Commentary: Other Baptists and bossy preachers _freeman_81103

Posted 8/5/03

Commentary:
Other Baptists and bossy preachers

By Curtis W. Freeman

Back in 2001, when I still was unpacking boxes from my move to North Carolina from Texas, I received a phone call from the chair of a pulpit committee. "Can you send us a pastor?" asked the voice on the line. "We had a bossy preacher from the seminary, but we want a Duke preacher like the one down the road at Hickory Rock." It was a quick lesson on Baptist politics in the North Carolina Piedmont, put in cornbread language.

Twenty years ago, things were different. In the Southeast, there was pretty much only one theological school Baptist churches turned to when it came to finding a preacher–Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. But that was before the "conservative resurgence" of the Southern Baptist Convention, also known by moderate Baptists as the "fundamentalist takeover."

The initial effect of this Baptist Civil War was an exodus of faculty, staff and students from Southeastern. When the first "conservative" president stepped down after failing to turn things around, trustees made a surprising choice. They tapped Paige Patterson, who had become both famous and infamous as a key leader of the Southern Baptist re-formation.

Looking back, some will no doubt argue that Patterson was "the right man for Southeastern," pointing to increased enrollment, new buildings and balanced budgets. Clearly, his 11-year tenure has made an impact on theological education in the Piedmont, but not exactly in the way that some might expect. Today in North Carolina and Virginia alone, disaffected Southern Baptists have established six new theological schools and programs with a combined enrollment approaching 1,000. Together, they are now graduating as many potential Baptist preachers as Southeastern Seminary.

The Baptist House of Studies at Duke Divinity School was the first. It began in 1988 with 25 students. Now, just under 100 Baptists are at Duke preparing for ministry. Others quickly followed–Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond, divinity schools at Wake Forest, Gardner Webb and Campbell universities, and more recently the John Leland Center.

The Association of Theological Schools reported that in the three-year period from 1997 to 2000, the number of students attending "other Baptist" schools (defined as those outside the Southern Baptist Convention and neither American nor National Baptist) grew an incredible 200 percent, from 400 students to more than 1,200–a growth rate far outpacing that of mainline Protestant, Roman Catholic and Southern Baptist theological schools.

There are good reasons to believe this growth curve will continue rising in the current decade, as the demand for an alternative to bossy preachers continues.

But this spike in students at "other Baptist" schools doesn’t give the full picture. During the same three-year period, the number of theological schools serving "other Baptists" nearly doubled, from 52 schools to 84 schools. What this suggests is that after over a century of uniformity and homogeneity, things are changing dramatically.

Theological education for Baptists is becoming more institutionally diverse. Baptists of all types, with the exception of Southern Baptists, are attending more schools for theological education, resulting in greater institutional diversity than ever before. They are being trained for ministry in a variety of settings–freestanding Baptist seminaries, divinity schools in Baptist universities and programs within theological schools of other denominations, such as the Baptist House of Studies at Duke Divinity School. Clearly, a growing number of Baptist pastors and other church leaders will come from this new type of theological school.

To what can the growth and diversity of Baptist theological education be attributed? It may be too much to say that Paige Patterson alone is the cause. Yet there can be little doubt that he possesses a unique ability to galvanize support from conservative loyalists and polarize opposition of "other Baptists" with whom he disagrees. Now that he is leaving to take the reins of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, I can say to my fellow Baptists in the Lone Star State: If Patterson does for theological education in Texas what he did in North Carolina, you can expect to see more bossy preachers and "other Baptists" in the days ahead.

Curtis W. Freeman is research professor of theology and director of the Baptist House of Studies at Duke Divinity School in Durham, N.C.