“My husband and I both lost our jobs due to the pandemic and financial support from back home has also slowed down. While we are thankful for the support from our church family, the pantry has provided flour for baking bread, oil for frying, and cereal for my kids.”

For approximately 200 students per week, the Food Pantry at Southern Seminary has been a source of financial relief in the midst of a trying situation. Thanks in large part to the generosity of Southeast Christian Church’s basic needs distribution ministry, LifeBridge, the Southern Seminary community, and many other local churches, students were provided with essential goods.

Over the last 100 years, a cultural, moral, and political shift has taken place in Western society that has led to broad devaluing and rejection of Christian truth claims, both privately and in the public square. The place of Christian convictions within Western society has gradually eroded, and this erosion will have monumental effects on modern society.

Evidence for how this shift has reshaped and will continue to reshape society is available for all to see, if people will only look, argues R. Albert Mohler Jr. in his newest work, The Gathering Storm.

The book was released June 2 by Thomas Nelson, and is available at Amazon.com and major booksellers everywhere.

Graduates of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary “see the word of the Lord speed ahead of them,” said R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, at the school’s 225th commencement exercise, May 15, 2020. 

Due to restrictions on large gatherings, the commencement was live-streamed, with no graduates physically in attendance. The service has been live-streamed in the past, but the 225th commencement marks the first commencement at Southern Seminary where students watched exclusively online, rather than attending the ceremony in Alumni Chapel. 

The Augustine Honors Collegium at Boyce College will be co-directed by Bryan Baise and Tyler Flatt, announced R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. The Augustine Honors Collegium is an interdisciplinary program that strives to produce graduates dedicated to the life of the mind, to serving the church, and to the common good.

“The Augustine Honors Collegium has quickly established itself as an integral component of Boyce College's academic programs, drawing an exceptional group of students from around the world,” said Matthew J. Hall, provost and senior vice president of academic administration at the Seminary. “I am so pleased that Drs. Baise and Flatt will be leading this program together. Both of them are Christian scholars of deep conviction and fidelity, as well as joyful and passionate teachers who are beloved by students. The future of the Collegium is brighter than ever with them leading it.”

For the first time in its 23 year history, classes went online for Seminary Wives Institute (SWI) in March, as residential students quickly adapted to the new format and distance students were invited to enroll as well. Students from five countries and 21 states took five different classes via live video feed for the six week term that completed the academic year. Sixteen students will graduate this month after completing the three year certificate program.

SWI plans to continue offering student wives the opportunity to prepare for the ministry to which God has called them, with the eager expectation to again meet on campus, if allowed by government authorities. If that is not possible in the fall, SWI has contingency plans to again meet live via video with a full slate of course offerings for the two fall terms starting August 20 and ending on November 12. Mary Mohler, Founder and Director of SWI, stated that plans are underway to eventually offer the entire program both on campus and online by way of both synchronous and asynchronous classes. The curriculum offers students the theologically sound and practically based teaching that is necessary to equip a pastor’s wife for gospel service.

The centrality of the gospel to the Christian life is a mark of evangelical Christian belief. It is all but a truism that evangelicals are gospel people. But, the gospel message that Jesus Christ died as a substitute for those who come to him by faith not only serves as the life-blood of the Christian life: the gospel shapes the pastor’s life, it grounds his ministry, and it provides the foundation and content of his ministry. Pastors are, as the theme for the 2020 Together for the Gospel conference states, “entrusted with the gospel.” The task to which ministers must give undivided focus is preaching and teaching the gospel, starting with believing it and living in light of it themselves.

Meeting for the first time by digital technology, the Board of Trustees of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary held its annual Spring meeting on April 20 against the background of the COVID-19 pandemic. The board marked complete attendance and conducted its business understanding the historic nature of the meeting, said President R. Albert Mohler Jr. Mohler presented a strategic report to the trustees that highlighted the institution's responsibility to lead faithfully amidst the COVID-19 crisis and that, in Mohler’s words, underlined the administration’s “absolute determination to continue Southern Seminary’s legacy and mission with excellence and faithfulness long into the future.”

In his report to the trustees, Mohler noted that the seminary has demonstrated leadership and tenacity during times of crisis, from its founding in 1859 until today, through the Civil War, two World Wars, the 1918 pandemic, and the Great Depression. “Since 1859, Southern Baptists have turned to The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary for pastors, missionaries, and other servants of Christ.” It will continue faithfully training church leaders through the crisis presented by the coronavirus, said Mohler.

Boyce College will be adding two new Seminary Track programs to its academic offerings. The two new programs will be a bachelor of arts in Business Administration with a master of divinity and a bachelor of arts in Communication with a master of divinity, announced R. Albert Mohler Jr., President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. The Seminary Track program at Boyce College is a five-year curriculum during which time students receive both a bachelor of arts and a master of divinity.

“One of the programs I believe in most at Boyce College is our joint baccalaureate and master of divinity program, because of its power, stewardship, and opportunity,” said Mohler. “With the Business Administration and Communications tracks, this is going to provide even more opportunities for ministry, not only in the church but also in the workplace. What our world needs right now is a generation ready to go with urgency into the pulpit and into the world, and these two new programs are powerful demonstrations of what it means to maximize stewardship to the glory of God and in service to the gospel of Christ.”

Boyce College is providing additional online curriculum to support high school students who are no longer receiving classroom instruction due to the Coronavirus Pandemic, announced Dustin Bruce, Dean of Boyce College, on Friday, March 20.

The dual enrollment program at Boyce College allows high school students to earn transferable college credit hours, while finishing their high school degrees. The program is open to students 15-years-old and older. The dual credit eight-week courses will be available online beginning Monday, March 30, 2020 through the college’s website.

To apply the Bible rightly to a modern Christian audience, a preacher must do two things, argued Abraham Kuruvilla during the 2020 E. Y. Mullins Lectures on Christian Preaching: privilege the text and understand the thrust of the text. The lecture series, entitled “‘Look Before You Leap:’ Text to Application,” was held March 10–11 in Heritage Hall at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Kuruvilla also preached during chapel on March 10.

Kuruvilla currently serves as Senior Research Professor of Preaching and Pastoral Ministries at Dallas Theological Seminary in Dallas, Texas. He has also served as interim pastor of several churches, and as president of the Evangelical Homiletics Society. He is the author of numerous works on preaching, including Privilege the Text! (Moody, 2013), A Vision for Preaching (Baker, 2015), and most recently A Manual for Preaching (Baker, 2019).