Those who argued for the seminary to remove the founders’ names said they damaged the school’s Christian witness and caused pain to black students. But SBTS President Albert Mohler questioned what removing the names would accomplish. He said the school’s history cannot be changed: “If I believed that removing those names would resolve enmity between brothers and sisters in Christ or cause of offense, then I would do it. But I do not believe that action in itself is the responsible way to deal with this.” (Mohler is a WORLD board member.)
Mohler pointed out that every generation of church history includes a mixture of saints and sinners: Christians cannot tell the story of the Church without “including human beings that we would find guilty of enormous shortcomings and sometimes horrible sin.” He said he and the trustees “do not believe as a Christian institution that history is best dealt with by erasing it, but rather by confronting it and following a pattern of telling the story more faithfully every time we get to tell the story.”
Mohler’s report to the trustees ahead of their meeting stated, “Our task is to honor the saintly without condoning, hiding, or denying the sinful. We have not done this well in the past. We must do better in the present and be more faithful in the future.” In 2018 SBTS published a Report on Slavery and Racism in the History of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. It explored the school’s history and the founders’ beliefs and lamented the sin in the school’s past.
Besides deciding to keep the founders’ names, the trustees approved four motions regarding the school’s history. They agreed to continue lamenting the sinful aspects of the school’s past. They established a new scholarship for black SBTS students, to begin in the 2022-2023 academic year, that will be named after Garland Offutt, the seminary’s first African American full graduate. They resolved to “become more faithful in telling the seminary’s story, and the founders’ story with accuracy and biblical witness.”
Comments
West Coast Gramma
Posted: Wed, 10/14/2020 03:16 pmMay I ask, what is the racial make-up of the SBTS?
Cyborg3
Posted: Thu, 10/15/2020 04:26 amBy race/ethnicity, 3,225 White, 147 Black and 144 Asian students out of total 4,121 are attending at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
I don't think that removing the founders because they owned slaves benefits anybody. What does benefit everyone is studying the issues and acknowledging sin where it was committed.
RC
Posted: Thu, 10/15/2020 01:34 pmWest Coast Gramma, I don’t get the point of your question? Knowing the racial makeup will only generate rabbit trail arguments that interfere with the issue at hand. Which is, how do we honor the memory of the founders, yet recognize their faults, and do all of this with sensitivity and responsibility?
RC
Posted: Thu, 10/15/2020 01:39 pmHey Cyborg3, (on a lighter note) what is the race/ethnicity make-up of the 605 who are not a part of the other groups? (3,325 + 147 + 144 does not equal 4,121)
HANNAH.
Posted: Thu, 10/15/2020 10:03 pmRC, in agreement with your first comment, I offer a possible answer for the second: The statistics are probably self-reported, so the 605 unknowns could be Hispanic, Native American (American Indian / First Nations), "mixed race" -- or, most likely, No Response / Decline to Answer. (When given that last option, quite a few people take it.)
BF
Posted: Thu, 10/15/2020 12:58 amJohn Newton who wrote "Amazing Grace" was a slave trader for months after he became a believer - something the Bible explicitly condemns; I Timothy 1:10. Should we then "cancel culture" Amazing Grace? He finally repented of this many years later. Doesn't that come into the equation?
Is anyone asking if the founders of SBTS repented? And if they didn't, should we not take into consideration the culture of the time that was only beginning to see the wrongness of slavery? What about the many years Christians kept silent towards abortion (in the 1970s) until the full impact of what was happening felt its impact?
And should we not be concerned about the current sensitivity towards past slavery? There are different kinds of slavery but our culture doesn't make fine distinctions. Isn't it entirely possible that the Bible itself will be "canceled" some day because it seemingly doesn't condemn slavery? (Read Philemon as just one example of a different kind of slavery, yet slavery nevertheless) Or because it does condemn perversion?
Isn't there more going on when "just a statue" or "just a name" is torn down? Shouldn't we be concerned when the historic foundations are removed that the whole fabric of Western Civilization is under attack?
What will go next?
BF
Posted: Thu, 10/15/2020 01:03 amAccidentally repeated