Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
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The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary |
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| Motto | For the truth. For the church. For the world. For the glory of God |
| Established | 1859 |
| Type | Private, Baptist |
| President | R. Albert Mohler, Jr. |
| Location | Louisville, Kentucky, USA |
| Affiliations | Southern Baptist Convention;Kentuckiana Metroversity |
| Website | www.sbts.edu |
The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary is located in Louisville, Kentucky and is the flagship seminary of the Southern Baptist Convention, or SBC. Southern Seminary or SBTS is the oldest of the seminaries in the SBC and was founded in Greenville, South Carolina in 1859 by James Petigru Boyce who served as its first president. The end of the Civil War found the seminary holding worthless Confederate war bonds, located in newly impoverished South Carolina during Reconstruction. With the financial help of baptist John D. Rockefeller, the seminary relocated to Louisville in 1877. Southern Seminary upholds the SBC Baptist Faith and Message, and its own Abstract of Principles.
The seminary is accredited by the Association of Theological Schools [1] and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools[2].
The ninth and current president of the seminary is R. Albert Mohler, Jr., whose tenure began in 1993.
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Christianity
London Confession, 1689
Biblical inerrancy
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John Spilsbury • Lottie Moon •
B. H. Carroll
Billy Graham • |
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Cooperative Program
Golden Gate |
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Methodology
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary primarily practices "traditional" or "evangelical" apologetic religious training combined with practical ministerial experience. According to Wikipedia, "Apologetics is the field of study concerned with the systematic defense of a position. Someone who engages in apologetics is called an apologist or an "apologete". The term comes from the Greek word apologia (απολογία), meaning defense of a position against an attack."
In this method students are taught about Baptist theology and other religions so that future ministers, missionaries, and church workers can most effectively communicate and defend their faith to non-Christians. This method of teaching involves evaluating, with a purpose in validating, the Christian Bible to be the inspired word of the Christian God and infallible. This must not be confused with non-faith-based religious education, which is an academic discipline of the liberal arts. Methods of Biblical inquiry accepted by secular scholars are usually significantly different, generally involving an inherent view of the Bible as non-inspired.
This understanding of religious education also differs from the critical method of religious training, which is commonly taught in many modern seminaries and universities. In the critical method, the Christian Bible is seen as non-authoritative, and religion is seen as a pure humanity. Religion as an academic discipline occupies itself with the purely objective and non-faith-based study of world religions and religion (all religions, including non-Christian) as a timeless aspect of the human condition.
History
According to the Southern Baptist Convention, the Seminary has been an innovator in theological education since its founding in 1859 in Greenville, South Carolina as the first seminary of the SBC. The school's pioneering legacy began in the visionary mind of James Petigru Boyce, the school's first president. Boyce dreamed of a school that would accept all God-called individuals for study regardless of their educational background.
Though disrupted briefly by the Civil War, Southern Seminary has continued to pursue Boyce's initial vision for nearly 150 years. Southern was one of the first seminaries in the nation to offer a Ph. D. Its department of missions is one of the oldest in the world. It was the first in the nation to offer courses in religious education and in church social work. In 1994, Southern Seminary opened the Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism and Church Growth, the first program in the Southern Baptist Convention dedicated solely to training missionaries and evangelists. In 1997, Southern again made changes to advance theological education with the formation of an undergraduate program, The James P. Boyce College of the Bible, now simply Boyce College.
Notable alumni
- Amzi Dixon, late pastor of Moody Church, Chicago and Metropolitan Tabernacle, London
- J. Michael Duduit, editor and publisher of Preaching magazine.
- Clarence Jordan, late founder of Koinonia Farm and translator of the Cotton Patch New Testament
- William E. Hull, New Testament scholar and former Provost of Samford University
- R. T. Kendall, former pastor of Westminster Chapel, London
- Wayne E. Oates, late author of best-selling pastoral care text The Christian Pastor, SBTS prof, first to coin the term "workaholic"
- Wesley M. "Pat" Pattillo, National Council of Churches official, former VP, SBTS and Samford Univ.
- William Bell Riley, late founder of the World Christian Fundamentals Association
- Edwin O. Ware, Sr., Kentucky native who was first president of Louisiana College in Pineville, Louisiana
- W. A. Criswell, late pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, TX; author; and former president of the Southern Baptist Convention
- Bertha Smith, longtime Southern Baptist missionary to China and founder of the Penial Prayer Center in Cowpens, SC
- Charlotte "Lottie" Diggs Moon, an 18th/19th-century Southern Baptist missionary to China
- See also Category:Southern Baptist Theological Seminary alumni
Former presidents
- 1888 James Petigru Boyce
- 1888-1895 John Albert Broadus
- 1895-1899 William Heth Whitsitt
- 1899-1928 Edgar Young Mullins
- 1929-1942 John Richard Sampey
- 1942-1950 Ellis Adams Fuller
- 1951-1982 Duke Kimbrough McCall
- 1982-1993 Roy Lee Honeycutt
- 1993-present R. Albert Mohler, Jr.
Current organization
Southern is currently structured under five schools:
- The School of Theology (Russell D. Moore, Dean)
- The Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism, and Church Growth (Charles E. Lawless Jr., Dean)
- The School of Leadership and Church Ministry (Randy Stinson, Dean)
- The School of Church Music and Worship (Thomas Bolton, Dean)
- Boyce College (James H. Scroggins IV, Dean)
Noted current faculty members include Thomas Schriener, Bruce Ware, Thomas Nettles, Gregory Wills, Chad Owen Brand, and Larry Purcell.
Mission statement
| “ | Under the lordship of Jesus Christ, the mission of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary is to be totally committed to the Bible as the Word of God, |
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References
External links
- The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
- Archives Southern Baptist Seminary
- Boyce College
- SBTS Student and Faculty MetaBlog
- Said At Southern, index of blogs and current events
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
