Southern battles: seminary confrontations - Column

Christian Century, June 16, 1993 by Bill J. Leonard

I LEFT Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville last year after 16 years because fundamentalists who had taken control over the school's board of trustees were, I believe, threatening freedom of scholarship at the school. The conflict between fundamentalists and moderates there reached new heights (or depths) at the annual trustee meeting April 19-21. As I read accounts of the meeting and talked with friends who remain at Southern I felt profoundly sad about the loss of an academic environment that nurtured faith, inquiry and sprituality among its students and faculty. That atmosphere will be difficult to restore--not so much because the school has drifted toward the theological and political right, but mostly because confrontation, intrigue and mistrust have become the norm.

Trustee meetings have been the scene of moderate-fundamentalist conflicts since the early 1980s. Trustee actions and faculty reactions led to a temporary negotiated peace, the so-called Covenant of Renewal, approved in 1991. Moderate faculty agreed to the hiring of only those who held the theory of biblical inerrancy, while trustees agreed not to compel tenured faculty to subscribe to inerrancy or other dogmas beyond the seminary's doctrinal statement, the Abstract of Principles. Debates continued, however, and this year's meeting was a watershed, characterized by student demonstrations, faculty resignations and controversial trustee actions.

Last fall Roy L. Honeycutt resigned as seminary president. Honeycutt represents the generation of moderate leaders in the SBC who realize that their vision for the denomination has been rejected but who cannot bear to walk away from the institutions they have served. In 1984 Honeycutt preached his famous "Holy War" sermon in the seminary chapel, urging SBC moderates to challenge fundamentalist efforts to control the convention and its agencies. As moderates failed in those attempts and fundamentalist dominance solidified, Honeycutt turned his attention to preserving Southern, pledging to work diligently with fundamentalist trustees for the good of the seminary. It was a valiant effort that often put him at odds with moderates who thought he was too accommodating and with fundamentalists who could never forgive his opposition to their cause.

Honeycutt succeeded in cultivating a working relationship with a segment of the board whom I term "moderate fundamentalists"--individuals intent on making the seminary more conservative but willing to move slowly to achieve their goals. Some believe that Honeycutt's somewhat unexpected resignation was motivated by his fear that these centrist fundamentalists would ultimately yield to other trustees who would choose a much more combative president. Whether this prediction is correct remains to be seen.

Honeycutt's successor is Albert R. Mohler, Jr., the 33-year-old editor of the Christian Index, a Georgia Baptist periodical. If Honeycutt is part of the passing generation of moderate leaders, Mohler represents a new era among fundamentalists. He was 19 years old when the controversy began in 1979 and came of age in the midst of denominational turmoil. He received both the master's and doctor's degrees from Southern and is quick to affirm his admiration for the seminary's heritage. During his student years Mohler served as an assistant to Honeycutt and worked on moderate causes. He now supports the "course corrections" sought by fundamentalists and says he aims to return the seminary to the 19th-century Reformed and evangelical roots from which he believes it has departed.

Almost immediately, Mohler's views on women in ministry raised concern among some students. At his first public meeting with students, the president-designate stated: "I believe in women in ministry. It's a question of what kind of ministry. It is impossible for me to square the ordination of women to the pastoral ministry with what I see in the New Testament." The seminary would continue to train women, he said, but would not encourage them to accept pastorates, leaving such matters to the decision of local churches.

That response, which many see as a departure from Honeycutt's longtime affirmation of women in all types of ministry, no doubt prompted the demonstration held in the seminary chapel on April 20. As trustees looked on, some 250 students, faculty, trustees and alumni marched from the ground floor of the chapel to the balcony and remained standing throughout the entire service. A statement distributed earlier asserted: "We are a wounded and grieving community. We feel powerless to change our circumstances. Testifying to the faith of our community is a redemptive response to the crisis. . . . We affirm God's call upon the life of every believer in all aspects of ministry and pledge ourselves to support one another." Not all students agreed with the action, however. Response to the chapel service also highlighted the divisions between students who are sympathetic to the changes at the school and those who are not.