The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has appointed noted women’s ministry leader Jaye Martin as interim director of women’s ministry programs.

Martin, who serves as women’s evangelism strategist for the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention (NAMB), is a sought-after speaker and creator of the HeartCall women’s evangelism program. She will continue at NAMB in addition to her duties at Southern Seminary.

“Jaye is one of the top evangelical women’s leaders in the nation,” said Brad Waggoner, dean of Southern’s School of Leadership and Church Ministry. “She is just phenomenally gifted. She’s a talented speaker, communicator and visionary for women’s ministry around the country. So we’re just thrilled to get her quality leadership here.”

Martin will provide strategic leadership for the academic track and the church-based aspect of Southern’s women’s ministry program, Waggoner said.

The seminary offers both a master of arts in Christian education and a master of divinity with emphases in women’s ministry. Southern’s church-based women’s ministry program includes the Women’s Ministry Institute (WMI), which trains women to conduct evangelism and discipleship in local congregations. WMI awarded certificates to its first seven graduates this spring.

“It is my honor to come alongside great scholars and under dynamic leaders to focus on developing student women to be effective, cutting-edge leaders in the postmodern world,” Martin said.

“In the tradition of Southern, we will focus on conservative biblical foundations with strong and practical educational and leadership applications. It is our desire for student women to complement the pastor and staff they serve with as well as to be experts in their fields of study,” said Martin, who is currently a doctoral student at Southern.

Southern Seminary President R. Albert Mohler Jr. noted the importance of women’s ministry to the seminary’s overall mission and purpose.

“We are thankful that so many gifted and committed women—women who share our convictions and vision—have come to Southern Seminary,” Mohler said. “They bring their gifts, wisdom, scholarship and calling to the Southern Seminary family. We are richer for their presence, and our churches will be richer for their service.”

Martin will seek to teach women how to apply theology to ministry situations in local churches, she said.

“Far too many women know biblical truth but have no idea how that plays out in a staff position or in ministering to women, teens and girls who are caught in the embrace of the abnormal culture we live in,” Martin said. “We will build on the high academic standards and the biblical response to the culture that Southern and Dr. Mohler are known for.”

The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has appointed to its faculty “two of the most high-powered Old Testament scholars in the evangelical world,” according to Russell D. Moore, Southern’s senior vice president for academic administration and dean of the school of theology.

Beginning in the fall Eugene Merrill and Kenneth Mathews will join Southern’s faculty, serving as distinguished professors of Old Testament interpretation.

“Students who study with Drs. Mathews and Merrill know that they are studying with men who are academically rigorous but who also maintain a humble, pastoral spirit and a commitment to the local church,” Moore said.

Merrill, who has served since 1975 as distinguished professor of Old Testament studies at Dallas Theological Seminary, is the author of numerous books including “Kingdom of Priests: A History of the Old Testament Israel” and “Deuteronomy” in the New American Commentary Series. He regularly contributes to journals, periodicals, dictionaries and encyclopedias.

Mathews has served since 1989 as professor of divinity at Beeson Divinity School at Samford University in Birmingham, Ala. Among the books he has authored are commentaries on Genesis 1:1-11:26 and Genesis 11:27-50:26 in the New American Commentary Series. He also serves as associate general editor for the New American Commentary Series and is a regular contributor to scholarly journals and other publications.

Both Merrill and Mathews will continue to teach in their present institutions as well as at Southern, Moore said.

Merrill, who is a longtime member of First Baptist Church in Dallas, said he has long admired the leadership and scholarship produced by Southern.

“I have had a great interest in Southern Seminary for many years,” Merrill said. “... I‘ve always been much appreciative of the scholarship there and the leadership that that seminary has provided over the years to the convention.

“And I never dreamed, of course, that I would have any affiliation with the school. I‘m just delighted at what God has done in the last 10 or 15 years and the leadership that is currently there. I‘m just thrilled to death to be able to be part of it.”

Merrill, who has taught Old Testament studies for nearly 30 years, says he is looking forward to sharing his years of scholarly work with students at Southern.

“This is kind of the culmination of all my years of teaching Old Testament studies,” he said. “I find that biblical theology is the end product of years of study of Hebrew and hermeneutics and all the other disciplines. So I hope I‘m able to share some of my theological work and insights with students there at Southern.”

Moore said Merrill is a scholar whom he has long admired.

“Eugene Merrill is a hero of both mine and President Mohler’s and has been for many years,” Moore said. “... He has really stood as the premier Old Testament scholar who is committed to a conservative view of Scripture for well over a generation.”

Mathews hopes to enable students to preach and teach the Bible effectively and to understand the importance of the Old Testament.

“I have a passion for helping equip ministers of the Gospel to teach the Word of God faithfully, confidently and effectively,” he said. “And Southern Seminary, which holds a strategic place in the outworking of the Kingdom of God, provides me that opportunity.”

He commended Southern’s commitment to the Old Testament as inspired Christian Scripture, a commitment that will produce capable and powerful ministers, he said. Mathews has served as a visiting professor to Southern for the past few years.

“One of the important contributions of the seminary is its desire for the minister to view the Old Testament as Christian Scripture, not a history of ancient Israel or a history even of Israel’s religion, but a proclamation that the Christian community can own and proclaim,” Matthews said.

Moore called Mathews’ commentaries on Genesis “awe-inspiring” because of their level of scholarship and their teaching that the Old Testament points to Christ.

“Not only is his scholarship so clear and compelling, but also it is so Christocentric,” Moore said. “Ken Mathews understands our commitment at Southern Seminary to understanding all of the Bible as pointing to Jesus Christ, including the Old Testament.”

Moore concluded that Merrill and Mathews “are world-renowned scholars, both of whom are committed to the full authority of all of Scripture and the importance of the Old Testament revelation.”

Graduates of Boyce College have a responsibility to use their education to impact the world for Christ, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President R. Albert Mohler Jr. said at the college’s commencement service May 14. Boyce College is the undergraduate school of Southern Seminary.

“We are to be Christians who think,” he said. “That is why, when we celebrate today your graduation, we’re not just celebrating the fact that you’ve been in an extended camp for four years, but that you have been in the process of learning for these years. Gird up your minds for action.”

Seventy-nine students graduated from Boyce, including 19 from the Seminary Wives Institute and seven from the inaugural class of the Women’s Ministry Institute.

Preaching from 1 Peter 1, Mohler urged graduates to think as Christians in a world that views believers as “aliens and strangers.”

“The hope of this generation of Christians is that the education you have received in Boyce College will prepare you not to be out-thought, but to out-think,” he said. “... Our hope is that the years you have invested in study and the years that have been invested in you by this faculty will show much fruit in the fact that your minds will be agile and active. You’ll be thinking ... but you’ll be thinking as Christians.”

One key to thinking as a Christian is to maintain a sobriety of spirit, Mohler noted. Christian sober-mindedness should be rooted in the knowledge that Christ has purchased us with His blood and that eternity is on the horizon, he said.

“We are to fix our hope completely on the grace to be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ ... Our lives, our thinking, our conduct, our worldview, our analysis – all of these things must be different precisely because we know what’s coming,” he said.

“We look forward to that day when every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.”

Ultimately Christians should strive to adopt a Christian worldview in order to make their lives reflect the holiness of God, Mohler said.

“We have been confronted with the Word of God ... and there is obligation in that,” he said. “But there is now obligation that is addressed to you as well. For you have received from this faculty and from your program of training so much that is now invested in you, and what was excusable once in ignorance is excusable no more. For we must live up to what we know.”

Mohler concluded his charge by reminding graduates that their future ministries will depend on remaining alert and drawing from the foundation they received at Boyce.

“As a faculty and administration we know we will face a judgment for how we taught and for how this school prepares those who would claim the name of Christ,” he said. “You go today with our hopes, with our prayer. You go with our great ambition. You go with our congratulations. But we can’t let you go without an exhortation: keep your minds alert.”

Boyce dean James Scroggins told graduates that their education at Boyce should help them love Christ and His Word with greater fervor.

“Our hope when you graduate is that you love the Bible more and are able to teach it more effectively than ever before, that you love people more than you ever have before, that you love Jesus more than you ever have before, that you love the Gospel of Jesus Christ more than you ever have before because this is a Gospel school,” he said.

The existence of Boyce College fulfills the vision of nineteenth-century Baptist theologian James P. Boyce who hoped “that people from all kinds of social backgrounds and academic backgrounds would be able to come to a place and study and train to take the Gospel to the world,” Scroggins said.

Just as Boyce had a passion to send out ministers to proclaim the Gospel in his day, Boyce College has a passion to send out ministers to proclaim the Gospel today, he said.

“You are here because your task to take this Gospel to people wherever you go and invite them to come to Jesus Christ.”

Moses is an excellent example of humility and faith that teaches modern church leaders how to remain faithful to their calling, R. Albert Mohler Jr. said Friday during his spring graduation address at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Preaching from Hebrews 11:23-29 at the school’s 195th commencement, the seminary president told graduates that Moses is a great role model for ministry because he considered the eternal reward of suffering for Christ—whom he had not seen—to be greater than earthly pleasures. Such an eternal perspective must typify all ministers, he said.

Southern’s graduating class included 227 students. Bruce A. Ware, professor of Christian theology and senior associate dean of the School of Theology, received the Findley B. and Louvenia Edge Faculty Award for Teaching Excellence.

Mohler set forth four main lessons from the life and ministry of Moses that should characterize the service of ministers who lead congregations in the 21st century.

First, Mohler said Moses teaches ministers how to answer the call of God. Moses initially answered “here I am” to God’s call, and despite showing reluctance later, remained faithful to that call. This is the proper answer for today’s church leader, and times will come when the call of God is all the minister will have to urge him on, Mohler said.

“Moses is also an honest model of the kind of questions that come along with the call, the kind of hesitation that may be deeply rooted in our hearts as we wonder why God would call someone like ourselves,” Mohler said. “But the call was central to Moses.

“But as Moses gains confidence, we know he first of all gains the confidence to stare down Pharaoh. How could he do that if he did not know he had been called? Moses had this assurance of [the] call when he led the children of Israel through dangers, toils and snares...There will be times in your ministry when all you know is your call and the God who has called you and amazingly enough, that will be enough.”

Second, Mohler said Moses shows ministers how to speak for God. Though Moses tells God he is “slow of speech and slow of tongue,” by God’s power he eventually speaks forth the oracles of God to the children of Israel, Mohler said.

While modern ministers are not instruments through which God speaks new revelation, they are to be the ones through whom God’s Word, the Scripture, speaks, Mohler said. They must faithfully preach and teach the Word, he said.

“We are called to speak and how dare we close our mouths?” Mohler said. “We have not been called to be silent...We are called to speak on behalf of the one that said if we do not speak and if we do not confess Him, then the stones will speak...

“We are to speak on behalf on God. We are to preach and proclaim and to teach the Word of God. We are to open our mouths and out of our mouths should come the Word of God and that means God’s Word.

“The infallible, inerrant Word we know as the Holy Scriptures we are to speak. And then God, in the mystery and absolute indescribable context of the power of preaching, through His human instruments, makes His Word again come alive. The Holy Spirit applies this Word to human hearts, and the preacher’s open mouth becomes a channel of God’s blessing to His people.”

Third, Mohler said Moses shows modern ministers how they are to love God’s people. Mohler pointed out that the children of Israel were a “stiff-necked” people who were difficult to lead. All of God’s people are difficult to lead, but the minister is called to love them through patient, persevering leadership, Mohler said.

“One of the great dangers is that the Christian minister will love the church in theory but not in flesh,” he said. “One of the insidious temptations is to love a church of our imagination rather than the flesh-and-blood church of sinners saved by grace who can be stiff-necked, but who can turn around and show the love of God in the most unexpected ways...

“It (the difficulty of ministering to people) tests not only our leadership theory, but our confidence in the Word of God, for it is the Word of God that must do this thing, not we poor sinners. Our task is to declare, to preach and teach the Word of God and trust that God will take His Word and do His work in His own time.”

Fourth, Mohler said Moses demonstrates how ministers are to die in hope. Mohler urged graduates to ponder the inevitable reality that, should Christ tarry, they will eventually die. Moses did not die in despair but in hope and ministers must communicate this great eternal hope to their congregations, Mohler said.

“Like Moses, there are limits to our earthly leadership, there are boundaries to our own ministry,” Mohler said. “But will we die in despair or will we die in hope? Will we die with a great question mark over our grave or will we die in confidence that God will surely accomplish His purposes?

“We had better order our ministries knowing we are going to die and we had better expect that our task is going to have limits that will helpfully remind us that only God can do this thing.”

While Moses is a great role model, Mohler reminded graduates that the ministry is not ultimately about the central figure of the Old Testament but about the central figure of human history, the Lord Jesus Christ. While Moses was a mediator, he merely prefigured the Great Mediator, Mohler said.

“Moses was a leader but Christ is a Savior,” said Mohler, referring to Hebrews 3. “Moses was a prophet, but Jesus Christ is the great Prophet and Priest and King. Moses was a servant in the house but Jesus Christ is the Lord of the House, the Son of the Father whose house it is.

“It is so important we understand that when we look at Moses, after all, we are not the people of Moses. We are the people of Christ. But how thankful we must be that we have been given an example like Moses...But in the end we understand it is all about Christ, for He is the Mediator who accomplished our salvation...and the One whose church we serve.”

How can seminary students, faculty and staff use their theological knowledge to make an immediate impact throughout the world for Christ?

For nearly 80 students, faculty and staff at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary the answer is taking summer mission trips.

Teams from Southern will travel to six countries on three continents this summer spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The teams will engage in such activities as conducting cultural research, evangelizing people from other world religions, participating in post-tsunami cleanup efforts and planting churches.

“It’s an incredible thing to reflect on what God can and will do through these, our brothers and sister who are going to these specific places,” Southern Seminary President R. Albert Mohler Jr. said during a commissioning service April 28.

“We don’t know all you are going to face this summer,” he said. “... I think we have good New Testament authority for understanding that the path is not always going to be easy and the road is not always going to be smooth. I think you can expect some opposition to the Gospel. I think you can find some opposition directed specifically at you because those who would carry the Gospel also carry that burden. I pray the Lord will give you protection.”

International teams will travel to South Asia, Guatemala, the Pacific Rim and East Asia. North American missions efforts will extend to Newfoundland and the Northwest Territories in Canada and several states across the U.S.

 

Daniel Wiginton, a master of divinity student from Abilene, Texas, is scheduled to participate in the South Asia trip. He said he looks forward to engaging Muslim men and women in conversations about the Gospel and sharing the love of Christ by meeting practical human needs.

“It’s just about spreading the Gospel and getting God’s Word to people there,” he said. “We know that when God’s Word goes out, it does not return void. So it will be effective in that way.”

Kathy Fredrick, executive secretary to the dean of Southern’s Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism and Church Growth, is scheduled to participate in a trip to Newfoundland in May. As a native of Wisconsin, Fredrick has firsthand knowledge of the particularly severe need for the Gospel across the northern United States and Canada.

“We are from Wisconsin, and we know how badly the Gospel message in needed in the North,” she said. “And so we are very excited to get to go to Canada and present that to the folks up there.”

Mohler assured all the participants in Southern’s summer missions efforts of the seminary’s prayer and support.

“Where you go, prayer will have preceded you,” he said. “So we’re going to pray not only that the Lord would protect you, but that the Lord would prepare the way so that when you arrive where the Lord has sent you, there will be an amazing receptivity to the Gospel because the Holy Spirit has been working in hearts to prepare them for the very Gospel you will come to preach.”

Evangelical Christians have a new Internet resource to help them think through today’s critical cultural, theological and ethical issues. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has launched a new weblog or “blog.”

Mohler already writes a daily commentary on similar issues, but says the weblog provides an opportunity to respond to news as it breaks throughout each day. While his commentaries primarily deal with a single issue each day, Mohler says the blog may be updated several times per day when critical issues arise that demand analysis.

“I wanted to be able to give a quick response from a Christian worldview perspective of the issues that arise every day,” Mohler said. “The commentaries have been very successful and popular, and many people have found them to be a tremendous resource for research. Yet there are more issues than I can address in those daily commentaries.

“I also want to be able to get some material out almost immediately, and so a blog provides an opportunity to jump on an issue, and to give some weblinks. I think the people who read it will find that there is a pretty constant flow of both analysis and content that will draw their interest.”

The weblog is one of the fastest-growing types of media across the globe. Mohler said one of the main strengths of the blog for Christians and other conservatives is that it avoids the filter of America’s elite media.

“One of the greatest aspects of this is that it provides Christians and others a way around the monopoly of the mainstream media,” Mohler said.

“It is not only rapid response, but it is not blocked by the cultural elites and those who would wish to reframe the arguments in a very different way. So, I think what you are going to see is that the blog has become a major way that news is both communicated and analyzed.”

Another unique aspect of the blog will be its conversational nature, Mohler said. The blog’s entries will include weblinks to pertinent news stories, articles and sites that direct readers to additional information on the topic under discussion.

“The way I look at it, it’s a lot like a conversation,” Mohler said. “It is addressed to the church and to Christians as a way of saying, ‘I think you ought to know about this. This is how I think we ought to start thinking about this, and let’s look into this further.’ That is why the weblinks are there. It enables me to say, ‘I think you ought to go see this article and I want to tell you why.’”

Mohler’s commentary and weblog, along with resources from his national radio show are available at www.albertmohler.com.

The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary recently appointed to its faculty noted spiritual disciplines scholar Donald S. Whitney to teach in a new professorship of biblical spirituality and to pioneer a doctoral program in Christian spirituality.

Whitney, who has served as associate professor of spiritual formation at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary since 1995, is the author of numerous books on Christian spirituality and spiritual disciplines including “Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life,” “Spiritual Disciplines Within the Church,” and “Simplify Your Spiritual Life.”

Whitney will serve as associate professor of biblical spirituality and director of the Supervised Ministry Experience. He will be in charge of assembling a curriculum for Christian spirituality at Southern Seminary and will also develop Ph.D. and doctor of ministry programs in Christian spirituality and the spiritual disciplines, said Russell D. Moore, dean of Southern’s School of Theology. Whitney’s appointment will commence with the fall semester.

“In an era when ‘spirituality’ means anything from Labyrinth walking to primal scream therapy, our churches need biblical wisdom about personal and congregational sanctification,” Moore said. “Donald Whitney is the preeminent scholar of spiritual disciplines in the evangelical world.

“In Don Whitney, Southern Seminary has found the leader to help us ground our churches and church leaders in the call to godliness and holiness. Whitney will pioneer a curriculum for all students in spiritual disciplines, as well as specialized Ph.D. and D.Min. degrees in this crucial area of study.”

In addition to teaching, Whitney travels across the globe each year speaking in conferences and churches on spirituality through his ministry, the Center for Biblical Spirituality (www.BiblicalSpirituality.org), a ministry that will continue with his move to Louisville.

Whitney hopes to help students at Southern pursue Christ-likeness and sanctification even while they are in the midst of academic tasks. As one who has served as a pastor, associate pastor and interim pastor for 25 years, Whitney possesses a passion for teaching future pastors the necessity of setting before their congregations an authentic, Bible-saturated, Christ-centered spirituality.

“I want to help the students of Southern Seminary to pursue intimacy with and conformity (both inward and outward) to Jesus Christ according to the Bible, and to prepare them to teach others—primarily in local churches—to do the same.

“I hope to train the next generation of those who will teach this same discipline of biblical spirituality in colleges and seminaries. Throughout my ministry, I have prayed to see widespread, God-given reformation and revival, and to be used of God in spreading it.”

While the shelves of Christian bookstores bulge with self-help titles and “how-to” guides on spirituality, Whitney says the two primary things he finds missing from much popular teaching on spirituality are the Bible and the Lord Himself. Also absent is the influence of biblically-sound models and teachers, he said.

“Practices borrowed from non-Christian religions and other extrabiblical methods of expressing spirituality sometimes overshadow the individual and congregational spiritual disciplines found in Scripture,” he said.

“A second frequent omission in popular spirituality is the Lord Himself. In such cases, the purpose of the spiritual disciplines often seems too self-ward. I want to focus on the pursuit of God through the God-given means of doing so found in the Bible. I believe the Bible is a sufficient guide for our spirituality, and when rightly followed it will lead us both to the enjoyment of God and the glorification of God...I am confident that the true Gospel produces the best disciples.”

Whitney received a master of divinity from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1975, a doctor of ministry from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in 1985, and is presently nearing the completion of a doctor of theology with specialization in Christian spirituality from the University of South Africa.

Whitney and wife Caffy were married in 1977. The couple has a daughter, Laurelen Christiana. Caffy Whitney is an accomplished illustrator and muralist and has done book covers, illustrations and other designs for numerous publications and publishers including SBC Life, Scripture Press, the National Association of Evangelicals, Reformation Heritage Books, Grace and Truth Books, and Joshua Press. She also taught in the seminary wives program at Midwestern Seminary.

Whitney expects students at Southern to learn about spiritual disciplines, not merely in the abstract by reading and hearing about them, but also by doing them as a classroom requirement.

“A theological seminary, it must be remembered, is an academic institution,” he said. “But as such it always must guard against the tendency to give students the impression that the ministry and the things of God have to do only with the intellect.

“I intend to address the issue of head vs. heart by requiring my students to actually experience the spiritual disciplines, not merely read or hear lectures about them. For example, I won’t just talk in the classroom about prayer, meditation on Scripture, fasting, silence and solitude, and other disciplines. I will require students to practice these disciplines outside of class and report about them in a spiritual journal.”

A group of eleven students, faculty members, and spouses from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary recently returned from a mission trip to one of the regions hardest hit by the devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck Southeast Asia Dec. 26.

Working in Indonesia March 30-April 11, the group undertook a variety of service projects, including teaching English, surveying disaster sites, talking with local residents and restoring wells to a usable condition.

“We saw a few places near the ocean that were completely decimated, where every home was wiped off the face of the earth—except for an occasional wall or two that was left standing,” said Kenneth Magnuson, associate professor of Christian ethics and a participant in the trip. “And we were told it was like that for something like 200 miles down the coast.

“Thousands of wells were filled with salt water. Rice fields were completely destroyed. We drove by a mass grave where 47,000 people were buried in a field the size of a football field.”

Because of the tremendous need for fresh water, local residents frequently called upon the team from Southern to pump out wells. Four members of the team—Magnuson, fellow professors Brad Waggoner and George Martin and master of divinity student Jeff Masengale—made clearing wells one of their primary activities.

“People would see us and come from all around to ask if we could pump their well, hoping to restore fresh water,” Magnuson said. “They would express great appreciation for doing that and often would offer something to drink, giving us an opportunity to receive their hospitality and to talk with them.”

Waggoner, who serves as dean of the school of leadership and church ministry, said the Indonesian people were “very friendly, warm and appreciative of our efforts to help them.”

“I was expecting some anti-Western and anti-Christian hostility, but I never sensed that at all,” Waggoner said. “Most people smiled at us and treated us with great respect.”

Lisa Call, a master of arts student from Macon, Ga., who participated in the trip, said serving tsunami victims opened doors to speak a message of hope to people in the region.

“Every person we met had stories of family members and friends who died in the earthquake or the tsunami, and I am so thankful that we were able to go there for such a time as this,” she said. “God opened the door a couple of times for us to share truth in love with people that we befriended, and they were very open and curious about what we believed. Being able to meet some of their physical needs also allowed us the opportunity to demonstrate His love for them in a very practical way.

“The needs there are great and the task is bigger than I imagined before seeing this area with my own eyes. I definitely believe that the coming months and years of relief work and recovery following the tsunami will have a significant impact on the spiritual climate of Indonesia.”

Waggoner noted that rebuilding efforts lag far behind what he expected before arriving in Southeast Asia.

“I was very surprised by the lack of international rebuilding efforts,” he said. “We saw some temporary housing shelters, but I was expecting to see a lot more. There was little evidence of heavy equipment for the cleaning up and rebuilding efforts. I think I saw one bulldozer at work and one or two backhoes. It seemed to me that a lot more should be taking place when you consider the amount of money donated for relief efforts.”

Magnuson said the trip opened his eyes to the need for continuing relief efforts in the region for years to come.

“The devastation that remains is almost incomprehensible and is pretty close to the devastation immediately after the tsunami,” Magnuson said. “Some work has been done, and medical clinics have helped a lot of people, and survivors have begun to rebuild their lives and pick up the pieces. But the rebuilding work is not something that will be completed in a month. This is going to be years, and even decades.”

The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary’s board of trustees on Tuesday elected Seminary President R. Albert Mohler Jr. to the Joseph Emerson Brown Chair of Christian Theology.

The chair has been held by other giants on the landscape of Southern Seminary’s history such as founding President James Pettigru Boyce and E.Y. Mullins, seminary president from 1899 to 1928. Mohler was elected the seminary’s ninth president in 1993.

“It is an historic chair in systematic theology and we believe an historic president like Dr. Mohler deserves to be teaching from this chair,” said Russell D. Moore, dean of the School of Theology and senior vice president for academic administration. “This will be a great and momentous act in Southern Seminary.”

The chair is named in honor of Joseph Emerson Brown, who served two terms as governor of Georgia during the Civil War, and played a critical role in keeping Southern Seminary from closing on two separate occasions.

The first came during Reconstruction in the 1870s. The Seminary—then located in Greenville, S.C.—emerged from the Civil War financially destitute and faced closure. Brown, a seminary trustee, donated $50,000 which kept seminary doors open and left the institution in sound fiscal health for many years.

“In the 1870s, $50,000 was worth what is now several million dollars in constant cash,” Mohler said. “It answered the question as to whether the seminary would survive. It actually allowed the seminary to go from a question of survival to the reality of thriving.”

Brown’s donation kept the seminary afloat a second time during the Great Depression. By the late 1920s the seminary had moved to Louisville and, a few months prior to the historic stock market crash, had completed several new buildings. After the disaster on Wall Street, the banks holding notes on Southern’s buildings called them due and Brown’s donation from more than half a century earlier again kept Southern in operation.

“This means more than I can say,” Mohler said. “Especially with Dr. Boyce and Dr. Mullins holding that chair during their presidencies, it is an historical connection that speaks to my heart and to the sense of calling.

“It also is a reminder that the Lord has used significant individuals [such as Brown] to make this institution what it is. Some of these names are inscribed on buildings, some are memorialized in scholarship and professorships, and it is easy for us to forget what they meant and who they were.”

In other business, trustees:

* Extended tenure to four faculty members. Moore was elected associate professor of Christian theology. Robert L. Plummer was elected assistant professor of New Testament interpretation. Larry J. Purcell was elected associate professor of leadership and church ministry.

* Promoted Chad O. Brand to professor of Christian theology, Greg Brewton to associate professor of church music, and Steve Drake to associate professor of missions, evangelism and church growth.

* Elected two faculty members to endowed professorships. Purcell was elected J.M. Frost Associate Professor of Leadership and Christian Ministry, and Duane A. Garrett was elected John R. Sampey Professor of Old Testament Interpretation.

* Gave seminary leadership the go-ahead to plan a celebration for the school’s 150th anniversary in 2009. Church history professor Gregory A. Wills will be commissioned to write the authorized history of Southern Seminary.

* Approved a $28.89 million budget for 2005-06, representing a 2.9 percent increase.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP)--Saying that the battle over judicial filibusters has major implications on the future of abortion, “gay marriage” and other cultural issues, religious leaders April 24 urged Christians to call their senators and demand an up-or-down vote on President Bush’s judicial nominees.

“We need to let our voice be heard because the outcome of this debate will shape the future of this nation,” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said at a rally broadcast to hundreds of churches nationwide.

Dubbed “Justice Sunday,” the rally originated from a jam-packed Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky., where Perkins and other pro-family leaders gathered, saying that the filibusters have targeted specific justices for their conservative Christian beliefs.

The rally came as Republican leaders in the Senate consider a controversial parliamentary technique that would change Senate rules to eliminate the filibuster against judicial nominees. As of now, 60 votes are needed to overcome a filibuster. If the rules are changed, a judge will be confirmed with 51 votes. The rule change would not impact the filibustering of other action, such as legislation.

Democrats have used the filibuster to block 10 of Bush’s 52 nominees to the appeals courts. In many instances, their pro-life views were the target. Two abortion rights groups -- Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America -- have led the campaign against the nominees.

All of the nominees have enough votes for confirmation but not enough votes to overcome the filibuster.

“We’ve learned that we’re going to have to exercise our Christian citizenship beyond just the ballot box,” said R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. “We’re going to have to follow this through all the way to the nomination and confirmation of judges.”

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee spoke to the rally via a pre-taped message, asking viewers to call their senator -- whether it be a Democrat or Republican -- and urge an up-or-down vote on nominees. He said that if the filibustering continues, Republicans will consider the rule change, which opponents call the “nuclear option,” supporters the “constitutional option.”

“Some Republicans -- even some conservatives -- don’t think we should press the issue of requiring votes of judicial nominees,” Frist said. “Their concern is that in the future, Republicans won’t be able to use this same device to obstruct Democratic nominees.

“That may be true, but if what Democrats are doing is wrong today, it won’t be right for Republicans to do the same thing tomorrow,” Frist added to applause.

Mohler gave two examples of justices he said were targeted because of their Christian beliefs:

-- Charles Pickering, a Southern Baptist who was filibustered after being nominated to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. He eventually was placed on the court by Bush using a recess appointment and has since retired.

“In his [confirmation] before the senate judiciary committee he was asked about something he said as president of the Mississippi Baptist Convention,” Mohler said. “He said, of all things, that Christians ought to base their decision-making on the Bible. ... He was speaking as a Christian to fellow Christians about our Christian responsibility. But in the views of some radical secularists, that just invalidates him from serving on the federal bench.”

Mohler warned: “If it’s Judge Pickering now, it can be you and it can be me tomorrow.”

-- William Pryor, a Roman Catholic who was filibustered after being nominated to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. He is the former attorney general of Alabama. Like Pickering, he also was placed on the bench using a recess appointment, although his term will soon expire if the Senate does not confirm him. During confirmation hearings Democrats objected to Pryor’s “deeply held personal beliefs.”

“Attorney General Pryor is a Roman Catholic. Those are his deeply held personal beliefs,” Mohler said. “... One of those beliefs is that human life is sacred from the moment of conception. ... That’s why it is as if Catholics need not apply.”

Charles Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship, called the treatment of Pryor and Pickering “scandalous.” Colson spoke via a pre-taped message.

“What the Senate minority is trying to do is by a filibuster to seize what they lost at the ballot box ...” Colson said, referring to the November election. “That’s destroying the independence of the judiciary, and it is destroying the balance of powers ...”

Perkins said that using the Bible as a “guidepost for life” should not disqualify a Christian judge from confirmation.

“What we are saying tonight is that as American citizens, we should not have to choose between believing and living by what is in this book, and by serving the public -- whether it be on the bench as a judge or whether it be in any other elected office,” he said.

Focus on the Family’s James Dobson pointed to several infamous cases in the history of the Supreme Court. The 1857 Dred Scott slavery decision said “that black people are not fully human.” The 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion case “has resulted now in 44 million deaths -- the biggest holocaust in world history.”

For the past 43 years, Dobson said, the Supreme Court “has been on a campaign to limit religious freedom” through its rulings on prayer in school and at graduations and football games and through its decisions on the posting of the Ten Commandments.

If the federal courts do not change, Dobson said, it only will get worse.

“Where is this leading?” he asked. “... It goes directly to the redefinition of marriage. The courts already made that clear. That’s what they plan to do. It goes to further assaults on the sanctity of life.”

Pickering, who is best known to Southern Baptists by his service on the 1980s Peace Committee, also spoke at the event.

“The real reason they were opposing me was abortion,” he said. “That’s the engine that drove the opposition. But they tried to bring all these other things in to muddy the issue and smear the candidate.”

Harry R. Jackson, senior pastor of Hope Christian Church in College Park, Md., called for black and white evangelicals to come together on cultural issues. Jackson, who is black, said that, historically, blacks have emphasized “justice” issues, while whites have emphasized “righteousness” issues.

“It’s time that we come together and put both sides of the Bible together, and say that we’re going to stand up for righteousness and justice,” he said.

Mohler rejected assertions that the rally was politically motivated.

“I long for the day when we have to choose as candidates between a pro-life Republican and a pro-life Democrat, between a Republican who understands what marriage is, and a Democrat who understands what marriage is,” he said. “Then they can compete for our vote, because they’ll stand where America stands.”

Pro-family leaders are focusing on 21 senators as being key to the filibuster debate. They are: Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, Arizona’s John McCain, Arkansas’ Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor, Colorado’s Ken Salazar, Connecticut’s Joseph Lieberman, Florida’s Bill Nelson, Indiana’s Evan Bayh and Richard Lugar, Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu, Maine’s Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, Nebraska’s Ben Nelson and Chuck Hagel, Nevada’s Harry Reid, New Hampshire’s John Sununu, North Dakota’s Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan, Ohio’s Mike DeWine, Oregon’s Gordon Smith and Rhode Island’s Lincoln Chafee.