IRVING—Southern Baptists of Texas Convention President Terry Turner rallied Executive Board members meeting April 24 to faithfully pray for President Barack Obama and members of Congress, seeking a change in the spiritual climate of the nation.

“I've asked that our country and our convention begin to support our president in prayer,” stated Turner, pastor of Mesquite Friendship Baptist Church. “I don't believe in the political views he holds, but I do know he's our president and as Christians we are required to pray for him, ask God to direct him, guide him, and straighten him out if he's wrong.”

“We are in the midst of one of the most heated political climates I've ever experienced,” Turner told the board. “A lot of innuendos are coming down that are untrue about our Southern Baptist Convention in regard to our positions. We know that we hold a biblical position and whatever the Bible says is what we support and believe in,” he added.

“If we are not careful we will find ourselves on the outside looking in when it comes to biblical beliefs we hold being eroded in society.”

Turner said a movement of prayer for the president and Congress could “shed a whole different light on our convention” and could change the climate “that is really hurting our Christian spirituality in our country.”

He appealed to Southern Baptists to “take the high road” when expressing disagreement with President Obama. “It's hard to be a black pastor in a convention that is predominantly white,” he acknowledged. “Because Barack Obama is our first African-American president, we don't want him to fail as a president.”

Refusing to be labeled as a Republican or a Democrat, Turner said, “I'm a Christian. I want what God wants.”

In his closing prayer, Turner asked God to help those present make a difference in the world and the country.

“Help our prayers to influence the spiritual climate of our Congress as well as our president.”

Turner prayed specifically for President Obama and his family, “that you would lead him in the right direction, show him the error of his ways, put him on good standing and allow him to be the man you would have him to be.”

For Congress, Turner prayed, “Help them to work together that we won't have mandates handed down to us like Obamacare,” referring to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act passed in 2010.

“Help them to understand the importance of both parties being involved, that they'll give us the best governing system that we could possibly have,” he added.

Noting that “so many are hurting because of the spiritual and political climate of our society,” Turner asked God to “lift us above it and let us be a people called by your name” who reflect the humility described in 2 Chronicles 7:14.

He asked board members to carry back to their churches the challenge to pray for the president and other elected leaders. “I'd love to see it run through our convention and run through our country so whenever anything is negatively said about the Southern Baptist Convention, everybody will know that we are praying for the spiritual climate of our country.”

Later, Turner told the TEXAN he wished to clarify that he believes there are “some good things in Obamacare that will help many people” and that “we should not hinder those who will be blessed with some much-needed health care.”

War has often been harder on women and children than on combatants. When the tides of battle wash over a populated area, women herding children will always be overrepresented in the crowd of refugees. Matthew 24:19 even singles out pregnant and nursing mothers as particularly unfortunate during bad times. Misfortune is multiplied for the fairer sex when they are also considered a prize to one army or the other. This is also a reasonable way to describe the political rhetoric of our day. Women are disproportionately affected (because they are often the primary caretakers of dependent children) by drastic changes in a nation’s social policies. This year women are also a prized voting bloc—one that tempts politicians to overstate their own good intentions, and the dark motives of their opponents. 

Perhaps we can rescue a bit of clarity from the clumsy fingers of political bluster. First, it’s wrong to suggest that women are a unified bloc up for bid to the best panderer. Second, those policies that benefit women and their little dependents are not mere matters of funding or withholding of funds. The present kerfuffle over the mandate to fund contraceptives illustrates how unclear the issue can be. Pro-life women are as horrified as men that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services would require otherwise pro-life religious institutions to fund “preventive services” that they consider murderous. The overturning of this mandate will not make the country sufficiently pro-life, but neither should such an overturn be described as a disaster for (or war on) women in general. 

But women and families do have destructive adversaries, in effect if not intent. The work of groups that demean motherhood and marriage has been insidiously effective. Easy divorce has resulted in increased poverty for single mothers. A shockingly high percentage of children are now born without the benefit of marriage, or any actual long-term commitment by their parents. Blasted apart from its traditional context, sexual behavior has become the focus of nearly every aspect of modern culture. At the same time sexual relationships are seen by many as without significance beyond the merely biological. One observer has described human sexuality in our day “simultaneously as no big deal and Life’s Ultimate Expression that no one should be denied.” It is evident that a trend toward desire without boundaries has not been advantageous for women. Victimization through sex trafficking, pornography, and misogyny in popular culture has flourished since our nation’s sexual revolution.    

The most ardent advocates for marriage and family are women but the official spokesmen for women behave as though there is only one true voice for the cause of women in the U.S., and that voice is radical. They’ve said it pretty plainly. A relatively tame example from 1993 is when feminist icon Gloria Steinem attacked then-senatorial candidate Kay Bailey Hutchinson, calling her a “female impersonator” because Hutchinson, who describes herself as pro-choice, was not liberal enough to be considered female by her feminist sisters. Examples of the things said of more conservative female politicians in the last five years alone are not printable here. Women who hold conservative convictions are called enemies of their sex by other women, slandered by male pundits, and crudely lampooned in entertainment venues. No ethnic minority, and evidently not the more liberal women, could ever be treated this way by those who remain employed.

It is convenient to the leftist narrative to suggest that there are no bright women who agree with Rick Perry or James Dobson on social issues. Men, after all, are not qualified to speak on issues that affect women. It is also convenient, by the way, to magnify not the delightful differences between men and women but certainly the political divide. Anyway, the keepers of the leftist narrative must shout down or demean women like Sarah Palin, Phyllis Schlafly, and Ann Romney in order to prosper. I can only imagine the contempt they reserve for thousands of feminine pro-life workers in pregnancy resource centers. The flame these women tend is not the strange fire of feminism but that which has warmed and lit a billion homes for thousands of years.   

I am not naïve enough to think that we’ll undo the sexual revolution society-wide, but progressive efforts to tinker with traditional mores have made the plight of women worse and devastated families. We’ve tried it in the old-fashioned way and we’ve tried it in the modern way; one way has observably worked better than the other. This does not mean that we can roll back the clock but it does mean that we can argue credibly that our women choose a respectable path when they become mothers—even stay-at-home mothers. Perhaps too much was made of Democrat strategist Hillary Rosen’s comment that Ann Romney had “never worked a day in her life” and thus did not understand the way “real” Americans live. What she meant was that Mrs. Romney had not worked outside her home and thus did not understand the way “real” Americans live. That’s better, I guess. But is Mrs. Rosen correct in assuming that most Americans will be contemptuous of a woman who stays at home? That was clearly the mind of feminist matriarchs who described homemakers as “parasites” doing work “not worthy” of intelligent people.       

I do think some women have been provoked to righteous bellicosity. But I don’t think it’s leftist women who have been attacked. 

I believe our nation is at war with itself. It’s a war of worldviews. It is not a new divide but it is a nastier fight than any we’ve seen in 150 years. Men and women are on both sides of it, as you’d expect. And yet endless talk of one side or another’s war on women is not very useful. It is a too-tightly focused, oversimplified way of looking at the matters truly at issue. A distracting magnification of a political divide between men and women implies several things that are not true—chief among them might be the suggestion that things women need from a community are largely different from what their husbands and sons and fathers need. 

HENDERSON—“‘Jungle Book’ rocks!”

Such was the declaration of a Texas prison inmate to Jo Freeman, a volunteer with the Storybook Project, as she prepared to guide the man through the nuances of prose reading for children. She wanted to make sure he knew how to pronounce the peculiar names in the fabled Rudyard Kipling children’s tale before she recorded his reading of the adventure story for his children.

No need, the heavily tattooed man replied.

“I know every one of them. That was my favorite book as a kid!”

To bring home the point, he punched the air with his fist and declared his praise for the unforgotten tale. As he did, Freeman recalled, “In his eyes, for that brief moment, I saw that kid who loved ‘Jungle Book.’”

Part literacy program, part family intervention, all gospel outreach, the Storybook Project at the Bradshaw Unit in Henderson brings together, if only through a recorded message, incarcerated fathers with their children outside the prison walls.

In a letter of thanks, one inmate wrote, “I’m forever greatful [sic]. You all have given me the oh so priceless gift of reading to my children and bridging the gap between these dismal walls and my children’s warm living room.”

For five years the Storybook Project has brought Bradshaw Unit inmates a little closer to their children. It takes three to four weeks to complete the recordings as Freeman and fellow volunteer Judy Turner guide inmates in selecting age-appropriate books and coach them to read with expression and flare.

Once the men are prepared, their reading is recorded. Freeman downloads the recording to her computer, burns a CD and ships the CD and book to the inmate’s children.

For the retired English teacher and member of First Baptist Church Henderson, the project is a blessing.

“It’s so awesome that God allowed me to continue in what was dear to my heart,” said Freeman, who also coached high school students competing in poetry and prose reading contests.

Turner, the director of Restorative Justice Ministries at Green Acres Baptist Church, founded the project at the Bradshaw Unit after learning of the program from the Texas Inmate Family Association. The two women make weekly visits to the prison where they meet with inmates who have requested to be a part of the program.

Although the Storybook Project is administered through the education department of the prison, the ultimate goal of the ministry is to reconcile the inmates and their families to God. Studies suggest that as many as 70 percent of inmates’ children will continue the cycle of crime and follow in their fathers’ footsteps to the penitentiary. Breaking that cycle is the goal of restorative justice and the Storybook Project is just one means to that end.

Three cabinets of children’s books have been donated to the project. Freeman and Turner supplement the secular books with Christian-themed stories. When prisoners choose to read a Christian story, Freeman said the impact of the gospel is multiplied as it is read by the father and heard by his children and anyone else who may listen to the recording.

The inmate’s thank you letter continued, “Bringing me closer to my children is only one of the gifts you’ve given me. More importantly together we have brought God’s message into their home. For that alone I’m forever greatful [sic].”

Ever the English teacher and prose coach, Freeman encourages the men and, indirectly, their children to be readers. Making reading and listening engaging and fun is her objective but getting hardened inmates—men who must maintain a steeled exterior—to read Dr. Seuss with pizzazz is daunting.

“It’s all about the children,” she tells them. That admonition, she said, tends to liven up the reading sessions.

But, at times, the readings are interrupted, choked off by the inmates’ sobs.

“The ones who break up and cry are the ones who are going to be gone for a long time,” Turner said. “I’ve seen big, big guys, covered in tattoos—as they read these children’s books—start weeping. They know this may be the only time they connect with their kids.”

The Bradshaw Unit is a transfer facility. Some inmates will be out of prison within two years while others are routinely transferred to other facilities, sometimes far away from family. 

One inmate wrote in a letter of thanks: “We want to let you know that everyone of y’all that do this ‘Story Book Program’ that blessed us, really melted our hearts. I’ve seen some of the biggest men break down and cry over this blessing that we have received. Each of you deserve a big thanks. Y’all have done something so special for us in a place where no one matters and nobody cares.”

That inmate’s daughter wrote to her dad.

“We got our books and you reading them. Now when I miss you really bad I can turn on the CD and let you read to me.”

Strict prison guidelines dictate how the women and inmates are to interact and what can be recorded. But Freeman and Turner said the men can add special messages to the recording. Freeman recalled one man introduced the story by saying how it had blessed him and hoped it would bless his son. One father rapped a Christ-centered poem while another sang from a hymnal.

They are encouraged to share special childhood memories.

“We try to go back and touch that innocence,” Freeman said.

Fathers wanting to read to their children will have to wait 3-6 months as the popularity of the Storybook Project grows. But it is worth the wait as one inmate wrote: “Thank you again for volunteering your time to this work. You are a blessing to me, my family and every other offender and their children who is fortunate enough to be able to participate in this program.” 

Those words, hammered out in 80-point type, dominate a full page, back-cover ad in the spring 2012 issue of Southwestern News, flagship magazine of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

The ad—with a goat peering onto the page and eyeballing the reader—is meant to punctuate the content inside: 45 pages of text and rich graphics devoted to an unprecedented event at the Fort Worth school.

“Dead Sea Scrolls & the Bible: Ancient Artifacts, Timeless Treasures,” begins its run on campus July 2 and runs through January 2013, displaying artifacts from what is considered the greatest biblical archaeology discovery of the modern era.  

Sixteen Dead Sea Scroll fragments, including seven owned by Southwestern, will be available for viewing, some of which will be public for the first time. The featured scrolls contain portions of the Old Testament books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Isaiah, Daniel, Ecclesiastes, and the Psalms.

One of the school’s acquisitions, called Paleo-Leviticus, written on goat skin, is among the oldest known Scripture fragments.

The term paleo, explained Steven Ortiz, associate professor of archaeology and biblical backgrounds and director of the school’s Charles D. Tandy Archaeology Museum, means “oldest of the old.”

The Dead Sea Scrolls, uncovered in desert caves near the Dead Sea and the Qumran settlement beginning in 1947 when a Bedouin shepherd went looking for a wayward goat, revolutionized biblical studies and gave crucial evidence of the Scripture’s accuracy from texts mostly dated from 150 B.C. to about 50 A.D., Ortiz said. 

Prior to 1947, the oldest complete Old Testament copy was dated to around 900 A.D. But the Dead Sea Scrolls—retrieved over nearly 10 years from 11 desert caves—revealed portions of every Old Testament book except Esther, and a complete manuscript of Isaiah, explained Southwestern President Paige Patterson.

“And so it was very common for scholars to say that we really didn’t know what the Old Testament said—‘With 1,000 years of copying, who knows what mistakes were made?’ The Bible was not even fully reliable,” Patterson said in characterizing the arguments of biblical skeptics. 

“But when we found the Dead Sea Scrolls, what we discovered is there are hardly any mistakes at all in copying. So we now know that what we have in our English Old Testament is very accurate.”

Also significant, Patterson said, is that the discovery of the prophetic books showed “copies of copies of copies,” indicating dates of authorship in keeping with the biblical timeline and giving evidence of their prophetic nature.

Also helpful, Ortiz added, is that “we have the Bible at the time of Jesus. That’s phenomenal. So we know that this is how Isaiah (the biblical text) looked, this is what Jesus would have read.” 

The seven scroll fragments owned by the seminary are being unveiled for the public and for scholars to see for the first time, Ortiz said.

“Scholars knew about them but they hadn’t been seen,” he added. Also, a Genesis fragment on loan to the school will also be made public.

The scrolls exhibit will be staged in the newly opened McGorman Chapel, 4616 Stanley Avenue, on the Fort Worth campus. 

With climate-controlled cases for the artifacts, the chapel corridors will be transformed into a museum. Visitors will view a brief film about the scrolls, experience a replica of Dead Sea cave number 4, and view ancient coins and pottery, early Bibles and texts.

Also planned are interactive “iScroll” kiosks where visitors can utilize cutting-edge digital imaging to view the scrolls as scholars do. A fully functioning simulated Qumran dig site will be set up where children can unearth shards from 2,000-year-old pottery. 

There will also be a Dead Sea Scrolls bookstore and a genuine goathair tent just like those used by modern-day Bedoiun shepherds. The tent was unveiled on April 11 at a press conference to introduce the upcoming exhibit. 

The exhibit is being presented by the seminary partly through a $1 million donation from Gary and Stephanie Loveless of Houston, who were also instrumental in Southwestern acquiring Dead Sea Scroll fragments beginning in 2009. Southwestern owns more Dead Sea Scroll manuscripts than any other higher education institution in North America.

Information on admission and hours of operation is available at seethescrolls.com. Group discounts are available for 10 people or more. Weekend admission (Friday or Saturday) will be $28 for adults, $24 for seniors 62 and older, $18 for students and $12 for children. Monday through Thursday, admission will be $25 for adults, $18 for seniors, $15 for students and $12 for children. Tickets may also be reserved by phone at 877-789-0876.

HENDERSON—Providence is ironic sometimes. He had a hard heart. His attitude, in his own words, “was about as bad as it could be.” 

And just as God told Jonah to preach to the object of his disdain, the Lord told Ken Hale, “You need to change your attitude because I’ve got a job for you.”

That job was to take the gospel to those he considered “trash”—the inmates of the James Bradshaw State Jail in Henderson.

Some 15 years later, unlike Jonah, his heart aches for the thousands who cycle through that facility without hearing the good news of salvation. For the lack of a chapel at the Bradshaw Unit, few men can gather each Sunday for Bible study lessons prepared by Hale and a growing band of faithful teachers.

The unit sits on 100 acres just north of Henderson where Hale lives, works and worships. He once figured the 2,000 or so men who occupy the facility had reason to be there and deserved no pity. They broke the rules and had to pay the price. That was before he was taken on a tour of the facility.

“As we walked through there Christ began to deal with my heart,” he recalled. Softened by the experience and nudged to action by the Holy Spirit, Hale inquired of the prison warden about starting a Sunday School class in the unit. As providence would have it, the warden, Michael Bell, had once been one of Hale’s Sunday School students and he heartily agreed to allow the class at Bradshaw.

The first Sunday in October 1997, Hale entered the prison and began his effort at freeing those held spiritually captive. All of four men came to that first class. Hale faithfully returned each week, teaching the inmates and leaving in time to return to Trinity Baptist Church in Henderson to lead a Sunday School class there.

For a few years Hale was frustrated at the consistent attendance of 20-30 men each week. Then inexplicably, the attendance boomed, only to be curtailed by prison officials for lack of space. 

In addition to class size, language became a barrier. Hale noticed a large number of Hispanic men in the class and discerned that English was not their first language. So he broke up the class and garnered the support of a much needed Spanish-speaking teacher Catalano Manon.

That solved the overcrowding problem for a time.

In 2004 another prison unit, the East Texas Treatment Facility (ETTF), opened in Henderson. The facility housed approximately 2,200 men and women mostly for drug, alcohol and probation violations. Hale determined to open a Sunday School ministry there too.

One of the volunteers from the Bradshaw Unit, Darrel Owens, took the job and had the class up to 50 people within a year before he moved to begin a Bible study at the Billy Moore Correctional Facility in Overton.

Hale took over Owens’ post at ETTF and within a year the class “broke into a full-fledged church” with 300 people attending, he recounted. 

The inmates formed a praise band and choir. Hale said, “It’s amazing to see the talent of those inmates in there.”

Seeing the Sunday School program grow at the ETTF and Moore units opened Hale’s eyes to the problem of growth at Bradshaw. They needed more room. ETTF was built with two large gyms that could accommodate 300 people at a time. The Moore unit only houses 500 inmates, negating the need for a large multi-purpose room for its class.

But at the Bradshaw unit—where 2,000 men cycle in and out of the facility every two years or so—only 120 can meet on Sundays.

The man who once had a less-than-gracious attitude toward inmates grieves for those who do not have the opportunity to hear the gospel each week.

“While they are [in prison] they are empty,” Hale explained. “They have to be filled with something.” And if not the gospel, he shudders to think of the consequences.

Those who are discipled in prison tend not to return to prison upon release. Hale said Texas boasts of a 25 percent recidivism rate compared to the national rate of about 60 percent. He credits Christ-center programs like the Sunday School classes for those statistics.

There are approximately 4,500 inmates in Rusk County. But, Hale noted, they are not all from that region. When prisoners are released, they return to their homes across the state. If they are not prepared spiritually to re-enter society, recidivism becomes the problem of every community the former inmates call home.

But Hale does not want to scare people into giving toward the chapel project, he said. The motivation should be lives changed by the gospel. The combined ministry of the three units sees 800-900 decisions every year, Hale said. Of those, 200-250 are first-time decisions for Christ.

He is confident the Sunday School attendance would quickly double with the completion of the proposed 500-seat Bradshaw chapel. The facility has the blessing of state officials, plans have been proposed and a non-profit committee formed to solicit donations for the $1 million building. But funds have been slow in coming. The committee must have all of the money in escrow before construction can begin.

Hale said the chapel would be raised in God’s timing. Chapels have been built at other state jails (The chapels become the property of the state upon completion.). So he knows it can be done. But what has been raised to date, he said, “is just a drop in the bucket.”

“What we’ve been doing is going to any and every church who would allow us to tell the story.” 

Hale said he understands that people give faithfully to other ministries that reach worldwide. But what they don’t realize, he added, is the similar impact of the Bradshaw Sunday School ministry on Texas and the world.

On a monthly basis Hale allows one of the inmates to teach the lesson. That routine once put him in a difficult situation. A heavily accented inmate from Africa was scheduled for deportation to his home country. He asked Hale if he could lead a class before he “caught the chain” (prison vernacular for leaving the prison upon release or transfer). Hale wanted to oblige but feared the man’s poor English would make the lesson ineffective. Hale relented and was overwhelmed with the results.

“I don’t know what he did but it was so good. And within two weeks he was gone,” Hale said.

What happens each Sunday in the prison units of Rusk County should not blur the big picture of what is at stake. Hale saw poetic justice in the deportation of the African inmate.

Hale said, “We think we’re in control. The United States government paid to send him to his mission field. That’s exactly how it was.”

How many other “missionaries” could be sent out from the prison at Bradshaw if more men are given the opportunity each Sunday morning to hear the gospel and be discipled?

Hale said he can’t help but wonder.

FORT WORTH—A former NFL quarterback and a missionary strategist in Singapore were among new faculty elected during the April 10-11 meeting of trustees at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. 

David Klingler, former quarterback with the Cincinnati Bengals and Oakland Raiders, was elected assistant professor of biblical studies at the Havard School of Theological Studies in Houston. In addition to teaching there from 2008-2010, he has taught Old Testament studies at Dallas Theological Seminary’s Houston campus since 2010. 

Former International Mission Board team strategy leader John Massey was elected associate professor of missions. In addition to serving in Southern Malaysia and Singapore, he was a lecturer and adjunct professor at Singapore Baptist Theological Seminary and Union University in Jackson, Tenn., and an Air Force Reserve chaplain. 

The board also approved John Yeo, a former professor at Reformed Theological Seminary, as assistant professor of Old Testament, and promoted Robert Bernard to professor of modern languages, Jason Lee to professor of historical theology, and Malcolm Yarnell to professor of systematic theology. Paul Hoskins and John Taylor were promoted to associate professors of New Testament.

Three faculty were approved to occupy endowed chairs, including Thomas Kiker to the James T. Draper Jr. Chair of Pastoral Ministry, Terry Wilder to the Wesley Harrison Chair of New Testament, and David Penley to the Hope for the Heart Chair of Biblical Counseling.

The board approved a $42,039.846 budget for next year—an increase of $7.14 million over the current year. The new budget includes start-up costs for the Dead Sea Scrolls & the Bible exhibition that opens July 2, and increases in healthcare and retirement costs. Seminary President Paige Patterson explained that the school would break even on the investment after 100,000 people tour the exhibit.

“We think that goal will probably be reached quite easily. Beyond that, however many more we have is how much we get to endow our archaeology program here,” he said, describing the continued cost of archaeological digs in Israel and the island of Cyprus. 

“The far more important purpose of it is to introduce as many people as we can to the nature of Holy Scripture,” Patterson said. One hundred thousand pieces of broken pottery that were to be discarded by the Smithsonian Institute will fill a demonstration dig site. “Every kid will find a first-century piece of pottery and be able to take that home with him.” 

Kevin Ensley, vice president of business administration, announced increases in tuition to offset anticipated declines in Cooperative Program giving, including a 7 percent increase from $187 to $200 per credit hour for most master’s degree students, while the cost of graduate level courses in church music will increase 15 percent and undergraduate tuition jumps 5.9 percent.

Current board officers were re-elected, including Hance Dilbeck of Oklahoma City as chairman, Jimmy Jackson of Huntsville, Ala., as vice-chairman and Harlan Lee of Phoenix as secretary. 

In his report to the board, Patterson honored Executive Vice President and Provost Craig Blaising, who completed 10 years of service. The seminary granted Blaising a year’s sabbatical, which he has devoted to completing a book on eschatology. 

Patterson also reported that 12 students are beginning work on the new non-resident Ph.D. in World Christianity in May, reaching the maximum number of participants in the first year. He praised enrollment growth at the College at Southwestern and the Houston campus of the seminary. An offer to purchase the Houston facility was acknowledged, however, no proposal will be made for relocating the campus until further study of options, he said.

Much of the growth in Houston was attributed to offering two undergraduate classes inside the Darrington maximum-security prison where 70 students are enrolled. With those classes open to over 1,900 inmates, four Muslim students converted to faith in Christ.

“We knew those lives would be transformed,” Patterson said. “Eventually what will happen through the years is that it is going to transform the whole life that takes place in that penitentiary.”

Patterson also predicted “a great church-planting movement by the grace of God” as Southwestern begins to develop a strategy to embrace the unengaged, unreached Tandroy people of Madagascar. Faculty and staff left April 12 for a vision trip and students are expected to take the first mission trip to the region in December.

Meeting briefly in executive session, trustees approved an initial $20,000 reserve account that will be applied to either deferred compensation for the president or the construction of a missionary home to be owned by the seminary, a project that will be evaluated by a committee appointed by the board chairman.

Having presided over the meeting in the absence of the chairman, Jackson told the TEXAN that Patterson had declined any increase to his salary. “We felt like his salary is lagging behind the other agencies of the Southern Baptist Convention and we needed to close that gap, but do it in a way that it did not penalize him tax-wise.” 

HOUSTON—For seminary student Samantha Williams, the “B” in HBU means more than “Baptist.” It represents a time and a place where she came to know Christ and His will for her life.

Because Houston Baptist University’s Christian identity is so central to Williams’ transformation during her time as a student, she opposes recently announced plans to take the denominational identifier out of the school’s name. Like other alumni opposed to the change, Williams sees no need for her alma mater to take on a new identity.

But school officials say the term “Baptist” limits the school’s potential student pool to people who grew up in the denomination’s Southern network of churches. Students who did not grow up going to a Baptist church might not feel welcome at the school, officials say. And as HBU prepares to return to NCAA Division I athletic competition and reintroduce a core liberal arts program, trustees hope to expand its appeal outside the south and the Southern Baptist Convention.

Former Houston Baptist University Provost Paul Bonicelli supports the proposal. He believes denominational monikers can hinder a school’s growth and, consequently, the reach of the gospel.
“It’s about time,” Bonicelli said in response to news that HBU trustees are exploring the possibility of a name change for the 51-year-old university. “I was always an advocate of that.”

If Houston Baptist changes its name, it would not be the only one without that descriptor among Baptist-affiliated colleges and universities. Among the 54 Baptist-affiliated schools listed on the Southern Baptist Convention’s website, only 15 have the word “Baptist” in their name. Among them that don’t: Union University, the University of Mobile and Louisiana College.

Even as one “raised at the knee” of notable pastor and three-time Southern Baptist Convention President Adrian Rogers, Bonicelli said denominational affiliations in the names of institutes of higher education can prove to be more of a hindrance than a draw.

As part of its efforts to expand the school’s reach, the 36-member HBU Board of Trustees commissioned a study to determine the school’s name recognition. Spokesman R. Kimberly Gaynor, vice president for university communications, said the results of the survey were telling.

“Disturbingly, we got back, at significant levels, a clear impression that our name presents some confusion,” he said.

Respondents readily identified the university among Houston’s other four-year institutions, most notably Rice University and the University of Houston, but beyond name recognition, respondents knew little of substance about the school. Some even said they weren’t sure about the meaning of Baptist in the school’s name, Gaynor said.

The anticipated elevation in the school’s profile will demand clarification, Gaynor said.

Beginning next year, the university will return to NCAA Division 1 athletic competition, and in 2014, the school’s first football team will take the field. The university has moved to the Southland Conference, pitting it against neighboring Texas schools, including Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, and Lamar University in Beaumont. Gaynor said 100,000 alumni of Southland Conference schools live in the Greater Houston area, a large source of potential attention for the campus.

In the academic arena, HBU has reintroduced a core liberal arts program and hopes soon to establish a doctoral program.

Even with an elevated profile, Gaynor cited anecdotal evidence indicating prospective students will balk at the school’s name, presuming they cannot be admitted because they are not Baptist.

But HBU’s student population does not substantiate that perception, as the majority do not have a Baptist background.

“What we don’t know is what we’re not getting,” Gaynor said. He asked: How many students do not even consider attending HBU because of misconceptions about who’s allowed to attend?
Williams does not buy that argument.

“Obviously the name ‘Baptist’ is not even limiting,” said Williams, who was raised Seventh Day Adventist. “I don’t want them to hide who they are.”

The school’s name offers truth in advertising, she argued. The school should be up front about its affiliation, heritage and funding. HBU continues to receive financial support from the Baptist General Convention of Texas, which helped establish the campus. Also, in 2003, the school began a fraternal ministry relationship with the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention. Williams thinks keeping the school’s name but adding a motto or slogan would go further in promoting its true nature. She pointed to other schools, like Texas A&M, that have kept their names, or at least the initials representing their names, long after they expanded past their original educational emphasis.

Williams, 23, credits the school’s environment and Christian student body with her salvation. Raised in a “legalistic” religious environment, Williams said it was the witness of other students who lived their Christian faith in a manner she had rarely seen growing up that gave her an understanding of Scripture. She has since joined First Baptist Church in Houston and is a master of divinity student at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary’s Havard campus in Houston. She hopes to work with student life ministries on a college campus.

That makes this disagreement personal for Williams, and she said other alumni share her view. Former HBU students voiced their concern during two town hall style forums hosted by trustees. Williams attended both meetings. She said current and former students urged the committee formed by trustees not to recommend a change.

But Bonicelli said during his tenure at HBU, alumni and trustees always responded positively during discussions about a potential name change.

“Those who had reservations said, ‘That’s my school. It’s personal,’” he recalled.

If a name change will draw more students to HBU and make them a part of God’s work, then the name change needs to happen, Bonicelli said.

Expunging “Baptist” from the school’s keystone would not “water down” the very foundations of the school, as some fear, Bonicelli said.

“We aren’t just a name,” Gaynor said. “Jesus is Lord, and that’s what we’re about.”

The preamble to the university’s bylaws declares the Lordship of Christ and the Kingdom work of HBU. Each of the 36 trustees must sign a document affirming the preamble and a unanimous vote is required to change even one word of it, Gaynor said: “That transcends the name. It gets to the DNA of the university. We’re never going to change that document.” 

—This story first appeared at worldmag.com.