May 7, 2001

Paper identifies two Southwestern
professors who won't sign
___By Brett Hoffman & Jim Jones
___Fort Worth Star-Telegram
___FORT WORTH--Two professors at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary are being forced to resign because they refuse to sign a doctrinal statement adopted by the Southern Baptist Convention last year.
___Rick Johnson, 49, a professor of Old Testament, and Jeph Holloway, 44, a professor of ethics, have been told that they must leave the seminary within a year.
___At least 10 Southwestern Seminary faculty members, as well as an unknown number of educators from the other five Southern Baptist Convention seminaries, have left their jobs, or been forced out, in the past decade because they disagree with the mandates of the denomination, which has become dominated by conservatives.
___"Here's another group of professors who find that the rules change and they cannot stay," said Bill Leonard, a Southwestern alumnus who is dean and professor of church history at Wake Forest University Divinity School in Winston-Salem, N.C.
___Leonard, 55, left the faculty of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., in 1992 because he found the environment restrictive.
___Southwestern President Ken Hemphill said limiting employment to faculty who are willing to sign the convention's Baptist Faith & Message statement as revised in June 2000 will ultimately benefit the seminary and Southern Baptists, the nation's largest Protestant denomination.
___"It's important that an institution run its business day to day by its bylaws," Hemphill said. "Our accreditation agency requires that, our integrity requires that.
___"We feel that it would be inappropriate for someone to take Southern Baptist funding and advocate a position that is contrary to a statement of faith that Baptists endorse."
___The Baptist Faith & Message statement, in use since 1925, is supposed to reflect general beliefs among Southern Baptists but is not binding on individuals or on churches, which are autonomous.
___But professors at the six Southern Baptist seminaries and some other employees of Baptist agencies must sign the statement as a condition of their employment.
___As revised at the annual convention in June 2000 in Orlando, Fla., the statement declares, among other things, that Baptists "must oppose all forms of sexual immorality, including homosexuality," and that the "office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture."
___In 1998, the statement was revised to add the phrase "A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits itself to the headship of Christ."
___Johnson and Holloway declined to say what part of the statement they opposed strongly enough to quit their jobs over.
___But Micheal Dean, chairman of the seminary's board of trustees, said the men objected primarily to the statement's prohibition of women as senior pastors.
___"They are acting out of their conscience, and so are we," said Dean, senior pastor of Travis Avenue Baptist Church in Fort Worth. "We have deep respect for these men."
___Without mentioning Johnson and Holloway by name, Hemphill said: "I had careful dialogue with them concerning their decision not to sign. They understood that our bylaws required that if they didn't sign, they would have to resign. It has been their choice, not our choice, and I wish them the very best."
___Three years ago, Dan Kent, an Old Testament professor, and Allen Brehm, assistant professor of New Testament, left the seminary, telling Hemphill they would not sign the statement after the wifely submission phrase was added.
___Jeff Pool, 49, professor of systematic theology, quit in 1998, saying the denomination's basic statement of beliefs had moved from a confession of faith to a creed. His departure was also prompted in part by controversy about the content of the seminary's theology journal, which Pool helped edit.
___Kent, 65, retired, and Pool joined the faculty of Texas Christian University's Brite Divinity School, where he teaches Baptist studies. Brehm, 40, now is a fund-raiser for Buckner Baptist Benevolences, a program of the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
___Johnson said he is unsure of what he will do, but he will begin a sabbatical in August. Holloway said he is job hunting.
___Kent said faith statements signed by faculty have changed over the years. Until 1998, the statements were more general, "and did not get into specific ethical issues," Kent said. "Now, it has become more creedalist."
___Brehm said a turning point for him was the firing of Russell Dilday as seminary president in 1994. Trustees accused Dilday of siding too often with moderates in the convention. The "last straw" for Brehm, he said, was the addition of the wifely submission clause.
___Dean, the seminary board chairman, pointed out that most of the seminary's faculty--84 of the 86 full-time employees--have agreed to sign the most recently revised statement.
___Malcolm Yarnell, 39, professor of systematic and historical theology at Southwestern, said he welcomed the opportunity to endorse the 2000 document.
___"I see it as a clarification of what we have believed consistently," Yarnell said. "As our culture has become more liberal, there has been a temptation in the church to become more liberal with the culture. And when times change, you must speak the word of God."
___Evangelism professor Roy Fish, 71, who said he signed the statement, said Christian scholars have differed in their interpretation of the doctrinal matters addressed in the Baptist Faith and Message statement.
___"As far as I'm concerned, I don't think (not signing) is enough to forfeit the privilege of teaching so many young men and women at the seminary," Fish said. "I'm not willing to give up what for me has been 36 years of teaching young people."
___Bill Merrell, spokesman for the Southern Baptist Convention's Nashville, Tenn.-based Executive Committee, said the two Southwestern professors are the only faculty he knows of who will leave a seminary because they refuse to sign the 2000 statement.
___But their objections are widely shared by moderate Baptists. For example, moderates who control the Baptist General Convention of Texas acted last year to limit funding for Southern Baptist seminaries in large part because of the revisions.
___Moderate Baptists are also disturbed by a revision they say places the authority of the Bible above the authority of Jesus Christ.
___Each seminary has handled differently the convention's requirement that faculty sign the statement. At Southeastern Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., teachers who signed the 1963 statement when they were hired aren't required to affirm the 2000 document, but new faculty must do so. At Southwestern, all faculty are required to sign each revision as it comes out.
___Bill Tillman, 54, left Southwestern in 1998 after 17 years and now commutes from Fort Worth to Abilene, where he teaches Christian ethics at Logsdon School of Theology at Hardin-Simmons University, a Texas Baptist school.
___"The framework is becoming more and more claustrophobic," Tillman said. "I call it institutional claustrophobia, and what it will do to a professor is push out all of your creative energy. Instead, theological education should have a deep joy about it because of what were working on."

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