Saturday, October 18, 1997

Baptist seminary librarian fired for daring to disagree

By Jim Jones

Knight-Ridder Newspapers

Even though conservatives have been in control of the national Southern Baptist Convention for years, they brook no opposition from denominational employees.

Proof of that came again last week when the 64-year-old reference librarian at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., who was 10 months away from retirement, was suddenly fired.

His sin? He dared criticize comments by the Rev. Tom Elliff, president of the Southern Baptist Convention.

The librarian, Paul Debusman, graduated from Southern Seminary and had been a librarian at the denomination's oldest seminary for 35 years. But he was gone in a minute.

It happened after officials learned that Debusman had written a letter to Elliff taking issue with the Baptist president over a remark he made during a Sept. 16 address at the Louisville seminary.

Elliff had told his audience that when the seminary was controlled by Baptist moderates a few years ago, he probably would not have been invited to speak.

Debusman wrote a private letter to Elliff, pastor of the First Southern Baptist Church in Del City, Okla., and told him he was wrong. He said that when the seminary was controlled by moderates, they made a point of allowing people with differing points of view to speak.

Seminary officials somehow got a copy of the letter. Whether Elliff sent it to them is not known. Neither Elliff nor seminary officials would talk about the matter.

"They came to me and said I had been insubordinate," Debusman said in a phone interview this week. "They asked for my office key. When I returned to get my belongings, they said they would help me. They wanted to see that I didn't take anything."

Daniel L. Aiken, a former faculty member of Criswell College in Dallas who now serves as vice president for academic administration and dean of the school of theology at Southern Seminary, said personnel matters can't be discussed.

But the reason for the firing was pretty clear.

Debusman let people know publicly that he doesn't agree with conservative control of the Southern Baptist Convention.

His bosses interpreted that as insubordination. The fired librarian was planning to retire next year, but he will get most of his benefits.

"My regret is not about that," he said. "It's my loss of ministry. The library is sort of the core of the seminary in many ways."

Ironically, Debusman said his letter to Elliff was meant to be a plea for unity.

"I was trying to be conciliatory. I'm deeply pained by all that has happened since 1979," he said, referring to the year in which the conservative-moderate Baptist split began. "We have wasted a great deal of time and energy on this controversy. It has drained us of our money and our energy."

Debusman had previously stepped out of bounds, in the view of the seminary, by speaking his mind about the Baptist controversy.

When Baptists passed a resolution to boycott Disney last spring - partly because the company extends benefits to the partners of gay employees - Debusman was interviewed by phone by a New York newspaper.

"They were upset that I did the interview," Debusman said. One reason seminary officials were distressed was the newspaper happened to serve a gay community in New York, the librarian said.

Debusman was quoted as saying the low attendance at the convention was caused by the moderate-conservative split. Moderates don't attend because decisions at the meeting are controlled by a core group of conservatives, he said.

Seminary officials interpreted the comments as criticism.

The Louisville seminary adopted a policy two years ago prohibiting employees from saying anything publicly that might be harmful to the seminary. And Debusman said he was told his statements had been harmful.

Debusman's pastor, the Rev. Ron Sisk, pastor of Crescent Hill Baptist Church and a graduate of Southern Seminary, described the fired librarian as one of the kindest men he has ever met.

His firing, said Sisk, indicates that officials at the Louisville seminary are committed to eliminating any hint of disagreement from the faculty and staff of the Baptist institution.

(Jim Jones is religion editor of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Write to him at: the Star-Telegram, P.O. Box 1870, Fort Worth, TX 76101.)

(c) 1997, Fort Worth Star-Telegram

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