% more than DTS's 379. Not that such comparisons are appropriate or at all helpful to the kingdom, but if anyone wishes to make them, he ought to give the whole story and portray the comparison accurately. But on the occasion of seminary commencements, allow me to suggest that we all need to beseech the throne of heaven to raise up more men called and surrendered to pastor existing churches. We have a very strong youth group here at FBC Farmersville. Tracy Odneal, our associate pastor and student minister, is remarkable at what he does—a man among men. We've seen a large number of students over the past few years give their lives to God for a variety of vocational callings: missions, camp ministry, music, and other wonderful things. But where are the pastors? A chapel service at SWBTS this year included a poll of the audience. Of those who are preparing for pastoral ministry, all but a handful planned to start a church rather than pastor an existing church. So, it is not the mission of SWBTS to have large enrollments. The seminaries do not exist for themselves, but for the churches. SWBTS is no longer the only viable option for conservative Southern Baptists. The broadening of conservative seminary options, although it naturally results in a decline in SWBTS's enrollment, is a good thing for the churches; therefore, it is a good thing. I hope that the enrollment of all of our seminaries grows, but I hope it grows with what our churches need more than anything else—people called to pastor our churches. I'm not saying that is the only need, but it is the most profound need. God bless DTS. God bless SWBTS. But most of all, God bless the churches with the blessing of strong pastoral leadership. May DTS, SWBTS, SBTS, NOBTS, SEBTS, GGBTS, MWBTS, MABTS, etc., etc., etc. all prosper under God's hand, but may that prosperity redound to the benefit of the churches by yielding more and more pastors to lead our churches. That, after all, is one of the big reasons for which churches fund seminaries. Again, congratulations DTS.