GEORGETOWN, Ky. (ABP) — Retired Florida State University professor and former "Baptist Hour" radio preacher Charles Wellborn died Oct. 1 at his home in Georgetown, Ky.
Contemporaries described Charles Wellborn, who died Oct. 1 at age 86 as one of the best and most prophetic preachers of his generation.
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Contemporaries described Wellborn, 86, as one of the best preachers they ever heard and the clearest voice of conscience among his generation of Baptists.
Wellborn accepted Christ at age 23 amid the Southern Baptist youth revival movement of the 1940s and 1950s. He began preaching on the "Baptist Hour," a weekly program produced by what was then called the Radio Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, in 1948 while still a student at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
After graduating from seminary Wellborn served 10 years as pastor of Seventh & James Baptist Church, adjacent to the Baylor University Campus in Waco, Texas. After the congregation voted to open its membership to people of all "races and colors" in 1958, the young pastor received threatening phone calls and a cross was burned on the lawn of the parsonage.
Wellborn left Seventh & James in 1961 to begin doctoral studies at Duke University, where he received his Ph.D. in 1964. He taught at the Baptist-affiliated Baylor — his alma mater — and Campbell College in Buies Creek, N.C., until his marriage ended in divorce, effectively ending his preaching and teaching career in Southern Baptist ranks. He found a niche at Florida State University, first as chaplain to the university, then as professor of religion and finally as dean of FSU's British campus in London before his retirement in 1990.
Influenced by seminary professors including T.B. Maston, Southwestern's legendary professor of Christian ethics, Wellborn continued to speak to Southern Baptists through his writing. Over the years he wrote seven books, two plays and more than 100 articles in scholarly and popular journals.
He was a frequent contributor to Christian Ethics Today, an independent journal started in 1995. In 2003 Smyth & Helwys published a book of Wellborn's essays and sermons collected over 50 years under the title of one of his writings, Grits, Grace, and Goodness.
Wellborn was a member of Faith Baptist Church in Georgetown, Ky. His memorial service is scheduled there at 1 p.m. on Oct. 10. Visitation before the service begins at noon. Burial will be in Texas at Waco Memorial Park. Memorial gifts are suggested to go to the Charles T. Wellborn Endowed Lecture Series account at Florida State's religion department.
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Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.