HERE IS AN EXCERPT FROM A CHRISTIANITY TODAY ARTICLE ON ALL THE CALVINISTIC CONFLICT WITHIN THE CONFERENCE…
Tiptoeing through TULIP
Layoff allegations reveal Calvinism tensions at Baptist seminary.
Jim Jones | posted 3/10/2009 12:01PM
Commotion arose in February over reports that Calvinists teaching at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (SWBTS) in Fort Worth, Texas, might be in danger of losing their jobs.
Pastor Wade Burleson of Enid, Oklahoma, raised the alarm in a February blog post alleging that SWBTS president Paige Patterson had met with professors and implied that the seminary, which is facing economic problems, might first target Calvinist professors if it had to resort to layoffs.
Seminary officials declined to comment, saying the Calvinism flap was a “non-story” based on false information. Greg Welty, an SWBTS professor for six years and a five-point Calvinist, said Calvinist professors had received no such warning, and urged Burleson to “repent of your lies and slanders.”
Burleson did not repent. He told Christianity Today that he received the information from professors who had been in the meetings. Burleson believes his report caused the seminary to temporarily retreat from the alleged plan.
The article goes on to say…
Shortly after Burleson’s blog post, Patterson was interviewed by Oklahoma pastor Wes Kenney, who asked about “rumors” of possible Calvinist firings.
“We’re hopeful that we don’t have to cut any professors,” Patterson said in the taped interview, posted on Kenney’s sbc Today website. The president said he would not hide behind a screen of economic problems if he thought a professor needed to be removed because of certain Calvinist beliefs. “I will say,” Patterson continued, “that Southwestern will not build a school in the future around anybody who could not look anybody in the world in the eyes and say, ‘Christ died for your sins.’ “
Patterson’s words, Burleson said, are a rejection of limited atonement, a tenet of five-point Calvinism that holds that God’s plan of atonement is effective only for those chosen by God for salvation before the world began. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/april/3.13.html
Following is the notorious post that started everything… publicly at least.
Dr. Paige Patterson met with professors in the theology school at SWBTS and implied the seminary would be letting go the Calvinist professors from the seminary, claiming that the lack of funds and the need to reduce faculty as the rationale for the impending releases. Odd, however, was the seemingly chosen method of reduction. It was not years of service, nor even the performance of the professors, but rather, administration sought to ascertain just who on the faculty were avowed “tulip” men, and those are the ones being let go. Some of the professors present at the meeting included men who specifically informed administration of their beliefs at the time of their hiring, and they were told at the time their beliefs were not a problem.
But it seems Calvinism is a problem to the powers that be at SWBTS. At least one professor from the philosophy department, himself on the brink of release, was present. The professors faced a grilling as to their soteriological belief system. They were asked to declare how many points of Calvinism to which they ascribed, and an even more penetrating series of questions were posed to that unfortunate soul who had the temerity to say “four” or “five” points.
Historically, dismissals at SWBTS have taken the backdoor approach of “You have a year to find a job,” but the rough economic environment might speed that process up just a tad for these tulip men. Here’s hoping they can make it through the spring.
Of course, it is the perogative of the SWBTS President to release whomsoever he will, but the forced, imminent departure of Calvinists from SWBTS illustrates just how far we have come since ideologues, who can’t handle dissent, have taken charge of the Southern Baptist Convention.
In His Grace,
Wade Burleson
http://kerussocharis.blogspot.com/2009/02/forcibly-removing-all-tulips-at-swbts.html
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