A never ending story, at least so far

A panel sponsored by the Baptist 21 Network during our annual SBC meeting in New Orleans will feature a discussion on the Conservative Resurgence. The Resurgence was of course the effort between 1979 and 1995 to return our convention’s institutions to a commitment of biblical fidelity. That one sentence sums up one of the most incredible events in church history since the Protestant Reformation. Danny Akin, a classmate of mine at Criswell College and Southwestern Seminary, now serves as president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and will be a participant on the panel. I listened to Dr. Akin’s short teaser video in which he refers to the condition of Southwestern when we both attended classes there around 1980. The reminder brings back memories of things most Southern Baptists would not believe. Danny and I attended classes under men who did not believe the Bible to be infallible or inerrant, we heard theologians and ethicists who could not affirm the uniqueness of mankind or the sanctity of human life—and Southwestern was one of the three most conservative of our six seminaries in that day. Things were absolutely and verifiably worse at three of our schools.

The miracle that panelists including R. Albert Mohler, Paige Patterson, Akin, and David Platt will be discussing is that a large, bureaucratically bound denomination could and did make a U-turn where so many other denominations split instead. It was a work of God and a blessing to the world that it happened. It’s still happening, actually.

Even late in the Resurgence timeline, the 1990s, a lot of resistance arose from state conventions. As the deliberations of our corporate body became more local, reform became more difficult. It makes sense. Reforming the 10 or so least conservative state conventions would be more than 10 times as difficult as reforming one national body. In those conventions, as in the SBC, educational institutions were often the flash point between more and less conservative people. And, as in the SBC only more so, the relationships between those denominational employees who had strayed and their longtime friends made difficult decisions nearly impossible.

Time passed, though. The seminaries that were largely responsible for the biggest problems in our state conventions began to have a different kind of influence. Bible-believing pastors began to shore up churches that weren’t sure what they were doctrinally. State leaders who mourned the relationships and influence they lost during the Resurgence began to retire; they have been often replaced by convictional inerrantists. And a thing we could never have imagined began to occur. Some of our Baptist colleges began the long journey home. Twenty years ago, I don’t remember anyone predicting that this was possible.

Incredible transitions have taken place at Louisiana College and at both Shorter College and Truett-McConnell in Georgia. More conservative colleges like Oklahoma Baptist, Houston Baptist, and Union University have found increased support for the direction they were already taking. Transformed denominational bodies bear like fruit among their entities. In some cases the theological accountability of a state convention has moved colleges to shield themselves from oversight. Mercer in Georgia and Belmont in Tennessee are two examples of this trend. Rather than risk becoming accountable to the churches that built, funded and otherwise supported them from the start, these schools went rogue and heterodox.

I remember when Southern, Southeastern and Midwestern Baptist Theological seminaries elected conservative presidents. Some faculty members resigned in protest, a few tried to hide behind tenure or word games to continue teaching but those institutions did come around. Those notable state Baptist colleges that have held to or returned to their heritage are a second-generation affirmation of the Resurgence and worth celebrating. They face some challenges though.

Money is a challenge. College education is shockingly expensive these days. Baptist schools are competing with all manner of educational institutions during a time when churches and state conventions are themselves struggling financially. The only possible reason for the continuation or support of Baptist Christian education is if it remains distinctly Christian. Becoming more like the non-Christian or formerly Christian academy (institutions that often make people worse) only argues against the need for the school that follows this path.

Transition is a challenge. At our seminaries that had the most tumultuous transition, the former leaders claimed (hopefully, I think) that credible scholars would not be available to replace the teachers that resigned or were forced out. For the short term, the seminaries struggled to find the right people, although now a generation of homegrown scholars has arisen to fill the positions. Scores of faculty have resigned in protest over the revival of our Baptist colleges. The colleges face the same struggle to fill key slots but have the advantage of seminaries that are already producing professors in some the most important disciplines.

Accountability is a challenge. One claim that those who cannot affirm either the doctrinal or morality statements of their Baptist university employers is that the board is changing the rules under which they were hired and have worked for years. In a sense this is true. How incredible it is when an employee who has admitted sexual misconduct for years is surprised to find that his Baptist school considers it a deal killer. That is the case at one Baptist school and we should be ashamed. The same can be said of professors who for years taught error regarding our faith. Some state conventions put up with it in the past and some still do. Reforming a college, or seminary, is not a one-time thing; it is an ongoing commitment. We will have this kind of destructive denominational cataclysm every generation or two or we will do the right thing regarding our institutions year by year.

Outrageous criticism is not a challenge. Websites like “save our [your school name here]” pop up whenever conservatives start to wake up around the country. They claim the buildings will fall down and that the physics department will teach that the Earth is flat. Blah, blah, blah, world without end. We lived through the same predictions in the 1990s about conservatives being anti-intellectual and by definition stupid. It’s so over the top that no one changes his mind because a former employee doesn’t like the new boss. They sue and nearly always lose. They discourage only donors and prospective students who already agree with their perspective.

We should cheer on our Baptist colleges in places and cases where they support the work and message of their constituent churches. Academic freedom, the imaginary right to teach whatever you prefer, is to a Christian secondary to the revealed Word of God that our churches preach each week. Schools that get that are a treasure and we should encourage them as we can. The return of a school to biblical fidelity is nothing less than the affirmation of the churches that built it and the Lord those churches serve. Genuinely Christian colleges swim upstream against an academic current that overwhelmingly teaches a pagan theology, however much materialists deny teaching any sort of theology.

These follow-on victories have another thing in common with our Southern Baptist Conservative Resurgence. The victory occurs when the institution repents. The SBC did the right thing, started down the right path, in 1979, even though it was nearly a decade later that it bore fruit in our institutions. If the Resurgence had failed, it would have still been the right thing to try. We have no guarantee that our newly or continually biblical Baptist colleges will overcome the challenges common to educational and denominational entities in our day. If one goes under, it is only a failure in our sight. The effort was nonetheless grand and righteous. Our call is to faithfulness rather than apparent success. The struggle to keep the entities our churches cooperatively support faithful is never ending. The details of the struggle may change but we are obligated to diligent oversight of the parachurch structure we build.

Correspondent
Gary Ledbetter
Southern Baptist Texan
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