Lemke’s article is pure nonsense and, coming from a professor at one of our Southern Baptist Seminaries, it is embarrassing to read. I really feel bad for those young Baptist students at NOBTS that must set through his classes.

If the Anti-Calvinist at NOBTS and SWBTS are allowed to continue to user their positions at these Seminaries as a platform from which to attack and criticize all things Calvinistic they very well may do permanent damage to the reputation of these institutions. If Lifeway’s statistics are correct a significant and growing percentage of Southern Baptist Pastors today identify themselves as 5-point Calvinist. There can be little doubt that when young men from their churches ask them which seminary they recommend, these Pastors will not say NOBTS or SWBTS.

So my question to the Board of Directors of these institutions is “How long will you allow these Anti-Calvinist to continue these unwise activities that are clearly causing young Baptist men to choose to attend seminary somewhere else?” If this kind of Anti-Calvinist activities at these seminaries are allowed to continue, in ten to twenty years, Southern Seminary will become a Mega-Seminary in the SBC; dwarfing the once great NOBTS and SWBTS seminaries.

Grace Always,

1. John Calvin and Missions: A Historical Study by Scott J. Simmons
http://www.aplacefortruth.org/calvin.missions1.htm

2. John Calvin’s Missionary Influence in France by Michael Haykin (Reformation & Revival vol. 10 no. 4 [Fall 2001]
http://www.galaxie.com/article.php?article_id=7177

3. John Calvin and His Missionary Impulse by Errroll Hulse
http://reformed-theology.org/html/issue04/calvin.htm

4. John Calvin the Church Planter by Frank James
http://www.batluck.com/historical_files/John%20Calvin%20the%20Church%20Planter.doc

Great job addressing this article issue by issue. It would be great if we could find less name-calling and more cooperation in the SBC and in the larger evangelical world. I’m concerned that an inward-focus on the SBC only serves only to reduce the effects of the Great Commission here and around the world. Even Jesus said “the one who is not against you is for you” (Luke 9:50). It doesn’t seem to me that most reformed guys are against those who aren’t (and for that matter I do not beleive that most non-reformed are opposed to the reformed), so Christ’s words would be good medicine for many in the SBC.

You are a brave man indeed to engage Lemke’s misrepresentations.

I am somewhat reminded of sage advice given me many years ago:

“Never wrestle with a pig. It annoys the pig and gets you dirty.”