Saturday, November 7, 1998

'Wifely submission' statement creates tensions at seminary

By JIM JONES

Fort Worth Star-Telegram

FORT WORTH -- To submit or not to submit. Professors at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth were pondering that question last week.

Faculty members of the 3,300-student seminary -- the nation's largest -- are being asked to sign an updated Baptist doctrinal statement that contains a controversial clause stating that wives must "submit" graciously to the servant leadership of their husbands.

Although faculty members emphatically support a strong stand for the traditional family -- which backers say is the intent of the statement -- many professors have reservations about the "wifely submission" part of the document.

The amendment to the Baptist Faith and Message Statement -- the first since 1963 -- created a furor last summer when it was approved at the national Southern Baptist Convention in Salt Lake City.

It begins: "The husband and wife are of equal worth before God, since both are created in God's image . . . A husband is to love his wife even as Christ loved the church . . . "

Then comes the part that, to some, flies in the face of equal rights for women: "A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits itself to the headship of Christ."

Besides having reservations about the submission part of the statement, some faculty argued that the Fort Worth seminary is changing the rules of employment. Seminary faculty members were hired under the 1963 version of the doctrinal statement -- not the revised version.

Two professors have already said they won't sign, choosing to leave the seminary. Dan G. Kent, professor of Old Testament for 19 years, will retire in June, but his objection to signing the statement is only one reason for his retirement, he said. Health problems and the fact that his wife is happily retired also were factors.

Alan Brehm, assistant professor of New Testament since 1992, submitted his resignation to seminary President Ken Hemphill. The latest event caused him to make a decision he said he had been considering for some time.

"I had already been experiencing a crisis of conscience over the direction of the Southern Baptist Convention and over recent events at Southwestern," Brehm said. "This has helped clarify my decision."

Brehm said he backs support for the traditional family, but he has concerns about the wording of the Baptist doctrinal statement.

"One concern is that I feel that the statement does not allow other legitimate interpretations of what Ephesians 5 has to say about male-female relationships in marriage," Brehm said.

Some critics of the statement have complained that it failed to emphasize Ephesians 5:21, which asks wives and husbands to submit "yourselves one to another."

Most of the more than 150 full- and part-time Southwestern faculty members are expected to eventually sign the doctrinal statement, said David Porter, a seminary spokesman. Southwestern's bylaws have always required professors to teach in accordance with the Baptist Faith and Message Statement, a general statement of Baptist beliefs.

Trustees two weeks approved a bylaw requiring faculty members to sign the more controversial, updated version of the statement of faith. Also, the change means professors must support any future revisions to the doctrinal statement.

Kent told the Associated Baptist Press that he and others resented endorsing a broad, "open-ended" statement of faith. It means, he said, that professors would be endorsing any future statement approved by the Southern Baptist Convention.

"This issue has caused a great deal of heartache and concern," Kent said after the trustees 'meeting. "The faculty has been carrying a terrible burden for the past several weeks. I hurt for them. I wish there was some way it could be avoided."

Seminary President Hemphill and other officials of the graduate training institution are attempting to dampen the controversy and retain the strong support the 90-year-old seminary is still receiving.

No matter how it is approached, though, the latest happening at Southwestern shows a further tightening of control by the dominant conservative leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention.

------

Distributed by The Associated Press