Theology Is Not a Game

by   Mark Coppenger                                                                                                                                 Vol. VIII, No. 1, January 1995

The count was 45 to 7, and I was one of the 7. The 7, that is, who voted against tenure for Molly Marshall-Green in the Spring of 1988. Her 1994 resignation from the faculty has brought back a flood of fairly unpleasant memories. But I think that they are instructive memories. To those who desire trusteeship, I offer these notes on the terrain.

It was my first term as a Southern Seminary trustee from Arkansas. Indeed, it was my very first meeting since we had only one full board meeting a year in those days. The executive committee of the board pretty much ran things.

I should note that even though I was elected to the board at the 1987 Convention in St. Louis, Southern's charter required them to ratify the SBC appointments. Two of the trustees, one from western Missouri and the other from Washington D.C., voted to defy the Convention and block our service. But they failed.

At that point, we were nine years into the [SBC] presidencies of Rogers, Smith, Draper and Stanley, but the [seminary] executive committee of 20 was still completely full of members who'd voted the other way. The conservatives represented only about a third of the board itself. They were accustomed to losing the votes and being assigned to the lesser committees.

The majority had just given the seminary a clean bill of health, assuring the Peace Committee that there was no cause for concern over 14 professors who'd been the object of complaints. That same confident majority was now prepared to recommend tenure for a controversial professor, Molly Marshall-Green. Her dissertation had alarmed the conservatives, and they were prepared to protest. But a funny thing happened.

The majority was ready to deal. They wanted the lone and newly appointed conservative on academic personnel to join in their unanimous tenure recommendation. In exchange for his vote, they were willing to finally put two conservatives on the executive committee and agree to recommend a conservative New Testament professor. To further complicate matters, the conservative on academic personnel had begun to waver.

Well, we conservatives met to consider our options. Some reasoned that we would lose anyway and that we might as well go along and get what we could. Others thought that the upcoming San Antonio convention vote would be close and that there was no reason to further stir the pot. Seven of us just couldn't bring ourselves to vote for her, convinced that she simply didn't suit the seminary's doctrinal statement.

I called Molly the night before the big vote and talked for a bit. We didn't reach agreement, but I'm glad we talked.

Next morning, things heated up. Two Louisville TV stations were there, with bright lights and cameras in our faces. A host of students stood in the back. Desk microphones channeled our comments to a reel-to-reel recorder.

When the big issue surfaced, several of us spoke against tenure, without success. When I finished, a trustee from east Tennessee rebuked me, and a west Tennessee trustee rose to defend my honor. Then a pro-tenure trustee from Mississippi poured me a glass of ice water from the pitcher before us.

The whole debate took about an hour, and then came to its predictable conclusion.

Back in Arkansas, two indignant pastors asked me to meet them for breakfast on my next trip to Little Rock. They were appalled at my vote and my trusteeship, and said so.

Now six years later, things have come full circle. Nine SBC presidential elections, starting in 1979, were not enough. It took fifteen years. But now Southern can move on, as can Ms. Marshall.

Though we found ourselves at odds in the spring of 1988, I'm confident that Molly and I can agree that: (1) Theology is at issue. (2) This is not a game. (3) Professorship and trusteeship are not for the faint of heart.

I marvel at theologians who argue that folks shouldn't get upset over theological differences. Don't they see that it trivializes their discipline? Makes it sound like we're merely deciding between Rocky Road and French Vanilla.

Don't they see that there is dignity in risk, that there is honor in a discipline whose outcomes are so significant that they could get you in trouble?

April 1988 wasn't much fun. Neither was August 1994. A lot of folks have taken their lumps. Molly. The trustees. Dr. Mohler.

But those involved at least enjoy a fellowship of commitment to the significance of theology. We hear those who cry, "Let's quit fussing and get back to missions and evangelism," and marvel.

Do they really think this is mere fussing? Do they really think that theological struggle is merely a temporary and seasonal thing? Do they really think that theological commitments are irrelevant to how and whether we do missions and evangelism? Do they really think missions and evangelism have been on hold all these years?

Have they heard that we're starting five new missions a day, that we've broken church planting and baptismal records overseas, that we have 4,000 foreign missionaries on the field for the first time, and that there are over 3,000 potential foreign missionaries in contact with the Board? Have they heard that the Cooperative Program is at an all time high?

I submit that these are the marks of a denomination which takes its theology seriously. One that never tries to "get back to missions and evangelism" through theological carelessness. ***

Postscript: In October, I happened to be at Ridgecrest the same time as a state BSU conference. Our group decided to join them for the Sunday morning service in Spillman Auditorium. We'd already seen their workshop list, which included a "non-judgmental" discussion of homosexuality, but we figured that the wrap-up service would be orthodox and edifying. And it started that way. Along with hundreds of students we sang some fine songs. It was hard to tell what some of them meant, but at least we knew Blessed Assurance and Amazing Grace. One of the campus BSU's presented a moving drama of redemption, but the conference preacher who followed was another thing. A lady in black jeans and a red vest/vestment attacked capital punishment from stem to stem, hitting multi-national corporations and such along the way. She began with the "narrow way" passage in Matthew 5, but it was less a sermon text than a pretext for the social gospel. She didn't even mention Romans 13:1-7. It was Will Campbell this and liberation theologian that, and something about our being saved by beauty.

When we came to the invitation, 19 BSU directors stood down front and waited and waited. Only 3 students came forward – fewer than those who had walked out during the message. And for what they came, I cannot say. To commit their lives to opposing capital punishment?

Of course there's a time to debate the ethics of capital punishment. And very likely, the BSU leaders were as surprised and disappointed as we were in the proceedings. But something went terribly wrong. I know there were lost students there, and students on the brink of vocational missionary decisions. We should have seen a harvest of surrender. But all we got was somebody's social agenda.

I reiterate. Theology is not a game. Get it wrong, and you lose big.

[Editorial Comment: Mark Coppenger is editor of SBC Life, and this article appeared in the November 1994 issue. Although some of our readers will have seen it, most have not. It makes such an important point, that it is republished here for those who did not see it in SBC Life.]