September 9, 2002
Southwestern faculty affirm
BF&M in formal ceremony
___FORT WORTH--Seven new faculty members at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary pledged allegiance to the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message Aug. 29 in an elaborate ceremony held as the opening chapel of a new year.
___Dressed in full academic regalia, the new professors signed a leather-bound book as they sat in a chair that once belonged to B.H. Carroll, founding president of the seminary.
___The old-style book contained a six-page history of the seminary's adherence to the faith statements of the Southern Baptist Convention.
___By signing the book, the faculty symbolically signed the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message, a document that has been hailed by SBC leadership but denounced by the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
AS Southwestern Seminary President Ken Hemphill watches, newly elected faculty member Jeffrey Bingham signs an old-style, leather-bound book containing a six-page history of the seminary's adherence to the faith statements of the Southern Baptist Convention, including the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message. (Richard McCormack Photo)
___The document calls itself an "instrument of doctrinal accountability," prohibits women serving as pastors and requires wives to "graciously" submit to their husbands. It also has been stripped of language in the 1963 Baptist Faith & Message that emphasized the priesthood of the believer and the autonomy of the local church as well as language that called Jesus "the criterion by which the Bible should be interpreted."
___"We're a confessional institution, and we're not ashamed or embarrassed to have our faculty sign the Baptist Faith & Message 2000," seminary spokesman David Porter told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. "By doing that, all Southern Baptists know what their students are being taught."
___Participants in the new signing ceremony were Jeffrey Bingham, Kevin Kennedy, Sheri Klouda, Eric Mitchell, Calvin Pearson, Teresa Stovall and Scott Swain.
___"This year we are excited to inaugurate a new Southwestern tradition--a public commitment, something Southern Baptists should understand, of our new faculty as they place their name alongside so many others who served nobly before them," explained President Ken Hemphill.
___The leather-bound volume contains the names of all professors who have taught at the seminary in the 94 years since its founding. Ironically, some of those professors have been fired or have resigned or retired rather than affirm the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message.
___One former adjunct professor told the Star-Telegram he was not impressed by the new ceremony.
___"It's like they're flinging robots across the stage," said Bob Beck, a longtime Texas pastor who taught at the seminary for 16 years. Beck resigned last year as a part-time field education teacher rather than sign the statement.
___Some people, Hemphill said during the ceremony, "do not understand the value of a school that protects orthodox truths of the Christian faith by having its faculty teach in accordance with its statement of faith." But such adherence to the faith as articulated by the SBC is both good and proper, he added.
___New faculty signing the big book this fall expressed no regrets about their actions.
___"What a privilege to participate in the inauguration of a new tradition which has such profound significance for our institution," said Klouda, assistant professor of Old Testament language. "I welcome the opportunity to affirm publicly my deep and abiding commitment to academic excellence and to those tenets of our faith which define our message and our mission to the students of Southwestern."
___The 2000 Baptist Faith & Message "is my faith and my message. It is what I believe and proclaim. It is what I confess and teach," said Bingham, professor of historical theology and assistant dean of the theological studies division.
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