Councils, Christlikeness, and a Christological Glossary: Further Reflections on the 2020 Drummond-Bush Lecture

The Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina, recently granted a signal honor by inviting me to present the 2020 Drummond-Bush Lecture. That Lecture is entitled Christology without Christlikeness. The Drummond-Bush Lectures memorialize the academic ministries of Lewis Drummond, the fourth President of Southeastern Seminary and author of a key biography of Billy Graham, and Russ Bush, a leading evangelical apologist and philosopher as well as a personal friend and administrative mentor.

The event video, originally presented on Friday, the 2nd of October 2020, will be available online through the L. Russ Bush Center for Faith and Culture. Because the event was oversold, the Bush Center kindly made it available on Facebook Live, too. The Question and Answer period moderated by Dr. Ken Keathley, Director of the Bush Center, was enjoyable and may be particularly helpful to the uninitiated. A Christological Glossary is provided below as a quick reference guide for the important technical terms. (The Lecture alone, originally recorded by Adam Covington of The Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in the Truett Auditorium, may be found here.)

The Lecture is a shorter version of an essay written at the request of Dr. Walter Strickland, Associate Vice President for Kingdom Diversity Initiatives and Assistant Professor of Systematic and Contextual Theology at Southeastern Seminary. The Essay, entitled “Christology in Chalcedon: Creed and Contextualization,” has since been published in the Southeastern Theological Review. The Essay may be found here.

While the shorter Lecture and the longer Essay explore the pristine theology of Chalcedon and the difficult history of the various Christian churches, both Miaphysite and Duophysite, from Ethiopia to Armenia and Rome to Persia, the most important aspect for the contemporary Christian leader will appear toward the end. The persecuting legacy of Constantinianism is challenged through an appeal to obey consistently the supremely authoritative teaching of Jesus Christ himself.

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Christological Glossary: 

• “Miaphysitism” is characterized by the worship of the unitary nature of Jesus Christ, while retaining both the humanity and the deity of the incarnate Lord. This is a common position for Christians in Armenia, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Syria.
• “Duophysitism” also worships the one Lord Jesus Christ, while explicitly affirming both his human and divine natures. This is the position advanced by the Council of Chalcedon.
• “Monophysitism” differs from both Miaphysitism and Duophysitism, in that it compromises the humanity of Christ. Monos indicates “only” or “alone.” Miaphysites such as Didymus the Blind of Alexandria should not be identified as Monophysite, because they worship Christ under one nature even while maintaining the two natures conceptually.
• “Nestorianism,” which is not to be confused either with the person, Nestorius, nor with many of those who later became known as “Nestorians,” compromises the unity of the Lord’s person. In particular, Nestorianism denies the Virgin Mary is the Theotokos, “God-bearer.” 
• “Heresy” is a term reserved for a church body’s declaration that a teaching requires repentance or excommunication. Note that heresy is determined not by individual theologians but by churches, whose one head remains the Lord Jesus Christ (Matt 18:15-20; Col 1:18). Nestorianism was formally condemned as a heresy at the Council of Ephesus (431), while Monophysitism was formally condemned as a heresy at the Council of Chalcedon (451). 
• “Orthodoxy” technically means “right glory,” with reference to the liturgy of worship, but it has come to be intellectualized as “right doctrine.” Although they differ in their terminology, many Miaphysite and Duophysite churches have in recent decades affirmed one another’s theological orthodoxy, even while retaining their distinct terminologies.
• “Constantinianism” is that form of Christianity which combines ecclesiology with human power structures, proposing to advance the interests of the church with the coercive tools of the state. Its authority to pursue this program and its practical results have been heavily disputed both by non-Christians and by those Christian traditions affiliated with the Free Churches.

Theology Serves Ministry: A Word for Seminarians

“Nothing can take the place of the Christian ministry. The progress of civilization, the making of many books, the increase of schools and learning, the marvelous triumphs of the press—mighty as are all of these agencies—they can never supersede the divinely sent preacher. ‘It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.’” (George W. Truett, “The Subject and Object of the Gospel,” Convention Sermon, 1899)

I am often asked how I see my role as an academic theologian. Many are shocked when I tell them the work of academic theology pales in comparison to the importance of proclamation in sermons, evangelism, missions, music, teaching, and so on.

Theology serves ministers. Theology is second.

I have more than once considered resigning my professorship. Not out of dissatisfaction with Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. But out of passion—Passion to see the Word of God proclaimed through my lips to transform human lives. There is no greater joy than being the instrument of divine proclamation.

But God always calls me back. He reminds me through good and bad of this truth: I am His alone. I have refused offers elsewhere, declined nominations, turned down an election as a president. Why? Because God called me to teach at my seminary. I must teach ministers. They are more important than me.

It was a joy when the Interim President, Dr. Jeffrey Bingham, and the Trustees approved my request to be allowed to serve as a Pastor at the same time I serve as a Professor. The synergies between church service and seminary are necessary for both. 

Then, Lakeside Baptist Church Granbury and Mark Forrest called me, and my life has been overwhelmed with joy inexpressible. Now, I get to see lives transformed through my service as an elder in my own flock and then teach the truths learned at church to my students. (The idea of barring professors from serving churches is short-sighted and can be the seed of liberalism.)

My life is a demonstration of a truth held by the Founders of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. The seminaries exist to serve the churches of Jesus Christ. We do not exist for ourselves. We are not the churches. We were constituted by the churches to serve them. We must serve or cease existence.

Over the years, I have had academics get very nervous when I speak in this way. It seems to threaten their very existence. However, it is necessary for us to remember: The Christian academy serves the churches and their ministries, not vice versa. 

We are second. Be humble. Serve.

“God will call us to judgment”: A Warning to Theological Institutions

What is the source of problems in Southern Baptist theological education?

“The chief cause is to be found in our departure from the way which God has marked out for us, and our failure to make provision for the education of such a Ministry as He designs to send forth and honor.”

According to J.P. Boyce, the pioneer of Southern Baptist seminary education, and the founder of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, this was the chief cause in 1856. It is still the chief cause in 2018.

1. According to Boyce, a seminary must be oriented toward preparing ministers to preach the gospel clearly in and through their local churches. The seminary exists first and foremost to assist the churches. The seminary does not exist to please the academic. This truth has not changed.

“Who is the Minister here—the man of the schools, or the man of the Scriptures? Who bears the insignia of an ambassador for Christ? Whom does God own? Whom would the Church hear? In whose power would she put forth her strength?”

These questions still ring out the answer that we in the seminaries exist “for the church.” (Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary wisely chose this appropriate phrase as their motto, while Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary includes the Latin equivalent, “pro ecclesia,” on our academic seal.)

“The qualification God lays down is the only one He permits us to demand, and the instruction of our Theological schools must be based upon such a plan as shall afford this amount of education to those who actually constitute the mass of our Ministry, and who cannot obtain more.”

Our task in the seminaries is not to create credentialed scholars who will impress the world, though that will occur. Our task in the seminaries is to assist the churches in preparing those who have been called by God and recognized by the churches for preaching Bible doctrine.

Boyce distinguished between things of primary importance and secondary importance. There is a difference between the classical and the theological. One may excel in the classical and butcher the theological. While I myself love both the classical and the theological dimensions of education, only one of them is absolutely necessary—Christ, Bible, gospel.

“[W]e are so far from saying that education is unnecessary, [instead] we proclaim its absolute necessity. We undertake, however, to point out what education it is that is thus essential, and what that which is only valuable; and while we urge upon all useful knowledge as an aid to that work, we point out the knowledge of the word of God as that which is first in importance.”

The unique necessity of the Word of God and of our necessary submission to it and constant immersion in it has always been the case. This is still the case. This will always be the case.

2. Boyce’s second vision for the Southern Baptist seminaries was that they preserve and promote the Baptist witness. There must be an additional course of studies for our best and brightest students so as to prepare them to teach and write for the health of our churches.

Boyce argued that some students must be led beyond basic Biblical studies, theology, and rhetoric, and given expertise in the study of the Biblical Languages, a Biblical exegesis not distorted by Liberalism, and the conduct of the Missionary enterprise, as well as a thorough advocacy of Baptist principles.

The goal for offering advanced studies is to create “a band of scholars” from “every one of whom we might expect valuable contributions to our Theological literature.” The seminaries must develop students who will, in turn, teach personally and write literature for the churches.

3. The third issue that Southern Baptists must take into account is one that Boyce believed endangered not only the schools but, ultimately, the churches. With a prescience based upon historical precedent, Boyce opined that Baptists must be clearly confessional in their theology.

Southern Baptist educational institutions must embrace “the adoption of a declaration of doctrine to be required of those who assume the various professorships.” For his day, Boyce advocated the Charleston Confession, which is an historic, clear, and detailed Baptist standard of theology.

While Southern Baptists have continually developed our theological confessions historically in submission to Scripture and in response to cultural queries, Boyce’s basic point stands. Unless our schools require our professors to declare themselves to be of our faith, we will suffer.

Boyce’s third point requires our attention more than ever. For instance, Baptists have historically understood only one religious institution to be established by our Lord Jesus Christ. The only biblically-founded theological institution is the church of Jesus Christ.

While recognizing the wisdom of creating a seminary or divinity school, we should never define a seminary as a church. The seminary does not ordain elders or pastors, nor may it administer baptism or the Lord’s Supper. While the churches expect their theological institutions to be pastoral and ecclesial in their ethos and actions, our theological institutions must never adopt the enthusiastic position that they are established by God to be churches or that their leaders are pastors by fiat. The Bible doesn’t reveal seminaries. The churches created the seminaries and other theological institutions for their use.

This truth—that the seminaries are creatures and servants of the churches—is helpful to remember. It reminds administrators and professors that while we each remain personally responsible to God, we are, as institutions, dependent upon the churches for our existence. It calls those of us who are theological educators to humility and responsibility.

One final word from the first President of a Southern Baptist seminary, a word of warning:

“A crisis in Baptist doctrine is evidently approaching, and those of us who still cling to the doctrines which formerly distinguished us, have the important duty to perform of earnestly contending for the faith once delivered to the saints. Gentlemen, God will call us to judgment...”

We would do well to heed Boyce's warning.

(If you wish to read James Petigru Boyce's inaugural address regarding theological education in full, in an original transcription, you may consult a pdf published through Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary here.)

The Harmony of the Southern Baptist Seminaries

How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in harmony!

The 133rd psalm expresses so well what I experienced recently with my colleagues at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri. Indeed, that same sense of blessing, though for different reasons, has arisen during interaction with colleagues at all six of our Southern Baptist seminaries. The benefits from each seminary include influences both subtle and significant, of which more below.

Dr. Jason Duesing has twice invited me to co-teach a PhD seminar in Ecclesiology at Midwestern Seminary. This time 24 students were led by three professors: Dr. John Mark Yeats, Dr. Duesing, and me. The PhD students at Midwestern impressively demonstrated, on the one hand, a rootedness in the life and needs of the local churches and, on the other hand, a desire and a capability to pursue intellectual excellence for the purpose of assisting their churches. But let us here focus on the Southern Baptist professors and administrators.

I am a professor called to, and happily ensconced in, my beloved Southwestern Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. But Southwestern has never been, is not now, and hopefully never will be the extent of my moral and intellectual milieu. The melody of my own seminary is both real and beneficial, but the harmony between the seminaries is also real and beneficial. The blessings of inter-seminary harmony for Southern Baptists and for the other Christians who choose to attend one of our denomination's six institutions are important. (Interactions with universities and other seminaries are also very important, but those are different essays.)

Please allow me a moment to reflect on specific harmonious influences between the Southern Baptist seminaries. These harmonies come about through direct intellectual exchange and through indirect personal exchange. What I have noticed with regard to my colleagues at these other institutions is that they profoundly shape my soul as well as my mind by what they say as well as by who they are.

Midwestern Seminary

Some recent intellectual and moral influences from Midwestern Seminary are greatly appreciated: The Provost there, Jason Duesing, encourages others to pursue excellence in their professional work and in their personal interactions. He has an academic appreciation for all things Baptist, and for all things evangelical and universal. Dr. Duesing is unusual--he is simultaneously a great teacher, an organizational genius, and a humble man. He is an asset in the Southern Baptist academy.

Also an administrator at Midwestern, John Mark Yeats has long been one to keep the life of the churches before the academy. He reminds his colleagues of the needs of people as people, especially the needs of minorities and of the younger generation. He also knows how to help his hapless elders. (For instance, he once patiently explained to me what "LOL" meant. Don't laugh. It was necessary.) John Mark is a champion for authentic Christianity.

There were other Midwestern professors who blessed me during this recent sojourn. Dr. Rustin Umstattd, formerly a Southwestern PhD supervisee, exemplifies how one may be concurrently a teaching theologian and a great pastor. Dr. Thorvald Madsen, a long-time friend and a sharp apologist and philosopher, regaled with me over my foibles from decades ago. Drs. Matthew Barrett and Owen Strachan are two rising writers within the evangelical academy whom Midwestern in particular and Southern Baptists in general are blessed to count among them. There are other Midwesterners worthy of mention, but these were the professors with whom I interacted during this last week.

Before moving on, a personal reflection regarding the President of Midwestern Seminary: Dr. Jason Allen has built a highly successful institution through his unrelenting focus upon the seminary existing "for the church." As seen above, he has excelled at gathering and retaining a quality faculty. Moreover, his studied attention to detail is evident in the attractive architecture and pristine fabric of Midwestern. Most importantly, years ago on a flight from Kansas City, I was moved to tears through prayer that Midwestern would reach toward the future with tremendous growth and expanding influence for God's glory. Providentially, Dr. Allen is actually fulfilling a vision I merely glimpsed. Southern Baptists should appreciate the lush theological garden Jason Allen has been tending in Kansas City.

The Other Southern Baptist Seminaries

We would be remiss not to mention the other four seminaries, each of whom played a supportive role this last week. For instance, while Southwestern Seminary has long emphasized the doctrine of the church, the students benefitted from the ecclesiological contributions of Gregg Allison and Thomas Schreiner at the first of our SBC seminaries, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. Dr. Allison kindly agreed to join us through video for an hour of discussion regarding his extensive treatment of a most neglected topic, the nature of the church. And Dr. Schreiner's three co-edited works on baptism, the Lord's Supper, and church leadership continue to prove their ecclesiological value.

In order to prepare for that important hour with Dr. Allison, we summarily reviewed two lectures I previously delivered elsewhere. The first lecture, published last year by the journal of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina, demonstrates how Baptists sadly exchanged a healthy Christological cornerstone for the church in favor of an anemic anthropological anchor. The second lecture, delivered earlier this year at a conference at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary in New Orleans, Louisiana, argues for a creative rediscovery of the theological foundation of the church as a congregation.

To round off the involvement of all six Southern Baptist seminaries, it should be noted that it was the innovative work of Dr. Rodrick Durst at Gateway Seminary in San Francisco, California that first encouraged me to think of piping Dr. Allison into the Midwestern conference room by video. Dr. Durst similarly invited me to address and interact with his own doctoral students a few years ago. Gateway's exemplary model of pedagogical cooperation is spreading.

The churches of the Southern Baptist Convention have both quality and diversity in the theological institutions that we sponsor. While we properly recognize the leadership of such gifted and committed ministers as R. Albert Mohler, Jr. and Daniel L. Akin, they are but the tip of the iceberg of talent in the SBC. For example, recognizing the importance of her professors, Southwestern Seminary recently began highlighting the faculty in its magazine.

Melodies and Harmony

The SBC seminaries should not be appreciated only for their individual faculties. The seminaries should be appreciated for the synergies created through the interaction of their diversities. To put it in terms taught by our music faculties, we should recognize the powerful diverse melodies being sung from our seminaries. We have Calvinists and we have Non-Calvinists; we have Preachers and we have Teachers; Evangelists and Writers; Academic Theologians and Practical Theologians; and we have some of us who want to know and teach everything.

But the beauty of theological education should not only be heard in the strength of its melodies, but in the richness of its harmony. I have recently learned from colleagues at Midwestern Seminary, just as I previously learned from colleagues when invited to address audiences at Southern Seminary, Southeastern Seminary, New Orleans Seminary, and Gateway Seminary. I have learned from their minds, and I have learned from their spirits. These other seminaries encourage me to be a better academic, and they encourage me to be a better Christian.

Southern Baptists really should be thankful for what is going on at each of our sponsored seminaries and for what is going on between them. Let us be thankful to God the Father for our six seminaries. Let us honor the seminaries for their individual melodies and let us honor them for their common harmony, a harmony rooted in a spiritual communion enabled by the Holy Spirit's gift of faith in Jesus Christ.

The Anabaptists and the Truth

Between late 2017 and early 2018, Bruce Ashford worked to invite me to deliver the Page Lectures at the Binkley Chapel in Wake Forest, North Carolina, which invitation was fulfilled this last week. Dr. Ashford is Provost, Dean of the Faculty, and Professor of Theology and Culture at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. The subject Dr. Ashford asked me to address concerned the Anabaptists. I was a bit surprised these sixteenth-century radical reformers were to be headlined, having concluded the Anabaptists would sadly be consigned a minor place in evangelical thought, primarily due to misinterpretations concerning their theology and their relationship to us today. However, Dr. Ashford was well aware of these difficulties yet felt the evangelical academy would be served by highlighting them anew. We eventually settled on two lecture titles. Let me first describe the lectures, then offer a personal word about Southeastern Seminary.

The Page Lectures of 2018

The Page lectures were established in 1982 to bring a theologian each fall to Southeastern Seminary to address "a subject of concern to the Christian Community." Recent lecturers have included Timothy George, Russell Moore, Craig Bartholomew, and Walter Kaiser, among others. It is quite an honor for this boy from the swamps of Louisiana to join such an august list of theologians. But it is a greater honor to address some typically misunderstood and often unsung heroes of the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation.

The first of two mottos held by Balthasar Hubmaier was, in the German, "Die Warheit ist untödtlich." The final adjective of this sentence conveys diverse meanings, and translators have not agreed upon the proper rendering. More dynamically, untödtlich means, "immortal," while literally, it means, "unkillable." According to one translator, the phrase should be taken in the highest Christian sense: "The truth is unkillable." You may slaughter the Truth, and those who speak His truth, but He and His people will rise again. The truth will prevail, even through the cross of death.

Hubmaier's first motto appropriately brings together the two lectures I delivered at Southeastern Seminary in chapel on October 2 and 4. Before his death and resurrection, Jesus called his followers to follow Him by taking up their crosses according to his leadership (Mark 8). After his death and resurrection, Jesus called his followers to carry out his great missionary mandate (Matthew 28). For the Evangelical Anabaptists of the sixteenth century, both the Great Commission and the Cross were very important and were integrally intertwined in theology and in practice. 

The Anabaptists believed that Jesus called all his followers to be witnesses. They also believed that preaching the gospel inevitably put one at risk of suffering and death for the sake of Christ's name. The correlation between cross and commission is profound. Thousands of Anabaptists found this correlation proven an existential reality as they were tortured, drowned, and burned at the stake for the heresy of believing what many evangelicals and Baptists take for granted as established truth.

You can watch or listen to the lectures online due to the courtesy of Southeastern Seminary. You may also see a helpful panel discussion on the Anabaptists and an interview with a Southeastern librarian about pursuing excellence as a Christian scholar. The links are below. The two lecture essays, "The Anabaptists and the Great Commission" and "The Anabaptists and the Cross," will be published either in a collection of essays on missions or with a journal. (There have been different requests to publish them in two venues.)

• The Anabaptists and the Great Commission: audio, video, excerpts
• The Anabaptists and the Cross: audio, video
• Panel Discussion on the Anabaptists: (forthcoming)
• Pursuing Excellence as a Christian Scholar: video (forthcoming)

A Personal Word about Southeastern Seminary

Finally, a personal word: While it is always an honor to be invited to deliver an endowed lecture series at a major seminary or university, this invitation conveyed a special privilege. My wife, Karen Searcy Yarnell, graduated with her Master of Divinity from Southeastern Seminary immediately before we moved to England. Always supportive of her husband's ministry yet perceiving her own call to ministry, Karen convened her seminary studies at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, continued her coursework at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, and concluded them with Southeastern Seminary. Among Karen's professors was Dr. Daniel Akin, who taught her systematic theology at Southeastern. Dr. Akin subsequently served as the Dean at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, with Dr. R. Albert Mohler, then returned in 2003 to take up the presidency of Southeastern Seminary. 

It was thus a blessing to visit my wife's Alma Mater and again gaze upon the lush greens of North Carolina, where I once served a local Southern Baptist church as their pastor. It was also good to renew fellowship with colleagues at a sister institution. I have been blessed to deliver formal lectures at five of our Southern Baptist seminaries, and the best part has always been the fellowship with my brothers and sisters at these great schools. Alongside personal time with Dr. Ashford and with Dr. Kenneth Keathley, Director of the Bush Center for Faith and Culture and a long-time friend, as well as Vice President Keith Whitfield, who has generously invited me to work with him on several projects, there were special interactions with Vice President Walter Strickland and with Professors Stephen Eccher, John Hammett, and Ronjour Locke. These are quality men who I believe can lead us into the future. It was also a blessing to communicate personally with a number of PhD and Masters students as well as superb staff. 

Southern Baptists should be very happy with the school they are supporting in Wake Forest. This is an institution with deep commitments to orthodox theology, to worldwide missions, and to cultural engagement. In many ways, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary is leading the Southern Baptist Convention toward an ever brighter future. The campus atmosphere is personally welcoming, ethnically vibrant, and missionally dynamic. Okay, we will stop there, since I really would like students to come to Southwestern Seminary in Fort Worth! Suffice it to say that I am so happy we are able to partner with such a faculty and such a student body. President Akin and Provost Ashford have together built a fantastic seminary community.