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The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

Motto	For the truth. For the church. For the world. For the glory of God
Type	Private
Established	1859
Affiliation	Southern Baptist Convention
President	Albert Mohler
Academic staff	72[1]
Students	3157
Location	Louisville , Kentucky , US
Campus	Suburban 100 acres
Affiliations	Kentuckiana Metroversity and Boyce College
Website	www.sbts.edu

The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS), in Louisville, Kentucky, is the oldest of the six seminaries affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). The seminary was founded in 1859 at Greenville, South Carolina, where it was at first lodged on the campus of Furman University. After being closed during the Civil War, it moved in 1877 to a newly built campus in downtown Louisville and later moved to its current location in the Crescent Hill neighborhood. For more than fifty years Southern has been one of the world's largest theological seminaries, with a current FTE (full-time equivalent) enrollment of over 3,300 students.^[2]

Campus

In the wake of the Civil War, the seminary suspended classes for several years.^[3] With the financial help of several wealthy Baptists, including John D. Rockefeller and a group of Kentucky business leaders who promised to underwrite the construction of a new campus,^[4][5] the seminary relocated to Fifth Street and Broadway in downtown Louisville, Kentucky, in 1877.

In 1926, during the administration of Southern president Edgar Y. Mullins, the seminary occupied "The Beeches," a 100-acre (0.40 km²) suburban campus east of the city center^[6] designed by the Frederick Law Olmsted firm. The campus now contains 10 academic and residential buildings in Georgian architecture and three housing villages for married students.

Discrimination

According to the Seminary itself, the Seminary used religious ideology in an effort to justify slavery and racial inequality, and continued to do so until more than 100 years after emancipation.^[7]

Slave ownership

In December 2016, the Seminary acknowledged that all of its founders were slave-owners.^[7]

Civil rights era

In 1951, President Duke Kimbrough McCall integrated the campus, in defiance of Kentucky state laws that established segregation at public facilities. At the height of the Civil Rights Movement, Southern would become the only SBC agency to host a visit by Baptist minister and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. (1961).^[8] During King's address at SBTS, he mentioned he had been to the seminary's chapel several times in the past when accompanying his mother since King's mother was an organist for the Women's Auxiliary of the National Baptist Convention.^[9]

As a result, many donors withheld their gifts to Southern, and some demanded McCall's resignation for letting King speak in the seminary chapel.^[10]

Administration and organizational structure

In 1938, Southern was among the first group of seminaries and divinity schools accredited by the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada.^[11] Thirty years later, in 1968, Southern was one of the first seminaries to be accredited by its regional accrediting body, Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.^[12]

Throughout its history, Southern has been an innovator in theological education, establishing one of the first Ph.D. programs in religion (1892), the first department of Christian missions (1902), the first curriculum in religious education (1925), and the first accredited, seminary-based social work program (1984).

In 1953, President McCall and the trustees reorganized the institution along the lines of a small university. The curriculum was distributed among three graduate-professional schools—Theology, headed by Dean Penrose St. Amant; Religious Education, led by Dean Gaines S. Dobbins; and Church Music, under Dean Forrest Heeren.

In 1984, Anne Davis became founding dean of the Carver School of Church Social Work, which launched the first seminary-based Master of Social Work program to be accredited by the Council on Social Work Education (1987). The school was disbanded in 1997 by a subsequent seminary administration.^[13] It decided that secular social work was inappropriate for a seminary, and replaced the program with a school for training evangelists, missionaries and church-growth specialists.

In 1968, Southern helped establish Kentuckiana Metroversity, a local consortium of two seminaries, two state universities, a community college and two private colleges. They offer a joint library catalog, cross-registration of any student in any member institution, and faculty and cultural exchanges. In 1970, Southern helped create the Theological Education Association of Mid-America (TEAM-A), one of the United States' first seminary "clusters," a consortium of five schools related to the Presbyterian, Wesleyan Methodist, Disciples of Christ, Roman Catholic and Baptist traditions. They provide inter-institutional team teaching, cross registration among students, and a joint library catalog.^[14]

The seminary is governed by a board of trustees^[15] nominated and elected by the SBC. It receives almost one-third of its $31 million annual budget from the SBC Cooperative Program, the unified financial support system that distributes gifts from the congregations to the agencies and institutions of the denomination. In fiscal year 2007–08, Southern received $9.5 million through the Cooperative Program. Its endowments and invested reserves totaled $78 million.^[16]

Southern is currently organized into three schools:

• The School of Theology


• The Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism, and Ministry


• 
  Boyce College^[17]

Academics, philosophy and faculty

The seminary's mission statement is: "Under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, the mission of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary is to be totally committed to the Bible as the Word of God, to the Great Commission as our mandate, and to be a servant of the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention by training, educating, and preparing ministers of the gospel for more faithful service."^[17]

Southern was one of the first seminaries in the nation to offer the PhD degree, beginning in 1892.^{[citation needed]} During the 1970s and 1980s, it had the largest accredited PhD program in religion in the United States. It was the first seminary in the nation to offer courses in religious education, beginning in 1903. This program ultimately expanded into a School of Religious Education in 1953.

In 1907, William Owen Carver founded the Women's Missionary Union Training School, which eventually became the Carver School of Missions and Social Work.^[18]

In 1910, Southern established the Norton Lectures, a series of lectures on "Science and Philosophy in their Relations to Religion."^[19] Speakers have included conservative scholars William A. Dembski, Marvin Olasky, Gregory Alan Thornbury, and Alvin Plantinga.

In 1953, Southern became one of the few seminaries to offer a full, accredited degree course in church music.

After endowing the Billy Graham Chair of Evangelism in 1965 (the first such professorship in any Baptist seminary), Southern expanded it in 1994 into the Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism and Church Growth.^[20] It is the first program in the SBC dedicated solely to training missionaries and evangelists.

In the 1980s, Southern became the first seminary or divinity school to establish a school of church social work offering an accredited, seminary-based M.S.W. degree.

In 1993, the seminary's president Albert Mohler came into office re-affirming the seminary's historic "Abstract of Principles", part of the original charter of Southern created in 1858. The charter stated that every Professor must agree to "teach in accordance with, and not contrary to, the Abstract of Principles hereinafter laid down" and that "a departure" from the principles in the Abstract of Principles would be grounds for resignation or removal by the Trustees.^[21]

Mohler, following these instructions, required that current professors affirm, without any spoken or unspoken reservations, the Abstract of Principles. Professors were also asked to affirm the Baptist Faith and Message (BF&M, the doctrinal statement of the SBC), since Southern is an agency of the SBC and the SBC mandated affirmation of the BF&M as requirement for continued employment. An overwhelming majority of faculty affirmed the Abstract of Principles, but declined to affirm some of the doctrines stated in the BF&M which had recently been amended to bring it in line with more conservative positions held by the SBC.^[22] In the wake of the subsequent dismissal or resignation of a large percentage of the faculty, Southern has replaced them with new professors who agree to adhere to the BF&M in addition to the seminary's Abstract of Principles.

In 2005, Southern revised its pastoral care and counseling major. It ended the counseling program which it had been offering since the 1950s, under Wayne Oates and his colleagues. It replaced it with the "Nouthetic Counseling" or Bible-based counseling program, championed by Jay E. Adams since the 1970s. The dean of Southern Seminary's school of theology stated that the change was necessary because a successful integration of modern psychology and theology was not possible.^[23]

In 2009, Southern Seminary expanded its doctoral program to include a Spirituality PhD. Students pursuing this degree try to incorporate their Christian-based spirituality with research for a dissertation.^[24]

Notable associates

Alumni

• Jason K. Allen, President of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary 2012–Present


• 
  Charles C. Baldwin, Chief of Chaplains of the United States Air Force 2004–2008


• 
  Reginald Bibby, sociologist


• 
  LaVerne Butler, pastor of 9th & O Baptist Church in Louisville, 1969–1988; president of Mid-Continent University in Mayfield, 1988–1997, leader of conservative resurgence in Southern Baptist Convention in the 1970s and 1980s^[25]


• 
  Douglas Carver, Chief of Chaplains of the United States Army 2007–2011


• 
  Chris Clarke, missionary to the equestrian community in Kentucky and neighboring states


• 
  W.A. Criswell, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas; author; and president of the Southern Baptist Convention (1969–1970).


• 
  Miguel A. De La Torre, author on Hispanic religious life; social ethics professor at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, CO, 1999–present.


• 
  Mark Dever, pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church; well-known speaker, author, and theologian, who is a proponent of elder led ecclesiology


• 
  Amzi Dixon, pastor of Moody Church, Chicago, IL (1906–1911); and Metropolitan Tabernacle, London, England (1911–1919).


• 
  Wilmer Clemont Fields (1922–2018), vice president for public relations for the Southern Baptist Convention; editor of Baptist Record and Baptist Program; director of the Baptist Press.^[26]


• 
  Steven Furtick, pastor of Elevation Church; well-known pastor, speaker, and author.


• 
  David P. Gushee, Christian ethicist, historian, public intellectual, and Holocaust scholar.


• 
  Paul R. House, scholar, author, and seminary professor.


• 
  Ben Campbell Johnson, Professor Emeritus at Columbia Theological Seminary, author


• 
  Clarence Jordan, founder of Koinonia Farm (forerunner of Habitat for Humanity) and Greek scholar who translated the New Testament into a Cotton Patch version using the vernacular of the Civil Rights era in the South.


• 
  R.T. Kendall, pastor of Westminster Chapel, London, England, 1977–2002.


• 
  David Gordon Lyon, Hollis Chair at Harvard Divinity School and founding curator of Semitic Museum
  


• 
  James Merritt, pastor, president of the Southern Baptist Convention from 2000 to 2002


• 
  Grady Nutt, religious humorist and national television personality; died in air crash, 1982.^[27]


• 
  Luis G. Pedraja, Latino theologian, philosopher, author, scholar and educator


• 
  Cicero Washington Pruitt, missionary to Northern China.


• 
  Bronson Ray, Executive Secretary of the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention (1928–1932).


• 
  William Bell Riley, late founder of the World Christian Fundamentals Association
  


• 
  Lee Roberson, founder of Tennessee Temple University, influential leader in the Southwide Baptist Fellowship, and former pastor of Highland Park Baptist Church in Chattanooga, Tennessee
  


• 
  Gregory Alan Thornbury, president of The King's College in New York City (2013–present).


• 
  Jeff Struecker, pastor, author, and former US Army Ranger Chaplain.


• 
  Ed Stetzer, author, speaker, researcher, pastor, church planter, and Christian missiologist.


• 
  Edwin O. Ware, Sr., Kentucky native who was first president of Louisiana College in Pineville, Louisiana
  


• 
  James Emery White, pastor, author, and Professor of Theology and Culture


• 
  Steve Willis, pastor and health activist


• 
  Bryant Wright, pastor, president of the Southern Baptist Convention from 2010 to 2011.

Faculty

• 
  Michael Haykin, Professor of Church History.


• 
  Timothy Paul Jones, apologist and C. Edwin Gheens Chair of Christian Family Ministry (2007–present), noted for work in the field of church-based models of family ministry and for his critique of family integrated church.


• 
  Thomas R. Schreiner, New Testament scholar.


• 
  Peter Gentry, Old Testament scholar and Semitic linguist.


• 
  Bruce Ware, theologian, former Chairman of the Department of Biblical and Systematic Theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School^[28] and former president of the Evangelical Theological Society.^[29]

Presidents

• 1888 James Petigru Boyce (titled Chairman of the Faculty, 1859–87)


• 1888–1895 John Albert Broadus
  


• 1895–1899 William Heth Whitsitt


• 1899–1928 Edgar Young Mullins
  


• 1929–1942 John Richard Sampey


• 1942–1950 Ellis Adams Fuller


• 1951–1982 Duke Kimbrough McCall
  


• 1982–1993 Roy Lee Honeycutt


• 1993–present R. Albert Mohler, Jr.
  

See also

• Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary


• Religion in Louisville, Kentucky

References

Further reading

• Mark R. Wilson. William Owen Carver's Controversies in the Baptist South (Mercer University Press; 2010) 235 pages. Biography of a prominent professor (1868–1954) at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary who was involved in several major controversies in the denomination.

External links

• The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary


• Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Collection – Furman University Special Collections


• SBTS

Coordinates: 38°14′54″N 85°41′13″W / 38.24846°N 85.68689°W / 38.24846; -85.68689