Fuller Theological Seminary has fired assistant professor Vince Bantu five months after his local accountability group contacted the school with claims he was engaged in ongoing sexual misconduct and had secretly married a second wife.
The St. Louis ministers accused Bantu of privately justifying his ongoing sexual misconduct with novel theological arguments. They marshaled multiple witnesses and showed Christianity Today texts and documents supporting the allegations. Bantu told CT that the men he once trusted for moral accountability were lying, suggesting they were jealous of his ministry success.
Fuller conducted “a comprehensive and deliberate review of alleged misconduct,” according to Fuller president David Emmanuel Goatley.
Goatley sent an email to students on Wednesday afternoon announcing that the school decided to terminate Bantu’s contract.
Bantu, an expert in ancient African Christianity and the author of A Multitude of All Peoples, regularly spoke at Christian colleges and conferences. He taught church history and Black church studies online and at Fuller’s Houston campus over the past five years.
Fuller had hired an outside investigative firm to conduct the review. Inquiries into individual employees typically aren’t made public, and the seminary has not disclosed what the investigators found.
Fuller’s community standards say faculty must “abstain from … unbiblical sexual practices,” including all “explicit sexual conduct” outside of marriage and that marriage is a “covenant union between one man and one woman.”
The email to the seminary community does not indicate if Bantu did something inappropriate, changed his views, or something else. The message from the president only says, “Fuller Seminary has high expectations and standards of conduct for all members of our community, especially those in positions of authority.”
Bantu previously taught at Covenant Seminary in St. Louis and resigned after an investigation into what Bantu confessed was an “emotional affair” with a student.
According to Covenant president Thomas C. Gibbs, Fuller contacted Covenant in the process of hiring Bantu, and Covenant officials informed Fuller of Bantu’s inappropriate relationship with a student.
“It was, at the time, believed Dr. Bantu was demonstrating full repentance and had given a full confession,” Gibbs told CT.
It is not known how Fuller officials weighed Bantu’s confessed misconduct in the decision to hire him.
Goatley, who became Fuller’s president in 2023, told students on Wednesday that “Fuller Seminary has significantly enhanced its hiring process and policies since Dr. Bantu’s hiring.”
Fuller declined to respond to questions about the hiring process or the investigation.
Bantu’s faculty page has been removed from the Fuller website and videos of his talks have been taken down as well.
Bantu also works at a second seminary, Meachum School at Haymanot, which he founded in his hometown of St. Louis in 2018. The Meachum board posted a statement online that Bantu is on leave and “investigations are underway.”
The board described itself as “disheartened” by the allegations but assured students and supporters that “we are even more committed to the theological proliferation of orthodoxy and Black flourishing as we proclaim Jesus to the nations.”
The Meachum board members hope to have reports from the investigations in several weeks.
This story has been updated to note that Fuller declined to respond to questions.
