Gloer named to Garland Chair of Preaching at Truett Seminary

Posted: 2/22/08

Gloer named to Garland Chair
of Preaching at Truett Seminary

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

WACO—Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary paid tribute to two faculty members simultaneously when Hulitt Gloer was installed as inaugural holder of the school’s David E. Garland Chair of Preaching—an endowed post named in honor of the seminary’s dean.

Garland joined the Truett faculty in 1997 after more than 20 years at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Garland, a New Testament scholar, serves as the William M. Hinson Professor of Scriptures and was named dean last year.

Gloer left the pastorate at First Baptist Church in Corpus Christi in 2000 to become professor of preaching and Christian Scripture at Truett Seminary. Previously, he served 13 years as a professor at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He also taught at North American Baptist Seminary and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Gloer earned his undergraduate degree from Baylor University, his master’s degree from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and his doctorate in New Testament studies from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

A $1 million gift by an anonymous donor—together with $500,000 from the Eula Mae and John Baugh family foundation and gifts from a half-dozen other donors—established the endowed chair of preaching at Truett Seminary in Garland’s honor.

Randall O’Brien, Baylor University’s executive vice president and provost, called the anonymous donor “our Theophilus,” referring to the individual to whom Luke addressed his Gospel and the New Testament book of Acts and whose name means “lover of God.”

While the donor’s name remained unknown, several characteristics of the person seemed apparent—the person loved God, possessed wealth and generously invested his or her riches in God’s work, he observed.

“Although we cannot serve God and mammon, we can serve God with mammon. My guess is that a camel just went through the eye of a needle,” O’Brien said.

In a sermon following the installation, Gloer challenged seminary students attending the chapel service to embrace their calling as ministers of reconciliation.

He pointed to Jesus’ healing of a demon-possessed man who lived among the tombs as a picture of what God did for humanity through Christ, and what Christ’s followers are commissioned to do.

“God in Christ reached into our world and picked up the pieces—broken, scattered, fragmented—and put them back together again,” he said.

Gloer presented the Amish community’s ministry to the family of the gunman who shot 10 children, killing five, in the West Nickel Mines School as a modern parable of reconciliation.

“The world was stunned, but the Amish understood the ministry of reconciliation,” he said. “The world could not understand and said they must have been crazy. They weren’t crazy. We are crazy. They were in their right minds—the mind God gave them, the mind of Christ.”