Rotten milk. Vomit. Missing underwear. And pneumonia.

What else could go wrong for Southwestern Seminary?

Baptist Press has one story.

Baptist Blogger has other ones.

Stay tuned . . .

“The heart and soul of a seminary is its faculty. Nearly everyone who joins an SBC seminary faculty has to take a cut in pay to do so. Not many Southern Baptists realize that the total Cooperative Program allocation our seminary receives is less than the annual cost of our payroll. This is the major reason why seminary salaries are below national averages for professors and pastors” — NOBTS President Chuck Kelley, 2003 annual report to the Southern Baptist Convention.

______________________

In 2003, when Paige and Dorothy Patterson arrived at Southwestern Seminary — back when promises were made of growing the school to 10,000 students and before “investments in the family” meant layoffs at the same time the president was building his own retirement home on campus — full time faculty and staff received retirement benefits on par with every other SBC entity.  According to the 2003 Southern Baptist Convention annual:

The Seminary provides its officers, permanent faculty, and career employees with a defined contribution retirement plan which is administered by the Annuity Board of the Southern Baptist Convention under Internal Revenue Code Section 403(b) and Treasury regulations related thereto. The Seminary contributes 10% of the participant’s salary to the plan and also matches the participant’s contributions up to a maximum of 5% of their salary. The Seminary’s contribution for the years ended July 31, 2002 and 2001 was approximately $1,008,000 and $1,067,000, respectively. (See Page 306 here.)

This retirement benefit was largely unchanged until Patterson’s sixth year as president (2008-09 academic term), though the change was not reported to the convention for more than 18 months. This, from the 2009 Convention annual, page 345:

The Seminary provides its officers, permanent faculty and career employees with a defined contribution plan which is administered by Guidestone Financial Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention under Internal Revenue Code Section 403(b) and Treasury regulations related thereto. The Seminary contributes 10% of the participant’s salary to the plan and also matches the participant’s contributions up to a maximum of 5% of their salary. The Seminary’s contribution for the years ended July 31, 2008 and 2007 was approximately $780,000 and $890,000, respectively.

By the time the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention rolled around in 2010, Southwestern was reporting a major reduction in this benefit (See 2010 annual, page 403). No other institution or entity of the Convention reported similar slashes to employee retirement benefits, though New Orleans reported that there were modest, temporary salary cuts for faculty while the seminary president took a 10 percent cut in his own salary.

The seminary provides its officers, permanent faculty and career employees with a defined contribution retirement plan which is administered by Guidestone Financial Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention under Internal Revenue Code Section 403(b) and Treasury’s regulations related thereto. The Seminary contributes 10% of the participant’s salary to the plan and also matches the participant’s contributions up to a maximum of 5% of their salary. The Seminary’s contribution for the years ended July 31, 2009 and 2008 was approximately $677,000 and $1,553,000, respectively. Beginning in January 2009, the Seminary temporarily suspended their contributions to their retirement plan. 

And then in 2011 (See page 394):

The Seminary contributes 10% of the participant’s salary to the plan and also matches the participant’s contribution up to a maximum of 5% of their salary. Beginning in January 2009, the Seminary temporarily suspended their contributions to their retirement plan until January 2011 at which time they will restore plan to provide a 5% contribution excluding a matching provision. The Seminary’s contribution for the years ended July 31, 2010 and 2009 was approximately $0 and $677,000 respectively.

In 2012: (See page 391)

The Seminary provides its officers, permanent faculty and career employees with a defined contribution retirement plan which is administered by Guidestone Financial Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention under Internal Revenue Code Section 403(b) and Treasury regulations related thereto. The Seminary contributes 5% of the participant’s salary to the plan with no match of participant’s contributions. Beginning in January 2009, the Seminary temporarily suspended contributions to the retirement plan until January 2011 at which time contributions were restored to 5% of base salary. The Seminary’s contribution for the years ended July 31, 2011 and 2010 was $374,549 and $0, respectively.

And in 2013 (See page 388):

The Seminary provides its officers, permanent faculty and career employees with a defined contribution retirement plan which is administered by GuideStone Financial Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention under Internal Revenue Code Section 403(b) and Treasury regulations related thereto. Beginning in January 2009, the Seminary temporarily suspended contributions to the retirement plan until January 2011 at which time contributions were restored to 5% of base salary. In January 2012, the contribution was increased to 7% of base salary, along with a 1% match of employee contribution. The Seminary’s contribution for the years ended July 31, 2012 and 2011 was $878,272 and $374,549, respectively.

And in 2014 (See page 397), the seminary stopped reporting the benefit percentages altogether:

The Seminary provides its officers, permanent faculty and career employees with a defined contribution retirement plan which is administered by GuideStone Financial Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention under Internal Revenue Code Section 403(b) and Treasury regulations related thereto. The Seminary’s contribution for the years ended July 31, 2013 and 2012, was $1,013,070 and $878,272, respectively.

And again in 2015 (See page 426):

The Seminary provides its of officers, permanent faculty and career employees with a defined contribution retirement plan which is administered by GuideStone Financial Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention under Internal Revenue Code Section 403(b) and Treasury regulations related thereto. The Seminary’s contribution for the years ended July 31, 2014 and 2013, was $1,004,222 and $1,013,070, respectively.

And in 2016 (page 405):

The Seminary provides its officers, permanent faculty and career employees with a defined contribution retirement plan which is administered by Guidestone Financial Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention under Internal Revenue Code Section 403(b) and Treasury regulations related thereto. The Seminary’s contribution for the years ended July 31, 2015 and 2014, was $1,067,899 and $1,004,222, respectively.

And in 2017 (page 412):

The Seminary provides its officers, permanent faculty and career employees with a defined contribution retirement plan which is administered by Guidestone Financial Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention under Internal Revenue Code Section 403(b) and Treasury regulations related thereto. The Seminary’s contribution for the years ended July 31, 2016 and 2015, was $1,136,411 and $1,067,899, respectively. 

Because Southwestern stopped reporting to the convention in 2014 the percentages of seminary contributions to employee retirement accounts, either non-matching or matching, there is presently no adequate way to compare Southwestern’s retirement benefits against other SBC entities.

What is clear, however, is that from 2009 to 2014 Southwestern faculty and staff received substantial cuts to their retirement benefits. And while it would seem to be proper for the seminary to repay the lost benefits — and thus lost retirement earnings and investment growth — for affected employees, the seminary trustees have preferred to authorize the building of a multi-million dollar retirement home for Paige and Dorothy Patterson.

This all leaves serious questions about what institutional or administrative priorities siphoned off seminary funding back in 2009, leading trustees to cut employee retirement payments at a time when the markets more than doubled.  Meaning, of course, seminary employees not only lost the straightforward dollar growth in their retirement accounts, but also the market growth they would have otherwise realized.

Stay tuned . . .

March 19, 2018

Rev. Barry McCarty
Chief Parliamentarian of the Southern Baptist Convention
2001 W. Seminary Drive
Fort Worth, TX 76115

Dear Rev. McCarty:

This year will mark more than three uninterrupted decades that you have served Southern Baptists as chief parliamentarian during the proceedings of their annual convention. It will also mark the third convention you have been under contract with the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention since your election to the faculty of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Before 2015, you had maintained confessional affiliation and employment within another denominational framework.

According to press reports, you affiliated with a Southern Baptist church in Georgia immediately prior to your election to the Southwestern faculty upon recommendation of the seminary’s president, Rev. Paige Patterson. This move, you stated, owed to a growing conviction that “Southern Baptists are the strongest voice for New Testament Christianity in our generation,” adding that you wished to “claim [your] inheritance in this tribe.”

Your decision to affiliate formally with the Southern Baptist Convention has been widely celebrated among denominational leaders. And your decision to accept the 2015 offer of Paige Patterson to teach at Southwestern has been well received by many. For years, messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention have had strong confidence in your impartial, even-handed parliamentary guidance, particularly during complex debates over matters of both doctrine and policy. As your seminary’s top administrator noted, you have “pulled [the convention’s] bacon out of the fire” on many occasions.

I have long shared this confidence in your fairness and strategic counsel. You may recall our private meetings and correspondence in the Spring of 2007 before the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in San Antonio that year. On one particular occasion, we met in North Dallas and sat outdoors at a small café to discuss my plans for various parliamentary maneuvers at the convention the following month. At the time, I had prepared a motion – which ultimately came to be known as the ‘Garner Motion’ – for the convention to adopt a statement establishing the Baptist Faith & Message 2000 as the only sufficient confessional framework for Southern Baptist entities. This effort, we discussed, was opposed by key leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention including your current ministry supervisor, Paige Patterson.

You were a tremendous resource to me in the formation of that motion, and others that have been adopted successfully in the years since. A careful student of parliamentary procedure myself, I have found your public and private counsel on such matters consistently helpful. At every turn, I have underscored my confidence in your ability to instruct convention presidents and platform leaders concerning parliamentary procedures with clarity and fairness.

Nevertheless, I am concerned that your dual responsibilities – as a seminary professor at one particular SBC institution and chief parliamentarian to the convention at large – may present an insurmountable conflict during this year’s annual meeting. Indeed, messengers are already preparing to ask questions concerning the enrollment declines at Southwestern Seminary, the state of finances at the school, and various administrative decisions.

I fear that your reputation as a neutral parliamentary advisor to the convention’s president and the messengers may suffer unnecessarily should your employment at Southwestern be perceived in any way as a challenge to your unbiased procedural counsel.

Perhaps an illustration is in order.

In 2005, the Southern Baptist Convention met in Nashville, TN, at a time of extended impasse between New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention. The issue of “sole membership,” you may recall, had brought the convention to a decisive moment. Trustees and administrators of New Orleans – led by the seminary’s president, Rev. Chuck Kelley – were opposed to adopting “sole membership.” Advocates from both sides of the issue made presentations to the messengers, and the convention ultimately approved the adoption of sole membership by a margin of 78-21 percent. It was a contentious, complex, and tense moment for everyone involved.

During that debate, you were able to guide the convention president and the messengers dispassionately and objectively toward a definite conclusion and a decisive resolution to a conflict years in the making. Imagine, therefore, how that floor debate might have soured quickly if – rather than serving as an unaffiliated and independent parliamentarian – you had been serving concurrently as a full-time faculty member of New Orleans seminary, subordinated to its president and obligated to support his position on the issue.  Or, at the very least, unable to voice opposition to his position because of your contractual relationship.

Simply put, no man should be required to balance those competing responsibilities. Indeed, no balance is possible and a conflict of interest is inevitable.

For this reason, I am asking you to consider taking uncompensated leave of absence from your professorial responsibilities at Southwestern at the conclusion of this academic year and until after the convention meets in June. Alternately, I am asking that you formally and publicly recuse yourself from any parliamentary role in matters related to Southwestern Seminary during the coming convention. That recusal, I might add, could necessitate a renegotiation of your contract with the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention.

In either case, I am confident you will pursue the right course to preserve a well-earned reputation for impartiality and avoid throwing the Southern Baptist Convention messengers into unnecessary confusion about your parliamentary counsel and potential conflict of interest during this year’s annual meeting in Dallas.

CC:  Rev. Steve Gaines
CC:  Rev Frank Page
CC:  Guenther, Jordan, & Price PC

March 15, 2018

Rev. Steve Gaines, President
Southern Baptist Convention
2000 Appling Road
Cordova, TN  38016

Dear Rev. Gaines:

Baptist Press reported on Jan. 17 the theme you have chosen for this year’s annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention, which will take place June 12-13 at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas, TX. “Testify! Go. Stand. Speak” captures succinctly and effectively the heart for evangelism and personal soul-winning you have sought to emphasize during your two terms as convention president. Thank you for your sincere and passionate determination to model authentic Christian witness throughout the convention, its entities and member churches.

As you noted in the announcement of the new theme, “research . . . has shown [that] baptisms are the lowest . . . in 70 years.”[1] Other reports indicate that Southern Baptist churches have lost members for 10 years in a row, and are now on a 9-year trend of fewer baptisms. Indeed, this trend has similarly vexed your predecessors, and it will certainly continue as a concern for those who will succeed you as convention president.

With overwhelming support, the messengers to the 2017 Southern Baptist Convention asked you to appoint a task force to study how Southern Baptists can be more effective in soul-winning and evangelistic preaching. In less than 24 hours from the authorization of this committee – and perhaps without access to pertinent information – you named a 17-member panel and designated a chairman.[2] The task force is charged to bring a report and recommendations to this year’s convention in Dallas.

Of the nine males[3] representing the six Southern Baptist seminaries on the task force, three are among the professors still employed at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. These are: Paige Patterson, seminary president and task force chairman; David Allen, professor of preaching; and Matthew Queen, professor of evangelism.[4] The disproportionate representation of Southwestern administrators and faculty on the committee doubtlessly owes to your ostensible belief that the Fort Worth seminary has placed a heavier emphasis on evangelism that warrants replication throughout the Southern Baptist Convention.

In fact, a heavier emphasis on evangelism is precisely what presently drives the trajectory of Southwestern Seminary, according to the school’s president and the task force chairman you appointed. The most recent convention annual includes a report from the seminary president making this commitment clear:

 “[Southwestern has] lost quite a number of Cooperative Program supported students because we have placed a much heavier emphasis on personal evangelism, and that appears not to be popular these days . . . . Until such time as our future pastors show an interest in evangelism, we are happy to continue making this contribution even though it costs the seminary more.”[5]

I am confident that the priorities and responsibilities of the convention presidency do not include careful reading of the SBC Annual. Indeed, it is unlikely that many messengers know such a document exists at all. Nevertheless, buried in the mandated report is a troubling development. Succinctly, the chairman of the evangelism task force  admits openly that a “heavier emphasis on personal evangelism” leads to a precipitous enrollment decline.[6]

The incongruity of the Patterson paradigm with the clear purposes for which the convention messengers authorized the task force is nakedly apparent. Southern Baptists, aggrieved over declining baptisms and fewer souls reached have empowered you to help them diagnose the causes for this decline and propose recommendations. In response to their desperate cry for help, Southern Baptists may have been witlessly subjected to the strange medicine presently dispensed by the proselytizing apothecaries killing off the student population at your alma mater.

Or put another way, if dogs were dying in Southern Baptist churches, why would you ask a veterinarian with a track record of killing dogs to help identify and administer the antidote? In any other world, this would be malpractice.

I have monitored developments related to the task force carefully, and I have personally visited the campus of Southwestern Seminary in recent days to witness myself the effect that that Patterson paradigm has had on the institution, its faculty, staff, and student body. This experience has intensified rather than diminished my concern.

If you desire to propagate the Patterson paradigm throughout the entities and churches of the Southern Baptist Convention, then the convention deserves to know how this model has affected the Fort Worth school. With that in mind, I hope many faithful Southern Baptists will go, stand, and speak to this matter at the convention in Dallas.

Sincerely,

Benjamin S. Cole

CC: Members of the SBC Evangelism Task Force

[1] See “SBC 2018 Dallas Theme,” accessed online at http://www.bpnews.net/50202.

[2] See “Personal soul-winning, evangelism task force name,” accessed online at http://www.bpnews.net/49068/personal-soulwinning-evangelism-task-force-named.

[3] In fact, there were no females named to the task force.

[4] Ibid, at 2 above.

[5] See Southwestern Seminary report to the 2017 Southern Baptist Convention, accessed online at http://www.sbcec.org/bor/2017/2017SBCAnnual.pdf.

[6] In fact, Southwestern enrollment is at its lowest point in more than four decades. See also: https://baptistblog.wordpress.com/2018/03/08/swbts-heavier-emphasis-on-evangelism-causes-lost-ftes-cooperative-program-declines/

Paige and Dorothy Patterson are building a small one bedroom apartment for their retirement on the campus of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Come take a walking tour of the new Baptist Heritage Center in Forth Worth:

You may also view Lottie Moon’s retirement home on the campus here:

According to the most recent ATS Reports, Southwestern Seminary has three times the number of Presbyterian and Reformed students as Southern Seminary.  Southern has nearly 800 more Southern Baptist students, fewer Independent Baptists, and fewer Pentecostals than Southwestern. Doubtlessly due to the “heavier emphasis on evangelism.”

Southern Seminary
Southern Baptist students — 2,607
Independent Baptist students — 46
Pentecostal students — 9
Presbyterian and Reformed students — 24

Southwestern Seminary
Southern Baptist students — 1,830
Independent Baptist students — 65
Pentecostal students — 68
Presbyterian and Reformed students — 75

What would B.H. Carroll say to that?

If you heard this uncertain sound?  1 Corinthians 14:8

Apparently, the seminary administration is distributing empty jars and tin horns on the Fort Worth campus these days. And no, we don’t mean faculty incentives.

Apparently, the current president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary has a thing for kissing weird animals and playing dress up.

“Southwestern is today one of the world’s largest schools for graduate theological training. In 1998-99, a total of 4,145 students from 46 foreign countries, 42 states, and the District of Columbia came to study in the Schools of Theology, Educational Ministries, and Church Music. Last fall the largest number of international students ever enrolled in Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. While 96 percent of Southwestern’s students are Southern Baptist, students from 44 other denominations are also enrolled. Since 1908, over 62,164 men and women have been students of Southwestern and have gone out to contribute immeasurably to the life and mission of Southern Baptists. Southwestern’s faculty consists of 87 elected faculty and 99 supplemental instructors.” — Ken Hemphill, 2000 SBC SWBTS Report

“We don’t have as many students as I wish we had, and yet I remember the 7th Chapter of the Book of Judges. I remember that God said to Gideon, ‘We have to get it down to the ones who will make a difference.’ — Paige Patterson, video report to the SBC Executive Committee, 2017

 

“I’m currently present of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, but I have my eyes set on something that makes a lot more money.” — Paige Patterson, video report to the SBC Executive Committee, 2016

(UPDATED 3/8/17 @9:10AM; Footnote 8 added)

March 7, 2018

Dr. O.S. Hawkins
President
Guidestone Financial Resources
2401 Cedar Springs Road
Dallas, TX 75021-1498

Dear Dr. Hawkins:

Congratulations on the 100^th birthday of Guidestone Financial Resources and your two decades of service as president and chief executive officer of the nation’s largest Christian-screened mutual fund family. I look forward to celebrating these significant milestones at the coming annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in Dallas later this year.

Recent published reports deriving from the financial straits presently faced by your alma mater, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, give rise to my present inquiry. It has come to my attention that the enrollment of Cooperative Program supported students – that is, students endorsed by and planning to serve Southern Baptist churches – has declined at Southwestern.

Ostensibly, the reason for the loss of Southern Baptist students at Southwestern is due to a “much heavier emphasis on personal evangelism.”[1] According to the seminary president, this “emphasis on personal evangelism” has dissuaded prospective Southern Baptist seminarians from pursuing theological education and pastoral training at the school. Despite this enrollment decline, however, the seminary president has pledged that “until such time as our future pastors show an interest in evangelism,” the seminary will continue pursuing non-Southern Baptist student enrollment.

The syllogism evident in the president’s report to the 2017 convention is thus: (1) Southwestern Seminary has placed a heavy emphasis on personal evangelism; (2) future Southern Baptist pastors do not support this emphasis and will not enroll at the school; and; and (3) the loss of these Southern Baptist students results in lost Cooperative Program support for the seminary. [2]

This loss of revenue has hit the school hard. [3] According to a recent report, the seminary administration has been forced into three rounds of lay offs. In November 2017 alone, the seminary announced additional cuts of 30 fulltime staff.[4] Furthermore, the seminary has been forced to reduce the number of breakfast options on campus, cut the Copy Center hours in half, decrease the seminary fleet of vehicles, and not fill vacant positions.[5] Fortunately, the seminary has received generous support from a handful of donors to construct a new Baptist Heritage Center on campus, complete with living quarters for the seminary’s president and his wife upon retirement.[6]

It has also come to my attention that in recent years the seminary president has authorized cuts to faculty retirement benefits and reduced matching employer contributions to faculty annuities.[7] These reports are troubling, nor does it seem that seminary trustees have made provision for the retirement of long-time faculty and staff on par with the generous provisions made to the current seminary president.

Indeed, I am not aware of any donor(s) who might have arisen to pay for the construction of faculty retirement homes on campus, though it is certain these men and women would similarly benefit from proximal access to campus research libraries, zero property tax burden, dedicated personal research and domestic staff, and other emoluments promised to the seminary’s current president upon retirement. Their sacrifice on behalf of the Gospel is no less significant, nor is their service less noble. Their personal financial burdens, in fact, are more pronounced. And their ability to use seminary resources to identify, solicit, and facilitate multi million-dollar tax-exempt contributions to ensure their own retirement comforts is limited.

For this reason, and given the impressive track record that Guidestone has had under your leadership through Mission:Dignity[8] to help retired Southern Baptist ministers, workers, and their widows with extra money needed for housing, food and vital medications, I write to inquire if your organization has considered establishing a similar endowment to assist seminary professors – particularly those suffering hardships and reduced retirement benefits at Southwestern Seminary – so that they may continue their service to Southern Baptists, even in retirement?

Thank you for your time and consideration. I would hate to think that Southwestern Seminary’s “heavy emphasis on evangelism” would intensify the present and future financial burdens on faculty retiring from lifelong service at one of the convention’s seminaries. I stand ready to assist in any way possible as Guidestone considers a way to supplement the cuts to Southwestern faculty retirement benefits ordered by the seminary’s president and ensure a place for them to live comfortably — on campus if possible — well into the future.

Until then,

Benjamin S. Cole

CC:      Kevin Ueckert, SWBTS Trustee Chairman

[1] See published report of Paige Patterson to the 2017 Southern Baptist Convention, 2017 SBC Annual, page 236ff, accessed online at http://www.sbcec.org/bor/2017/2017SBCAnnual.pdf

[2] It is unclear at the present time if Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, MO, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary in New Orleans, LA, and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, NC, all of which have experienced increased enrollment of Cooperative Program funded students, have minimized their emphasis on personal evangelism, thus resulting in increased numbers of Southern Baptist students.

[3] This is not the first time Southwestern Seminary’s president has been alerted to intense financial strains because enrollment has not kept pace with the growth of expenditures. See also https://baptistblog.files.wordpress.com/2007/03/sebts-finanles.pdf

[4] See report at http://sbcvoices.com/southwestern-seminary-cuts-10-of-their-full-time-positions/

[5] See news release at https://swbts.edu/news/releases/southwestern-seminary-preserves-investment-family/

[6] See http://www.sbcthisweek.com/patterson-discusses-retirement-plans/

[7] For instance, Southwestern Seminary reported to the Southern Baptist Convention that it had “suspended” employer contributions to the Guidestone-managed retirement accounts of faculty and full-time seminary employees beginning in January 2009. See page 403 at http://www.sbcec.org/bor/2010/2010SBCAnnual.pdf

[8] According to the 2017 annual report of Guidestone Financial Resources, all proceeds from the sale of O.S. Hawkins’s books — published by Thomas Nelson and sold at both online and traditional bookstores around the country — benefit Mission:Dignity. See page 161 at http://www.sbcec.org/bor/2017/2017SBCAnnual.pdf.

Fort Worth, TX — Southwestern Seminary’s sterling reputation, nurturing environment and supportive faculty have combined to call 343 new students to enroll for the spring 2018 semester. This is the largest incoming spring class in over 10 years.

Over the last several years, an average of roughly 250 new students have entered each spring semester, and roughly 500 new students have entered each fall semester, says Kyle Walker, vice president for student services. “We were confident that our innovation and the hard work of the Admissions office would pay off this spring semester with a large incoming class,” he says. “However, we did not know it was going to be this big.”

The seminary’s robust recruiting efforts were a significant factor. “We continue to pursue the most effective ways to connect with prospective students and work with them through the application process,” Walker says. “Under the leadership of our director of admissions, Max Stabenow, the Admissions office made several strategic changes that made a big impact this year.”

“Every department worked together within their various spheres of influence to build a historic spring enrollment,” Stabenow says. “The full force of Student Services looks forward to capitalizing on the momentum of the spring semester in order to build a phenomenal fall incoming class.”

An array of life experiences brought new incoming students to Southwestern. Saleem Bhayani, a Master of Theological Studies student, feels blessed to study God’s Word “at the best seminary in the world.” A former Muslim from Pakistan, she received a bachelor’s degree in business administration and accounting from the University of Karachi and then was called to Christ and to Christian study.

“I spoke to a couple of people who went to different seminaries, but they all wanted to go to Southwestern Seminary,” she says. After attending orientation at Southwestern, she decided to enroll.

“Even though I am taking Biblical Hermeneutics online, I feel like I am taking this class in person,” she says. “I really enjoy the class and Dr. [Jim] Wicker’s style of teaching, which keeps everybody together and engaged regardless of the knowledge of the student.”

Perry Garrett, a Ph.D. student in church history, says he chose Southwestern “because of the increasingly astute Ph.D. program in early Christian studies under the oversight of Dr. D. Jeffrey Bingham and Dr. Stephen Presley, as well as the faithful theological heritage of the institution within the Southern Baptist Convention.” When he began the application process, Garrett continues, “I was received with Christian hospitality and grace, and I continued experiencing this welcoming spirit while on campus recently for seminars and events.”

Tony Grant, a Master of Divinity student, was enrolled at the Guadalupe Baptist Theological Seminary School in San Antonio until it shut its doors three years ago due to lack of student enrollment. “After exploring school after school and witnessing the high cost of tuition, I said, ‘Forget it,’” he says. He reached out for guidance on social media through an online minsters’ group.

“There were many responses, but one stood out, which was Southwestern,” he said. Based on the recommendation of a Southwestern alumnus, he toured the campus. “I must say I was very impressed and loved what I saw and experienced,” he says. “I applied the same day.”

“I thank God for these students that He has ultimately sent to Southwestern,” says Kyle Walker. “I know from experience the level of instruction and training Southwestern is going to provide.

“It thrills me more than I can say to see God calling out men and women and directing them our way to be equipped to fulfill the call on their lives. By coming to Southwestern, these men and women will be grounded in God’s Word and prepared to reach the world.”

March 1, 2018

Rev. Paige Patterson
President
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
2001 W. Seminary Dr.
Fort Worth, TX 76115

Rev. Patterson:

According to news reports growing out of your “wide-ranging interview” with the Southern Baptist Texan, a group of donors have emerged to fund the construction of a “one bedroom apartment” within the forthcoming Baptist Heritage Center on the campus of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary to serve as the penultimate terrestrial habitation for you and your wife, Dorothy.

The personal sacrifice you make to confine your post-retirement quarters to a single-bedroom apartment – down from the 8,500 square feet of living space you presently occupy on the seminary campus – doubtlessly serves as yet another example of characteristic Pattersonian thriftiness, frugality, and selflessness to the Southwestern faculty, staff and students.  At least, to those who remain after recent layoffs and enrollment shortfalls.

Indeed, reading of Southwestern trustees’ provision for you and your wife’s retirement home reminded me of another home, also now located on the campus of Southwestern Seminary. In 2009, you may recall, Southwestern took possession of the remnants of the small home in the Chinese city of P’ingtu, where famed Southern Baptist missionary Lottie Moon spent her final years serving among the poor. The mud bricks, shingles, modest chairs and personal effects of Lottie Moon’s P’ingtu residence now constitute a permanent exhibit in Mathena Hall, which doubtlessly serves as an epicenter of missiological education for the seminary community and beyond.

In her determination – much like your own – to spend her last days in modest service to the gospel, Lottie Moon gave every last scrap of food she had to anyone in need. When she died on Christmas Eve in 1912 in the harbor of Kobe, Japan, she weighed a mere 50 pounds. Her tiny body was cremated and her ashes returned to her final resting place in a country cemetery outside Crewe, Virginia. Etched into the face of her tombstone are these words: “Faithful Unto Death.”

The juxtaposition on the seminary campus of Lottie Moon’s reconstructed dwelling and your soon-to-be-completed retirement home serve as a fitting legacy for you and Dorothy. I am concerned, however, that you – like Moon – will not have sufficient resources for your own interment should the celestial trumpets tarry.  Therefore, if you will allow me, I would like to make an offer similar to that of the generous benefactors who have paid for your retirement home and the trustees who designated the necessary land use.

I will personally pay to design, construct, and if necessary, consecrate an appropriate burial plot for you, Dorothy, and whatever domestic pets you wish to have co-interred with you on whatever land the Southwestern trustees will allocate for such purposes. Alternately, I am willing to retain the services of your favorite taxidermist to ensure that both of you may in death – as in life – be surrounded by the things you cherish most.

In fact, a check is being sent under separate cover to the seminary development office to begin funding a designated account.

Until then,

 

Benjamin S. Cole

CC:   Kevin Ueckert, SWBTS Trustee Chairman