Personal Experience: Southeastern & Termination

by Marty Cauley                                                                                               Vol. VI, No. 6, August 1993

[Marty Cauley is a 1988 graduate of Southeastern Seminary. He was terminated by a Virginia church earlier this year. His resume' is available by calling 703-780-1566.]

My Termination

I was terminated as pastor of my church (2-28-93) because members of the congregation were upset with my preaching, especially with two of my sermons in which I had said that abortion should be the decisive factor in determining who we vote for as president (11-1-92) and that the president was wrong in trying to lift the ban on homosexuals in the military (27-93). In the specially called deacons' meetings that followed this second sermon, the deacons expressed their outrage and said many in the congregation were upset and some had said they would never return as long as I was the pastor. The deacons admitted my preaching was biblical but said they and the people did not like it. In brief, one of the deacons said he was pro-choice and that "homosexuals have rights too."

My First Two Years at Southeastern

Why are our churches turning against biblical preaching? I believe the answer goes back to our seminaries. My father, also a Southern Baptist pastor, had attended Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. I also went to Southeastern after he told me I would still receive a well rounded education there, even though I would disagree with some of the things some professors taught. He was wrong about my receiving a well rounded education, but I do not blame him. Southeastern had changed since he was a student there.

My first year (academic year '84-'85) was very discouraging. Every professor I had and heard of from other students was denying various parts of the Bible. I heard of a group on campus called the Conservative Evangelical Fellowship (CEF), but I did not attend any of their meetings. I had been warned that they were a bunch of political troublemakers. I hated politics.

By my second year ('85-'86), however, I was becoming so discouraged by my professors' constant attacks on the bible that I cautiously started attending CEF meetings. Later that year CEF members were invited to meet with a delegation of the Peace Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). Although I had not joined the CEF, I went because I had been attending CEF meetings. The Peace Committee asked us to share some of our frustrations with them. The conservatives on the committee asked us to write out a list of some of the things our professors were saying and sign our names to our respective lists. We did so. They told us they would not share these lists with the administration of the school or our professors but simply use them in evaluation. They lied.

They gave the documents to the administration. As a result, the CEF warned me to expect the worst at the President's Forum a few days later. I attended this Forum, which was held in the school cafeteria, and sat at the table with the CEF members. We were surrounded by a packed and hostile audience of our professors and fellow students. The seminary president publicly ridiculed the members of CEF and encouraged the student body to do so also, and they wholeheartedly complied. CEF was put on probation because they had responded to the opportunity to speak with the Peace Committee (although this committee had been sent to our school by the SBC to talk with students and administration). In the midst of that sea of hostility in the cafeteria I stood up and read the statement which I had prepared. It read in part:

I have every reason to believe that this school denies Mosaic authorship [of the first five biblical books] and does not even present it as being an intelligent position (which implies that it is not intelligent to believe Jesus). I also do not believe that any of my professors affirm Mosaic authorship. Rather, they deny it along with inerrancy.

I must choose either to believe this school or the Bible concerning this matter. Due to the complete lack of balance in this school, my decision must logically be either/or. In short, l must believe either Jesus or this school. It is impossible to believe both. I believe Jesus! And I affirm Mosaic authorship on the basis of this deductive logic:

Jesus taught it; Jesus is trustworthy; therefore, it is true.

And I end my statement with the words of Jesus: "For if you believed Moses, you would have believed Me; for he wrote of Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?" (John 5:476-47)

At the conclusion of that Forum, I joined the CEF. I hated politics, but there was something I hated even more: my school's denial of the trustworthiness of the Bible and if being a troublemaker meant having the courage to get up and speak the truth and believe that the Bible is true, then so be it. I became the most outspoken "inerrantist" (someone who believes the Bible tells the truth and nothing but the truth) on campus. I was severely criticized by many of my professors and fellow students who were "errantists" (someone who believes that sometimes the Bible tells the truth, and sometimes it does not). This does not mean that I saw inerrantists/conservatives through rose-colored glasses. Due to the lie by conservatives in the Peace Committee delegation and the abuse by the errantist/liberals of our seminary during and after the Forum, I often told others "we were used by the conservatives and abused by the liberals."

The abuse after the Forum is easy to demonstrate. The dean tried to intimidate me into recanting what I had told the Peace Committee with the threat of a lawsuit. My response was that I had told the truth and would not recant it. Some others did back down, however. Yes, I saw some conservatives cave in under pressure. I have seen spineless conservatives and spineless liberals.

The cowardice of my liberal classmates was perhaps best demonstrated by the complaint on one of them made to one of our professors during the middle of a class, "But professor, if we teach our people what you are teaching us, they will throw us out of our churches." The professor responded, "Do not teach them this material initially. First marry them and bury them and gain their trust, and then after you have been there a few years, you can slowly start to teach them your convictions." Suppose a church had a liberal pastor or interim who followed this strategy and then that church called a conservative pastor who boldly proclaimed the Word of God instead of following this strategy. He would probably be thrown out for preaching the Word.

After meeting with the dean, I went to speak with one of my professors in his office in order to tell him that anything I had said to the Peace Committee was not directed against him personally. It was his position against inerrancy that I had to speak out against. He wanted me to recant what I had told the Peace Committee. He was visibly upset, almost trembling, when I said, "I cannot recant the truth." He used this vivid illustration to express his feelings: "If my daughter gets gang raped by a bunch of blacks and gets pregnant and cannot get an abortion because of you fundamentalists, I am going to take a gun and shoot you." I was a little shocked, but I figured that he was just trying to graphically illustrate his point.

However, I had trouble understanding what his point was since I had not mentioned abortion to anyone, not to the Peace Committee members, not to the students at the Forum, not to him. There was a simple reason for my not having said anything about abortion – I had not yet taken a position concerning abortion. I figured that it might be pragmatically justified and one of those areas of justified disagreement. The only thing important to me was that what the Bible affirmed as true be accepted as true (inerrancy). I was not then aware of any passage where the Bible said, "Thou shalt not have an abortion." And I assumed it did not have anything definite to say on the subject.

My professor could read the puzzlement on my face and could see that his point had not sunk in, so he restated it even more clearly and with greater emotional emphasis, particularly on certain words: "Marty, you don't understand! If that happens, I will take a gun and shoot YOU!!" He succeeded in effectively moving his statement from an illustration into a threat and a promise. I got the point. I hope that this was one of those occasions when someone says something in a moment of great emotion which they later regret and would never carry out. I hope so.

But I figured that if someone was going to threaten to shoot me for something, I should at least find out a little more about that something! After considering what the Bible has to say about the unborn, it appeared to me that abortion was not an area of justifiable disagreement. So you can see that my position on abortion, for which my church terminated me, was developed from my belief in inerrancy. For me, they have become inseparably linked. Biblical principles clearly make abortion wrong. Thus, if I refuse to accept as true what the Bible teaches about abortion, then I must refuse to accept as true what the Bible teaches on other matters. This I refuse to do.

My Second Two Years at Southeastern

In the second half of my four years at Southeastern ('86-'88), I continued to be attacked because of my belief that the Bible is true. For example, one of my professors called me into his office and told me that I was foolish to believe that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were real people and that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible. I told the professor that I disagreed but that I would keep silent and not disrupt the class. The professor responded, "That's not good enough. I am going to pin you to the wall in class." So what was new about that threat? Inerrantists were being ridiculed constantly by the professors during class. Now he was just trying to focus his attacks on me particularly. He also told me that I was such a good student that I could be his grader if it were not for my conservative theology. I understood his point. On more than one occasion I thought that my grades suffered because I was being graded by a liberal grader.

However, another errantist professor allowed me to do independent research and a directed study under him. I also asked him if I could memorize the Gospel of Mark and quote it for him in the form of a dramatic recitation for extra credit. He gave me permission and even asked me to do the performance for the class. And he praised my ability before the class. (As far as I know there are only three other people in the world who perform dramatic recitations of the entire Gospel of Mark. The other three are professional actors.) In another course this professor allowed me to quote the Sermon on the Mount (in English) and the first chapter of Mark (in Greek) for extra credit. I say all this to his credit.

But my professors were far from consistent in this matter. I asked another professor if I could take a directed study under him. He replied, "No, directed studies are for our more promising students." When I took the Gospel of John under this same professor, I asked him if I could quote John for extra credit. He said, "No, I am more interested in you understanding it than being able to quote it." What irked me was that I had a pretty good idea as to what he considered a promising student. A student who was allowed to take this professor's directed study and who was also taking his class on John told me, "Marty, I will never preach from the Gospel of John because I don't believe it." This type statement was nothing new. In one of my classes on Mark, I gave my interpretation of the parable of the sower (4:39). I based my views on Jesus' interpretation (4:14-19). But this same student countered in class that Jesus did not give that interpretation, rather Mark added it. He even further argued that Mark's interpretation was faulty since Mark did not understand Jesus. This is the type student considered promising.

I believe some of my professors had trouble considering me to be a promising student because I actually believed what the Bible had to say. For example, in my class on Ephesians a professor asked the class, "Who do you believe wrote the Book of Ephesians and why?" He started at one end of the class and went to the other asking each student to answer. I was the only one in the class who said that he definitely believed Paul wrote it. And I was the only one who appealed to the fact that it should be accepted as his writing because the Bible says it is his writing! The rest of the class had grown used to denying or questioning what the Bible has to say about its divine authorship, much less its human authorship!

In that same class a visiting professor said a person could be a good Muslim or Hindu and still go to heaven. I wanted to clarify what he was saying, so I asked, "Are you saying that a person can reject Jesus Christ and still go to heaven?" His reply was a simple, "Yes." Did anyone in that class besides me state a disagreement with the professor? Not hardly. And this experience was not an isolated incident limited merely to visiting professors.

Toward the end of my seminary life, when I walked into the cafeteria, a student hollered out to me across the cafeteria, "Marty, are you a conservative?" I shouted back to him, "No, I'm a fundamentalist!" He hollered, "What's the difference?" I yelled back, "A fundamentalist is a conservative with backbone!" I was not ashamed of my convictions then, and I am not ashamed of them now. A couple of weeks later, while I was outside the campus grounds, a group of students literally surrounded me in a circle four or five deep to argue with me about inerrancy. To my amazement one of them actually called me that night to apologize for the way her friends had treated me. But at my graduation (5-7-88), despite the bias of certain graders and professors, I at least managed to be a co-winner of the Advanced Greek Award, which shows that there were errantist professors who acknowledged my academic performance to at least that extent.

Analysis

My observation from Southeastern is that errantists have tried a variety of ways to camouflage the real issue. They say the issue is freedom (Priesthood of the Believer), that conservatives are taking away the freedom of Baptists to read and interpret the Bible for themselves. Nonsense! Conservatives are not taking away the freedom of the laity; they are taking away the freedom of seminary professors to ignore the rights of the Baptists who pay their salaries. The people have a right to demand that their employees, the professors, be inerrantists. Since when did freedom mean no responsibility to the people, to the Bible, or to God? Having the right to believe errancy does not give professors the right to teach it at Southern Baptist seminaries or to demand that we support them in it. The cry for such freedom often comes from the lips of hypocrites. At seminary they allowed me freedom to believe anything but the Bible. If they were the champions of freedom that they claim, why was I not free to believe God's Word?

They have also changed color like the chameleon. When I started seminary in 1984, they were saying that they did not believe parts of the Bible. By the time I finished seminary in 1988, the same group of people were saying that they believed all the Bible but that they just interpreted parts of it differently. In other words, rather than admit they do not believe many of the miracles, etc., they started saying they interpret them differently. They appealed to interpretation in order to hide the fact that they do not believe in inspiration. And then they started calling themselves moderates.

Another red herring they used was to say the issue was politics. I have met many naive liberals who really believe this lie. Of course, the professors promoted this idea. The liberals saw they could not win SBC elections by running a liberal or a moderate for president, so they started running theological conservatives. Naive students began saying the issue was politics since the conservatives opposed the moderates' conservative candidates. How foolish! If anything, this fact destroyed their argument that politics had become the issue.

The issue was not the mere theology of the candidate. It was and is the theology being taught in our seminaries. The issue is, "Will the candidate support the effort to demand that our seminary professors be men and women who believe the Bible?" The liberals started running theologically conservative candidates (inerrantists) who believed that it was acceptable for our seminary professors to be errantists advocating liberal theology. Therefore, these theological conservatives are political liberals – hybrids. Do not be deceived by their disguise (II Cor. 11:13-15).

Such counterfeit conservative candidates are merely wolves in conservative sheep's clothing (Mt. 7:15). The liberals are hypocritically using the conservative theology of artificial conservative candidates to shroud the liberal theology being taught in our seminaries. Clearly the issue is liberal theology, not politics. The real issue remains the wolf, not his latest fad in clothing.

Camouflaged liberals and fake conservatives are not the only ones who have muddied the waters, however. Genuine conservatives also share the guilt in clouding the issues when they make a blanket statement saying that the liberals are not saved, do not love the Lord or the Bible, are not intelligent, or do not have integrity. On the contrary, many liberals probably started out as conservative as I did. They were saved at an early age as I was but later came under the influence of liberal preaching. Or perhaps they went to seminary and had their faith destroyed there. It is a wonder my faith was not destroyed; it surely went through the fire. I believe that many genuine believers have gone to our seminaries and there accepted liberal theology, perhaps slowly at first. But they maintain a strong emotional attachment to the Lord and His Word and have great mental ability and insight, and tremendous integrity. Oh, to be sure, many liberals are lost, naive liars who do not love the Lord or His Word but love power and politics. But for that matter the same is true of many genuine conservatives. Salvation, intelligence, integrity, love, and politics are not the real issues. Many on both sides have these characteristics, and many on both sides lack these characteristics. The issue is that one side wants inerrancy taught in our seminaries whereas the other side wants errancy taught in our seminaries.

As an inerrantist in seminary, I was willing to be persecuted for believing the Bible. As an inerrantist in my pastorate, I was willing to be terminated for preaching the Bible. What our professors teach, many of our preachers will preach. Thus, the teaching of our seminary professors will find its way from the pulpit to the pew. Consequently, one reason a number of churches have turned against biblical preaching is because of what their pastors were taught in seminary.

When I was in seminary, I attended my first SBC annual meeting for class credit. I had to go to the Forum (the liberal counterpart to the official Pastors Conference; the latter was long controlled by conservatives) and interview a pastor. He said that he and his church were not against alcohol, pornography, or abortion. Should I be surprised?