February 10, 2003

MacGorman: 'I feel like a father whose children don't get along'
___By Marv Knox
___Editor
___WACO--Conscience keeps Jack MacGorman from teaching at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, a school he loves "more than life itself."
___MacGorman described the agony he has felt since ending a five-decade career teaching New Testament at Southwestern Seminary in Fort Worth.
___"The last two years have been the hardest of my whole life," he told participants in Truett Theological Seminary's pastors' conference Feb. 5.
___"I feel like the father of sons and daughters who don't get along," he said, noting his former students include "men who were spokesmen on both sides" of the theological/political conflict that has torn apart the Southern Baptist Convention.
___"I am not teaching at Southwestern Seminary," he told the crowd, which included generations of former students. "For 53 years, I had the privilege of walking into the classrooms of Southwestern Seminary. I worked with some of the finest people I have ever known. I've seen the power of God come down."
___But he no longer teaches "because I take very seriously the Reformation principles of 'sola scriptura' and 'sola fide'--Scripture only and faith only."
___He no longer teaches because he will not sign the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message statement, a document the seminary trustees and administration require all faculty to sign.
___MacGorman said he can affirm confessional statements such as the Baptist Faith & Message "so long as they are regarded as group testimonies."
___But he cannot sign "any confessional statement which is elevated to the word of God, which I regard as the soul of God."
___Noting the Southwestern administration has been gracious to him, MacGorman said: "It is not true that I have been dismissed. ... I am given every courtesy. The administration encouraged me to teach as long as I have the health to do so. ...
___"It is true that I disqualified myself. I could not continue to teach myself when my brothers and sisters in Christ are disqualified."
___Some younger faculty at Southwestern have not had contracts renewed for refusing to sign the Baptist Faith & Message. Others who could not sign the statement have resigned and taken jobs elsewhere or have retired.
___Seminary officials have explained they are merely holding the seminary accountable to the SBC, which owns the school and elects its trustees. Requiring affirmation of the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message, the faith statement of the SBC, is part of that accountability, President Ken Hemphill has said repeatedly.
___"I weep over the grief that has come to so many of God's people," MacGorman said.
___While he longs to be in the classroom, he acknowledged: "I am not worth anything to anybody with a broken conscience. You can do more with a broken heart than a broken conscience, because God can heal a broken heart.
___"If I were in my 50s, I'd expect the Lord to give me another place of duty. But I'm in my 83rd year; I'm not going anywhere."
___Southwestern is "a place I love more than life itself," MacGorman said. "I no longer have students to prepare for, but I report to the Lord for duty ... every day school is in session. I am on campus every class day before 8 o'clock.
___"I am trying to serve on a campus I love, even when my conscience will not allow me the classroom."

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