Journal articles on the topic 'Southern Baptist theological seminaries'

This article makes a representative survey of the study of mission in theological education. It relies in considerable measure on O. G. Myklebust's classic work, The Study of Missions in Theological Education (2 vols., 1955, 1957) in the first part, and centers, as did Myklebust, on five seminaries at mid-century: Southern Baptist, Yale, Union, Princeton, and Hartford. The second half examines, as of 1987, Princeton, Southwestern Baptist, Fuller's School of World Mission, Asbury's E. Stanley Jones School of World Mission and Evangelism, and the Overseas Ministries Study Center, and presents five brief reflective comments.

Reports the results of a questionnaire survey designed to identify factors contributing to sexual misconduct of a sample of senior Southern Baptist pastors. Concludes that stress and sexual misconduct are significantly correlated and that pastors less confident in their training are more likely to engage in sexual misconduct than those confident in their training. Offers a list of guidelines for individual ministers to follow to reduce the likelihood of sexual misconduct taking place. Notes implications for pastoral care and for theological seminaries and judicatories in their efforts to confront the problem of sexual misconduct among clergy.

The issue of racial reconciliation has been a major concern for me since the days of my youth in Youngstown, Ohio. I was blessed to see the growth and development of African American people during the civil rights era. There were, however, racial tensions of a major magnitude during my days in junior high and high school. It was the first time we (students from Thorn Hill) had ever experienced racism because our elementary school was 99.8 percent black. I had to live in a whole new world when six primary grade schools were condensed into one junior high school. In high school, it became increasingly evident to me that there was a white world and a black world. Attending Howard University definitely heightened my anger and resentment towards white people. Howard was the Mecca of black power and intellectual thinking. By God's grace, after eight years in corporate America, I accepted my call to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ and realized that hatred had no place in the heart and mind of a servant of the Son of God. The seminary experience at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary was equally frustrating at times even though I had the blessings of the seminary's leadership, thus becoming the first Martin Luther King, Jr. Fellow. Through twenty-five years of pastoring and thirty years of spreading the Gospel, I have gained additional insights into how we must eradicate racism in our society. Through my position in the Progressive National Baptist Convention as National Chairperson for “Social Action on Public Policy,” I realize how difficult is the task at hand. Research and writings on “Racial Reconciliation” are my own convictions and struggles to support the Church of God in becoming all that Jesus Christ had intended for it to be.

The emergence of Baptist seminaries in Ukraine was influenced by Western churches or missions and in some cases by the Ukrainian diaspora, which had lived outside Ukraine for a long time. The decisive influence was exerted by representatives of churches, educational institutions and Christian universities in the United States. Seminaries went through a number of stages of their own development, during which the forms of collective leadership changed. The first stage is the emergence of seminaries and the harmonization of seminars to unified standards. In the first stage, immediately after the seminary was established, they had very friendly relations with local churches, the programs were very flexible and responded to the needs of the churches. Church leaders saw these initiatives as part of church ministry. The second stage is the extensive development of seminaries, by which the author means the involvement of additional resources in the work of seminaries and the growth of seminaries, associated with the number of students, and for some seminaries - the opening of branches or field programs. This type of growth was also due to the fact that seminaries began to become more independent of national churches, and partnerships with Western organizations became more formalized, which was most often seen in the participation of Western partners in the board of trustees. The third period is a reassessment of the work of seminaries. The beginning of this period is largely related to the global economic crisis of 2007-2008, and its result was the resumption of dialogue between seminaries and churches. The fourth period - institutional changes - is associated with the reaction of the Ukrainian state to the Bologna process and the adoption of the new Law of Ukraine "On Higher Education". The process of preparation for state accreditation and formation of a culture of openness in the national educational environment has begun.

The article reflects the main historical stages of the formation of Ukrainian Pentecostal theology over the past thirty years: from the “birth” of the first church schools to the defense dissertations of doctoral level. Author has presented connection between post-soviet Pentecostal dogmatic system with evangelical traditional of dispensationalism and literal hermeneutic method in study of the Bible. Obviously, that Pentecostal Churches were strongly influenced through the Baptist Bible Courses in Moscow, because many Pentecostal leaders completed them. The author demonstrated the role of Bible Seminaries founded in independent Ukraine by western missioners of leading church`s unions, like the Assembly of God and the Church of God. The article identifies two models of the Pentecostal education (“church” and “academic” approaches) that address to the different needs of church society. “Church” type of theological education tries to teach important topics connected with applied questions of church ministry. However, this approach has a weak side hidden in methodology of research. As a result, not all research papers completed by graduates of the church-oriented school are interesting for Ukrainian scientific society. For control of quality in Ukrainian theological schools, EAAA was founded. Another direction of the development of the Ukrainian pentecostal theological model thinking is the “academic model” of theological education, that today develops in cooperation with state institutions. Through the analysis of the topics of defended dissertations, the author identifies key trends in the development of the Ukrainian Pentecostal movement. Among key topics, there is introspective research of the own roots, reasons of spreading alternative church movement in USSR, and its place on the World religious map. Like prognostic conclusion of all the text, the author identified several topics that may be interesting for Western academic partners, like “theology of Maidan”, “Church peaceful strategies for East of Ukraine” and “Ecological theology in light of Chernobyl’s tragedy”.

For the first half of the twentieth century, two Baptist pastors “squared off” with one another from the First Baptist Church pulpits of two rival Texas towns. In Dallas, George W. Truett led what would arguably become the flagship church of Southern Baptists. Across the Trinity River in Fort Worth, J. Frank Norris, also known as the “Texas Tornado,” packed auditoriums preaching sensational sermons. Mentoring both men was B. H. Carroll, founder of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. And like James Dean and Richard Davalos in the movie adaptation of John Steinbeck’s novel, East of Eden, the two men feuded with one another, in part over the right to be Carroll’s heir. This article summarizes the rivalry as it played out in the lifelong conflict between J. Frank Norris and George W. Truett, and demonstrates how both the unifying statesman and the sectarian fundamentalist sides of B. H. Carroll are apparent in the struggle.

AbstractCivil rights protests at white churches, dubbed “kneel-ins,” laid bare the racial logic that structured Christianity in the American South. Scholars have investigated segregationist religion, but such studies tend to focus on biblical interpretation rather than religious practice. A series of kneel-ins at Atlanta's First Baptist Church, the largest Southern Baptist church in the Southeast, shows how religious activities and religious spaces became sites of intense racial conflict. Beginning in 1960, then more forcefully in 1963, African American students attempted to integrate First Baptist's sanctuary. When they were alternately barred from entering, shown to a basement auditorium, or carried out bodily, their efforts sparked a wide-ranging debate over racial politics and spiritual authenticity, a debate carried on both inside and outside the church. Segregationists tended to avoid a theological defense of Jim Crow, attacking instead the sincerity and comportment of their unwanted visitors. Yet while many church leaders were opposed to open seating, a vibrant student contingent favored it. Meanwhile, mass media—local, national, and international—shaped interpretations of the crisis and possibilities for resolving it. Roy McClain, the congregation's popular minister, attempted to navigate a middle course but faced criticism from all sides. The conflict came to a head when Ashton Jones, a white minister, was arrested, tried, and imprisoned for protesting outside the church. In the wake of the controversy, the members of First Baptist voted to end segregation in the sanctuary. This action brought formal desegregation—but little meaningful integration—to the congregation.

I understand my primary task in this essay to be to take you inside the world of evangelical political reflection and engagement. Though I actually grew up Roman Catholic and attended the liberal Union Theological Seminary in New York, I am by now an evangelical insider, rooted deeply in red state mid-South America, a member of a Southern Baptist church (actually, an ordained minister), a teacher at a Tennessee Baptist university, and a columnist for the flagship Christianity Today magazine. Due to the blue state/red state, liberal/conservative boundary-crossing that has characterized my background, I am often called upon to interpret our divided internal “cultures” one to another. Trained to be fair-minded and judicious in my analysis and judgments (though not always successful in meeting the standards of my training), I seek to help bridge the culture wars divide that is tearing our nation apart.As one deeply invested in American evangelicalism, most of my attention these days now goes to the internal conversation within evangelical life about our identity and mission, especially our social ethics and political engagement. In this essay I will focus extensively on problems I currently see with evangelical political engagement, addressing those from within the theological framework of evangelical Christianity and inviting others to listen in to what I am now saying to my fellow evangelicals.

As a discipline, “Islamic studies” has attracted serious attention by a number of institutions of higher learning in predominantly nonMuslim societies. While southern Africa’s communities witnessed the inclusion of “Islam” as a subject in the faculties of theology at various regional universities as well as Christian seminaries, Muslim communities have clamored for the appointment of Muslim staff at universities to teach courses on Islam. On the whole, these educational developments bode well for the teaching and studying of Islam regionally, even though the purpose and objectives for doing so differ radically from one institution to the other. This essay first seeks to offer a brief insight into the teaching of “Islam” as a subject in theological/oriental/religious studies programs; it thereafter reflects upon “Islamic studies” as a social science discipline that has been included in the social science and humanities syllabus. It focuses on the BA Honors program to show the themes chosen for these programs and how scholars redesigned and changed these programs to meet modern needs. Apart from using “social change” as its theoretical framework, it also brings en passantinto view the insider/outsider binary that further frames the debates regarding the teaching and studying of Islam at these institutions in southern Africa generally and South Africa in particular.

As a discipline, “Islamic studies” has attracted serious attention by a number of institutions of higher learning in predominantly nonMuslim societies. While southern Africa’s communities witnessed the inclusion of “Islam” as a subject in the faculties of theology at various regional universities as well as Christian seminaries, Muslim communities have clamored for the appointment of Muslim staff at universities to teach courses on Islam. On the whole, these educational developments bode well for the teaching and studying of Islam regionally, even though the purpose and objectives for doing so differ radically from one institution to the other. This essay first seeks to offer a brief insight into the teaching of “Islam” as a subject in theological/oriental/religious studies programs; it thereafter reflects upon “Islamic studies” as a social science discipline that has been included in the social science and humanities syllabus. It focuses on the BA Honors program to show the themes chosen for these programs and how scholars redesigned and changed these programs to meet modern needs. Apart from using “social change” as its theoretical framework, it also brings en passantinto view the insider/outsider binary that further frames the debates regarding the teaching and studying of Islam at these institutions in southern Africa generally and South Africa in particular.

Recent conservation and restoration work on the icon of the Virgin and Child which stood on the altar in the Church of St. Nicholas at Prijeko in Dubrovnik has enabled a new interpretation of this paining. The icon, painted on a panel made of poplar wood, features a centrally-placed Virgin holding the Child in her arms painted on a gold background between the two smaller figures of St. Peter and St. John the Baptist. The figures are painted in the manner of the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Dubrovnik style, and represent a later intervention which significantly changed the original appearance and composition of the older icon by adding the two saints and touching up the Virgin’s clothes with Renaissance ornaments, all of which was performed by the well-known Dubrovnik painter Nikola Božidarević. It can be assumed that the icon originally featured a standing or seated Virgin and Child. The Virgin is depicted with her head slightly lowered and pointing to the Christ Child whom she is holding on her right side. The chubby boy is not seated on his mother’s lap but is reclining on his right side and leaningforward while his face is turned towards the spectator. He is dressed in a red sleeveless tunic with a simple neck-line which is embroidered with gold thread. The Child is leaning himself on the Virgin’s right hand which is holding him. He is firmly grasping her thumb with one hand and her index finger with the other in a very intimate nursing gesture while she, true to the Hodegitria scheme, is pointing at him with her left hand, which is raised to the level of her breasts. Such an almost-realistic depiction of Christ as a small child with tiny eyes, mouth and nose, drastically departs from the model which portrays him with the mature face of an adult, as was customary in icon painting. The Virgin is wearing a luxurious gold cloak which was repainted with large Renaissance-style flowers. Her head is covered with a traditional maphorion which forms a wide ring around it and is encircled by a nimbus which was bored into thegold background. Her skin tone is pink and lit diffusely, and was painted with almost no green shadows, which is typical of Byzantine painting. The Virgin’s face is striking and markedly oval. It is characterized by a silhouetted, long, thin nose which is connected to the eyebrows. The ridge of the nose is emphasized with a double edge and gently lit whilethe almond-shaped eyes with dark circles are set below the inky arches of the eyebrows. The Virgin’s cheeks are smooth and rosy while her lips are red. The plasticity of her round chin is emphasized by a crease below the lower lip and its shadow. The Virgin’s eyes, nose and mouth are outlined with a thick red line. Her hands are light pink in colour and haveelongated fingers and pronounced, round muscles on the wrists. The fingers are separated and the nails are outlined with precision. The deep, resounding hues of the colour red and the gilding, together with the pale pink skin tone of her face, create an impression of monumentality. The type of the reclining Christ Child has been identified in Byzantine iconography as the Anapeson. Its theological background lies in the emphasis of Christ’s dual nature: although the Christ Child is asleep, the Christ as God is always keeping watch over humans. The image was inspired by a phrase from Genesis 49: 9 about a sleeping lion to whom Christ is compared: the lion sleeps with his eyes open. The Anapeson is drowsy and awake at the same time, and therefore his eyes are not completely shut. Such a paradox is a theological anticipation of his “sleep” in the tomb and represents an allegory of his death and Resurrection. The position, gesture and clothes of the Anapeson in Byzantine art are not always the same. Most frequently, the ChristChild is not depicted lying in his mother’s arms but on an oval bed or pillow, resting his head on his hand, while the Virgin is kneeling by his side. Therefore, the Anapeson from Dubrovnik is unique thanks to the conspicuously humanized relationship between the figures which is particularly evident in Christ’s explicitly intimate gesture of grasping the fingers of his mother’s hand: his right hand is literally “inserting” itself in the space between the Virgin’s thumb and index finger. At the same time, the baring of his arms provided the painter with an opportunity to depict the pale tones of a child’s tender skin. The problem of the iconography of the Anapeson in the medieval painting at Dubrovnik is further complicated by a painting which was greatly venerated in Župa Dubrovačka as Santa Maria del Breno. It has not been preserved but an illustration of it was published in Gumppenberg’sfamous Atlas Marianus which shows the Virgin seated on a high-backed throne and holding the sleeping and reclining Child. The position of this Anapeson Christ does not correspond fully to the icon from the Church of St. Nicholas because the Child is lying on its back and his naked body is covered with the swaddling fabric. The icon of the Virgin and Child from Prijeko claims a special place in the corpus of Romanesque icons on the Adriatic through its monumentality and intimate character. The details of the striking and lively Virgin’s face, dominated by the pronounced and gently curved Cimabuesque nose joined to the shallow arches of her eyebrows, link her with the Benedictine Virgin at Zadar. Furthermore, based on the manner of painting characterized by the use of intense red for the shadows in the nose and eye area, together with the characteristic shape of the elongated, narrow eyes, this Virgin and Child should be brought into connection with the painter who is known as the Master of the Benedictine Virgin. The so-called Benedictine Virgin is an icon, now at the Benedictine Convent at Zadar, which depicts the Virgin seated on a throne with a red, ceremonial, imperial cushion, in a solemn scheme of the Kyriotissa, the heavenly queen holding the Christ Child on her lap. The throne is wooden and has a round back topped with wooden finials which can also be seen in the Byzantine Kahn Virgin and the Mellon Madonna, as well as in later Veneto-Cretan painting. The throne is set under a shallow ciborium arch which is rendered in relief and supportedby twisted colonettes and so the painting itself is sunk into the surface of the panel. A very similar scheme with a triumphal arch can be seen on Byzantine ivory diptychs with shallow ciborium arches and twisted colonettes. In its composition, the icon from Prijeko is a combination ofthe Kyr i ot i ss a and the Hodegitria, because the Virgin as the heavenly queen does not hold the Christ Child frontally before her but on her right-hand side while pointing at him as the road to salvation. He is seated on his mother’s arm and is supporting himself by pressing his crossed legsagainst her thigh which symbolizes his future Passion. He is wearing a formal classical costume with a red cloak over his shoulder. He is depicted in half profile which opens up the frontal view of the red clavus on his navy blue chiton.He is blessing with the two fingers of his right hand and at the same time reaching for the unusual flower rendered in pastiglia which the Virgin is raising in her left hand and offering to him. At the same time, she is holding the lower part of Christ’s body tightly with her right hand.Various scholars have dated the icon of the Benedictine Virgin to the early fourteenth century. While Gothic features are particularly evident in the costumes of the donors, the elements such as the modelling of the throne and the presence of the ceremonial cushion belong to the Byzantine style of the thirteenth century. The back of the icon of the Benedictine Virgin features the figure of St. Peter set within a border consisting of a lively and colourful vegetal scroll which could be understood as either Romanesque or Byzantine. However, St. Peter’s identifying titulus is written in Latin while that of the Virgin is in Greek. The figure of St. Peter was painted according to the Byzantine tradition: his striking and severe face is rendered linearly in a rigid composition, which is complemented by his classical contrapposto against a green-gray parapet wall, while the background is of dark green-blue colour. Equally Byzantine is themanner of depicting the drapery with flat, shallow folds filled with white lines at the bottom of the garment while, at the same time, the curved undulating hem of the cloak which falls down St. Peter’s right side is Gothic. The overall appearance of St. Peter is perhaps even more Byzantine than that of the Virgin. Such elements, together with the typically Byzantine costumes, speak clearly of a skilful artist who uses hybrid visual language consisting of Byzantine painting and elements of the Romanesque and Gothic. Of particular interest are the wide nimbuses surrounding the heads of the Virgin and Child (St. Peter has a flat one) which are rendered in relief and filled with a neat sequence of shallow blind archesexecuted in the pastiglia technique which, according to M. Frinta, originated in Cyprus. The Venetian and Byzantine elements of the Benedictine Virgin have already been pointed out in the scholarship. Apart from importing art works and artists such as painters and mosaic makers directly from Byzantium into Venice, what was the extent and nature of the Byzantineinfluence on Venetian artistic achievements in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries? We know that the art of Venice and the West alike were affected by the Fourth Crusade and the sack of Constantinople in 1204, and by the newly founded Latin Empire which lasted until 1261.The Venetians played a particularly significant political and administrative role in this Empire and the contemporary hybrid artistic style of the eastern Mediterranean, called Crusader Art and marked by the strong involvement of the Knights Templar, must have been disseminated through the established routes. In addition to Cyprus, Apulia and Sicily which served as stops for the artists and art works en route to Venice and Tuscany, another station must have been Dalmatia where eastern and western influences intermingled and complemented each other.However, it is interesting that the icon of the Benedictine Virgin, apart from negligible variations, imitates almost completely the iconographic scheme of the Madonna di Ripalta at Cerignola on the Italian side of the Adriatic, which has been dated to the early thirteenth century and whose provenance has been sought in the area between southern Italy (Campania) and Cyprus. Far more Byzantine is another Apulian icon, that of a fourteenth-century enthroned Virgin from the basilica of St. Nicholas at Bari with which the Benedictine Virgin from Zadar shares certain features such as the composition and posture of the figures, the depictionof donors and Christ’s costume. A similar scheme, which indicates a common source, can be seen on a series of icons of the enthroned Virgin from Tuscany. The icon of the Virgin and Child from Prijeko is very important for local Romanesque painting of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century because it expands the oeuvre of the Master of the Benedictine Virgin. Anicon which is now at Toronto, in the University of Toronto Art Centre Malcove Collection, has also been attributed to this master. This small two-sided icon which might have been a diptych panel, as can be judged from its typology, depicts the Virgin with the Anapeson in the upper register while below is the scene from the martyrdom of St. Lawrence. The Virgin is flanked by the figures of saints: to the left is the figure of St. Francis while the saint on the right-hand side has been lost due to damage sustained to the icon. The busts of SS Peter and Paul are at the top.The physiognomies of the Virgin and Child correspond to those of the Benedictine Virgin and the Prijeko icon. The Anapeson, unlike the one at Dubrovnik, is wrapped in a rich, red cloak decorated with lumeggiature, which covers his entire body except the left fist and shin. On the basis of the upper register of this icon, it can be concluded that the Master of the Benedictine Virgin is equally adept at applying the repertoire and style of Byzantine and Western painting alike; the lower register of the icon with its descriptive depiction of the martyrdom of St.Lawrence is completely Byzantine in that it portrays the Roman emperor attending the saint’s torture as a crowned Byzantine ruler. Such unquestionable stylistic ambivalence – the presence of the elements from both Byzantine and Italian painting – can also be seen on the icons of theBenedictine and Prijeko Virgin and they point to a painter who works in a “combined style.” Perhaps he should be sought among the artists who are mentioned as pictores greci in Dubrovnik, Kotor and Zadar. The links between Dalmatian icons and Apulia and Tuscany have already been noted, but the analysis of these paintings should also contain the hitherto ignored segment of Sicilian and eastern Mediterranean Byzantinism, including Cyprus as the centre of Crusader Art. The question of the provenance of the Master of the Benedictine Virgin remains open although the icon of the Virgin and Child from Prijeko points to the possibility that he may have been active in Dalmatia.However, stylistic expressions of the two icons from Zadar and Dubrovnik, together with the one which is today at Toronto, clearly demonstrate the coalescing of cults and forms which arrived to the Adriatic shores fromfurther afield, well beyond the Adriatic, and which were influenced by the significant, hitherto unrecognized, role of the eastern Mediterranean.

The Eastern Cluster of Lutheran Seminaries (Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary and United Lutheran Seminary) have had a joint library catalog between their three libraries for over 18 years. This has allowed for inter-campus lending, some shared purchases, and joint collection development. After using a shared instance of Voyager for 17 years, the Cluster knew it was time to upgrade. During the 2018–19 school year, the Cluster researched alternative software and ultimately selected the open source tool Koha, hosted by Equinox Open Library Initiative. This paper explains the reasons for change, the selection process, key decisions in the install process, lessons learned, and an overall assessment of the transition to Koha.