Luther Rice: Upgrading a Seminary and Hoping to Be Accredited

A new president’s broom sweeps out complacency.

During a period of seven months in 1981, nine faculty members of Luther Rice College and Seminary—virtually the entire administration—left the school after a number of disagreements with its president and founder, Robert Witty (CT, Dec. 11, 1981, p. 49). The main issue was whether Witty was moving fast enough to bring academic integrity to the unaccredited school. The faculty members said he was not. Witty said he was. The school, in Jacksonville, Florida, is Southern Baptist in orientation, but is not affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. It offers off-campus degree courses.

When the blowup occurred, Witty had already announced that he would be stepping aside. Last spring a new president took over, and today Luther Rice is moving ahead quickly.

The new president is Gene Williams, who received a Th.D. in homiletics in 1955 from New Orleans Baptist Seminary. Williams has been a Southern Baptist evangelist who led 770 revivals, and he taught evangelism at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty Baptist Seminary from 1972 through 1976. Williams was hired because of his wide contacts, conservative theology, evangelism experience, commitment to academic excellence, and noninvolvement in Southern Baptist wrangles. “Some of the regents asked me if I would be involved in denominational politics,” Williams recalls. “I said, ‘No.’ They said, ‘Good.’ ” Williams took over last May. Witty, who started the school in 1962, was named chancellor, with no administrative duties.

One of the new president’s first tasks was to find new professors. Past practice had been, with few exceptions, to hire Rice alumni. Williams has hired five new men with doctorates from accredited institutions, and is looking for more. Among the five is the new dean of undergraduate studies, Nevin S. Alwine (Ed. D., University of Northern Colorado), who came from Liberty Baptist Seminary. Dean of graduate studies Harold McNabb (Ed.D., New Orleans Seminary), a former classmate of Williams, was among the teachers who stayed after the 1981 walkout.

Williams says two of the nine who left now want to return, but cannot be accepted unless they are actively working on an accredited doctorate. Faculty members without accredited doctorates who did not leave and were inherited by Williams are also being required to pursue one.

After less than a year as president, Williams can point to seven of ten full-time teaching faculty who now have accredited doctorates. Williams doesn’t intend to stop until every faculty member has an earned, respected doctorate.

Williams also brought in a professional librarian, registrar, and director of admissions. Next to be hired is a director of development. Williams wants to increase gifts (tuition, at $40 an hour, does not meet the current million-dollar annual budget) and build a strong endowment.

Admission procedures have also been tightened. A new student may begin work on the basis of a preliminary application, as is true in many schools, but cannot be formally admitted until credits are provided from an acceptable school. The admission of students without enough credits for college work was a sore point under Witty’s administration.

The school is looking toward eventual accreditation by the Assocation of Theological Schools (ATS), the American Association of Bible Colleges, and the regional secular accrediting body, the Southern Association. ATS, the only recognized agency for accrediting theological education, is at the top of the list. Williams says, “We have a long way yet to go. We need to make more progress with our faculty, library, endowment, and work with external [nonresident] students.”

Luther Rice claims an enrollment of 1,900, and all but 200 are off campus, including 400 taking Luther Rice courses in 62 foreign countries. The resident enrollment is about twice that of last year. Luther Rice faculty member Paul Enns, whom Williams calls “our foremost scholar” [author of commentaries on Joshua, Judges, and Ruth, and at present preparing the Ezekiel volume in the Zondervan Bible Study Commentary series], thinks the imbalance between resident and nonresident students is making accreditation difficult. “If we were only a resident school, we could soon complete the requirements. The ATS can’t compare our external program with anything.” Enns is assistant dean of graduate studies and professor of Bible. He was one of the faculty who stayed on during the troubles of 1981.

The school wants to increase “interfaces” with nonresident students. At present, communication is by correspondence, telephone, and tape cassettes, with faculty members holding periodic tutorials in large cities. Williams thinks videocassettes will help, especially in grading sermon delivery.

Wayne Upton, director of international studies and another New Orleans graduate, says the foreign outreach has grown from students in 16 countries to 62 in six years. “We graduated 5 in 1976 and 64 in 1982.” Most foreign students, he says, are “key pastors in their areas, who attended only Bible schools and cannot leave to attend accredited schools in their own countries.” Overseas enrollment includes a number of U.S. missionaries who are upgrading their education to satisfy new laws in nations where they serve.

The typical Luther Rice student in the U.S., according to Dean McNabb, is “age 35 with a wife, three kids, and a pastorate. He lives too far to commute and can’t resign to attend a regular Bible college or seminary. Because of this we are not in competition with standard seminaries.”

The highest Luther Rice degree now offered is the D.Min., with about 100 enrolled. The M.Div. (84 hours) and the M.M. (40 hours) are also offered on the graduate level with the B.A. or equivalent required for admission. A B.A. in Biblical Studies (120 hours) is provided. Special modules for those with degrees are available in preaching, education, counseling, missions, music, evangelism, church growth, biblical theology, and biblical languages. The school stopped offering Th.D. and Ph.D. degrees several years ago; that practice brought charges that the school was a degree mill.

JAMES HEFLEY

Grady Lee Nutt, 47, ordained Southern Baptist minister known to millions as the cornpone “prime minister of humor” on the television show “Hee Haw”; November 23, in Cullman, Alabama, in a plane crash.

Nikolai Khrapov, 68, outspoken Russian Baptist evangelist who spent almost 26 years in Soviet prisons for his religious activities; in November at Mangyshlakskaya Prison, USSR, of a heart attack.

William Childs Robinson, 85, professor emeritus of Columbia Theological Seminary, author of seven books and numerous articles; November 23, of natural causes.

William Murray Rebuts Atheist Mother’S Stand

An atheist loves his fellowman instead of a God.… He seeks to know himself and his fellowman rather than to know God. An atheist believes that a hospital should be built instead of a church. An atheist believes that a deed must be done instead of a prayer said. An atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death.… He believes that we cannot rely on God, channel action into prayer, or hope for an end of troubles in a hereafter.…

(Taken from a statement written by Madalyn Murray O’Hair, included in a petition that was among the initial legal steps taken to have prayer removed from the public schools.)

At age 63, Madalyn Murray O’Hair, one of Christianity’s most passionate antagonists, is as active as ever. In a New Orleans, Louisiana, district court, she is fighting to have the slogan “In God We Trust” removed from U.S. currency. She is advocating the removal of all references to Christianity from textbooks in a Colorado school district. In this case, she has even challenged statements discouraging drug abuse, claiming they spring from Christian doctrine. The list goes on.

One of O’Hair’s sweetest moments came when the Supreme Court decided in 1963 to ban mandatory prayer from public schools. The plaintiff of record in that landmark case was O’Hair’s son, William J. Murray III, who was only 14 when the court proceedings began.

O’Hair has not changed much since 1963. But her son has.

He became a Christian in 1980, culminating a three-year search for God, which was triggered by a growing awareness of the emptiness of the atheism he had embraced since childhood.

In his first book, My Life Without God (Thomas Nelson, 1982), Murray candidly describes life with his mother, recounts the events surrounding the 1963 high court decision, and tells the story of his journey through atheism. Murray, 36, spares few of the details of his tragic youth. He remembers his mother attacking his grandfather (her father) with a butcher knife, and cursing God during a lightning storm, daring God to strike her dead. Murray remembers his mother smashing his precious collection of model airplanes. He describes his involvement in the historic court case in terms of his constant efforts to gain his mother’s approval, and in terms of his mother’s reckless rage.

“Sometimes I view my mother not as an atheist,” Murray said, “but as someone who’s having an argument with God.” In his book, he briefly addresses the little he knows of his mother’s own tragic youth. Murray remembers that his mother was never able to hold a job because of her volatile personality and radically Communist political persuasions. After being denied citizenship by the Soviet Union, according to Murray, O’Hair sought revenge, and the first thing she found was the issue of prayer in public schools. “I honestly believe,” said Murray, “that prayer was removed from public schools because the Soviet Union rejected my mother.”

Anticipating legal action by his mother, Murray has spent hundreds of hours videotaping statements testifying to the book’s accuracy. Murray was aided by O’Hair’s brother, who is also leaning away from atheism. The author boldly proclaims his is “the most documented autobiography in the history of literature.”

His efforts were wrought with great personal struggle. After all, Madalyn O’Hair was and is his mother. “But,” Murray said, “my feelings were not as important as the truth about how and why prayer was taken out of schools. Also, I wanted people to understand what happens inside an atheist home.”

In My Life Without God, Murray is equally candid about his own past, including his dealings in drugs and alcohol, his broken marriages, and an extramarital affair. In a telephone interview, Murray said the major criticism of his book, which has sold more than 55,000 copies, is that it is “too honest.” Murray said, “The book is blatantly honest because I’ve read too many watered-down Christian testimonies and I want people to know what living in sin is really like.” Murray adds, “I believe the book offers hope for those who can identify with my struggle.”

In another effort to help others, Murray has established the William J. Murray Faith Foundation, a referral service based in Dallas, Texas. His organization receives calls and letters and seeks to provide counseling for people with spiritual needs, especially those who have atheistic backgrounds.

As for Madalyn O’Hair: “I pray daily for her deliverance,” Murray said. He continues to write to her, seeking to communicate his faith. But so far, there has been no response.

RANDALL FRAME

North American Scene

The Department of Health and Human Services has separated abortion activities from all family-planning services financed by the federal government. According to the Public Health Service Act, no federal funds may be used for “programs where abortion is a method of family planning.” The new guidelines also prohibit family-planning and abortion clinics from sharing office space, personnel, publications, stationery, and medical equipment or supplies.

Everett Sileven, a Nebraska pastor and the director of the Faith Christian School, is back in jail. Sileven, who refuses to have teachers at his school certified by the state, had been released to ask the legislature to consider changing the law on teacher certification for church schools. But after a special session in November ended without addressing the issue, Sileven returned to jail to complete a four-month sentence.

Pornographic materials have begun to disappear from the newsracks of stores in Mesa, Arizona. Many local shopkeepers have voluntarily removed the materials from their establishments at the urging of the Mesa Decency Coalition, which conducted a “public awareness” campaign. According to an article in the National Decency Reporter, the coalition takes no credit for removal of the magazines, but is interested only in making the community aware of the problems presented by pornography. Revco, Smitty’s, Scaggs Drugs, Thrifty Drugs, and two of Mesa’s three Safeway stores were among the businesses to discontinue pornographic magazines.

Several national churches have jointly filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting Sun Myung Moon, the Korean-born leader of the Unification Church. Moon is seeking the reversal of a court decision in which he was found guilty on charges involving his alleged personal use of church money. Among church organizations filing the brief were the National Council of Churches, the United Presbyterian Church, the American Baptist Churches, and the African Methodist Episcopal Church. According to a press release of the Unification Church, other groups supporting Moon included the American Civil Liberties Union and the Christian Legal Society. In the document, friends stress that their actions were motivated not by “sympathy for the defendant,” but by concern for religious liberty.

Sixteen conservative evangelical Lutheran pastors have strongly criticized the recent statement of the Minnesota Council of Churches supporting homosexuals. David A. Barnhart, pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church of Minnehaha Falls, said the statement violates everything he understands the Bible to say about homosexuality. “There is a definite, organized movement here,” Barnhart said. “And it has an agenda. It includes the ordination of homosexuals into the ministry. And it would involve marriage of persons of the same gender.”

The 40-member Episcopal church executive council has denounced a planned video arcade game called “Custer’s Revenge,” which depicts a naked male ravishing an Indian woman. The council passed a resolution condemning the game as “prurient, lascivious and pornographic.”

The nation’s Roman Catholic bishops have voiced support for expanded dialogues with women and for a study aimed at locating historical precedents for the ordination of female deacons. Bishop Michael F. McAuliffe, chairman of an ad hoc committee on the role of women in society and the church, told his colleagues at the National Conference of Catholic Bishops that “there are persuasive, convincing reasons for actions at this time.”

Spencer W. Kimball, president of the Mormon Church, has announced a reorganization in the church’s First Presidency, the church’s highest governing body. The announcement came after the death of N. Eldon Tanner, a counselor to four church presidents. A church spokesman said the 87-year-old Kimball named Marion G. Romney first counselor and Gordon B. Hinckley second counselor in the three-member body.

Cartoon violence increased last spring by 20 percent to a level of 36 violent acts per hour, according to the National Coalition on Television Violence. In a recent newsletter, the coalition noted that 60 percent of the violent Saturday-morning programs are sponsored by five companies—General Mills, McDonald’s, Kellogg’s, General Foods, and Mattel Toys.

An internationally known theologian at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has come under fire from Arkansas Baptists who are demanding that he be dismissed. Dale Moody, a 67-year-old senior professor of theology, teaches that it is possible for Christians to lose their salvation, a position at variance with that held by many Southern Baptists. Representatives of the seminary say Moody can be dismissed only by a two-thirds vote of the trustees at their annual meeting in April. Moody received a Ph.D. from Oxford University and has studied with such theological heavyweights as Emil Brunner and Karl Barth.

The Thompson Chain Reference Bible, New International Version, will be released in the fall of 1983. The publication will result from a joint effort of the B. B. Kirkbride Bible Company, publishers of the Thompson Chain Reference Bible, and Zondervan Bible Publishers, which produced the bestselling New International Version.

New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean has vetoed a bill requiring New Jersey public schools to provide a mandatory moment of silence at the beginning of each school day. Kean said that public school teachers in New Jersey have the right to order a moment of silence as part of ordinary classroom procedures and that he preferred to “leave it to the discretion of … teachers to decide if students need time for contemplation.…”

Personalia

George G. Hunter III has been appointed dean of the E. Stanley Jones School of Evangelism and World Missions, scheduled to open this fall. Hunter serves on the United Methodist Board of Discipleship as assistant general secretary for evangelism.

After serving for 17 years as secretary for the Evangelical Missionary Alliance in Britain, Ernest Oliver has retired. Oliver received a standing ovation at the end of EMA’S annual conference.

World Vision International has named German missionary Fritz Urschitz the recipient of the third annual Robert W. Pierce Award for Christian Service. The award recognized Urschitz’s pioneer work among the stone-age Niksek people in Papua New Guinea. Urschitz has served for 19 years as a missionary from the Liebenzell Mission of Germany. He will receive $20,000 and a commemorative medallion.

David G. Schmiel has accepted appointment as president of Concordia College in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Schmiel has been dean of instruction at Concordia Seminary in Saint Louis for almost two years. Concordia College is one of 16 colleges and seminaries owned and operated by The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.

Floyd Thatcher has announced his retirement as vice-president, editorial director for Word Books in Waco, Texas. Thatcher, who spent 34 years in religious publishing, will still serve part-time as Word’s editor-in-chief.

Internationally known writer, lecturer, broadcaster, and one-time Communist party member Malcolm Muggeridge, has been received into the Roman Catholic Church at the age of 79. Muggeridge’s journey from atheism to Christianity has been widely publicized, but until now, he has always refused to identify himself with any particular denomination, and has never gone to church. Now he plans to attend Mass every Sunday.

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