MWBTS president told to guard himself, gospel

KANSAS CITY, Mo.—After placing the presidential medallion around the neck of Jason K. Allen on May 1 during the inauguration ceremony for the fifth president of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, trustee Chairman Kevin L. Shrum conveyed the spirit of the day when he asked students, faculty and guests to vigilantly pray for the man who bears the weight of the office.

“In the midst of so many good things, Satan will not stand idly by,” Shrum, a Tennessee pastor, said to a reunion of Southern Baptist leaders as well as family and friends who are close to the 36-year-old Allen, one of the youngest leaders of a college or seminary in the United States.

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President R. Albert Mohler told Allen to guard the integrity of the gospel taught to students. Allen acknowledged the seriousness of the hour, stating, “To our watching denomination I say, this day a man has been installed that loves the churches of this convention.”

He pledged “to serve, in both letter and in spirit, in good faith with the churches of this convention,” welcoming the oversight and accountability those churches exercise over the seminary they own.

Two days earlier trustees embraced Allen’s vision of building a culture that esteems the church, resolving to “fully support the institution bending its energies and resources toward this end.”

Allen told the board, “We are not merely in the credentialing business,” emphasizing the seminary’s original mission of training “pastors, ministers and evangelists for the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention and furnishing pastors, ministers, and missionaries to found and serve Baptist churches internationally.”

The accountability for accomplishing that vision will be judged by the SBC and its churches, Allen explained in his presidential response to Shrum’s charge.

“We intend to bear any burden, pay any price, endure any hardship, seize any opportunity, launch any initiative and embark on any effort to strengthen our claim and fulfill our mission to be the seminary for the church,” Allen, alluding to the seminary’s new tagline, said.

The school is poised to continue the growth experienced under Allen’s predecessor, R. Philip Roberts, breaking the previous year’s record. Recent reviews from an Association of Theological Schools team hailed “transparency, mutual support and confidence in the future.”

New undergraduate dual-major programs will prepare students for bi-vocational ministry and service in closed countries. Three new concentrations to the M.Div. track include preaching and pastoral ministry, Christian ministry, and biblical and theological studies.

To accomplish the church-focused vision, Allen must steward the sacred trust and confession of faith that guides the seminary’s course, Mohler said.

“Among us, a confession of faith must be seen as a gift and a covenant. It is a sacred trust that guards revealed truths,” Mohler said. While a confession never stands above the Bible, Mohler insisted, “The Bible itself mandates concern for the pattern of sound words,” reciting 2 Timothy 1:13-14.

Earlier in his message Mohler appealed for the scriptural mandate of using the right words, pointing to 1 Timothy 6:3-5. “Truth, life and health are found in the right words. Lies, disaster and death are found in the wrong words,” he reminded.

Mohler upheld the requirement that professors affirm a statement of faith, pledging to teach in accordance and not contrary to anything therein, and warned against “any private understandings with a professor, or any hesitation or mental reservation.”

His remarks were delivered at the same school where charges of heresy arose in 1961 following the publication of MBTS professor Ralph Elliott’s “The Message of Genesis,” which treated the first 11 chapters of Genesis as mythological literature. Four years after the founding of Midwestern, seminary administrators and the SBC-owned publisher scrambled to minimize the damage that publication caused. Critics found encouragement in the first revision to the Baptist Faith and Message two years later in 1963.

“Theological education is a deadly serious business,” Mohler reminded. “The stakes are so high. A theological seminary that serves faithfully will be a source of health and life for the church, but an unfaithful seminary will set loose a torrent of trouble, untruth and sickness upon Christ’s people.” Southern Baptists learned that lesson the hard way, he said, having “paid the price of theological controversy for the sake of recovering that which was lost.”

Describing seminaries as “the incubators of the church’s future,” Mohler said, “Their teaching imparted to seminarians will shortly be inflicted upon congregations, where the result will be either fruitfulness or barrenness, vitality or lethargy, advance or decline, spiritual life or spiritual death.”

The doxological purpose of confessional integrity makes certain “we rightly worship and love God,” Mohler added, quoting hymn writer Fanny Crosby’s appeal to “tell me the story of Jesus, write on my heart every word; tell me the story most precious, sweetest that ever was heart.”

Having filled the pulpit of an Alabama church on the day Allen was baptized nearly 18 years ago, Mohler reflected on the life of his younger peer. “Never underestimate what you see before your eyes in someone whose baptism you witness.”

During events a day earlier, International Mission Board President Tom Elliff addressed the priority of the Great Commission at a missionary preparatory school while Union University President David Dockery reminded faculty of Midwestern’s essential Baptist identity.

Robin D. Hadaway, the interim Institutional Administration Vice President, offered a prayer for the nations at the inauguration and later drew strong applause from the crowd in recognition of his service as interim president.

Missouri Baptist Convention Executive Director John Yeats imagined Midwestern’s role in bringing revival to the nation out of the Heartland, encouraging continued preparation of church planters to serve along the I-29 corridor.

Executive Committee President Frank Page thanked Allen for being “a champion for the churches” that “poured millions into this institution” through the Cooperative Program. “My job is to get you the money you need,” he pledged. Later, he encouraged Allen to follow the instruction “to do right” outlined in Micah 6:8 instead of appealing to the “rights” of his office.

Also present for the day were two former presidents, Mark T. Coppenger who served from 1995 to 1999, and Milton Ferguson who served from 1972 to 1995. Both men spoke briefly at the luncheon honoring Allen.

Coppenger, vice president for extension education and professor of Christian apologetics at Southern Seminary,  encouraged Allen to preserve biblical inerrancy, cherish the physical classroom, learn and love the Heartland, cultivate the seminary as a destination and be a player/coach who wins souls and loves missions.

Ferguson joked that he had a gold bar he would pass along while admitting some of the paint had tarnished since given to him in 1973 by the late Duke McCall, former president of Southern Seminary. The seminary faculty gave a GPS watch to encourage Allen to exercise by walking the hundred-acre woods along the campus.

“This says we want you here a long time and if you travel we want you to come back,” Hadaway explained.

Texan Jimmy Draper of Southlake, emeritus president of LifeWay Christian Resources, began the day by praying for Allen’s family and thanked God for placing them in the Vivian Farm home where their lives would serve as a testimony and example to students preparing for ministry.

Hawaii pastor Jonathan Elliff spoke of his personal friendship with Allen, having studied alongside him at Southern Seminary. Elliff admitted to borrowing a pair of tan socks in order to dress for the occasion honoring a man who “overdressed” while a student. “God blessed you with a job where you’ll wear a suit every day,” he quipped.

Elliff prayed for Allen’s wife and each of their children by name, a priority repeated by Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary President Daniel Akin at the luncheon afterward. Speaking directly to Allen within earshot of the crowd of ministers, Akin said the new president would one day retire from his current job, but his wife and five children always remain his primary responsibility.

“Teach your children to love and serve Jesus and have fun,” he advised, “and one day they’ll bring your grandchildren to see you.”  

Southern Seminary’s Donald Whitney, senior associate dean of theology and associate professor of biblical spirituality, warned Allen that “by means of faithfulness here, you can become unfaithful,” referring to the temptation to succumb to pride from the power of the position. “Never outgrow the need to feed your own soul,” he added, encouraging Allen to find a man “whose paycheck is not dependent on your favor” who will ask, “’Are you a man of God? Are you in the Word? Are you lying to me?’”

As the celebration drew to a close, trustee Wayne Lee of Southlake noted, “We’re in the middle of the heartland of America while Texas is one of those Bible-belt states where we take so much for granted, having churches with huge towers and thousands of people.

“My challenge to Texans would be if you really have a heart for propagating the gospel of Christ and you are interested in being a minister to America, then I would challenge you to look closely at coming to Midwestern and perhaps planting your life somewhere in the North where there is a darkness.”

—With additional reporting by Tim Sweetman of Midwestern Seminary