My Experience with Liberalism

by Michael J. Riley                                                                                  Vol. VI, No. 7, September 1993

[Mike Riley is pastor of Little River Baptist Church, Bumpass, Virginia. He entered Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Wake Forest, NC in September 1986 and graduated with a Master of Divinity degree in December 1988.]

After the Lord called me into the full-time vocational ministry, a big decision was where to attend seminary. The more my wife and I prayed and sought the Lord's will, the more we realized He was leading us to Southeastern Seminary in Wake Forest, NC. Coming from a solidly conservative background and knowing Southeastern's reputation at the time of being one of our most liberal seminaries, we knew we would be in for quite an experience. We were right!

In retrospect I praise God that He led us to Southeastern, and yet I shudder to think how I could have turned out were it not for His grace. I still grieve every time I think about all the promising young ministerial students I met who were spiritually raped behind closed classroom doors. It is not surprising that so many faculty members frowned on having their classroom lectures taped.

I vividly recall one professor boasting, "Other seminaries give answers, but at Southeastern, we ask questions." That's fine to a point, but in order to get a conservative evangelical response, I had to do independent research on my own since our required textbooks were all liberally biased. (Moody Press, for example, must have been on their prohibited list!) Of course the problem with this was rather than seek to find how conservative scholars would answer their questions, many students allowed themselves to be coaxed onto the sinking ship of neo-orthodoxy.

If more Southern Baptists had known some of the things we were taught at Southeastern, today's improvements would have come much sooner. Now to be sure, there were several theological conservatives at Southeastern during my time there, but they were definitely in the minority, at least by Southern Baptist standards as defined in the 1987 SBC Peace Committee report or the 1963 Baptist Faith and Message. For example, I was taught the first eleven chapters of Genesis are not historically accurate, but rather a "saga story." Satan is merely a "mythical character." The reality of hell and the total depravity of man were debatable. The miracles, like Jonah in the great fish, are not necessarily true. Even the deity of Christ was called into question, including His virgin birth, physical resurrection, and promised return.

On a more action oriented level you might think our mandate from the Lord Jesus to be intentional soul-winners would have been stressed in every class. However, it was rarely mentioned. (It's no wonder so many students had little evangelistic fervor left by the time they graduated! It's no wonder many of the churches they now serve are not growing!) This critical rather than reverent approach to Scripture was the norm at Southeastern.

But then, these liberal views were to be expected from a faculty who refused to embrace the inerrancy of Scripture. I vividly recall hearing a trustee asking the seminary president, Dr. Lolley, whether there were any inerrantists on the faculty at Southeastern. Dr. Lolley' s reply was, "I don't know. I never ask them." Praise God that in just a few short years we have come from that mind-set to now making inerrancy a critical issue in the faculty selection process at Southeastern. I look forward to the time when all our seminaries follow suit.

For any potential ministerial student considering attending the Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond I might point out that four of their eight full-time faculty members previously taught at Southeastern. That they chose to leave Southeastern with its revised emphasis on conservative, evangelical scholarship should suggest something to any prospective student. Another familiar faculty member at BTSR is Glenn Hinson, who formerly taught at Southern Seminary in Louisville, KY. This is the same Hinson who wrote, "Some embellishment [by the Gospel writers of the statements of Jesus] undoubtedly occurred." Need I say more?

In conclusion, every Bible-believing Southern Baptist can rejoice at what God has accomplished at Southeastern. I'm glad I was able to have a small part in that process during my time there, especially during my last year when I was president of the Conservative Evangelical Fellowship. Now a student can attend Southeastern and experience true academic freedom by hearing "the rest of the story." Praise the Lord that my experience with liberalism will never again have to be repeated at the new Southeastern by anyone else!