|
Shift Coming at Southwestern By Mark Wingfield WAKE FOREST, N.C. (ABP) -- Could Paige Patterson be the next president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary? Since the abrupt "early retirement" announcement of seminary president Ken Hemphill April 8, speculation has run rampant in both Texas and North Carolina that Patterson, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, might return home to Texas to lead Southwestern, the Southern Baptist Convention's largest seminary. Such speculation is so strong that one of Southeastern's trustees asked Patterson about it during the seminary's board meeting in Wake Forest, N.C., April 14. Patterson's cautious response won't quell many rumors: "I have not been approached by anyone on the [search] committee at all about it." He later added: "I would be the most surprised man in the world, from several aspects, if that should happen." Southwestern's presidential search committee had been appointed just one week earlier, when Hemphill announced he was moving to a newly created position in Nashville as national strategist for the SBC's Empowering Kingdom Growth initiative. Patterson, perhaps the SBC's highest-profile conservative, was considered by many to be too controversial to lead Southwestern after former president Russell Dilday was fired by conservatives in 1994. Hemphill was seen as a more palatable choice by trustees widely criticized for firing Dilday. But conservatives reportedly have been dissatisfied with the pace of changes at the seminary. By most insider accounts, Hemphill was pressured to leave Southwestern by a small group of SBC leaders. According to a story that appeared in the April 21 issue of the Baptist Standard of Texas, those leaders reportedly helped broker a deal to allow Hemphill to stay until he could find another position or one could be created for him. In announcing Hemphill's newly created Nashville job, Southwestern said April 8 he would be "jointly employed" by the SBC Executive Committee and LifeWay Christian Resources. However, seminary trustee chairman David Allen confirmed April 16 that Hemphill's salary will be paid by Southwestern for a year after he leaves the seminary. The most conservative segment of Southwestern's trustees has criticized Hemphill for not cleaning house at Southwestern and for allowing too much leeway for non-fundamentalist faculty members to stay on. Sources in both Fort Worth and North Carolina said Hemphill was called to a meeting a few years ago in North Carolina in which he was told either to resign or be fired. Lorin Cranford, a former professor at Southwestern who now lives in North Carolina, told the Baptist Standard about a half dozen sources closely related to the seminary have confirmed that Hemphill had been to a meeting a few years ago in which he was given ultimatums to find another post, fire David Crutchley as dean of the School of Theology and hire Craig Blaising as provost and executive vice president. Hemphill removed Crutchley as dean in December 2001. Blaising arrived shortly thereafter and was given sweeping powers by the trustees. Cranford's account was corroborated by several Fort Worth sources who cannot be named because of their current relation to the seminary and fears of reprisal. Allen, the seminary's new trustee chairman, flatly denied assertions that Hemphill’s departure was coerced. "That’s patently false," he said in an interview. "I was on the board when he was brought in … and I served on the board while he has been president. I can tell you unequivocally that he was not forced out." For his part, Hemphill has kept a low profile and downplayed talk of his departure being forced, even though those close to him report he and his wife, Paula, have been deeply hurt by the ordeal. Hemphill told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram the move to Nashville was "a simple call of God on my life" and that he has "no animosity toward anybody -- Dr. Blaising, the trustees or anybody." Blaising likewise told the Star-Telegram it is "simply not true" that he was brought in to get rid of unwanted faculty. However, that contradicts the published statements of former trustee chairman Miles Seaborn, a retired Fort Worth pastor and one of the most influential voices on the board in the last decade. In the December 2001 issue of the Southern Baptist Texan, a conservative newspaper, Seaborn predicted Blaising would help fill the faculty with his kind of conservatives. "We've been working toward this ever since the firing of Dr. Dilday," he said. "It was a very tragic, traumatic event for all of us that were involved in it, but it's also been a process," Seaborn said. "There have been folks deeply entrenched here at the seminary that are moderates. Some of them have gotten so uncomfortable that they've left and are irritated, but others have kind of hunkered down and gone underground." When asked April 8 his reaction to Hemphill's departure, Seaborn declined comment except to say, "This is God's will." Trustee chairman Allen, a professor at Criswell College in Dallas and pastor of MacArthur Boulevard Baptist Church in Irving, confirmed Hemphill will be paid by the seminary through July 31, 2004, when his retirement goes into effect. Paige Patterson has topped the list of rumored successors to Hemphill for several years. The native Texan is considered one of two masterminds behind the fundamentalist movement to control the SBC. He is a former president of Criswell College in Dallas. Another often-mentioned possibility for the Southwestern presidency is Richard Land, also a native Texan, who currently heads the SBC's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.
|
|
Online since April 7, 1999
E- mail questions or comments about this web site to bprescott@mainstreambaptists.orgCopyright © 1999-2003 MAINSTREAM OKLAHOMA BAPTISTS P.O. Box 6371 Norman, OK 73070-6371 (405) 329-2266.
|