Jason Allen, president of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, weighs in on Campbellsville University and its compatibility with the Kentucky Baptist Convention. His discussion comes in the wake of the recent release of Jarvis Williams, which I wrote about here. Read Allen’s helpful contribution here.
4 Comments
Ben Rhodes
A fairly measured response.
I don’t quite understand the following point, however:
“The issue is not merely present funding, but past funding…”
Is Allen implying something akin to “once funded, always funded”? He doesn’t seem to explain what he means by the statement above. Under what criteria do the past funds still count, and under what conditions would they not count?
Examples could be drawn from church plants that have achieved independence from their mother churches, or investing in company, or any other common occurrences. I feel the relationship between the KBC and Campbell needs to be better explained, or there may be a massive misunderstanding brewing.
Daryl Little
Ben,
The difference in this situation from your example is that a church plant is a new church. A seminary or college is never a church and so remains beholden to the churches in perpetuity. So in that way, past funding is an issue where, as you rightly point out, it wouldn’t necessarily be in a church plant.
buddyglass
With only 2% of its budget supplied by the Kentucky Baptist Convention, I’m not sure Campblesville has all that much motivation to change. The press that the revocation of funding would create might depress interest among the Baptist faithful, but it might simultaneously elevate the campus’s standing among non-Baptists.
Tom Parker
CU should refuse the 2% of the KBC should no longer submit the 2%.