The Southeastern that Was

by   David Crane                                                                                                                                            Vol. V, No. 4, August 1992

[Rev. David Crane is pastor of Beulah Baptist Church, Kent's Store, VA. This article is the first of an occasional series which will illustrate the type problems that generated the conservative resurgence. Because of the critically important influence of our seminaries, a number of these articles will focus on personal experiences at seminary. David Crane was at Southeastern in 1987-88.]

My theological education began in 1980 at Columbia Bible College, Columbia, SC, where I earned a BA. and graduated in 1984. This interdenominational school stressed evangelism and missions, and was very conservative in its theology. In 1984 I entered Mid-America Baptist Seminary in Memphis. Mid-America is also conservative, stressing biblical scholarship as well as Christian service, evangelism, and missions. Professors at Mid-America were themselves personal soul winners, speaking often in class of recent opportunities to share the gospel. At both schools the courses, professors, chapels, organizations. and total atmosphere all added to the evangelistic zeal of the students.

Transferring to Southeastern in early 1987 was like entering another world. At Southeastern, campus life in general, e.g., faculty, chapels, course structure, and required extra-curricular activities, just did not promote a spirit of missions and evangelism. At Mid-America each student was required to share the gospel with a lost person each week, as well as participate in two on-going Christian service assignments. At Columbia each student had to attend chapel and participate in on-going Christian service, and there was an hour lab period each week to train you in your particular Christian service.

Personally, I had to depend on fellow conservative students and my church family to maintain my zeal for evangelism and missions. If I had had only my courses and the atmosphere at Southeastern, I would have graduated ill-prepared to be a soul winner and gospel minister. This to me is the worst indictment of the Southeastern that was. Its climate was more like a secular school when compared to truly warm-hearted, evangelistic, missions-oriented schools.

Interestingly, the faculty and registrar required me to take two hours of Old Testament and two hours of New Testament before they would accept my transfer credits. Their reasoning was that I needed to be exposed to Southeastern's way of teaching the Bible, i.e., using higher critical methods. This requirement was imposed in spite of the fact that I already had more O.T. and N.T. courses than Southeastern required for graduation.

The following events stand out in my memory. In an ethics class under Dr. Furman Hewett, he taught situation ethics as the basis for ethical choices. For him the Bible was one source book among several for determining ethical norms. I asked him if the Bible is an absolute document (I knew it would be fruitless to ask him if he believed in the inerrancy of Scripture). He replied that it is not in fact an absolute document, thus his preference for situational ethics.

A second vivid memory is of one of the most evangelical professors I had, Tony Catledge, an adjunct professor then completing his doctoral studies at Duke. In his O.T. course on Micah he denied the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch and the idea of O.T. Christophanies (that Jesus appearing in visible form in His pre-incarnate state to the patriarchs or prophets). In both courses I took under him the last several weeks of the course were devoted to preaching by students. Most were third year students. I have never heard such pitiful "preaching." Even Professor Catledge seemed distressed over this general inability to preach.

My evaluation of that inability was based on their lack of hermeneutical training, biblical language study, systematic theology, biblical theology, etc. In other words it was obvious to me that the Southeastern that was could not produce preachers. These third year students were not equipped by their prior courses with the skills that would enable them to prepare and deliver dynamic, substantive, expositional sermons.

Chapel programs at Southeastern were so liberal that I knew of no conservative students who attended regularly. There simply was nothing substantive to draw them. At Columbia and Mid-America chapel services were the highlight of the day. There we shared prayer requests and testimonies; and there we heard stirring preaching, preaching that not only moved our hearts but served as a model for our own future styles as well.

At Southeastern there were few regulations regarding student conduct or dress. Thus it was very common to see students smoking, women wearing shorts and immodest clothing, and to hear rock-and-roll music coming out of dorm windows and over the student center's loudspeaker system. I never once heard a Christian station being played at the student center. Some faculty members also smoked. The first time I met Dr. Glenn Miller, he was having a nicotine fit. I was trying to talk to him, and all the time he was fidgetting and pacing around. Suddenly a lady rushed up to him and handed him a pack of cigarettes. (Later I learned the lady was his wife.) He quickly and clumsily tore at the package, trying to get it open. When he finally did get it open, he whipped out a cigarette, lit it, and deeply inhaled. I remember standing there thinking, "My stars, I've just witnessed a faculty member have a nicotine fit. This is just a different world."

In many of the classes I took, the conservative or historically accepted viewpoint was often not shared. Time after time I found myself raising my hand as I realized the professor was going to leave the subject without sharing the alternative to his/her liberal view. This scenario was repeated with many other conservative students. If not for our presence, many students would never even have heard the conservative viewpoint on many issues. The proposition that all views were welcomed and taught at Southeastern is a fraudulent lie. I found the "Southeastern that was" much more guilty of "indoctrination" than the two conservative schools I had attended. At least at those schools we were told what the liberal viewpoint was, even if it was shared as something to steer away from.

At Mid-America Dr. Gray Allison, the president, did not allow chapel speakers or professors to criticize other SBC schools or SBC personalities, even if they were liberals. However at Southeastern it seemed that many professors jumped at every chance to put down "fundamentalists." This action not only was not deplored by President Lolley, but quite often he seemed to set the pace for this criticism of SBC leadership and trends. Here I was at an SBC supported school, and the faculty and staff were constantly harping at the elected leadership of the Convention that paid their salaries and supported their school.

Had I not received a good background at my prior schools, I would have left Southeastern ill-prepared and disillusioned. My personal experience has convinced me that liberalism cannot give life, but will ultimately destroy any local church or seminary that it invades. May God help us from ever erecting another "Southeastern that was."