Letter to the Editor
September 30, 2022
Dear Editor:
As a 2014 graduate of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, I am closely monitoring events at my beloved alma mater with a great deal of disappointment and sadness. There is an unparalleled crisis on Seminary Hill that will take the wisdom of king Solomon to rectify.
If recent reports are substantially correct, Southwestern Seminary is in a grave financial and institutional crisis that recently appointed Interim President David Dockery and O.S. Hawkins, as senior advisor and ambassador at-large, will need to use all their collective wisdom and experience to salvage.
Again, if recent reports can be trusted, SWBTS is millions of dollars in debt, student enrollment numbers are catastrophically low, and campus morale is at an abysmally downward ebb after the sudden and dramatic resignation of former seminary President Adam Greenway.
From the vantage point of this alumnus, it appears Greenway had lost his way after initially starting out well. He assumed the presidency in the aftermath of trustees’ termination of Paige Patterson, one of the primary architects of the so called “conservative resurgence” that sought to drive perceived “moderates” from the Southern Baptist Convention and rally the denomination around the ideological concept of biblical inerrancy.
In the estimation of this alumnus, if Dockery and Hawkins are to be successful in rescuing SWBTS from financial and institutional collapse, they must also reform the trustee system and hiring and firing process that caused much of the current crisis at Southwestern Seminary.
For too long the trustees of SWBTS have allowed the presidents of our venerable theological institution to indiscriminately hire and fire faculty and staff members at will. Greenway appears to have fired many long-time seminary faculty and staff members in an arbitrary and arguably punitive manner.
Greenway’s recent firing of David Allen, the much loved and respected professor of preaching, is just one example of the indiscriminate manner seminary presidents have hired and fired professors in an autocratic manner. This must change to provide much-needed stability and morale to our beleaguered seminary community.
Dockery and Hawkins also must establish safeguards at SWBTS that will hold the incoming seminary president to be prudent with financial resources. Again, from the vantage point of this alumnus, it seems recent presidents, to the seminary’s detriment, have spent far too much money on new buildings and personal renovation projects.
Despite these enormous challenges, I still believe in the mission of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and believe David Dockery and O.S. Hawkins can right the ship and turn things around for the furtherance of the gospel.
Our beloved school on Seminary Hill is still a great seminary and with the right leadership, can be turned around for the glory of God and the training of Southern Baptist students for the cause of Jesus Christ in our lost world. But the time is now to reform the trustee system and hiring process.
Lee Enochs, Denton, Texas