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It is so wonderful to be up here and hear them singing over us. Not only are we grateful for the returning students, but the new students who are there in the choir singing this morning, we have an uptick in new students, total students, total credit hours this semester, so many good things as we start. And the singing is a marker of the joy and hope that has been present across the campus during these opening weeks. We welcome new staff members. We welcome Dr. Gilbert and Dr. Coy. We’re grateful that God has brought each one of you here. And congratulations to you, Dean.
Dean Sieberhagen, we pray God’s blessings upon you. In particular, we be praying for you over the next few days. For those of you who have not heard Dr Sieberhagen’s father passed away last night, and he’ll be traveling to be with him over the next few weeks. And so, our prayers go with you as our love as well.
As we mentioned this morning, we’re going to be thinking about and learning from shapers of the southwestern theological tradition what we’ve learned from this wonderful book, this gift that the faculty has given to us as we learn about those who’ve gone before us. And as I mentioned, during the time of welcome each semester at opening convocation of southwestern seminary campus. Now for 65 years, new students have been pronounced Southwesterners. This wonderful tradition of pronouncing new students as Southwesterners continued today for new undergraduate and graduate students, but our question this morning is this, what does it mean to be a Southwesterner?
I’ve frequently been asked that question, similar question, sometimes in interviews with media and other folks, and it goes something like this: “what is Southwestern theological identity or emphasis now?” which is usually followed up by a more specific question related to Anabaptist or Calvinism or something similar. But my response has been to point people to the founders, to that founding trajectory that has shaped the southwestern theological consensus through the years, which began with our founder, B.H. Carroll and with our second president, L.R. Scarborough, and which can be traced through key Southwestern scholars and leaders over the past 12 decades.
So, this morning, I want to do my best to try to help all of us understand and have a more full and comprehensive understanding of what it means to be a Southwesterner. I want us all to understand who we are, what we believe, how Southwestern has changed through the years, and what these things mean for us now, as we think about our shared future. This is not just my story. This is not some individual story. This is our shared story. As Southwesterners, we reflect on these things this morning in order to try to answer some of these questions which I just referred. I want to reflect together this morning about some lessons learned from these shapers, these spiritual, intellectual, theological giants on whose shoulders we now stand as we think together about the Southwestern identity and theological tradition.
Our focus this morning is not just a general question about theological education, but a more specific one: what makes “Southwestern” Southwestern? So, let’s begin by reminding ourselves of southwestern identity statement, which you can see on the screen. Would you join me? Let’s read it together, in keeping with its heritage as a great commandment and great commission institution, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, guides and equips students in living their calling, seeking to glorify God through Christ centered education that encourages academic excellence and faithful ministry, we seek to live out this statement within a context in which we all aspire to be Grace filled and Christ centered, scripturally grounded, confessionally guided, student focused and globally engaged.
These core values help to form the Southwestern Community, to give it shape, to inform and guide us each and every day. I hope that in some way, as we seek to apply these things, whether for students or staff members or faculty or board members friends, that we all have an understanding of these things that have shaped us and guide us as we seek to carry out our mission. Southwestern is a place since day one, with the founding faculty members like ah Newman and Calvin Goodspeed and others, has brought together serious scholarship. For engaging, teaching and learning and thoughtful ministry preparation. Faculty and staff have worked together in concert to connect head, heart and hands in a beautiful way, to prepare pastors and preachers and teachers, missionaries, evangelists, worship and music, leaders, counselors, educators, demographic specific ministers, practitioners, church para church and denominational administrators, as well as serious scholars and Christian thought leaders, bringing together theology, church and ministry in a dynamic and distinctive way.
All of these have been used to equip the people of God by encouraging the priority of the great commandment and the fulfillment of the Great Commission. So, we recognize this morning, South Westerners have been blessed with a remarkable heritage and a rich theological tradition. We joyfully today stand on the shoulders of those faithful saints who have gone before us, not only presidents Carroll and Scarborough, but Jeff Ray, I.E. Reynolds, Floyd Barnard, Cal God, Daniel Sanchez, J Howard Williams, Robert Naylor, and many, many more, we’re now called to be faithful stewards of what we’ve been given from these wonderful people and to encourage the next generation to do the same.
We acknowledge that our role is to take hold of these foundational Christian beliefs which have been made known to us in Holy Scripture and which in God’s providential oversight, have now been passed along to us, so that we now have the privilege to teach these truths to the next generation as Psalm 78 which Dr. Kinnemer read for us, exhorts us to do as this takes place, men and women will be built up and encouraged in their faith. The gospel will be spread. Error will be challenged, the church will be strengthened, and the kingdom of God will be extended. These commitments reflect the scripturally grounded, confessionally guided foundation to which we continue to point week after week. Seminaries. Core values shape us as we live out our calling in submission to God’s inspired word.
So, the good news this morning says we seek to put these things into practice. We have wonderful examples from the southwestern tradition, people like B.B. McKinney, Curtis, faun, Roy fish, you see them on the screen. Jack Terry, dozens and dozens of others whose stories are told in the Shapers volume. This morning, I want to identify those shaping consensus that I believe is developed within that book, within our history that shapes us today. Doing so will keep us from being like so many wayward denominations and institutions who become untethered to Scripture and have lost their way at Southwestern we must accept responsibility for this generation and for the next, intentionally confessing, teaching, applying, defending the transcendent truths of the Christian faith, rather than adapting to the spirit of the age.
Most of you know that while I am a deeply grateful Southwestern graduate, I’ve been privileged also to serve in other contexts before returning to serve at my alma mater, this institution that I so deeply love, I acknowledge this morning that while southern, while serving at Southern Seminary more than 30 years ago, I developed a deep infatuation with the mythic stories associated with the founders of Southern Seminary. I still love walking around Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville, seeing where James Boyce, John Broadus at Robertson, Ewa Mullen, Bassel Manley, Jr, John sampi, were buried, and to reflect upon their wonderful contributions, I’m grateful that Southwestern seminary, beginning with our founder, B H Carroll, who was a trustee at Southern Seminary, has given attention to the gift that Southern Seminary has given to all of Southern Baptist we acknowledge that here on our campus, with streets that flank the campus with named Broadus and Boyce. I’m thankful that President Carroll served at Southern Seminary as a trustee.
I’m grateful that L.R. Scarborough and W.T. Connor and John Newport and Ken Hemphill and others, including some among our current faculty, hold degrees from Southern Seminary. Yet we need to be reminded this morning that President Carroll’s vision for this institution was distinct from that at Southern Seminary. This was never intended to be a duplication of what takes place in Louisville. That was not the intention in 1908 and it’s not our purpose in 2025. I’m deeply grateful for the seven years I had the privilege to serve in Louisville, and I welcome every opportunity I have to return to that wonderful campus. But the two institutions are not the same. I greatly appreciate the transformational turnaround story over the past dozen years at Midwestern seminary. I continue to admire the heart for the Great Commission that you see at Southeastern seminary. I am amazed at the faithfulness of New Orleans seminary carrying out their work in the shadow of Bourbon Street, and I appreciate the good work that gateway does pushing back against the culture there on the West Coast.
I’m grateful to God for our five sister Baptist institutions and offer praise to God for how each one is involved in a strategic way in the work of God’s kingdom. Yet Southwestern is distinctive from each and every one of these, as well as from the fine Baptist and evangelical college and universities across the country. So please don’t hear what I’m saying this morning, any arrogant way claiming superiority for Southwestern. Yet it is important for us to recognize that Southwestern is Southwestern.
By this, I mean Southwestern is special, that it has a distinctive spirit, ethos, purpose, that needs to be acknowledged on this day, it needs to be reclaimed, celebrated and guarded and passed on to these new students and to the next generation. Moreover, let me say that we’ve not been called just to carry out the work of Christian higher education or Baptist higher education in general. Rather, we’ve been called to be faithful to the best of the southwestern heritage and to recognize what it means to teach, serve and study at Southwestern, to understand and to embrace this heritage and carry it forward in the very best we can in our work, in scholarship, research, publication, teaching, learning, discipleship and service. I’m not here today to say that Southwestern has always gotten everything right over the past 117 years, that would not be the case, but I do believe there has been a concerted effort through most of southwestern history to hold together a serious dedication to biblical truth, Christian charity and spiritual unity, which has meant understanding what things are central and primary and what things are secondary and tertiary.
Through the years, Southwestern seminary, with only an exception here or there, has carried out its mission within the faithfulness to historical orthodoxy, while Southwestern is hardly perfect, the excesses toward progressive forms of Christianity have been few on this campus compared with the sad stories of Mission Drift found at other Baptist institutions through the years at Southwestern both the material and formal principles of the Reformation have been recognized and prioritized. Decade after decade, the authority of God’s word has been affirmed, the deity and humanity of Jesus Christ has been taught. The Holy Trinity has been worshiped and adored. The good news of the gospel has been proclaimed whole life. Discipleship has been practiced, and preparation for ministry with a focus on the local church has been emphasized.
Still, we note that there were differences among us. Our founding president, b, h Carroll and founding chairman, George Truett were almost all post millennialist, something that would not be true for very many of us here today, to their credit, it was not some social gospel post millennialism, but a mission motivated postmillennialism consistent with that which characterized the launch of the modern missionary movement in the 18th century with Baptist leaders Andrew Fuller and William Carey, a spirit still echoed every time we sing the postmillennial themes underpinning the stirring words found in our seminary hymn in addition, President Carroll rejected the reality of the universal church, likely due to the limitations of his formal education and his zeal to affirm the truthfulness of the Bible, he mistakenly believed the Hebrew vowel points to be inspired.
All this to say we’re not claiming infallibility for our founder, largely due to the huge footprint of JM price and other influential voices in the education school, we must also acknowledge that a programmatic and pragmatic identity has sometimes been prioritized at Southwestern over doctrinal commitments. There were some faculty members here 45 years ago when I was a student who were not just theological and denominational moderates, but a few who were progressives. So, I’m not attempting to paint Southwestern heritage as unerring. Still through the years, there is a clear continuity and consensus. Differences related to biblical authority, as well as a carefully considered understanding of where differences of belief should be allowed, b, h, Carroll, our founder, maintained a widespread reputation as chair as champion of Baptist orthodoxy that was closely associated with this doctrine of Scripture. Carol enthusiastically embraced the inspiration of Scripture, saying that it ensured a perfect standard of instruction conviction and profitable work for correcting and training in righteousness.
These commitments were regularly echoed by other members of the faculty in the seminary’s early years, New Testament scholar H.E. Dana defended the historical reliability of the Bible in the authenticity of the Holy Scriptures. His colleague in Biblical Studies, J.J. Reeve, who at one time had been captivated with historical criticism, wrote an article in the fundamentals, in which he carefully reflected on his own journey called My experience with higher criticism. Here, he thoughtfully affirmed the absolute truthfulness of the Bible while critiquing the dangers of historical criticism. Such commitments characterized the unflinching convictions of a long line of southwestern faculty over the last 12 decades, contrary to various voices scattered all across the SBC in the middle of the 20th century, who rejected President Carroll’s doctrine of Scripture, James Leo Garrett Jr, the Dean of Southern Baptist theologians in the second half of the 20th century, modeled both conviction and charity.
He did so dealing with the topics of scriptural authority and Christian tradition and other things. President Garrett, who had two stints here at Southwestern over multiple decades, treasured the authority of Scripture, advocating for its supremacy in comparison to tradition, reason, experience or any other source of authority, he offered an important articulation of the Divine, human authorship of Scripture, affirming the Bible to be reliable, dependable, truthful, trustworthy and infallible. Recently, several Southwestern faculty members completed a multi authored volume. The cover you can see there on the screen, the book summarizes the best of the southwestern tradition by affirming not only the Bible’s plenary inspiration, but its complete truthfulness, inerrancy, sufficiency and authority. So overall, we find in the southwestern tradition, an identifiable consensus related to the nature of Scripture, the transforming power of the gospel, as well as the importance of genuine personal piety, the priority of evangelism and missions.
For instance, Professor W.T. Connor, who taught here for four decades between 1910 and 1949 was known for his commitment to priority of worship and to the devotional life, but Professor Conner also championed the necessity of global missions, having had his heart stirred for missions while he was an undergraduate student at Baylor Connor continued to emphasize and prioritized missions all of four decades he was here, and he did so from his position as professor of theology, one of his students, James Baker Colton, Whose wedding ceremony was performed by Connor led the missionary advance for the entire Southern Baptist Convention throughout the middle of the 20th century. One cannot understand Southwestern seminary without recognizing the commitment to the priority of evangelism and missions, both domestic and international.
Long before the establishment of the fish school, these commitments served as the heartbeat of this institution and such globally engaged hearts for missions have been present not just in the missions classrooms, but in ethics classes with Ebby Smith and Bill Goff, in Old Testament classes with F.B. Huey and many others who could be named this morning, while there had Been areas of differences among the faculty regarding doctrinal and ministry matters. Here at Southwestern there has nevertheless been an overarching sense of unity without uniformity. Within the overarching consensus around these Baptist distinctives, there is an observable variety we’ve already mentioned, the post millennialism of the early faculty members, which also included Professor Connor in his early years. Amillennialism, however, eventually became Dr Conner’s position, and was the prominent eschatological position almost the entire 20th century at Southwestern seminary due to the writings and the influence of scholar and Dean Ray Summers.
Some faculty voices such as John Newport, Russ Bush, Tommy Lee, Robert Sloan and others, including some current faculty members, affirm historic premillennialism and a modified form of dispensationalism has been present at Southwestern seminary for the past two decades, through the work of Craig blazing and Jeff Bingham and many others. So, while Southwestern faculty have gladly affirmed the God’s initiative in salvation as well as the sinfulness of men and women, along with the importance of eternal security, they’ve also differed over matters of Calvinism. President Carroll was not a systematician in his commentaries, it’s hard to tell whether he was a four point or a five-point Calvinist, though he seems to have affirmed a universal atonement and he clearly rejected double predestination.
It seems that the same could be said for New Testament scholar Curtis Vaughn Tom nettles, a young church historian, a two time graduate of southwestern who served here in the late 1970s and early 1980s was one of the few Southwestern faculty members who articulated and defended consistent Calvinism to the addition of several faculty members over the past six or seven years. Some faculty through the years affirmed some form of four-point Calvinism, like Russ bush and Tommy Lee. Others a more modified three-point Calvinism, like W.T. Conner, and some even more modified, like James Lee o’Garrett, who affirmed a corporate nature of election, and even a modified form of Arminianism that still affirmed eternal security, like Roy fish and others who taught in the evangelism area.
So there’s been variety within the spirit of unity. I think it can be said that the best of the southwestern tradition has welcomed both Calvinist and non-Calvinist. But true to our heritage, there’s been a rejection of hyper Calvinism on the one side and full-fledged Arminianism on the other. We recognize that there have been young earth advocates like President Carroll and Old Earth advocates like former provost John Newport and his student, Ted cable Professor Garrett, affirmed a model that considered the days of creation to be revelatory days TB Maston and others who taught Christian ethics here have called on students and colleagues, generation after generation to repent of prejudices and blind spots while working for racial reconciliation and reminding us of the importance of religious liberty issues.
Southwestern seminary to this day, continues to be a faithful Christian institution committed to thoughtful cultural witness that reflects commitments to biblical orthodoxy regarding men and women being created in the image of God, affirming the sanctity of life, the sacredness of covenant, marriage, family and human sexuality, while recognizing The importance of theologically informed cultural engagement, Christian worldview, formation, desiring to see renewal or foundational social order. All this to say that Southwestern has been at its best when primary areas of Christian doctrine and Christian ethics have been emphasized and joyfully affirmed, while freedom has been given in secondary and tertiary areas within our shared commitments to the Baptist faith and message.
The same could be said regarding differences in worship and music, as observed from B.B. McKinney to William Reynolds to Franklin Siegler to Bruce Leafblad To Joe Crider, likewise, differences in theory and methodology regarding educational and ministry practices have reflected a healthy variety while still prioritizing the importance of Christian discipleship. Articulating faithful theological conviction is vitally important for understanding what it means to be a Southwesterner. We want to continue to affirm that essential place here on the southwestern campus in 2025 and beyond. Yet right thinking combined with cold hearts, bitter spirits, cynical attitudes, gossiping tongues, does not represent the best of the southwestern tradition. In fact, if Southwestern has erred, it’s been on the side of prioritizing warm hearts and allowing for mushy heads. Yet T.W. Hunt, Geraldine, Baker, Jack gray Dan Crawford, Richard Ross so many others have recognized at the core of the Southwestern Community are hearts that long to know God and to make Him known, theological faithfulness accompanied by warm hearted and joyful piety, resulting in lives characterized by fervent prayer and gospel proclamation point to the best of the southwestern heritage.
These commitments have been greatly enhanced through the years. By warm hearted and student focused staff members, like so many who are here today, who have carried out their key roles across the campus with a sense of joyful competence, seeking to glorify God in their service day after day after day, these shared commitments must continue to be carried forward with a heart to take the gospel to the nations, preparing globally engaged students for the days ahead. So, let’s ask the Lord to help us be a people characterized by serving the Lord together with joyful, grateful, prayerful and glad hearts. Still let us not fail to recognize there is no place for rejecting confessional theology as foundational for all aspects of life of southwestern seminary Leo Garrett’s voice, once again, provides shape and guidance for us.
He contended that we cannot dispense with basic Christian doctrine if we are to live and serve effectively today as Christians, noting that we cannot communicate and live out the Christian gospel without basic confessional commitments, Professor Garrett was right to reject the no creed, but the Bible mindset that has at Times reared its misguided head on the southwestern campus. Instead, Professor Garrett, who brilliantly modeled for us a life committed scholarship and service to the church, rightly acknowledged the importance of creeds, confessions and tradition; while stressing they serve as a secondary authority to the promise and supremacy of Holy Scripture. So let us work together, beginning afresh this morning, to reclaim and renew our commitments to the best of the southwestern theological tradition.
Let us hold firmly our commitments to these primary theological truths and Baptist distinctives with unswerving conviction, because these primary doctrinal convictions, which include prioritizing our commitments to the truthfulness of Scripture, to the unchanging message of the gospel, and which have been articulated through the years by the shapers of the southwestern theological tradition, are essential for the life and health of the Southern Baptist Convention and for Southwestern seminary, while we strongly appeal for cooperation, charity, Christian unity, we must not be naive to the reality that genuine error exists. We must push back and be alert to those errors while unapologetically affirming the truths of historical orthodoxy.
So let us on this day declare as Southwesterners that we aspire to join with those who’ve gone before us, as you see on the screen, as we aspire to maintain the faith, character, conduct and spirit evident to those who have shaped us through the years with genuine conviction, we joyfully affirm with a heartfelt confession regarding the Holy Trinity, an affirmation that God is the maker of heaven and earth, as well as belief in the deity and humanity of Jesus Christ, his virgin birth, His sinless life, his vicarious atoning death for sinners, as well as his triumphal resurrection and exaltation from which he will return to judge the living and the dead. We believe in the Holy Spirit, the giver of life, who brings spiritual life and spiritual gifts to both men and women, enabling them to carry out their service in the body of Christ, we maintain the uniqueness of the gospel message, believing that men and women created in the image of God, yet alienated and separated from him because of Our sins, receive salvation and forgiveness of sins by grace, through faith in Jesus, Christ alone. We confess the importance of the church as the covenanted and baptized people of God who are both gathered and scattered.
We confess the hope of Christ’s return, the promise of eternal life, the sacredness of life and family and the importance of ministry of reconciliation in all these things, we need Southwesterners Who can discern truth from error, which will result in a clear proclamation of the gospel of eternal life that is found only in Jesus Christ, our Lord. So may God help us, students, staff, faculty, board members, all of us, Southwesterners, all to carry forth the best of this tradition as we begin this new year together, let us pray for one another, especially for our current and future students who. Trusting the Lord that we and they all South Westerners will be found faithful, not only to the southwestern tradition, but ultimately to our Lord Jesus Christ, as we seek first, the kingdom of God and His righteousness, doing so for a lifetime of ministry and service for the good of the people of God, the advancement of the gospel and the glory of our majestic God. Amen.
