David Dockery at The Southern Baptist Seminary's Lectures

Interesting article. I find myself, in my old age, in a similar bifurcated (trifurcated?) situation.

I was raised an Evangelical.
My uncle, Kenneth Kantzer, was Dean of Faculty at TEDS and built that school from a small denominational (Evangelical Free Church) institute to what is quite possibly the flagship of American Evangelicalism today.

But,

I was saved in an IFB church.
I was baptized in an IFB church.
I was married in an IFB church.
I was educated in an IFB seminary.
I pastored an IFB church (27 years).
I taught in an IFB college.
I taught in an IFB Seminary (25 years).

And now,

I am a serving member, in my retirement, of a Southern Baptist church. (Granted it is a very conservative SBC church.)

I tend to agree with much of what Dr. Dockery says, and would also emphasize the danger of an unfettered Evangelicalism, apart from the doctrinal stability a denomination's statement of faith provides. A good example would be Wheaton College. Founded as Wesleyan Methodist but early on morphed into a more Congregational aspect due to Congregationalists dominating the Board of Trustees, largely due to financial reasons. And again, in 1925, a Presbyterian, J. Oliver Buswell, became President. But he was fired in 1940 for being "too intellectual in his approach to Christianity."

This brought about the morphing of the college into a liberal arts institution with, as some would say, emphasis on "liberal." The school accepted evolution being taught in its biology department and now alumni have established OneWheaton, with the stated purpose of providing support to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and similarly situated students and alumni at Wheaton and other colleges.

A strong denominational tie may have gone a long way in preventing that drift to the theological/political left.

However, there are some exceptions to the above rule. Dallas Seminary seems to have remained fairly stable, in spite of a slight tendency toward Neo-Evangelicalism back in the 1960s, while also remaining firmly in the non-denominational evangelical camp. This "softness" led to Dr. George W. Dollar (Chairman, Department of Church History, Dallas Seminary 1959-1968) placing Dallas in the Moderate Fundamentalist category in his 1973 book, A History of Fundamentalism in America. (Bearing in mind that at the time he wrote that book he was Chairman of the Department of Church History at Bob Jones University - 1971-1977, a Militant Fundamentalist University.)

Looking forward to some interesting discussion.

 

This is one of the things that irritate me about the BB. You get 150 replies to theological twaddle but nobody wants to participate in what could be a very important discussion.

 

Yes. We need a "huh" icon!

 

Oh. Okay. But bear in mind you are probably the only poster on the BB who will admit that!

 

That doesn't seem to deter some members ...

 

But being SBC is not the point.