Southwestern trustees elect new faculty

FORT WORTH—Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary trustees quickly dispensed with a light agenda and devoted time to prayer for the administration and faculty after a day of committee meetings and a tour of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible exhibition. Meeting on campus Oct. 17, the board approved Chris Teichler as associate professor of music theory and composition in the school of church music and Mike Wilkinson as assistant professor of Bible at the College at Southwestern.

Teichler previously taught at DePaul University and has experience directing at Wheaton College Conservatory of Music and Trinity International University. He received both the doctor of music and master of music degrees in composition from Northwestern University, completing undergraduate work at Wheaton College Conservatory of Music.

Wilkinson previously served at First Baptist Church of Rockwall since 2007. Prior to that time he served at Central Baptist Church of Bryan and Geyer Springs First Baptist Church in Little Rock. He received both the master of divinity and Ph.D. from Southwestern Seminary and completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Texas at Arlington.

David Robinson, professor of voice, was approved to occupy the James C. McKinney Chair of Church Music. Robinson has taught at the seminary since 1985, having previously served churches in Missouri.

Trustees approved annual audits of the seminary, named two new members to the Southwestern Seminary Foundation and selected recipients of the B.H. Carroll and L.R. Scarborough awards to be given next spring.

Board members declined two requests made at the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention that were referred to all six SBC seminaries for consideration. A request to reduce from 21.92 percent to 21 percent the current portion of Cooperative Program Allocation Budget given to the six Southern Baptist seminaries was refused in light of having already given up a capital needs budget that had been funded by CP overage. Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary President reiterated the school’s commitment to the Great Commission in training future missionaries and acceptance of a challenge to pursue an unengaged unreached people group in southern Madagascar.

The board also declined a request to establish a historical research committee to study views of Southern Baptist founders “regarding predestination and election and how they understood those terms.”

Patterson said the origins of the denomination are well known, referring to the “two tributaries” of Calvinism and non-Calvinism that “flowed together into one river.” He added, “They have complemented each other, not contradicted one another and we’ve had vigorous debates in the Free Church tradition.”

“We have been unique in that it has not divided us,” Patterson said. “We don’t feel that there’s any virtue to be found in expending further funds for further committees, further studies and further official writing on it.”

Earlier in his report, Patterson directed attention to the current issue of Southwestern News which explores the Anabaptists of the Reformation period in an effort to locate historically those who hold the same beliefs as Baptists today.

In the opening article, Patterson wrote of a Bible-believing people who “rejected the state church, infant baptism, and reformed ecclesiology” while enthroning “the principles of absolute religious liberty as well as moral, ethical, and spiritual responsibility in the midst of a believer’s church witnessed by baptism.”