A Sea Of Red

From ethicsdaily.com ...

SBC President Gives Blessing to Ties With Tennessee Temple



Bob Allen
07-02-08

Southern Baptist leaders including the convention's new president Johnny Hunt are involved in a quiet move to bring the Tennessee Temple University into the fold of Southern Baptist schools.

Last fall Highland Park Baptist Church in Chattanooga, Tenn., joined the Tennessee Baptist Convention after 60 years as an independent Baptist church. According to a recent story in the Chattanooga Times Free Press, Pastor David Boulet said Tennessee Temple, founded by Highland Park's longtime pastor Dr. Lee Roberson in 1946, "is also in the process of being approved as an SBC school."

Hunt, who has an honorary doctorate from Tennessee Temple, is at the center of the discussion, along with former SBC President Jerry Vines.

"I realize that TTU desires to become a Southern Baptist School over these next five years, and I would love to see that affiliation become a reality and our ties to be strengthened, because it will take all of us to win this world," Hunt, senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Woodstock, Ga., said in a testimonial posted at the Concerned Tennessee Baptists Web site.

And here is where we enter the discussion other than our obvious ties to Hunt & Vines ...

Leaders of Concerned Tennessee Baptists would like to see closer ties develop with fundamentalist Tennessee Temple, particularly in light of the recent departure of Belmont University, a more moderate school that broke ties with the TBC over a dispute about who would elect the university's trustees.

Tennessee Temple hired Liberty Theological Seminary Dean Danny Lovett as the new president in 2005, prompting speculation that he might follow the example of Liberty University's founder Jerry Falwell and establish closer ties with Southern Baptists.

And then comes the IFBx shots at TTU using us ...

Traditionalists like Marty Wynn, pastor of Lighthouse Baptist Church in Columbus, Ga., view any effort to reach out to Southern Baptists as compromise.

When he graduated from Tennessee Temple in 1980, Wynn said, he was taught that contemporary Christian and pop/rock music were "wicked." Now that same music is being "condoned and promoted."

The Tennessee Temple Web site says each mandatory chapel service "includes a live, student-led band."

"By hiring the new president away from Liberty, it is apparent that TTU seeks to follow Liberty's equal compromise," Wynn wrote in a recent blog. "What is very sad is that compromise is being embraced for the sake of increasing enrollment and sustaining funds. Yet, if TTU would have returned to its historical roots, they would find an army of dedicated alumni, who would support the school with finances and students."

Click Here for Full Story

This is not posted as an excuse to take pot shots at Lovett. It is more about the relationship between our schools and how we are viewed by the SBC leadership.

Paging CJ & jvegas ... Paging CJ & jvegas

But, but, but Christian rock is from the devil............

When he graduated from Tennessee Temple in 1980, Wynn said, he was taught that contemporary Christian and pop/rock music were "wicked."

This is the same IFBx crowd that thought playing an acustic guitar in chapel was a sin and who thought Robbie Hiner and Mark Lowry's music was "of the devil." If you want to hear the kind of music Temple approved of, just mention the name of Mrs. Elgin Smith to an alumnus and then quickly hand him a barf bag.
http://www.fundamentalforums.com/showthread.php?t=26388

"Yet, if TTU would have returned to its historical roots, they would find an army of dedicated alumni, who would support the school with finances and students."

Excuse my language, but Had Lovett not gone to Temple when he did, my alma mater would likely be closed down by now. Lovett is doing his best to get Tenn. Temple regionally accredited by SACS; if he does that considering their lack of resources there, THEN I will begin sending my alumni donations to Chattanooga, instead of only to Marshall, Ole Miss, & UVa.

Cider an honest question b/c since you are a grad I'm sure you follow it much closer than my once a year glance....is TTU better now a few years after having hired him or worse off

HMO, I've only watched it from afar, mainly from this website: http://www.fundamentalforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=23
But they have renovated quite a few buildings, and are trying to sell the ones that are too far gone. For example, they took a 5,000 seat church auditorium, and reduced the seating to around 2,000 using the extra space for classrooms and sort of a TRBC Main Street concept.

Temple's best year was my senior year (1983), when Dr. Roberson retired, and we had over 4,000 students. Now, they only have around 500 students there, but it sounds like they are tying to make it a "mini-Liberty," meaning Dr. Lovett is trying to take what he learned here from Dr. Falwell and apply it down there, including trying to get regional accreditation and attempting to get associated with the Southern Baptist Convention.

By all indications, TTU had bottomed out before Danny was hired. The school was hoping by bringing in someone from Liberty they could instill similar philosophies and experience Liberty-like growth. The initial reaction was mixed for his "New Day" transition. Many hardline old school folks were furious that rules were relaxed and arms were extended beyond the IFBx crowd most associated with the Sword of the Lord in recent years. But from what I hear things are beginning to turnaround. Just the fact that the doors are still open indicates at least a measure of success by Lovett.

Like I said, I just wanted your opinion....I like Danny and hope the school prospers...and maybe his buddy Borek is helping from afar...if so they will be fine...I hear he has previous experience helping Christan schools who are in a financial crisis...and is quite good at it!

It sounds like they're going for a relationship with the SBC similar to what Cedarville has, too. And Cedarville got some flack from the GARBC for it, but they're doing fine.

Temple was a bit farther right than Cedarville ever was, so the backlash will be a bit more forceful. Long term, I think it will help Temple out -- and the IFBXers will still have PCC and Crown to indoctrinate their kids. The Tennessee Southern Baptists need somewhere to send their kids.

The GARBC ditched Cedarville before the SBC came calling.

And you are correct in asserting that TTU has always been further right than Cedarville. But both were IFB strongholds for decades.

Sly, you obviously know more about Cedarville than I do, but I would have never considered them an "IFB stronghold"--what "decades" would that have been? Would that have been after GARB left them? My BJU and HAC and TTS pastors when I was in high school (late 1970s) would have never recommended Cedarville (or LBC) as an IFB college.

From the '50s to the '80s, Cedarville was considered the northern IFB college that actually taught you something (as opposed to HAC). They recruited students from the same churches as BJU, Word of Life, Grand Rapids Baptist (now Cornerstone) and BBC-Clark Summit.

I still have family members on the faculty there and my grandfather was a board member of the school for several decades (I think he still holds an emeritus position).

What's interesting is that Cedarville actually was one of the first schools I considered attending when I was in my college search process in high school

If I had known about Cedarville in HS, I may have gone there, or at least applied. My church was really only behind two schools back then -- Liberty and HAC (ironically enough). They were drifting away from LU and more toward the HAC/PCC end of the spectrum (did a lot of that drifting while I was at Liberty), but LU was still an acceptable place to go when I started in '86.