New Orleans

Written from Washington, D.C. on the evening of March 24, 2019

Dear Dr. Kelley:

This is not a letter I wanted to write, both because it has the potential to create pain for you at a time of family health concerns and personal ministry transition and because it forces me to continually face the consequences for my own sin. When last I wrote about your ministry as president of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, I expressed my sincere gratitude for the legacy of evangelistic fervor, compassion for sinners, and mentoring commitments that have distinguished your long service to Southern Baptists and the Lord whom we both love.

I also want to express again my gratitude for the phone call we had the last week of August soon after your sermon, “The Baptist Blues,” gained attention across the convention. You told Baptist Press in the aftermath that you would have “changed a thing or two” about the way you expressed your ideas in that sermon, noting that “simmering divisions” in our convention could never be addressed if we didn’t talk openly about the problems that created them. I followed up that phone call with a Sept. 10 letter to you commemorating the substance of our conversation, in which I noted your “kind tone and courteous response” that “gave me some assurance that we will not need to have a similar conversation again.”

Because I agree with you that Southern Baptists will never effectively address the crises we presently face without open, honest conversation, I now write to you openly to ask for clarification about words you are reported to have spoken in the presence of other denominational leaders.

Specifically, Dr. Kelley, it has been reported that you have actively sought to influence the process for determining your own successor as president of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Moreover, it has been reported by witnesses who heard you express at a recent meeting of denominational leaders your concern that a decision to elect an ethnic minority as the seminary’s ninth president would hurt the school. The reason for your reported opposition to the election of an ethnic minority as president is because you perceived such an election would create hardships on the institution’s fundraising activities.

When I first heard this report, I was in disbelief. Not only is it completely untrue that the election of our convention’s first ethnic minority seminary president would reduce the seminary’s donor pool, but the opposite is true. New Orleans Seminary, which has suffered consistent enrollment shortfalls and declining revenues in recent years, would likely unleash the untapped spiritual and economic power of the more than 10,000 non-Anglo majority churches that support Southern Baptist causes through the Cooperative Program.

I simply would not believe that a seminary president, serving in the heart of a city where more than 60 percent of the residents are African American and in the shadow of the great Franklin Avenue Baptist Church where former convention president Fred Luter serves as pastor, would countenance such a thought, let alone utter it.

Then I heard the same report twice more by persons using the exact same language, who were at the exact same meeting, when you are reported to have expressed this opinion. Deuteronomy makes it clear: “One witness is not enough. In the presence of two or three witnesses, a matter is established.”

Now before I ask you a few very direct questions, Dr. Kelley, I want to be candid about my own failings. “We all stumble in many ways,” the Epistle of James teaches. “If any man does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man.”  I confess to you, my brother, that I am not perfect. In fact, I have spoken carelessly on matters of race in the past, and I am capable of doing so again. Outdated modes of thinking, prejudice, and un-Christlike patterns of speech are like Type 1 Diabetes for me. I have to watch my daily diet of thought, and I need a regular injection of God’s Word to help produce in my heart the kinds of affections and attitudes that my sinful flesh does not produce on its own.

But God has been working on me about this for several years now. It is why I committed to helping write and pass resolutions for the Southern Baptist Convention calling for the removal of the Confederate Flag and denouncing white supremacy. It is why I have repented of telling racially insensitive jokes and worked intentionally to cultivate more ethnically diverse social and professional fellowship and collaborations. Truth be told, when I first was called out for my own insensitivities and discriminatory biases, my first defense was to tell people “that’s not what I really think. I was joking.”

But out of the heart the mouth speaks, doesn’t it Dr. Kelley?  I realized I had a speech problem because I had a heart problem. So I want you to know that I am not intending to cause you pain here, or even to spotlight your potentially careless speech with respect to diversity and inclusion in the Southern Baptist Convention.

As you know, there has already been concern that one SBC search committee did not meaningfully engage any ethnic minority in their search for a president of the Executive Committee. Within a week, that committee is expected to nominate Arkansas pastor Ronnie Floyd as president. Three prominent SBC pastors — including two former convention presidents — publicly addressed their dismay that the process seemed to exclude competent, qualified, and Christ-honoring ethnic minorities. Apparently, “God’s man” is, once again, another white man.

And many of us are sick about it.

Despite this frustrating retread, much progress has been made to effect greater racial diversity in Southern Baptist life. Our convention president, J.D. Greear, has appointed the most diverse committees in Southern Baptist history. The chairman of this year’s resolutions committee, Dr. Curtis Wood, will be leading that important committee. The tellers committee will have a female chairperson this year. All in, Dr. Greear’s appointments to date have laid out a vision for Southern Baptists’ future that resists the temptations toward outdated racial homogeneity and unbiblical biases. These efforts are complemented and reinforced across our convention at nearly every turn.

At Southeastern Seminary, for instance, Dr. Danny Akin has enlisted the help of Dr. Walter Strickland to help realize Kingdom diversity on campus and across that institution’s ministry platforms. Months ago, Dr. Albert Mohler led Southern Seminary to release a much-needed assessment of that institution’s complicated past on race issues, calling for an “honest lament” over past sins and purposing not to “rewrite the past” but rather “write the truth.” At the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, Dr. Russell Moore is providing a consistent prophetic witness on issues of racial reconciliation, and calling Southern Baptists to a new horizon of Kingdom focus and multi-racial ministry participation and engagement.

Against that backdrop, I have carefully read recent reports of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, both to the Southern Baptist Convention and to the seminary’s accreditors. This year, New Orleans reported “no change” to the primary race/ethnicity of enrolled students since the previous year. The numbers are telling.

For Fall 2018, NOBTS reported 448 White, Non-Hispanic M.Div students and 55 Black, Non-Hispanic students. There were 12 Black MRE/MCE/MA students in religious education, and 70 White students. There were 10 “Special MA” Black students and 127 White students. For the MPS degree, there were 51 White students and 13 Black students.

At the research degree level, the enrollment numbers were as follows: MA/MAR/MTS (4 Black and 47 White); DMIN (2 Black and 34 White); EdD (1 Black and 10 White); ThM (2 Black and 48 White); PhD (2 Black and 72 White).

Quite simply, Dr. Kelley, these numbers are embarrassing. New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary exists in a state with the 2nd highest population of African Americans, adjacent to the state with the highest population (Mississippi). Two other states with the highest African American populations are within the immediate sphere of NOBTS influence (Alabama and Georgia). If ever there were a school that should be reaching, equipping, and deploying the next generation of Black ministers, it is New Orleans.

But that is not what has been happening, according to the seminary’s publicly available accreditation reports. In fact, for every Black student who graduates NOBTS with an M.Div. or D.Min., there are 10 white graduates. And for every Black student graduating with a Th.M. or Ph.D., there are 37 White graduates.

So Dr. Kelley, I ask you two questions very plainly:

1. Have you stated in any context a concern that the election of an ethnic minority to succeed you as seminary president would harm the seminary’s recruitment or fundraising efforts? If so, will you explain your thinking in this regard or offer some clarification about your meaning?
2. Do you believe that NOBTS record with respect to the recruitment, training, and graduation of ethnic minority students reflects a commitment to serve the churches of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia? If so, how best can Southern Baptists understand this success?

I eagerly anticipate your response, and have prayed today that the Lord will give you great clarity of thought, wisdom of speech, and focus of mind to reassure Southern Baptists that New Orleans Seminary understands its unique ministry opportunity with respect to race relations in the SBC and that you are personally committed to seeing ethnic minorities assume senior executive leadership roles as presidents of our convention’s entities.

Sincerely,

Benjamin Cole