Freedom to Speak What We Have Seen and Heard and Doing It: The Origins of G. W. Truett Theological Seminary, Acts 4:13-20

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Freedom to Speak What We Have Seen and Heard – and Doing It: The Origins of G. W. Truett Theological Seminary, Acts 4:13-20

By Doug Weaver

Today people are often afraid of the word dissent. They think it is a bad word, a negative word. It was not always that way. Early Baptists were not afraid of dissent. They saw how establishments or those who insisted on conformity were willing to deny conscience in the name of unity and theological purity. Early Baptist and religious liberty advocate, Roger Williams, described it like this: “People in power are seldom willing to hear any other music but what is known to please them.”

For Williams and other early Baptists, dissent was not only necessary, it was an act of freedom; it was an act of voluntary discipleship. Let’s consider Acts 4:13-20.

Here we see Peter and John practicing dissent against a conformist establishment. They speak what they’ve seen and heard about, what they’ve experienced in Christ, as an act of freedom, an act of voluntary discipleship.

You sit in these pews at Truett Seminary today because of an act of freedom as some visionary leaders were willing to dissent as a free act of faith against a tidal wave of theological conformity.

The remake of the Southern Baptist Convention, called the conservative resurgence by supporters and called a fundamentalist takeover by opponents, had roots dating back decades, but officially began in 1979. A political strategy to elect a series of convention presidents who affirmed biblical inerrancy was devised by Texans Paige Patterson and Paul Pressler, the architects of the takeover. Presidents used their appointive powers to place like-minded men (note I said men) in positions of leadership with the goal of purifying SBC agencies and seminaries of their liberalism, as Patterson and Pressler defined that term. Opponents, usually called moderates, said the Patterson-Pressler movement was in reality a disenfranchisement, an exclusion of persons not willing to abide by a “my way or no way” creed of narrow doctrinal and social positions. While presidential elections were hotly contested, by 1990 the takeover of the convention was accomplished. The new victorious leaders proclaimed that a “new reformation” had occurred and biblical fidelity had been restored.

Southern Baptists reacted in a variety of ways. Let me cite a few. Many supported and hailed the new reformation. Some opposed the new SBC, left Baptist life, or said that Baptist life had left them. There are some ex-Baptists out there in Episcopalian and Methodist pews. Among the responses was a variety of what can be called Baptist loyalism.

1) Some didn’t know what was going on in the SBC and never found out. Their denominational offerings kept going to the same places and if the ministries had changed, they didn’t know or didn’t care. People sometimes say “ignorance is bliss.” I suppose religious ignorance is even more blissful.

2) A larger response for Baptist loyalists was the desire to stay Southern Baptist, even if they didn’t like the new direction of the SBC. These folks had deep roots within the convention. Their love for its ministries and its heritage, especially foreign missions and icons like Lottie Moon, made them hesitant to speak out, although they might speak privately, but they decided to go along. Some in this perspective stayed quiet because they thought they might lose their jobs. Others relied on the motto: “Avoid politics, support missions, the denominational pendulum never swings too far; everything will ultimately be fine.” Of course the pendulum did swing too far.

3) Some Baptists adopted a fascinating variation on this hesitancy to speak what was being seen and heard—an attempt to deny that the conflict would have any real impact on them, their church or their Baptist identity. About a decade ago, I wrote the history of Second Ponce de Leon Baptist Church, a wonderful, historic Baptist church in Atlanta, Georgia. The church attempted to stay out of denominational politics. One state convention leader who was a church member said it like this: “I don’t let nobody blow smoke on my blue skies.” He was going to support what he had always supported and if other people said the skies were dark and cloudy, he said they were still blue. The church changed its tune in 1995 when one of its former pastors was fired as president of the seminary in Fort Worth. It felt like a personal attack, and the skies weren’t blue anymore.

I don’t think I can argue that only people who recognized they were directly affected spoke out against the Patterson-Pressler movement. Or can I? This morning, I at least want to say that those who directly experience something, whether it be fundamentalism, or more importantly, whether it be an experience of grace or forgiveness, do seem compelled to testify of what they’ve seen and heard.

4) Another reaction evident in the SBC battles that I want to describe to you this morning is this: If you think the skies are still blue, then you have buried your head in the ground. I must dissent. I must speak of what I’ve seen and what I’ve heard. I am compelled by freedom to testify about my experience and warn about those that want to stifle that freedom I have in Christ.

That was the approach of some. That was the approach of Herbert Reynolds, president of Baylor University from 1981 to 1985, and the visionary creator of G. W. Truett Theological Seminary. To understand Reynolds’ desire to create Truett seminary, we must go back at least to 1979, the year of the start of the SBC conflict between conservatives and moderates. Paul Pressler, architect of the fundamentalist movement, said that problems in the department of religion at Baylor University were the last straw and made him commit to purifying the SBC of liberalism. Pressler said that students he had helped to convert in Bible studies at his church in Houston had been spiritually harmed at Baylor, especially in their required Old Testament class. At issue was a book, People of the Covenant: An Introduction to the Old Testament, co-authored by religion professor, Jack Flanders. Pressler was irate that the book did not affirm biblical inerrancy and relied on harmful historical critical methodology, for example, contending that the book of Daniel was a post-exilic writing –all the kind of things you now study in your classes at Truett.

It wasn’t just Pressler. James Draper, pastor in Euless, Texas, a member of Baylor’s governing board, complained to fellow board members about the book. In the fall of 1979, soon after the triumphant election of an inerrantist SBC president, a 16-page critique of the Flanders book was circulated in Texas with the obvious goal of initiating some changes in the Baptist General Convention of Texas. Flanders was on the hot seat and took the verbal beatings hard. What did play out at Southern Baptist seminaries had started at Baylor as well.

President Reynolds responded with a strong voice of support for his faculty and for his school. He was theologically conservative, but he was not interested in narrow theological attacks or a galloping creedalism at his institution. He staunchly defended academic freedom and he defended Flanders, who had been his pastor at First Baptist Church of Waco. When conflict is that direct and personal, Reynolds found it too hard to ignore.

As the conflict unfolded across the Southern Baptist world, Baptist classrooms were occasionally the target of fundamentalist tactics. Religion professors were going to be guilty until proven innocent. A few students across the SBC tried to tape lectures and find damning evidence of liberalism. I’ve been there and experienced that.

Reynolds aggressively condemned monitoring of Baylor faculty and promised to expel students caught doing surveillance. He believed the goal was to harass faculty to leave the school or to acquiesce to fundamentalist concerns.

In a survey of articles from Baptist Press, Southern Baptists’ news outlet, I found several reports of Reynolds speaking loudly, strongly, and pointedly, about what he had seen and heard. Articles from 1984 to the mid-90s trumpet the same themes and concerns. Fundamentalist-dominated skies weren’t blue; indeed they were dark and people needed to dissent to preserve freedom.

Like most moderate Baptists during the conflict, Reynolds called his opponents fundamentalists who insisted on narrow intolerant conformity. He firmly believed that they desired an oligarchy of power, a hierarchy of a few inerrant interpreters of an inerrant Bible and that, besides taking over SBC institutions, they wanted to take over Baylor and impose their uniform thinking on that institution.

Reynolds said fundamentalists had forsaken historic Baptist identity regarding the priesthood of all believers and the priesthood of each believer, or as Baptists often said it, that each person has the soul competency to have a direct relationship with God and the ability to read the Scriptures. Reynolds added a point often made in Baptist history: At the Last Judgment, each person will answer to God. If that is the case, freedom for the individual conscience is necessary.

Reynolds affirmed the importance of the church; He was no Lone Ranger; he was involved in the life of the local church. He is evidence that one can affirm both individual conscience and the importance of church. Reynolds in particular felt congregational polity was being threatened, but he seemed most concerned as a trained psychologist with fundamentalism as a mass movement. He believed it produced a herd mentality of the community where people simply went along with their so called infallible interpreters and where pastors went along with the hierarchy of leaders in order to get prized pulpits.

Reynolds affirmed that Baptists and Baylor believed in the Bible as the inspired Word of God, but that inerrancy took away freedom rather than preserved it. Baylor was committed to following Christ as the plumb line of faith, Reynolds declared, and he adamantly concluded that Baylor would perpetuate these Baptist commitments “whether there were any conventions in existence outside these institutional walls or not.”

Reynolds’ concern about fundamentalism left a legacy of two major events.

The first major event was the charter change of the university in the fall of 1990, soon after the SBC convention in New Orleans in which all who opposed the Patterson-Pressler movement knew the battle was over and they had lost. Time doesn’t permit telling the charter story in detail. In short, Reynolds had the school’s charter changed so that the Baptist General Convention of Texas appointed only 25 percent of Baylor’s governing board whereas Baylor’s board selected 75 percent in a self-perpetuating fashion. It is a fascinating and controversial story, one that ruffled many Texas Baptists. The move to a self-perpetuating board has bothered even some of Reynolds’ supporters.

What is important to the story of Truett Seminary is that the decision to change the charter was rooted in Reynolds’ conviction that Baylor must not be taken over by fundamentalists like SBC institutions were. When Reynolds left the SBC convention in New Orleans, he would not attend another annual meeting of the convention. He had had enough.

Reynolds would defy what he said that he had seen and been told: that fundamentalist leaders had announced, “We’re going for Texas and then we’re going for Baylor.” In making the charter change, Reynolds declared that Baylor would be known for academic freedom and the freedom embodied in Baptist identity markers. To guarantee these commitments, Baylor must be free of the possibility of fundamentalist dominance and its firing line.

The second major event was the legal establishment of Truett Seminary. It is fascinating that at the very same time as the Baylor charter change, the wheels were in motion regarding the establishment of a new Baptist seminary. In July 1990, Reynolds had the name G. W. Truett Theological Seminary reserved with the state of Texas. The move was reported in the press with one of my all-time favorite Baptist history headlines: “Baptist president bans dancing on campus and considers new Truett Seminary.” Reynolds ultimately won one and lost one.

The president remarked that Baylor had not yet committed to starting a school; they would watch to see if Southern Baptist seminaries continued their decline and their drift away from historic Baptist principles and freedom. If so, Baylor would dissent and be prepared to act on what it had seen and heard.

Why name a school after Truett? It wasn’t simply because he was Texas Baptists’ most famous preacher of all time. It was because the name of Truett stood for religious freedom. The next year, 1991, Truett Seminary was incorporated. A 15-member advisory board was created and met to help craft a vision for a new seminary. In January 1992, Baylor’s governing board approved an opening date for the seminary for 1994. Again, the reasons cited included criticism of existing Baptist seminaries declining because of fundamentalist power plays and the need for theological education in an atmosphere of freedom.

The founding of Truett Seminary was clearly to provide an alternative to fundamentalism. Reynolds highlighted for potential supporters a positive vision. First, let’s see what could result from a focus on freedom and open inquiry in a university setting, a setting much more conducive to providing academic freedom. Second, Reynolds and other early advocates agreed that Truett’s identity should be Baptist and evangelical. At one early planning meeting when a document identified Truett as evangelical but without the word “Baptist,” an insistence on Baptist identity was quickly reiterated. To no surprise, the school’s vision was to embody historic Baptist principles on the freedom of individual conscience, priesthood of believers and congregational church polity.

Third, clearly the Truett vision highlighted the training of pastors and other ministers for Texas. The school was to be a seminary for ministry, not simply a divinity school. Truett would also have a strong mentoring program for the training of its ministers with significant connections to local churches. There is his focus on the church again. Fourth, Truett would also encompass a broad international outlook. Baylor’s motto, pro ecclesia, pro Texana, meant for the church and for the world. I am not sure if the current focus on Baylor as a school with an international focus began with the creation of Truett, but the seminary’s origins surely gave added emphasis to Baylor’s worldwide outlook.

When Southwestern Seminary in Fort Worth complained that Baylor didn’t need to start a seminary (which in retrospect is so ironic since their president was fired and locked out of his office less than a year later), Houston pastor Daniel Vestal, who was chair of the Truett advisory board, as well as others, emphasized that Truett was not simply starting a new Southwestern. Some key supporters did want that; they wanted to displace Southwestern as the Baptist seminary in Texas.

But the importance of Vestal’s response to Southwestern’s complaint reveals further details and a fifth point about Truett’s original character goals. Truett, because it was attached to a large university, would be able to implement an inclusive identity, which meant, Truett wanted to be multi-racial, multi-ethnic, and multi-cultural. While published goals do not emphasize the role of women, oral tradition says advocacy for women in ministry was clearly there from the beginning and supported by Reynolds. One of the seminary’s founding faculty members was Ruth Ann Foster. When she died back in 2006, she was hailed by colleagues and former students as a pastor to students and leader of Truett’s women in ministry efforts. Only in an atmosphere of freedom in Baptist life, would women ministers fully be affirmed. I am going to repeat only one line in this address and this is it: Only in an atmosphere of freedom in Baptist life, would women ministers fully be affirmed.

In 1993, Reynolds’ choice to implement the Truett vision as the school’s first dean was Robert Sloan who later succeeded Reynolds as president of Baylor. Sloan, at the time a professor in Baylor’s religion department, was known by many Texas Baptists as a popular preacher, interim pastor and evangelical scholar. In tapping Sloan, Reynolds hoped to gather support from Texas Baptists across the theological spectrum who wanted an alternative to fundamentalism. Reynolds highlighted that Sloan was committed to religious freedom just as was G. W. Truett.

In the fall of 1994, Truett Seminary opened its doors with 51 students in the B. H. Carroll Education Building at First Baptist Church, Waco. The irony was rich since Carroll had helped started a seminary at Baylor in the early 1900s; that school ended up moving to Fort Worth and becoming Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Financial support for the seminary came from various directions such as the Piper Foundation. Scholarship support has come from the BGCT and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. The major and indispensable donors were John and Eula Mae Baugh. John Baugh, like Reynolds, had a passionate dislike for fundamentalism and felt he had to act upon his personal experiences of what he had seen and heard. Baugh was blunt; he believed the creation of Truett was a battle for Baptist integrity and freedom.

In referencing Acts 4 to reflect on the founding of Truett Seminary, I could say that fundamentalists had no hesitation to speak about what they believed that had seen and heard –a point taken.

But for Baptists in their 400-year story, Acts 4 not only addresses the need to speak and hear about our personal experiences of faith in Christ; it addresses the need to do so as an act of freedom, an act of voluntary discipleship.

The apostles Peter and John were arrested for preaching and commanded to stop speaking or teaching in the name of Jesus. If they had shut up and conformed as commanded, they would have been spiritually bound to a law which hindered their worship of God. If they had been locked up, they would have been free in their spirits despite their outward chains. Their freedom to speak was rooted in the freedom they received from God. As an act of freedom, they could only speak of what they had seen and heard and experienced.

Acts 4 speaks to the need to speak freely, to dissent as an act of voluntary discipleship against the prevailing winds of an establishment which demands conformity and defines it as orthodoxy.

The establishment represented in Acts 4 wanted the disciples to be silent, to act as if the skies were blue when they knew they weren’t. Peter and John could not do that.

Original identity markers sometimes change; sometimes they get adapted. Part Two of the Truett story would deal with those kinds of issues. But Herbert Reynolds emphasized over and over that the original quest was for a seminary that embodied what G. W. Truett stood for: religious freedom for all. May the faculty at Truett, as they do now, remain committed to speaking and hearing and doing in an atmosphere of freedom. Then and only then will the dark cloudy skies of pressured conformity be derailed and blue skies will be really blue.

Doug Weaver is Associate Professor of Religion and Director of Undergraduate Studies Coordinator, Baptist Studies for Research in the Department of Religion, Baylor University. This lecture was delivered at Truett Seminary’s Opening Convocation (1/9/12).