The final distribution of assets from Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond will help launch a new Center for Faith, Justice and Reconciliation and a Baptist House of Studies at Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond.
As previously reported, Union Presbyterian Seminary is one of two seminaries that have agreed to work with Cooperative Baptist Fellowship churches and potential students in Virginia. The other is Baptist Seminary of Kentucky, which will serve Virginia students through its distance learning platform.
BTSR was birthed and became one of the first partners of the then-newborn CBF movement in the early 1990s. Due to a variety of issues, including finances, BTSR closed after the spring semester in 2019.
Bill Wilson
With about $300,000 available due to an estate gift after the school’s closing, two grants have been made to maintain the seminary’s vision and mission, said Bill Wilson, director of the Center for Healthy Churches and the final chair of the BTSR board.
The new Center for Faith, Justice and Reconciliation will receive about $200,000, and the Baptist House of Studies will receive about $100,000, Wilson said. Both gifts are designated for operating expenses.
The Center will offer its first programs in spring 2021; the Baptist House will enroll its first students in fall 2021.The Baptist House also will benefit from Union Presbyterian Seminary’s commitment to providing full-tuition scholarships for up to 40 qualified full-time Baptist residential students.
“It’s a privilege to support these new initiatives as a way of honoring the legacy of Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond,” Wilson said. “Each will carry on the DNA of the seminary by furthering theological education that is racially inclusive, ecumenically focused and rooted in Baptist heritage. And each honors relationships from BTSR’s life that now will continue to bear fruit.”
The grants were made possible by a bequest from an estate that came to the seminary in mid-2020, while trustees were still in the process of settling the school’s obligations, Wilson said. “Without this bequest, BTSR would have finished its life in the red. But thanks to these donors’ generosity, BTSR was able to leave a legacy for the future through supporting these two new institutions.
The Center for Faith, Justice and Reconciliation is a theological think tank dedicated to building “beloved community” by promoting justice, systemic change in congregations and communities, and the reconciliation of people and creation. It is committed to a community of gender inclusivity, racial diversity and ecumenical commitment.
Bill Leonard
The center’s board of directors held its inaugural board meeting last month. Bill Leonard, Baptist historian and founding dean of the Wake Forest University School of Divinity, is chair of the board. The center’s president is Corey D. B. Walker, professor of humanities at Wake Forest University and former vice president and dean of the Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology at Virginia Union University.
The center will be housed in the Lou and Randall Lolley Center for Baptist History in the library of Union Presbyterian Seminary. It will provide short-term educational programs for students, congregations and other communities, a forum for ideas and best practices on issues of racial justice and reconciliation, and resources to equip congregations and communities in advancing the work of justice and reconciliation.
Corey Walker
“The vision that inspired the founding of BTSR continues with the establishment of the Center for Faith, Justice and Reconciliation,” Walker said.
“Just as BTSR was founded at a divisive and critical juncture in Baptist life when the denominational status quo wouldn’t hold, the new Center for Faith, Justice and Reconciliation begins at a parallel moment in our national life when divisions are intense, justice often seems elusive, and when religious traditions and American culture alike require new resources for addressing our chaotic times,” Leonard added.
Related articles:
Baptists in Virginia get two new theological education options
BTSR graduates 21 in its final commencement ceremony
Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond to close in 2019
BTSR moves up closing to Jan. 31
The decision to close BTSR was gut-wrenching. It was also necessary | Jackie Baugh Moore
