Thomas Henry Graves, founding president of Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond, died Aug. 17 at age 75.
Trained as a Southern Baptist pastor, he became a leader in the so-called “moderate” movement that broke away to create the Alliance of Baptists and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
Thomas Graves
“In many ways, Tom Graves was nurtured in Louisville at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary by his father, a longtime dean and respected educator, by his mother, who was a model of courage, forthrightness and insight, and by the Baptist identity and progressivism of Crescent Hill Baptist Church,” said Bill Leonard, founding dean of Wake Forest University School of Divinity. “When the times demanded it, he brought those and many other qualities into the formation of Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond at a moment in Baptist history that required them. It was an action and institution that brought encouragement and hope to many of us.”
That hope was sorely needed for Southern Baptists who were displaced by the self-described “conservative resurgence” that took control of the Southern Baptist Convention and its six seminaries from 1979 to 1991. Scores of faculty members and administrators were pushed out of or left the SBC schools because they did not adhere to the idea of biblical inerrancy.
BTSR was the first of several new schools formed in reaction to the SBC’s rightward shift. Under his leadership, the Virginia school innovated in ways beyond theology, creating pragmatic new ways of imagining a seminary education.
Under his leadership, the Virginia school innovated in ways beyond theology, creating pragmatic new ways of imagining a seminary education.
That motivation for innovation came from Graves’ childhood formation in the shadow of Southern Seminary but also from his tenure as a pastor. He served Christiansburg Baptist Church in Christiansburg, Ky.; First Baptist Church of Lake Park, Fla.; and St. John’s Baptist Church in Charlotte, N.C.
It was while pastor at St. John’s that Graves began leading an effort to create a new school, not imagining himself as the president. In an undated newspaper clipping from the Richmond News-Leader, likely published in the late 1980s, Graves was quoted as saying he didn’t plan to quit as pastor of St. John’s to lead the seminary. “You don’t start a seminary to hire yourself,” he said.
But as time rolled on, his vision and leadership emerged as keys to building the new enterprise and the initial board of trustees called him to take the helm.
Thomas Graves (center front) with the first board of trustees of Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond. Front row: Lynda Weaver-Williams, Alan Neeley, Mary Strauss, Tom Graves, Morris Ashcraft, Ross Shearer. Back row: Frank Goare, Heath Rada, Jeanette Holt, Ron Crawford, Anne Thomas Neil, Elmer West, Sue Fitzgerald, Basil Manly IV, Clint Hopkins, John Trotti, Brenda Lee. (Not shown: Stan Hastey, Allix B. James, John W. Kinney)
The Baptist seminary was launched under sponsorship of the Alliance of Baptists and as part of the Richmond Theological Center, a group that included Union Theological Seminary, the Presbyterian School of Christian Education and the Virginia Union University School of Theology.
Graves served as president until his early retirement in 2006 at age 58.
Among the things that made BTSR unique among Baptist schools were its interdenominational alliances, its full affirmation of women in ministry and its founding desire to educate students of all races without discrimination.
The seminary “should be an expression of Christian cooperation and inclusion,” Graves told the News-Leader. “We need to say in structural form, as we never have before, racism can have no basis for the foundation of Christ’s work. What better place than Richmond to recognize the Civil War, after all, is over.”
“We need to say in structural form, as we never have before, racism can have no basis for the foundation of Christ’s work.”
Graves came to the task with both pastoral experience and academic experience. He had earned degrees from Vanderbilt University, Southern Seminary and Yale University. He served as a professor of philosophy of religion at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., from 1979 to 1987, before he became pastor of St. John’s Baptist Church.
Graves accomplished all this while living with Multiple Sclerosis for four decades.
“Tom Graves overcame over 40 years of physical limitations to offer creative and courageous leadership … as we established the first theological seminary for Southern Baptists trying to continue affirming women in ministry,” said his longtime friend Dan Bagby.
Another longtime friend, Tommy McDearis, said in a Facebook tribute: “Tom’s crossing to heaven was less difficult than had been some tasks of years past. The scourge of Multiple Sclerosis slowly drained one ability after the other, but it never drained his spirit or his faith.”
McDearis called Graves “the best professor I had in seminary.” The two became friends at Southeastern Seminary, and then Graves invited McDearis to join the staff at St. John’s Church as associate pastor.
“It was a joyful and productive time, one where we proved a progressive church could make and baptize new believers while growing numerically and spiritually,” he said. “We expanded the church’s mission outreach, helped found an interracial Baptist association, and we ministered to a damaged city amidst the storms of Hurricane Hugo.”
“We proved a progressive church could make and baptize new believers while growing numerically and spiritually.”
“Tom Graves was a brave and visionary leader at a time when moderate Baptists desperately needed him. At great personal sacrifice, he showed us a future in which theological education could be redeemed from the toxic impact of fundamentalism,” said Bill Wilson, a former BTSR board member. “He should be on the Mount Rushmore of leaders who helped save Baptist integrity and scholarship.”
Graves was born in 1947 in Charlottesville, Va., and spent most of his childhood in Louisville, Ky., graduating from Atherton High School in 1965.
He was preceded in death by his father Allen Willis Graves, mother Helen Cannan Graves, and brother John Graves.
He is survived by his wife of 53 years, Wendy Fowler Graves; daughters Anne Tuskey and Jennie Gwin; sons-in-law Brian Tuskey and Colin Gwin; and grandchildren Brandon Tuskey, Mollie Tuskey, and Caroline Gwin; sisters Joyce Olney, Cannan Hyde, Virginia Weisz; and brother David.
He was a longtime member at River Road Church, Baptist, in Richmond, where he taught the Shepherd-Holland Sunday school class.
A memorial service will be held at River Road Church on Saturday, Aug. 26, at 11 a.m. The service also will be livestreamed.
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