Olin T. Binkley: To See His Monument, Look Around
By Jimmy Allen
[Jimmy Allen is Assistant Editor of the Biblical Recorder in Raleigh, North Carolina. When he published a somewhat shorter version of this story, I was so moved that I sought and received permission to share the original version with readers of Christian Ethics Today. Dr. Binkley was a member of the Christian Life Commission in 1960 when I was called to be the agency`s executive director and later came to be a fast friend, In deep appreciation and profound respect, I share in this last salute to this giant among Christian ethicists. Foy Valentine.]
Olin T. Binkley has been eulogized as a man of faith who impacted the world.
Binkley, a North Carolina native who served as president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary from 1963-1975, died August 27 of congestive heart failure. He was 91.
Thomas Bland, a colleague of Binkley`s at Southeastern, spoke during the service at Wake Forest Baptist church in Wake Forest and talked about an engraving at St. Paul`s Cathedral in London that says, "If you would see the man`s monument, look around." The same is true for Binkley, Bland said.
"If, today, you would see Olin Binkley`s monuments, look around. Begin here. But be prepared also to look around all over the world. Faithful servant-leaders carry with them equipment for ministries which were shaped by the efforts of their teacher, Olin Trivette Binkley. They carry with them ethical monitors from Scripture, which he espoused, incarnated and urged upon us."
Another colleague, James H. Blackmore, noted in an interview that Binkley was blessed with two daughters, five grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren. But, he also noted Binkley`s impact on others.
"I would list hundreds and thousands of students and friends who are part of his family-spiritual descendants," Blackmore said.
Several hundred of those students and friends gathered in the church that Binkley first saw as a 16-year-old student at Wake Forest College from the Iredell community of Harmony. The son of a farmer and Baptist pastor who served one church 51 years, Binkley was a man in Christ, a family man, and a churchman, Bland said.
In the summer of his 12th year, Binkley went to every revival in the area where he heard all kinds of preachers. Many were concerned with the wrath of God, a subject he discussed with his father, Joseph M. Binkley. His father recommended his son read the four gospels and give close attention to the type printed in red, the words of Jesus Christ.
"The Holy Spirit worked in his life and he followed his father`s counsel," Bland said.
On a Saturday afternoon while fishing from a creek bank, Binkley prayed and gave his life to Christ.
"At that point and to the end of his life, Olin Binkley was a new person in Christ," Bland said.
With another story, Bland showed Binkley`s devotion to his family: He once left one college institution to teach at another. A colleague upbraided him, saying he thought Binkley was permanently committed to the institution he was leaving. Binkley replied: "The only institution to which I`m permanently committed is marriage."
As a churchman, Binkley loved and served the Lord Jesus Christ, Bland said. Binkley also loved Wake Forest Baptist Church, Bland said, and during his last hours, he talked about how much the church had meant to him, a place where he found a spiritual home as a teenager almost 200 miles from home. While a student at Wake Forest College, Binkley missed just two Sunday services. Once he was sick. The other time he was speaking elsewhere.
After graduating from Wake Forest, Binkley earned degrees from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Yale Divinity School, and Yale University. The same year he earned his doctorate at Yale, Binkley married Pauline Eichmann and was called as pastor of Chapel Hill Baptist Church, now known as University Baptist. While in Chapel Hill, he was invited by Wake Forest professor A. C. Reid to speak during the 1936-37 school year to a philosophy fraternity in Reid`s house. One of the students attending was Blackmore.
"I was impressed. He was a very intelligent man who was a very religious man," Blackmore said. "With him we could discuss all questions."
Students asked about socially taboo subjects like sexuality and race relations, as well as socially controversial topics like evolution, Blackmore said. "Here was an opportunity for open discussion of all matters.. .and discussion of God`s will and purposes for us," he said. "This was just tremendous for me. From then on he has been a hero, an example, and, at last, a dear friend."
Binkley left Chapel Hill in 1938 to join Reid on the faculty at Wake Forest College. He moved to Southern Seminary in 1944 and taught for eight years before returning to North Carolina to teach ethics and philosophy at Southeastern. He became dean of faculty in 1958.
The chairman of the seminary`s trustees in 1964, J. Glenn Blackburn, wrote the following the year Binkley was elected president: "When the trustees invited him to match his talents with this opportunity, they made crystal clear their intention to continue trusting the interests of the seminary to the best leadership available.
"They felt that in spirit, experience, and learning he was the one to stand out as example, guide, and servant. His faith, his character and his record made the choice an obvious one."
Blackburn also noted Binkley combined a brilliant mind, a spirit of humility and strong Christian convictions. "He is known to be a man who is firm with himself before he is so with others," Blackburn wrote. "With a keen sense of humor he can at once be fair and firm in his devotion to truth and right. His convictions seem always to come equipped with love and courage.
During his tenure, Binkley`s spirit and diligence helped the seminary through a time of social restlessness with students boldly questioning authority, as well as a time of dealing with a few faculty members who espoused ideas deemed to be contrary to the seminary`s purposes.
Blackmore remembers Binldey would always listen to the person with a problem and then work on an agreement in a kind and gracious manner. Faculty members were asked to follow the seminary`s "Abstract of Principles" and three instructors gave unsatisfactory support. Binkley gave them each the opportunity to write their reasoning. None did. Two left the school for other jobs. One failed to make amends or explain.
The president offered the remaining faculty member one year of salary to leave. The instructor made a counter offer of two years. Binkley agreed.
Blackmore said he remembers what Binkley said afterward: "Jim, if we made a mistake it was in the direction of generosity and kindness. I can live with that."
When Binkley retired as seminary president in 1974, Claud B. Bowen, who was president of the school`s board of trustees, wrote: "As a teacher, Dr. Binldey is profound, honest, and diligent. He has disciplined his mind to concentrate and to gather knowledge of essential value… .Because of his interest in persons he has been able to impart his knowledge to his students.
"As an administrator, Dr. Binkley has shown unusual ability in leading Southeastern Seminary in a marvelous way. Today Southeastern is one of the outstanding seminaries in the world and much of this has come about through the administration of Dr. Binkley."
Binkley was involved in numerous endeavors. He served as president of the Association of Theological Schools in the U.S. and Canada (1964-66), led the effort to build a public library in the town of Wake Forest and served on the Wake County Council of Aging for 12 years (four years as chairman). He received numerous awards, ranging from citizen of the year in Wake Forest to having the chapel on the seminary campus and a church in Chapel Hill named in his honor.
Binkley shared a personal story four years ago with The Wake Weekly in Wake Forest. Money was scarce for his parents, he said. They would send their son $5 whenever they could while he was in college. During his sophomore year, he decided he would stay home to work and earn some money for school for the next two years.
When school let out for the Christmas break, he got a ride to Winston-Salem and then another to Harmony. There, he noticed his mother`s hands were yellowed and blistered.
"I asked her what caused it," Binkley said. "She wouldn`t tell me.
On Christmas morning, he went to the family dinner table, and typically, the plates were turned upside down until the blessing was finished. When he righted his plate, he found a gift.
"There was $75 that she and my father had made by cracking black walnuts to sell," he said.
Tears came to his eyes and his voice quivered as he told the story.
Bland said few people can forget Binkley`s love for and insistence upon the ethical guidance found in Jesus` response about the greatest commandment and also in Micah 6:8: "He hath showed thee, 0 man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God?".
