October 9, 2000

Hemphill urges students to be
messengers to BGCT and vote
___By Marv Knox
___Editor
___FORT WORTH--Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary students have been urged to attend the Baptist General Convention of Texas annual session, specifically to vote on a proposal regarding seminary funding.
___Southwestern President Ken Hemphill issued the plea in a chapel address and in a full-page column in the campus newspaper, The Scroll. He also urged students to encourage their churches to fund the seminary directly or through designated gifts.
___Seminary funding will be a key issue at the BGCT annual session, to be held Oct. 30-31 in Corpus Christi.
___Messengers to the annual session will consider a proposal to reduce the BGCT's support for the six Southern Baptist Convention seminaries, including Southwestern, from the current $5.3 million to $1 million in the 2001 budget.
___The change was proposed by the BGCT Seminary Study Committee, which spent six months examining the SBC seminaries, plus three Texas Baptist ministry-training schools. The committee made its recommendation based on its assertion that theological education provided by the SBC schools no longer reflects mainstream Texas Baptist expectations, as well as charges of questionable conduct by administrators at some of the seminaries.
___The study committee's recommendations have received approval from both the BGCT Administrative Committee and the BGCT Executive Board.
___Southwestern would get the lion's share of the proposed $1 million budgeted for the SBC seminaries, since the money would be allocated according to the proportion of Texas students enrolled at those schools. Southwestern trains about 1,400 of the 1,600 Texas students who are studying at the SBC seminaries.
___Still, the proposal would reduce the BGCT's support for Southwestern from $1.5 million to an estimated $875,000 next year.
___In his newspaper column, Hemphill charged that the Seminary Study Committee's report and recommendations created "confusion and concern."
___"This is an unprecedented step that could lead to the dissolution of the Cooperative Program (unified budget) strategy in Texas," he claimed.
___"It is apparent that this proposal is not a constructive attempt to aid the education of Texas Baptist seminary students. Most Texas Baptist students in theological training are enrolled in Southwestern. Why would any strategic plan penalize a majority of the young men and women who have been called to ministry?"
___Seminary students can take four steps to resolve the situation, Hemphill said.
___"First, you can pray," he noted. "Pray for the state convention meeting. Pray for state and national leaders, and pray for local pastors."
___Students also can "go to the convention as a messenger and vote your conviction concerning this new budget proposal," he urged. "As a member of a local church, you have every right to become a messenger, and your vote will make a difference."
___Although the seminary's fall enrollment count has not been confirmed officially, the current enrollment is "stable" compared to fall 1999, Hemphill said. That number was 3,213 students.
___Hemphill does not anticipate that seminary classes will be cancelled to accommodate students' participation at the BGCT annual session, although the president's council could consider such an option, he said.
___Decisions concerning whether to grant excused absences from class for attendance at the annual session will be up to individual faculty members, he added.
___Third, students can "help your church understand how they can continue to fund over 10,000 SBC seminary students," Hemphill added.
___He cited the "interesting provision" of the proposal that will count designated gifts for SBC seminaries through the BGCT as counting toward achieving the $1 million funding target. Designated gifts will continue to be honored even after the $1 million mark is hit, but no more undesignated money will be sent to the SBC schools after that point.
___The way to work around the provision is to send funds directly to Southwestern or to channel money designated for Southwestern through the SBC Executive Committee, Hemphill suggested.

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