“How the Doctrine of Election Affected the Pastoral Ministry of John A. Broadus”
By
Assistant Professor of Religion & Communication
Baptist College of Health Science
Memphis, TN
A Lecture (or Sermon)
Delivered at the Annual Founders Conference Mid-West
Given February 27 & 28, 2012
In St. Louis, Missouri
At the Invitation of Dr. Curtis McClain
Of the Missouri Baptist University
Introduction
There is a vast amount of difference that exists between “the dreamer of dreams” and the “builder of dreams.” [i] My colleague Craig Christina observes that “John Albert Broadus was much more than a dreamer; he was a man who gave his life for the edification of the church, the Southern Baptist denomination, and her founding seminary. Yet it was the establishment and continuance of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary that became his all-consuming passion later in life, and it is in the building of the Seminary that one finds the heartbeat of this dream builder.” [ii]
“The seminary,” to which Broadus would give the major energies of his life, “opened its doors in Greenville, South Carolina, on October 1, 1859.” [iii] In its beginnings it had an enrollment of 26 students. “The largest number of students in each of the first three sessions was from Virginia, in large part because of the efforts and influence of Broadus.” [iv] But, “a disruption . . . waited on the horizon; one which would preclude all studies and threatened the [very] existence of the seminary itself” [v] and with it, Broadus’s dream. This “disruption” of course was the Civil War. This disruption will act as a case-study to consider how “the doctrine of election affected Broadus’s pastoral ministry.”
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