The Bible Faculty Leadership Summit

I’ve just returned from the fourteenth Bible Faculty Leadership Summit. The BFLS is sponsored annually by a different institution within mainstream fundamentalism. It is attended by biblical and theological faculty from the mainstream fundamentalist institutions. The point of the meeting is to challenge one another academically and intellectually. It is an event in which the educational leaders of fundamentalism help each other to think, write, and teach better.

The format of the BFLS is rather like that of an academic society. Usually there will be some sort of a general address, but the main focus of the meeting is on presenting and responding to the results of research. Papers are read; responses are offered; arguments (sometimes vigorous ones) ensue. Many, and probably most, of the participants are involved in the learned societies, but the BFLS gives them an opportunity to address questions that are of unique concern to fundamentalists.

The meeting began as a collaborative effort between David Doran, then chancellor of Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary, and Bob Jones III, then president of Bob Jones University. At the time the meetings began, I was a Ph.D. student at Dallas Theological Seminary. I remember my initial delight when I heard what was going on. I also remember wondering what I would have to do to finagle an invitation!

The first meeting that I attended was in 1998 at Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary. Since then I’ve gone to meetings at Faith Baptist Bible College, Pillsbury Baptist Bible College, and Bob Jones University. Our seminary (Central Baptist Theological Seminary) has hosted the BFLS twice, once in 1999 and again in 2007.

Over the past fourteen years, this event has strengthened fundamentalist education in several ways. For example, it has fostered a spirit of camaraderie among the educational institutions of mainstream fundamentalism. Twenty years ago, we could hardly have told who the professors were outside of the schools that were immediately allied with our own. Our schools were shut off, not only from the academic world at large, but even from each other. That has definitely changed. Strong friendships have been forged between the professors in different schools, and that has changed the entire relationship of those institutions. The rivalries that once characterized fundamentalist colleges and seminaries are largely a thing of the past. There is a growing recognition that all of our schools are engaged in a single work that is too large for any of us to do alone. The BFLS has fostered a desire to see one another succeed and a determination to help each other achieve that success.

Personally, I have relished the growing friendships with professors from other institutions. Prior to attending the BFLS, I had virtually no way of getting to know professors from schools like Bob Jones University, Geneva Reformed Seminary, or God’s Bible College. What I’ve found is that these are bright guys with good training. They love the Lord, they are committed to ministry, they are doing the work of the mind, they are serious about theology, and they can give you a really good argument. My appreciation of these men and my recognition of the contribution that they are making have grown exponentially. I pray for God’s blessing upon their work. I want them to succeed.

Furthermore, the BFLS has worked toward demolishing theological stereotypes. In the same room you will find Calvinists (real ones!) and Arminians (real ones!), each of whom is convinced that he is a Biblicist. You will find dispensationalists and covenant theologians, credo-baptists and pedo-baptists, confessionalists and undenominationalists, amillennialists and premillennarians. The diversity is significant, and it leads to wonderful discussions. In many of those discussions, the participants discover that what they assumed to be true about the adherents of some other theology is not the case at all. The result is that fundamentalist professors are growing in their personal exposure to other points of view, and in their ability to treat divergent theologies fairly and graciously.

Most importantly, the BFLS has stretched its participants academically. Unlike most learned societies, the participants do not simply go to presentations in their areas of interest. For most sessions, professors from all of the biblical disciplines are present while the presenter speaks about issues within his own discipline. Theologians and exegetes get to see how the “other side” of the academy handles issues, and they get to interact with each other. Not all of the professors are engaged in other learned societies, but many of them are. Some of them are also engaged in current doctoral work in a variety of seminaries, divinity schools, and universities. These professors provide a conduit through which the most current questions and controversies are mediated to fundamentalist teachers who might otherwise be unaware of them. The upshot is a significant improvement across the board in fundamentalist academic currency.

This year’s BFLS involved considerable conversation about what more can and should be done to foster fundamentalist scholarship. I think it is fair to say that a growing number of fundamentalist educational institutions has gained a clear idea of what scholarship is and why it is necessary. The key problem right now is resources—unlike secular institutions, fundamentalist schools will not accept government financing in order to do their work. If generous donors will step up and fund the work, however, fundamentalism already has bright minds that have been well prepared. The prospects for fundamentalist institutions to produce a solid body of scholarly work have never been better.

This year, the BFLS returned to its birthplace at Bob Jones University. BJU has always been a gracious host. This year, the university administration planned what turned out to be one of the best summits ever. Rarely has a school done as much to provoke academic self-examination among fundamentalists. As fundamentalism grows toward academic maturity, BJU is going be one of the most important voices. For the moment, I am grateful for the role that Bob Jones has played, both in getting the BFLS started, and in continuing to improve it through the years.

Love, and Discipline

Henry Vaughan (1622-1695)

Since in a land not barren stil
(Because thou dost thy grace distil,)
My lott is faln, Blest be thy will!

And since these biting frosts but kil
Some tares in me which choke, or spil
That seed thou sow’st, Blest be thy skil!

Blest be thy Dew, and blest thy frost,
And happy I to be so crost,
And cur’d by Crosses at thy cost.

The Dew doth Cheer what is distrest,
The frosts ill weeds nip, and molest,
In both thou work’st unto the best.

Thus while thy sev’ral mercies plot,
And work on me now cold, now hot,
The work goes on, and slacketh not,

For as thy hand the weather steers,
So thrive I best, ‘twixt joyes, and tears,
And all the year have some grean Ears.

This essay is by Dr. Kevin T. Bauder, president of Central Baptist Theological Seminary (Plymouth, MN). Not every professor, student, or alumnus of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.