Conservatives Versus Moderates : Selection of Baptist Seminary President Becomes ‘Tug of War’

The vacant presidency of a Southern Baptist seminary near San Francisco, a non-controversial school far from the heartland of the denomination, has become the object of a behind-the-scenes “tug of war” between fundamentalists and moderate conservatives.

Fundamentalists, anxious to reap the rewards of thier annual success in electing the denomination’s president, hope that one of their own will be selected to fill the opening at Golden Gate Theological Seminary in Mill Valley.

The seminary search committee “has had what appears to be organized efforts from both sides in the way of letters” to influence the selection to head the 1,289-student campus, said the Rev. Bill Crews, a seminary trustee and pastor of Magnolia Avenue Baptist Church in Riverside.

Conservative Trend

The defeat of a moderate presidential candidate by Memphis Pastor Adrian Rogers at last month’s Southern Baptist meeting in Atlanta continues a trend that, since 1979, has seen fundamentalists progressively strengthen their appointive powers to seminary boards and church agencies.

But so far no seminary professor or agency head has been fired in the name of cleansing the denomination of “liberals” or of replacing Baptists who are less than ardent about proclaiming the Bible to be historically and scientifically accurate.

As the fundamentalist faction seems poised to tip the balance administratively in its favor, the Golden Gate presidency is considered one of three “plums”--along with vacant executive posts at the Home Mission Board, which coordinates domestic missionary efforts, and the Christian Life Commission, which addresses social issues.

“We would view all three of those positions as very important in a continuing conservative resurgence,” said the Rev. Paige Patterson, a key strategist behind the fundamentalist election successes at the convention. Patterson is president of Criswell College and associate pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas.

‘Tug of War’

A source close to Golden Gate, who called the competition for the vacancy at the school a “tug of war,” said that someone from Criswell is among the three-dozen names suggested for the job. Another candidate is from the Mid-American Theological Seminary in Memphis. Both Criswell and Mid-American are fundamentalist strongholds that function independently of Southern Baptist bureaucracy.

Of the six seminaries supported by a cooperative program funded by Southern Baptist churches, Golden Gate has rarely been accused of liberal biblical interpretation during the fundamentalist ascendancy.

“No one has said we need to be ‘straightened out,’ ” said Golden Gate Academic Dean Robert Cate. Yet, Cate said, “I think they (fundamentalists) would like to land one of their own in our spot.” Seminary presidents, highly visible representatives of the schools, also have the authority to appoint the deans and recommend new faculty members, he said.

The denomination’s Peace Committee, which seeks to reconcile the moderate and fundamentalist camps in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, has given a clean bill of health to Golden Gate and two other seminaries.

Desire to Avoid Criticism

However, Patterson said he would not personally have been so generous toward Golden Gate, but understands the Peace Committee’s desire not to criticize a seminary that has been without a permanent president since last March.

Without being specific, Patterson said, “There have been some things written by faculty members that I feel are violations of the Baptist Faith and Message,” a statement of basic Southern Baptist beliefs adopted in 1925 and slightly revised in 1963.

The Rev. Jim Rives, a seminary search committee member on the staff at Van Nuys First Baptist Church, said he didn’t know what Patterson was talking about. Rives said one very conservative Golden Gate trustee declared last year that in three years on the board he could not find one thing being taught that was contrary to what he believed.

Rives said that no camp in the divided denomination has “any kind of persuasive force” with the search committee, and “we’re working hard not to become part of the controversy.”

Does Not Feel Beholden

Rives is starting a new, five-year term on the board--thus he is an appointee of the current string of fundamentalist-influenced committees. “But I’ve never stood up for that label,” he said.

Likewise, Crews is another fundamentalist appointee, but he said he does not feel beholden to that faction.

Though the last president of Golden Gate, the Rev. Frank Pollard, was theologically very conservative, he was similarly regarded as apolitical toward the ideological battles. Pollard resigned to return to a pastorate last March.

Golden Gate has already “changed from being heavily weighted in an academic direction” to a more practical curriculum, according to Crews.

He said that over the last three years Pollard persuaded the faculty and board to place more emphasis on “spiritual formation” and practical experience related to running small congregations--where most of the Golden Gate graduates wind up.

Shift Occurred Steadily

Cate said the shift in Golden Gate’s curriculum to more practical courses has actually occurred steadily over the 11 years he has been on the faculty. Seminaries of most denominations “realized two decades ago that we tended to train scholars and not ministers,” he said.

The shift in emphasis “had nothing to do with our perception of the (denomination’s) political situation,” Crews said. Before Pollard’s three-year presidency, the seminary post was held by the Rev. William Pinson, a moderate. Crews said that, so far, the Golden Gate trustees “have not had a vote that would reveal a polarization on the committee and I’ve sensed no polarization.”

“My guess is that we will again pick someone in the middle politically but theologically conservative,” Crews said. He said he hopes that a recommendation can be made by the search committee to the full board by the fall.

Rives, Crews and Cate all agreed in separate interviews that no vote by the trustees has ever revealed any partisan divisions. Nevertheless, Cate added, “If any group can control the election of the president, then they can control the seminary.”

Sense of Expectancy

Fundamentalist leaders at the Atlanta convention reflected a sense of expectancy--both about gaining actual control and of establishing a trade school-like training of future pastors.

“God has given us some sweet victories at this convention,” said Larry Taylor, president of a group of Southern Baptist evangelists. “Conservative leadership has assured me it won’t be long, through the convention process, before any embarrassing errors in the SBC are gone.”

The “embarrassing errors,” Taylor later explained, were professors who do not teach within the framework of the Baptist Faith and Message.

Rogers, who defeated moderate candidate Winfred Moore for the presidency by a 55-45 margin, said in a post-election press conference that he would not try to force his views on others.

But he added, “We are saying that those who work for us, those who have their salaries paid by us ought to reflect what the great majority of us want taught.”

‘Change This World for Jesus’

In answer to a reporter’s question, he said he thinks that a seminary should “be more like trade schools--teaching a man how to use tools to get a job done . . . to build churches, reach souls and help change this world for Jesus.”

The next day, in a convention sermon blaming Satan for church discord (“It has always been the devil’s purpose to bring disunity to people of God,” he said), Rogers received his longest ovation in an appeal to seminary leaders:

“I thank God for our seminaries. I believe in intellectualism and in studies, but our seminaries need not be elitist institutions of intellectual sophistry, but rather incubators of a blazing, passionate love for Jesus and lost souls.”