Ten trustees of Truett McConnell University have gone public with their reasons for voting to retain Emir Caner as president while the board majority voted to fire him last Sept. 25. According to these writers, trustees are set to elect…
Do Lifeway’s trustees even have a pulse?
Just imagine you are an elected trustee of a $300 million denominational entity whose outgoing president lobs verbal grenades toward the trustees and corporate culture on his way out the door. And then you show up a week later for…
Truett McConnell faculty chairs went straight to trustees
The jury is out on the long-term damage to Truett McConnell University brought by a sexual abuse scandal, but the next few weeks will prove critical. News broke May 29 that a former coed had accused a former vice president…
Caner on leave as Truett McConnell trustees investigate abuse claims
Truett McConnell University President Emir Caner has been placed on administrative leave while trustees wait on a third-party investigation into alleged mishandling of sexual abuse complaints at the Georgia Baptist school. University trustees met Friday morning, June 6, as fallout…
How Southwestern Seminary is bouncing back from financial catastrophe
Over the past six years, we have spilt buckets of digital ink here bringing you the saga of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. I’m writing today not in the format of a news story but in the…
Here’s what’s wrong with the SBC’s trustee system
Every problem facing the Southern Baptist Convention, every new crisis and scandal and reported financial irregularity, can be reduced to a single and seemingly insoluble root cause: a bloated trustee system that is outdated, inefficient, unmanageable and hopelessly beset by…
The SBC’s trustee system is broken
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again now: The Southern Baptist Convention’s system of electing trustees to oversee its agencies and institutions is broken and in need of dramatic reform. The latest evidence comes from the bizarre turn…
Northern Seminary expands board; NT professor McKnight resigns
As it seeks to rebuild after a tumultuous year of internal controversy, Northern Seminary has added three new board members, bringing the total number of board members to 16 and increasing the diversity on the governing board. Two other new…
How to find the trustees of the SBC entities behind the amicus brief
Who’s actually responsible for the positions and actions taken by entities of the Southern Baptist Convention? This is a pressing question now, as controversy flares over the SBC and three of its entities signing an amicus brief in a Kentucky…
As seminary enrollment dropped and expenses rose, trustees gave Patterson a $25,000 ‘vacation fund’
In 2008, as enrollment was declining and expenses were skyrocketing, trustees of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary gave Paige Patterson a gift for his fifth anniversary as president. That gift was a $25,000 “vacation fund” to be used at the discretion…
Seminary trustee who called for forensic audit resigns, history of financial dysfunction goes back years
The layers of historical dysfunction in the financial management of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary continue to be peeled back as current trustees and administrators have pledged more transparency — as evidenced by the release of 21 years of audited financial…
Russell Dilday: A portrait of light
Less than a month after John F. Kennedy was buried in Arlington National Cemetery and the eternal flame was lit, it was extinguished. A group of Catholic schoolchildren visiting the memorial was blessing the site with holy water and managed…