Gordon-Conwell Contact Magazine Winter 06/07

8/14/2019 Gordon-Conwell Contact Magazine Winter 06/07

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Gordon-Conwel l Theological Seminary

WINTER 06/07 VOL.

special editioninaugurating

gordon-conwells

fourth president


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Board of Trustees

Mr. Joel B. Aarsvold

Mrs. Linda Schultz Anderson

Dr. Richard A. Armstrong

Dr. George F. Bennett

Rev. Dr. Garth T. Bolinder

Rev. Dr. Richard P. Camp, Jr.Mr. Thomas J. Colatosti,

Chair

Mr. Charles W. Colson

Rev. Dr. Leighton Ford

Mrs. Joyce A. Godwin

Dr. William F. Graham

Rev. Dr. Michael E. Haynes

Mr. Herbert P. Hess,

Treasurer

Mr. Ivan C. Hinrichs

Rev. Dr. John A. Huffman, Jr.

Mr. Caleb Loring III

Mrs. Anne Graham Lotz

Rev. Dr. Christopher A. Lyons

Mrs. Joanna S. Mockler

Fred L. Potter, Esq.

Shirley A. Redd, M.D.

Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, Jr.

David M. Rogers, Esq.

Mr. John Schoenherr

Rev. Ken Shigematsu

Mrs. Virginia M. Snoddy

Mr. John G. Talcott, Jr.

Joseph W. Viola, M.D.,

Secretary

J. Christy Wilson III, Esq.

Rev. Dr. John H. WomackWilliam C. Wood, M.D.

Dr. James Emery White,

President

Emeriti Members

Dr. Allan C. Emery, Jr.

Mr. Roland S. Hinz

Rev. Dr. Robert J. Lamont

Mr. Richard D. Phippen

Rev. Dr. Paul E. Toms

Dr. Robert E. Cooley,

President Emeritus

President Emeritus

Dr. Walter C. Kaiser, Jr.

Editorial Advisory

Committee

Dr. Sidney L. Bradley

Dr. Barry H. Corey

Dr. Alvin Padilla

Rev. C. Ronald Riley

Dr. Haddon W. Robinson

Dr. Kenneth L. Swetland

Mrs. Nina L. Walters

Mr. David Zagunis

Dr. James Emery White,President

Chief Development Officer

Mr. Howard F. Freeman

Director of

Communications

and Editor of Contact

Mrs. Anne B. Doll

Assistant Director of

Communications

and Assistant Editor

of Contact

Mr. Michael L. Colaneri

Graphic Designer

Ms. Nicole S. Rim

THE MINISTRY MAGAZINE

OF GORDON-CONWELL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

WINTER 06/07 VOL.36 NO.1

Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary has i

augurated four presidents since its founding

1969: Dr. Harold John Ockenga, Dr. Robert E

Cooley, Dr. Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., and on Octobe

6, 2006, Dr. James Emery White.

Inaugurating a new president is a significa

event in the life of our seminarysignifica

for the 190 distinguished faculty and staff whserve on our three campuses in South Hamilto

and Boston, Massachusetts, and Charlotte, Nort

Carolina, and our extension site in Jacksonvill

Florida; for our more than 6000 graduates mi

istering across the globe; for the 2200-plus Go

don-Conwell students now preparing for futu

ministry, and those who will follow after them

for the thousands of faithful supporters who hav

helped make possible our educational missio

and for individuals, churches and institution

worldwide who look to Gordon-Conwell as a sta

dard bearer for biblical truth.

In this special Presidential Inauguration editio

of Contact, you will meet our new president an

his family, learn of his vision to advance Christ

kingdom in all of life and culture, revisit with uour Godly heritage, and experience highlights

our two-day inaugural observance.

The Inaugural Address

The Time is Short

Words of Welcome

Congratulatory Letters

Meet the White Family

A Godly Heritage

Honoring Our Third President

Trustee Profile: George F. Bennett

Seminary News

3

11

19

21

22

26

30

33

34


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ON THE FRONT

I believe God wants us to dream, and to dream big,

because hes a big God who wants to do big things,

and He wants to do them through us.

the inaugural address

Iwant you to pick a numberany numberjust get one in your head.Got it? Okay, how many of you picked a number that was larger than a million? Not many. For the rest

of you, you might want to ask yourself, because the kind of numbers we pick, when we can pick anynumber, can matter.

In 1998, two graduate students at Stanford picked a number. It was the number Googol, which is a

one followed by 100 zeroes. That was how much information they dreamed of cataloguing for their Internetsearch engine. To keep that dream in front of them, they named their company Google. And now thereare tens of millions of searches through Google every day, accessing billions of pages in nearly 100 languages.And the term Googling has become synonymous with Web surfing.

Google has now announced arrangements with the New York Public Library, along with the libraries ofHarvard University, Stanford University, University of Oxford, and the University of Michigan to digitizevirtually every holding.

While Google is a great search engine, that isnt what made the difference. Its not why theyve becomesuch a big part of our culture. It was the number they picked, because that number wasnt just a number.It was a dream, and they decided to make it a big one.

I believe God wants us to dream, and to dream big, because Hes a big God who wants to do big things,

and He wants to do them through us.

james emery white, ph.d.


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This was certainly a part of the teaching of Jesus.For example, He said: (Matthew 5:13-14, NIV). Now think about that: thelight of the world. Light is about revealing what is real;its about showing the way. Its about helping peoplesee beyond the shadows.

Jesus said that He was the light of the world, that Hecame to show us the way to live, the way to a relation-ship with God. Here He says, Now you are to be thatlight.

A world that is searching for truth, searching formeaning, searching for purpose, searching for Godyoucan show them. You can reveal it to them.

Imagine a world full of people who were dying of aform of cancer for which there was no known cure.

Imagine you suddenly realized that you had it, and you

could give it to them. You could save each and everyone of them. You could introduce them to it, bring it to

them, help them take it. Imagine the impact; imaginethe possibilities!

Thats what Jesus is saying: The world is dancing inthe dark. You can be the light.

And then He said,

(Matthew 16:18, Msg)We have this light; we have this truth; we have this

message...and we have this thing called the church.Not church as you might think of it. This wasnt some

manmade organization.This wasnt some country club. This wasnt some

dead, stagnant, lifeless, irrelevant, outdated, archaic, boring little enterprise. Jesus was talking about the church asthe gathering of those who are the light of the world inorder to be that light.

You know how the power of light works. The moreits brought together, the more its focused, the more its

Dr. James Emery White became

Gordon-Conwells fourth president and

Professor of Theology and Culture onJuly 1, 2006.

Dr. White was formerly found-

ing and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in

Charlotte, North Carolina, a church plant that grew to more than

3,000 families with over 5,000 active attenders.

During his tenure, Mecklenburg experienced more than 70

percent of its growth from the unchurched, was cited in a

study by the Lilly Endowment as one of the top 300 Protestant

churches in the United States, and during its formative years

was often cited as one of the fastest growing church starts in t

United States.

He is also founder of Serious Times, an organization that isdevoted to understanding the intersection of church and

culture, and sponsors the annual Serious Times Church and

Culture Conference.

Dr. White has served in pastoral capacities at churches in

North Carolina and Indiana; has been an adjunct faculty mem

of several seminaries and universities, including the Gordon-

ConwellCharlotte campus, where he was adjunct professor of

Christian Theology, Culture and Apologetics; and has been a v

ing professor and guest lecturer at a number of seminaries an

DR. JAMES EMERY WHITE

1 2

1 Trustee Dr. Michael Haynes gave the invocation. 2 Dr. James Emery White delivering Inaugural Address.3 Front:Dr. Gwenfair Adams, Associate Professor of Church History; Back: Board Chair, Thomas Colatosti, President EmeritusDr. Robert E Cooley, Dr. White, President Emeritus Dr. Walter C. Kaiser, Jr.4 Dr. White during inaugural ceremony


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concentrated, the stronger it becomes. Light that is diffuseddoesnt make that much of an impact. But focus that lightthrough a magnifying glass and set something on fire. Con-

centrate it as much as possible and you have a laser thatcan cut through sheet metal.Jesus said, I am bringing together my church to

demonstrate power and potency, focus and impact. Achurch so filled with energy, and focused as the Light ofthe world, that not even hell itself can stand up under itsonslaught.

So why isnt that happening? Did you know Jesuswas actually asked that question? His first followers triedto make the impact Jesus made, tried to do the wonder-ful works He achieved, tried to be the light He calledthem to be, and failed. So they asked Him why, and Hetold them. In Matthew 17, its recorded that He said: ...

(Mat-thew 17:20-21, Msg).

And then, two chapters later, He would add theseunforgettable words: ...with God all things are possible(Matthew 19:26, NIV).

And as if there was any doubt what Jesus wantedto get across, two chapters later, we encounter one ofthe most provocative scenes in the New Testament. TheScriptures tell us:

Light that is diffused doesnt make that much

of an impact. But focus that light through amagnifying glass and set something on fire.

theological schools in the U.S., Russia and England.

He is a graduate of Appalachian State University, holds Master

of Divinity and Ph.D. degrees in theology, history and biblicalstudies from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and

pursued advanced study at Vanderbilt University and continuing

education at Oxford University, Oxford, England. While in gradu-

ate school, he was awarded a rare double Garrett teaching fellow-

ship in both New Testament and theology.

He is the author of 14 books, including the recently released

A Mind for God; Serious Times, a Gold Medallion finalist;

Embracing the Mysterious God, a Christianity Todaybook-of-

the-year award winner; The Prayer God Longs For; Rethinking

the Church; and A Search for the Spiritual, also a Gold Meda

lion nominee. In addition, he has been a contributing author

to nine books and was consulting editor for The Holman BibleHandbook. His articles have appeared in numerous newspape

as well as in leading Christian magazines and journals such as

Leadership Journaland Decision.

A frequent speaker nationally and internationally, he is a me

ber of organizations such as the American Academy of Religio

Evangelical Theological Society, Society of Biblical Literature a

the Willow Creek Association.

He and his wife, Susan, have four children: Rebecca, Rache

Jonathan and Zachary.

4


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(Matthew 21:18-22, Msg).

And if that doesnt move you out of your comfortzone, we have these words of Jesus recorded by theapostle John:

(John 14:12-14, Msg).Whats the headline here? Its simply: There is a God

on the loose. When we align ourselves with Him, pray toHim, join with Him in what He is doing, stand back. Allbets are off, because all things are possible.

C.S. Lewis once observed that the New Testamentcontains what can only be called embarrassing promisesof what prayer can unleash. Its true. They border on thescandalous. But most of us dont believe in that God. Wedont pray to that God. We arent in relationship withthat God. And that, Jesus said, is the problem.

As J.B. Phillips once wrote, our God is too small. But

Hes not small. This is the God who brought the universeinto being with a sweep of His hand, and who holds thecosmos together with a mere thought...and acts in waysthat only God can, which means supernaturally.

Many who explore Christ, and even those of us whofollow Him, have an odd relationship with the supernatu-ral. We believe in it, but never expect to experience it.

When we pray to God, or join with Him on an en-deavor clearly aligned with His kingdom, His agenda,His purposes, we dont really expect Him to show upatleast not in ways that are unmistakable. We dont really

expect God to act like God. Or even that He can. Soguess what. He doesnt.

Jesus tells us that with God, all things are possibleanything can happen. But it takes two things: Did youcatch them in what Jesus said? First, take God seriously.Have faith that He is God, and can act like God. Believe,trust, that you are not praying to a stone idol, or somemental idea, or some vague emotion, but that you arepraying to, calling on, and joining with Someone real.And that Someone is the God of wonders, the Lord of allcreation, of water, earth and sky. The universe declaresHis majesty.

But then second, Jesus said you have to have whatyoure doing be what God is wanting to do, because thisisnt some kind of name it, claim it thing. This isntabout working up enough belief, and then you call onGod like Hes some kind of cosmic errand boy or geniewho has to do your will because you rubbed the bottlejust right.

Jesus was very clear. He said:

You want to experience Godraw, unfiltered, miracu-lous, supernatural? You want to see mountains move?Then find out what God is doing, and join Him.

...[T]hink about what God is doing. First and fore-

most, Hes reclaiming a lost world back to Himself. Hesees lives lost in the darkness, apart from a relationshipwith Him [that is] built on grace and forgiveness, restoration and reconciliation, new beginnings and new identi-ties, and wants to reach out and bring health and healingwholeness and meaning...and from that, restore a mar-riage, strengthen a family, infuse a sense of calling. God is

2

1 Members of the faculty 2 Dr. Haddon Robinson, Harold John Ockenga Distinguished Professor ofPreaching, offered Old Testament reading. 3 President Emeritus Dr. Walter C. Kaiser, Jr. giving dedicatory prayer.


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about saving people from the darkness of this life, and theperil of a darkness that would last for eternity.

But thats not all. Within the Great Commission,rooted in the creation narrative itself, is a cultural com-

mission: to see the kingdom of God advanced in all of lifeand culturein our educational system, judicial system,the media.

But thats not all. Hes on the march against povertyand disease, homelessness and crime. Hes declaredwar on racism and abuse, oppression and injustice.There is a culture of life written on every page of theBible, which tells us that God is on the side of the weakand the unprotected, the widow and the orphan, theunborn and infirm.

So add all this up: We are the light of the world. Thatlight has been brought together as the churchfocus-ing that light with unbridled energy. And as that lightis brought to bear on this world in ways that align withthe extension of the Kingdom of God, and we believe inthe God of that Kingdom, God shows up, infusing whatwe do with nothing less than His power, His might, Hisstrength, His ability...

...Which is why I am committed so passionately to avision of what God can dowants to dothrough a semi-nary like Gordon-Conwell. To impact the culture, youhave to impact the church. To impact the church, youhave to impact her leaders.

So what would Jesus say to Gordon-Conwell? Dream

big. We can be part of what God is doing in this worldin ways that are mind-boggling, revolutionary, becausewe can be engaged in shaping the heart, mind, soul andstrength of leaders:follow God out on the adventure of faith, and takingtheir place on the stage of the great redemptive drama;

so formed in Christ that they truly have something to of-fer the world that it does not already have;-

lical worldview that is then wielded by a Christian mind;whose enterprise is the great revolution set in motionthrough Christ for the reclaiming of the worldand notjust as an equipping agency, but as an institution that is,itself, on the front lines of those very same things.

That has been my lifelong passion. Its what drivesme. I depend on it, because assuming the presidency ofGordon-Conwell has been a humbling experience. No oneknows better than I do how inadequate I am for the task.

When I think of the founders of the school, men likeBilly Graham and Harold Ockenga...when I think of thepresidents who have gone before, such as Bob Cooley andWalt Kaiser...when I think of the trustees currently invest-ing their time and leadership, such as Charles Colson,Anne Graham Lotz, and Leighton Ford...when I think ofthe stellar faculty, and particularly those who have givenso many years of their life to this institution, I realize thatGod has called together a very special group of leadersfor a very special cause. But as heralded as the past hasbeen, and as much as it should be honored, today we arenot about the past. Today, we are about the future.

The dictionary defines vision as the ability to perceivethat which is not seen. In the context of Christian lifeand leadership, vision is a of what God wants you

to do, and to be that is then used to set goals in order tosee that dream become .

And that matters.In Proverbs, the Bible says:

(Proverbs 29:18, NIV). You may knowthat the Hebrew translation of the word perish actu-ally doesnt mean death in the physical sense, but literally

To impact the culture, you have to impact the church.To impact the church, you have to impact her leaders. Andno other institution is positioned to do this like a seminary.


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bask in past, or even present, success. The natural flowof any organization, left to itself, is away from expan-

sion, away from growth, away from outreach, away fromchange. And that is what must not be allowed. The needis too great.

When John F. Kennedy was assassinated, the entireworld knew about it in two hours. Its been 2,000 yearssince the death of Jesus, and yet half the world hasntheard.

Of 6 billion people in the world, only 2 billion areChristians. And the lost in the world are growing 10 timesfaster than churches. This must captivate us, consume us,compel us.

It must drive us to do all that we can, to leave noth-ing out on the field at the end of the contest, because one

day, we will stand before God and give an account ofhow we stewarded not only our lives, but our opportuni-ties; not only our resources but our will; not only ourtime, but our courage.

We will stand before Him and be asked, Did youreyes not see? Did your heart not break? We will beasked, Did you do all that you could?

There is an obscure little passage in the Old Testamenttucked away in the book of II Kings that tells of the deathof the great prophet Elisha. Between the last reference tothe life of Elisha, and this story of his death, there is a43-year period of silence. So the events surrounding his

death were apparently deemed important enough to Godto ensure that they were recorded.

Elisha was suffering from an illness, and the King ofIsrael went to see him. Seeing Elisha on his deathbed, theking suddenly realizes that Elisha, as a prophet of God,has been the key to Israels military success, over and overagaineven more so than the military itself! He suddenlysees that without God involved, there could be no hope ofgaining ground, of going further.

In response, Elisha gives the king a final opportunityfor his blessing in relation to building the kingdom. Hetells the king to get a bow and some arrows, and has him

take the bow and arrows in his hand. Then Elisha put hishands on the kings hands.By doing this, he is making it clear that what he is

about to do will be full of spiritual symbolism andsignificance. Then he tells the king to open up a window,and shoot.

The king does, and Elisha proclaims that the arrowwas the arrow of victory.

But in order to make sure that the king knew thatwhat God would do would be linked to what he was will-ing to do, he then said, , meaning that he was to take the remaining

President White, I have the happy task of charging

you on behalf of the Board, the seminary, the fac-

ulty, the entire Gordon-Conwell community. I was

honored when I was asked to do this. I was a little

bit surprised because the last president I helped to

inaugurate got run out of town on the rails! This is

a much different kind of president. I know because

Gods hand has been on you for a long time. And

Gods hand has been on us as weve gone through

this process [of selecting a president.]

I say this with a great deal of personal joy because

Im at that time in my life when I begin to look at

my own legacy, and realize how many people have

been calling me a prophet, which is not...a job that

you sign up for, but one [to which] God has called

meto speak prophetically to the culture about the

need for truth and moral values, and for the resto-

ration of righteousness and justice in our culture. I

feel tonight that not only is there a transition taking

place from Walt Kaiser, Bob Cooley and Harold

Ockenga into your handsa great holy trust forthe seminarybut a transition personally, because

for a number of years Ive read your writings and

thought, theres a man who...could do what God

has called me to do, and I feel a little bit tonight

like Elijah and Elisha.

Dont expect the chariots of fire to come down

A Charge by Trustee

Charles Colson

Contd on next pageg


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arrows and shoot them, not out the window as a sign ofcalling on what God would do, but at the ground, reflect-ing what he was willing to do.

The king took the arrows, and struck the ground.But only three times, and then he stopped. He decidedthat it was enough. Then Elisha looked at him, and be-came angry.

He said,

ThenElisha died and was buried.

That little story has stuck with me for a very longtime. The king was given an opportunity for blessing,a chance to join with what God was willing to do. Buthe was only moderately enthusiastic about it. He wasonly willing to go so far, to extend himself so much, toinvest in what it would take to move forward in a limitedamount. He had more arrows that could have been shot,but he took it upon himself to only shoot three.

Three, he thought, was enough.But by only shooting the ground three times, not evenusing everything at his disposal, he revealed the lack ofzeal, the lack of commitment, he had for giving everythinghe had to the accomplishment of the mission. He didntdo everything he could. And that caused God to withholdHis full hand of blessing, the full measure of what Hewas willing and able to do.

I dont think theres a single person here who wants toface God one day, and have Him say, I gave you a fistfuof arrows. Why didnt you strike the ground more times?Why didnt you give it your all? Why didnt you aggres-sively do all that you could do?

No. We want to hear, Well done. We want to hear,You gave it all you had. We want to hear, You laiddown your life, like I laid down mine. Satan would lovenothing more than for the founding vision of this place tobe lost, along with our sense of mission. Well, were notgoing to do it. Were going to shoot every arrow.

Throughout the years, Gordon-Conwell has pursuedits mission with a clear commitment to academic excel-lence, biblical orthodoxy, the best of mainstream evangeli-cal moorings, and a passionate desire to serve the churchat her point of greatest need. We have a founding vision,and an ongoing vision: to change the world by leading the

leaders. I will do all in my power to uphold this heritage,and more importantly, in dependence on Gods power.

I want to invite you into this great adventure. I wantto invite you into this vision.

I want you to be a part of what Gordon-Conwell isgoing to be a part of during this critical juncture in worldhistory. I hope, and I pray, that youre with me.

So pick a numberany number.

I know I have mine.

upon us, but I really feel like Im passing a mantle

off to one who will be able to address the culture

lovingly and winsomely with a wonderfully appealing

proposal to come to the table and join the feast with

those of us who follow the Lamb who was crucified

for us....

God laid the foundation for this some six years ago

when our farsighted Chairman of the Board then,

Dick Armstrong, brought us all together...and said,

Lets put up all the things that will be important to

the future of this seminary if it can be one of the

truly great seminaries in the world (which is why I

came on the board, because I really believed Gor-

don-Conwell could become that). And when we laid

out the mission, it was to not only fulfill the Great

Commission but to fulfill the cultural one.

...the profile of the man we believed God would lead

us to was someone who had a sensitivity to that...

who had a heart not only for the lost and the least

and the suffering and those who had been passed

by in life, but cared about speaking truth to power

and defending truth and overcoming the evil of life

with good. Ive seen since then the most wonderful

illustration of the providence of God as hes pre-

pared you for this position and hes prepared theseminary...

Remember always...that we are the mules that carry

Jesus into the marketplace...How silly it would have

been if the mule carrying Jesus into Jerusalem

would have thought the crowd cheering was for him.

They werent, of course, and they cheer for the one

we carry, not for us. So you do this with a great deal

of humility, but as a sacred trust from God. We now

charge you with taking the presidency, and the re-

sponsibility for leading this seminary in a vision thatwill make it one of the most influential in the world,

as we find new ways to communicate and raise men

and women up who can fulfill the Great Commis-

sion and the cultural commission to defend truth in

an age which has disregarded truth and reason. I

charge you...to take this trust and to give it every-

thing youve got with your life. God bless you.


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THETIMEIS SHORT.

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timothy george, th.d.founding deanbeeson divinity school

Dr. Timothy George delivered the

following lecture during an Inauguration

Chapel Service October 6, 2006, on the

South Hamilton, Massachusetts campus

of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

but this i say, brethren, the time is short:

it remaineth, that both they that have wives

be as though they had none; and they that

weep, as though they wept not; and they that

rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they

that buy, as though they possessed not; and

they that use this world, as not abusing it: for

the fashion of this world passeth away.

1 corinthians 7:29-31 (kjv)


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bring to this service what anold Puritan divine once called a mixture ofterror and joy,of awful reverence and holy plea-sure. I am here to celebrate with you the stewardship of anew beginning with the inauguration of Dr. James EmeryWhite, my student from days gone by, my friend of long

standing, and now my colleague in the work of theologi-cal education. This is a day of rejoicing, thanksgiving andgreat expectation.

A few years ago I learned a new word. Do you knowit? Ecotone. It is a word derived from the worlds of biol-ogy and ecology. An ecotone is a place where two ormore ecosystems come together, the point of transitionbetween two communities or ecosystems that blend intoone another where they meet. A good example of an eco-tone is an estuary, where the river flows into the ocean,where the tide meets the current. Or when you are flyingout West across Nebraska and Kansas, you fly across athousand miles of flat prairie land until, almost suddenly,

the plains are interrupted by the rise of the Rockies. Thatis an ecotone, where the plains meet the mountains. Anecotonic space is inherently unstable, shifting and fragile.But it is also highly fertile, characterized by diversity,fluidity and transformation; a place of enormous risk anddanger, but also of generativity and fecundity, a spacewhere new life is spawned and new beginnings are made.

Now to extrapolate from the world ofgeography to that of history...we are livingin the third great ecotonic moment in the history of theChristian faith. The first witnessed the end of classi-

cal antiquity and the beginning of the medieval era. Itwas symbolized...by the pillage and burning of Rome onAugust 24, 410 by Alaric and the Visigoths, the so-calledbarbarians, and...by St. Augustine and his articulation ofthe first, and perhaps still only great Christian philosophyof history in

The second ecotonic moment was the age of the Refor-mation, a time of great change and transition marked bythe death throes of the Middle Ages...and the birth pangsof the modern age...In that perilous age, Martin Lutherstood with courage, a prophet of judgment, like Jeremiah,

and a preacher of divine grace, like St. Paul; while in theEast, in 1453, Constantinople, the second Rome, fell tothe armies of Islam, the shockwaves of which we still feeltoday. As Ernst Troeltsch argued 100 years ago, the Ref-ormation belongs perhaps more to the medieval age thatpreceded it than to the modern world that followed it, forthe modern project, as we call it, only took flight some

two centuries later in that movement of spiritual andideological darkness which we call the Enlightenment.

Now we are in the midst of the thirdgreat ecotonic moment,the intersection ofmodernity and postmodernity, a word which by defini-tion is indefinable. We can say what it is not better thanwhat it isa mentality marked by a new hedonism whichplaces pleasure above identity; a loss of confidence in theability to make rational truth claims supported by logicalargument; the evaporation of an overarching story line ormetanarrative with absolute or universal implications; apenchant for the visual, the affective, the instantaneous,the dramatic, the disconnected. It is an ecotone...symbol-ized for all of us, forever, by the flaming inferno of 9/11,but rooted much earlier in the writings of Freud andNietzsche. The two authors every seminary student shouldread are John Calvin and Friedrich Nietzsche. I wouldlike to see every student with a copy of the Institutes inone hand and in the other!

It is a cultural moment presaged already at the end ofWorld War I in the artistic movement known as DadaismNow dont go to a biographical dictionary and try to lookup an artist named Dada. You will find Mr. Derrida therebut not Mr. Dada. Dada is a nonsense word...chosen

at random to express the inherent meaninglessness of thehuman project, nihilistic to the core. Listen to how theDada Manifesto, published at Zurich in 1918, describedthis artistic movement. We are a furious wind, tear-ing the dirty linen of clouds and prayers, preparing thegreat spectacle of disaster, fire, decomposition. Is therea better description of 9/11 than that? A great spectacleof disaster, fire, decomposition. This mood was capturedprecisely in a drama of the period where there are onlytwo people on stage. One is writing meaningless words ona blackboard, the second person following along erasing

...I


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them. This is our moment: An ecotonic age that has yetto find its Augustine, its Luther. Perhaps he or she hasjust enrolled as a first-year student at Gordon-ConwellTheological Seminary?

...To quote James EmeryWhite quot-ing John Adams,we live in serious times. Or, asSaint Paul put it to us in 1 Corinthians 7: The time isshort,...squeezed, compressed, foreshortened by apoca-lyptic urgency. Those who follow Jesus Christ, he sayssomewhere else, are those upon whom the ends of theworld have come, the ends of the age have come.

If I understand him aright, Paul is saying here thatChristian existence itself is an ecotone. We are called tolive in what Paul refers to in Romans as ,the now age, between the no longer and the not yet,between Calvary and Easter on the one hand and theParousia on the other. And this eschatological fact hasupset all our priorities. So, as he says here, they whohave wives should be as though they had none. Try to

use that as a text for your marriage enrichment week-end! Those that weep as though they wept not. Doesthat sound like a well-adjusted personality? Those thatbuy as though they possessed not. Will this fly at thelocal Chamber of Commerce? What is he saying here?Not that God is unconcerned with our family life, orour business life, or our social life. No, but that all ofthese priorities must be reordered in light of the immi-nent coming again in glory of Jesus Christ. It is a pro-test against the heresy of an overly-realized eschatology.Because these are serious times, and the time is short,we cannot simply go on doing business as usual.

How then shall we live?as ChuckColson echoing Francis Schaeffer has asked us. Howshall you as a theological seminary dedicated to prepar-ing men and women for ministry at home and abroad,as your mission statement says, how shall you do yourwork in these serious times? Well, I have no new ideasto give you today and no new plans to set before you.There will be a time for new ideas and new plans to besure, but today I simply want to remind you of whatyou already know. I want to remind you of three thingsthat have shaped you in the past and which, I pray, you

A Charge by Timothy George, Th.D.A Summons from Beyond Yourself

Following are excerpts of an inauguration charge to

Dr. James Emery White.

...I want to speak some personal words to Jim as his

former teacher and long-time friend and now colleague

in the enterprise of theological education. I want to

remind you, Jim, that inauguration, like graduation, is

something done to you. Students do not graduate; they

are graduated. And leaders do not inaugurate; they are

inaugurated. The same is true of baptism, which is a

kind of inauguration into the Christian life. Baptism,

St. Paul says, is the place where we rise to walk in a

newness of life, having put on Christ. And becoming a

new president is something like that. It is, of course,

in strange and mysterious and different ways that God

calls those who will lead His Church. Augustine was

happy to spend his life chanting psalms in the mon-

astery, but the people of Hippo rushed to him, placed

him on their shoulders, carried him to the cathedral,

and began to say, Episcopus, Episcopus, Our Bishop,

Our Bishop. Calvin was going to spend only one night

in smelly Geneva, as he said, when he was confronted

with a booming voice and fiery eyes of that Frenchman

Gionne Farrell, who thundered, Unless you stay with

us in this work, God will condemn you. John Wesley

went, he says, unwillingly to a Moravian prayer chapel

at Aldersgate and his heart was strangely warmed and

soon the whole world was ablaze.

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will never forget. They are the basicsyour heri

tage, your message, and your mission.

So first, then, heritage.By heritage Imean, in the first instance, the values, the his-tory, and the mission of this particular institu-tion..., a school which is soon approaching its40th birthday. Forty is a good age to take stockof who you are, to consider where you havecome from and to ask where you are going. Theidentity of Gordon-Conwell as a free standing,interdenominational, yet explicitly evangelicaltheological institution with more than 2000 students in some 20 degree programs spread nowacross four locations stretching almost from KeyWest to Bar Harbor is, well, if not unique, atleast quite rare within the family of theologi-cal schools...Like any ecotone, it presents greatchallenges as well as unprecedented opportuni-ties for Kingdom growth.

The heritage, of course, goes deeper still toAdoniram Judson Gordon and Russell Conwelland the schools that emerged from their remark-able ministries in Boston and Philadelphia in the19th Century. And back further still to those Pu-ritan forbears who determined to establish whatthey called a seminary in the wilderness herein New England. For, as they said in words thatcan still be read on Harvards Johnson Gate: Wedreaded to leave an illiterate ministry to thechurches when our present ministers shall lie inthe dust. The Puritan founders of Harvard Col-

lege assumed as something inherent within theplausibility structure of civil and humane societyitself that education and reformation belongedinvariably together.

If you are as true to that heritagein the future,as you have been in the past,you will graduate students who have more thana passing acquaintance with the classical theo-logical disciplines that constitute the body of divinity. How-to courses and church managementseminars are available anywhere, and some ofthem are actually useful. But where, except in a

place like this, will your students learn the deepwisdom of the Holy Scriptures because theyhave had to struggle with Greek and Hebrewand hermeneutics? Where else will they learnwhat was at stake at the Council of Nicaeawhen Athanasius stood for thesake of the one God who has forever knownhimself as the Father, the Son, and the HolySpirit, the one triune God of holiness and love?

But it is a part of this heritage to emphasizenot only intellectual rigor, but also spiritual

Now, Jim, were not going to put you on our shoulders nor

wag our fingers in your face tonight, but here I am in the

presence of God Almighty and the holy angels and this

august assembly, to remind you of the summons that has

come to you from beyond yourself. There will be times when

you will need to remember that when budgets are hard to

meet and difficulties arise, and the nights are long, and the

pain is deep, and howling noreasters roar across Beverly

Farms. Remember, Jim, this night you have been inaugurat-

ed. You have been summoned. This is a call that has come

to you from beyond yourself.

In your wonderful book, Serious Times, you have a chap-

ter, Answering the Call, which is an exposition of the

Latin word vocotsio. I want to give you another Latin word

tonight, perigranatsio. It means pilgrimage. It was one of St.

Augustines favorite words. Christian life is itself a pilgrim-

age toward that city which hath foundations whose builder

and maker is God. And your presidency will be a kind of

pilgrimage, too. Like Abraham and Sarah setting out on a

journey to a place they had never been, so you and Susan,

your Sarah, are undertaking such a journey tonight. It is a

journey from certainty to trust, and from stability to vulner-

ability; it is a journey from the temporal toward the eternal.

And as we know from Chaucer and Bunyan, pilgrims do

not travel alone but in the company of other pilgrims, and

you will need the love, support and prayers of this board,

faculty, staff, students, alumni, family, colleagues and

friends you have met along the way. Tonight, I pledge you,

unreservedly, mine.

Pilgrims are not building an empire; they are looking for a

city, one already built by The Great Architect of eternity.

And I want to remind you...of some words, sage words,

from another generation, from Reinhold Niebuhr, that have

meant much to me in my pilgrimage. He said, Nothing that

is worth doing can be achieved in a lifetime and therefore

we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beauti-

ful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context

of history; therefore, we must be saved by faith. Nothing we

do, however virtuous can be accomplished alone, there-

fore, we are saved by love. This, I submit as a summons to

humility; it is also the implicit covenant of all our dialogues

and, in the fullest sense, it is the vocation of theological

education. Welcome to the journey.


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nurture. Cotton Mather reported that when his famousgrandfather, John Cotton, was a student back in Eng-land, at Cambridge, he was worried that if he becamea godly man, twould spoil him in being a learned one.Sadly, the opposite is also true. We can all think ofstudents whom we have known that in the process ofbecoming learned have forgotten to be godly. But in a

school committed to the coherence of intellect and piety,spiritual formation is not an option. When Gordon-Conwell was founded in 1969, few if any Protestant orevangelical seminaries paid much attention to spiritualformation. That was something the Catholics did! Now,our accreditation standards hold us all accountablefor the spiritual nurture of our students. As I tell ourstudents at Beeson: If theological education were merely

about the transfer of cognitive data from one mind toanother you would not need to go to anyones seminary.It is all on the Internet! It is all in the library!... But, as Isay to them, we are like Dracula; we are after your soul!Head and heart together, neither rigid intellectualism norsloppy sentimentalism, but Puritanism and pietism both,as Richard Lovelace taught us to say, both together at

their best. As Thomas Aquinas said so beautifully: The-ology is taught by God, teaches God, and takes us toGod. And if it does not do that, it is a mind game wecould just as well do without.

Your heritage, yes, but what aboutyour ?A few years ago, my dear friend,now among the blessed departed, John Leith, a greatPresbyterian theologian, wrote a book with a fascinatingsubtitle...: What the church has to say that no one elsecan say. Think about it. Does the church of JesusChrist have anything to say that no one else can say?Does the theological seminary have anything to say that

no one else can say? Your message grows out of yourheritage and reflects your identity as a school committedto the evangelical faith. Who are evangelicals? The greatJohn Stott once gave the shortest and, I believe, the bestanswer to that question I have ever heard. Evangelicals,he said, are Bible people and Gospel people. That, ofcourse, is a shorthand way of stating the formal andmaterial principles of the Reformation:and

When Harold John Okenga presented his inauguraladdress as the first president of this seminary, he spoke

of the desire to establish an overarching, great theologi-cal institution dedicated to revealed Christianity. Sinceits inception, Gordon-Conwell has ever stood for thetotal truthfulness of Holy Scripture, the only infallibleguide to faith and practice. It is there in your statementof faith; it is there in your community life statement; itis there in your history and the controversies that have

swirled around you.In 1988, the late Dr. Carl F. H. Henry spoke at my

own installation as Dean of Beeson Divinity School.What he said then bears repeating on this occasion. Myown convictions about Scripture, he said, are these:First, that no movement can impact influentially uponsociety in general if its leaders continually undermineits charter documents. Second, that no movement can

impact influentially upon culture if its scholars exhausttheir energy in defending Scripture and fail to unleashit in society at large for which it was intended. Andthird, that the effort by historical scholars to dis-tinguish trustworthy and supposedly untrustworthysegments of the Bible lacks consensus and poses agreater crisis for critical authority than it does a crisis

of biblical authority. We need not fight the inerrancybattles of the past generation all over again, but we donot back away from the truth claims of Gods Wordwritten. Its history is historical and its miracles are mi-raculous. Because of this commitment, we will not onlyencourage our students to preach about the Bible butalso from the Bible. We will guide them to become,

If theological education were merely about the

tranfer of cognitive data from one mind to another youwould not need to go to anyones seminary. It is all on the Internet!

Professor Donna Petter, Dr. Timothy George


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as the first article of your mission statement says it sowell, knowledgeable of the Bibles content, competentit its interpretation, proclamation, and application inthe contemporary world.

Evangelicals are Bible people and we are also Gos-pel people. For Gods truth is not only propositional,it is also incarnational. Unlike the Quran in Islam, theWord Christians proclaim did not become a text. Goddid not send us an email or make a video for us. (John 1:14). The Word became flesh:real, pulsating, corpuscular, human flesh; flesh thatcould be buffeted and bruised and finally strung up ona tree to die as an object of ridicule and shame. Theearliest artistic depiction of the crucifixion we have is adrawing on a catacomb in Rome. It shows Jesus as a don-key hanging on a cross with the inscription: Christiansworship an ass. That is why Paul said it was a scand-

alon. It was in his day and it is still in ours.In the days of Martin Luther there was a story about

Martin of Tours...The story was that once upon a time,Satan had appeared to Saint Martin of Tours, but he ap-peared to him, not as we picture the devil, with smokecoming out his ears, pitchforks, all of that. No, he ap-peared to him as Christ, as the Redeemer. And, of course,Martin of Tours fell prostrate at his feet and began toworship and adore. But then a few minutes later he lookedup, and he asked as he looked at the figure, Where arethe nail prints? There were none. As soon as he asked

that question, the apparition vanished. That is a questionwe must ask of every course in the curriculum, of everylecture that we give, of every book we write: Where arethe nail prints? In my hands no price I bring, simply tothy cross I cling. Make this central in your message andyour methodology, you Gospel people. The Lord hathreigned from the tree, said the ancient Syrian liturgy. And

so he did, and so he does. Make it the heart of your mes-sage.

And your ?Gordon-Conwell is a semi-nary charged with the task of preparing God-called menand women for the service of Jesus Christ. Never, never,never forget that you are a school of the Church and forthe Church. I agree with those who say that ecclesiologymay be the most important theological issue for the com-ing generation. You are poised to make a deep and lastingcontribution to that development. Lesslie Newbigin re-minded us that the church of Jesus Christ is the embodi-ment of Gospel truth made alive in the power of the Holy

Spirit. The Church is not only the most effective apolo-getic for the Christian message in our postmodern world; i

is the only one likely to get a hearing in such a world.

The Church has always existed intensionbetween the poles of identity and adaptabilityAt times it has gone to seed on identity and become aholy huddle, in quarantine, as it were, sequestered from theworld and its pain. The neoevangelicalism of Harold JohnOkenga and Carl Henry and Billy Graham was preciselya protest against such a false emphasis on identity. Butthe Church can also go to seed on adaptability and lose

the Gospel. Our challenge is to stand, committedly, not atthe centerthat is an inherently relativistic termbut atthe core. Let us be advocates of. MereChristians, yes, but not mere in the weak, attenuated senseof that word. There are two words in Latin which canbe translated mere. One is and it means barelyhardly, minimally. This is the meaning we usually attachto the words mere or merely. But we need to recoverthat word in the older, stronger, deeper sense, corresponding to the Latin word , which means reallytruly, surely, authentically. This is what I mean by . Core is the Latin word for heart. When wecore an apple, what do we find there but the seeds from

which new trees will grow? The core is always fecundand generative.

At its best, evangelicalism is a renewal movementwithin historic Christian orthodoxy. It takes its standwith the reformers of the 16th Century on the sufficiency of Holy Scripture and the doctrines of grace, includ-ing justification by faith alone. But its adherence to theReformation is not an end in itself. It is rather a callfor the renewal of the entire Church on the basis of theWord of God. In the 1950s, E.J. Carnell, who oncetaught at Gordon Divinity School, referred to fun-

Second-century anti-Christian graffiti showing a man worshiping a donkey ona cross.


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damentalism as Christianity gone cultic. We mustbeware lest evangelicalism become a form of Protes-tantism gone myopic. Instead, we take our place in theChurch as the Body of Christ extended throughout timeas well as space.

Because we are committed to mission

and evangelism, we also pray and work for thatunity for which Jesus prayed to the Heavenly Father,Oh may they be one, Heavenly Father, as you and I areone, so that the world might believe. The modern ecu-menical movement may well have drifted away from itsevangelical moorings, pretty far away, some of us mightthink. But we must never forget that it was born on themission field and that evangelicalism was its midwife. Weare preparing to celebrate the 100th anniversary of thegreat ecumenical missionary conference at Edinburgh in1910. That event would have been unthinkable withoutthe witness and labors of Carey, Livingstone, and Moffat,of A.J. Gordon and D.L. Moody and many others. Thesestreams were brought together again at the 1966 WorldConference on Evangelism in Berlin, and further strength-ened at Lausanne in 1974, Manila in 1989 and the variousAmsterdam conferences convened by Dr. Billy Graham.We care about Christian unity because we care about theGospel, because we are committed to mission and evan-gelism. We practice an ecumenism of conviction not anecumenism of accommodation, for the only unity worthhaving is a unity in the truth, in the truth of the HolyScriptures and the truth of the Gospel, in the truth of himwho is the Truth as well as the Way and the Life.

The Church is the Body of Christextended throughout time as well as space. But it isalso the Body of Christ extended throughout space aswell as time. You are a seminary of the Church and forthe Church and because that is true you must also be a

seminary for the world: not of the world, and certainlynot from the world but for the worldthe world forwhich Christ died. One of the most important books Ihave read over the past decade is Philip Jenkins , which has presented to us the newfaces of Christianity in the Global South. If presenttrends continue, he says, by 2025, less than two decadesfrom now, the great majority of those professing faithin Jesus Christ around the world will be Latino, African

and Asian. This has profound implications for how weunderstand the mission of the Church in North America.The rising Christianity of the Global South is likely tobe poorer, less acculturated to both the virtues and vicesof democratic capitalism, more conservative in lifestyleand theology, more charismatic, more supernaturalist,than most of us even in the conservative wing of the

evangelical church in the Northern hemisphere knowanything about.

This fact was driven hometo me severalyears ago when I was chairing a theological conferencein Seville, Spain. Those of us from Western Europe andNorth America who dominated the program, as usual,were obsessed with postmodernism and its aftereffects,while our brothers and sisters from the Global Southwanted to talk about how to cast out demons and dealwith witchcraft and, in some cases, how to deal withthe assault and persecution from militant Islam. Whilesome of us Euro-Americans seemed to be suffocat-

ing from the exhaust fumes of ultramodernism, ourcolleagues were breathing the fresher air of a kind ofChristianity that sure seemed closer to the age of theapostles and martyrs, of Peter and Paul, of Polycarp andPerpetua, than anything the rest of us knew.

Earlier this year we lost one of thegreat scholarsof the Christian tradition, ProfessorJaroslav Pelikan. One of his last published writings wasa three-volume, critical edition of the creeds and confes-sions of the Christian faith through the centuries. Heincluded there, of course, the great classic creeds of the

early Church as well as the confessions of the Refor-mation. But he also published some of the more recentstatements of faith from the majority world, includingone written by the Masai people of Nigeria in 1960. TheMasai Creed of 1960 is a version on the Apostles Creed,

but it differs somewhat from the Apostles Creed whichmoves very quickly from we believe in Jesus Christ hisonly Son who was born of the Virgin Mary to suf-fered under Pontius Pilate. Sometimes there is a littlecomma separating those clauses, and the whole life, min-istry, teachings of Jesus, gets kind of elided in that littlecomma. Well, the Masai tribe in Africa put it this way:Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary and was always onsafari doing good. Isnt that great? You get Matthew,

The Church is not only the most effectiveapologetic for the Christian message in our postmodernworld, it is the only one likely to get a hearing in such a world.


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Mark, and Luke in there on safari doing good. Andthen it goes on to describe the events of Holy Week.Jesus, it says, had been tortured and nailed hands andfeet to the cross and he died and he laid buried in thegrave, but the hyenas did not touch him and on thethird day he rose from the grave. He ascended to theskies. He is the Lord, Hallelujah! What a great creed!

The hyenas didnt touch him! Those of us in the North-ern hemisphere need to remember that. The task forthe future will not be so much to Christianize Africathat is happening by Gods Spiritbut to AfricanizeChristianity. And Gordon-Conwell, I believe, will have acritical role to play in that transformation.

At the dawn of this new millennium,some 12,000 delegates from 210 countries, more than be-longed to the United Nations at that time, came togetherfor the great Amsterdam conference in 2000 convenedby Billy Graham. I shall never forget two experienceswe shared at that conference. On the first night afterCliff Barrows had led us in an opening hymn of praise...he directed us all to get down on our knees and offer aprayer out loud in our own language. And so we did. In

that vast arena we began to pray in Spanish and Swahili,and Korean, and German, and Arabic and English, andRussian, and Italian, in Polish and Farsi, and on and on.It was an amazing experience. No chaos or cacophony,but the most amazing harmony and unity as Gods peo-ple from all over the world lifted their hearts in prayerto the Lord. I shall never forget it. And then on the verylast day of the conference, my dear friend RichardBewes led us again to the throne of heaven in a closingservice of communion. I do not know how you servecommunion to 12,000 people, but we did. This is mybody broken for you. This is my blood poured out foryou. There we were from just about every nation and

kindred and tribe and people group and language fam-ily on earth adoring the Lamb who was slain and nowreigns in glory, the One who was and is and is to come.As we ate the bread and drank the cup, it was a fore-taste of that heavenly banquet which is the MarriageSupper of the Lamb.

The time is short. These are serious times. Sobertimes. But they are not somber times, because the Lordwho is the Lamb reigns. He reigns from the tree and hereigns in heaven at the right hand of the Father. And

he is coming again in power and glory to receive untohimself all those who through faith in Jesus Christ havemoved from darkness into light, from death into life,from the old world into a brand new one.

Mr. Graham was not able to come to that meeting atAmsterdam in 2000 for he was in the hospital in Min-neapolis at the time. But we received a video message

from him. This is what he said to close out thatconference:

The story is told of two Christian martyrs in the16th Century who were burned at the stake. As the firewas being lit, one of them said to the other, Be of goodcheer; we shall light a fire that by Gods grace shallnever be put out. Their bodies were consumed but theirmessage of Christs saving grace lives on to this day. Ido not believe that we should spend our time cursing thedarkness. I do not believe that we should spend our timein useless controversies trying to root out the tares whileharming the wheat. I do not believe that we should givein to the forces of evil and violence and indifference.Instead, let us light a fire. Let us light a fire that willbanish moral and spiritual blight wherever we go. Let uslight a fire that will guide men and women into tomor-

row and eternity. Let us light a fire that will roll backthe poisons of racism and injustice. Let us light a fire ofrenewed faith in Scriptures as the Word of God and inworship and evangelism as the priority of the Church.Let us light a fire of commitment to proclaim the Gospeof Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit to theends of the earth, using every resource at our commandand every ounce of our strength. Let us light a fire inthis generation that by Gods grace will never be putout.

May it happen. And may it happen here at Gordon-Con-

well Theological Seminary!

Timothy George is founding dean of BeesonDivinity School at Samford University and anexecutive editor for Christianity Today.

As we ate the bread and drank the cup, it was a foretasteof that heavenly banquet which is the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.


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...Whenever I speak about InterVarsity and our vision, and

what we want our students to be like when they grow up, I

inevitably mention Jim White...Our history together, Inter-

varsity and Jim, goes back to his freshman year of college.

Jim was not a believer, and, as he says, there were two

influences on his life that led him to Jesus. First was C.S.

Lewis, in whom he found an intellectual soul mate. And the

second was a small group of Christian friends who led him,

befriended him and cared for him. They were part of the

InterVarsity chapter on his campus. By his senior year, Jim

was president of that group, a harbinger of things to come.And through the years he [has credited] InterVarsity Press

authors like Francis Schaeffer, Os Guinness, John Stott and

Paul Little. And ...1981 Urbana [InterVarsitys triennial stu-

dent mission convention] is when...his call to his vocation...

was confirmed.

Today, Jim is one of our best selling authors...In his lat-

est book, called A Mind for God, Jim quotes a comic-tragic

line from Bertrand Russell...: Most Christians would rather

die than think. In fact, they do....It says a lot about Rus-

sell, but also something about Jims sense of humor and

his sense of insightfulness. But then Jim goes on to write,

This is a moment of peril. The peril is that when the public

square is uniquely open to spirituality and hungry for vision-

ary ideas..., the mind of the Christian is often found empty,

passive, and more reflective on the world at hand than on

the world to come.

So...to the members of the Gordon-Conwell community, I

want to commend you for selecting a leader that models the

discipleship of the mind, a leader who has crafted an effec-

tive apologetic to this generation, a leader who has a deep,

deep love for the Church. And Jim, as a new president...I

pray three things for you: first, courage, that you will always

do the right thing regardless of the personal cost. Second, I

pray for tenacity, that you will persist even during the hard

times. And third, I pray for hope, that you will regularly

catch a glimpse of what the Lord has for this seminary and

for you. Congratulations, Jim. God bless you all.

...[T]onight, I welcome you to a partnership with me. Our

partnership is mandated by our mutual institutional history.

Over the years, two dynamic institutions under the hand of

God have grown from those humble beginnings in October

of 1889 when A. J. Gordon started the Boston Mission-

ary Training Institute in the basement of Clarendon Street

Baptist Church. At first, the institute required at most a two-

year course of study. But demand grew rapidly and soon the

undergraduate experience was elongated to four years and

a graduate divinity school was added. Today Gordon College

has grown into a leading Christian college of the arts and

Alec D. Hill President and Chief Executive Officer, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship

R. Judson Carlberg, Ph.D.President, Gordon College

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Words of Welcome


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sciences, and Gordon-Conwell into a major force in theolog-

cal education worldwide. We will be stronger if we partner to

support one another as presidents and as learning commu-

nities, to pray for one another and to work regularly to fulfill

the biblical injunction to build each other up. Through the

years both institutions have remained true to the original

vision of A. J. Gordon...[T]he call to share the message of

Christ, and to bring love and care to persons throughout

the world were close to A. J. Gordons heart. Both schools

affirm Christ-like living and holy Scriptures as a foundation

for educational undertaking. Both are committed to an in-

clusive education available to women, to people of color, to

internationals and those from modest circumstances. Both

seek to grow leaders for church and society through creat-

ing vibrant educational communities known for embracing a

global perspective.

We are also institutions which live in tension between

stability and change. While remaining true to our heritage

and commitments, we must build bridges to our fast

changing culture which cries out for meaning and hope in

the midst of despair. May we not shirk from considering new

and innovative means to communicate the love of Christ

effectively to those who are desperate, lonely and media-

drenched. Jan and I welcome you, Jim and Susan, to work

with us, to build a relationship between our campuses that

will be recognized by all as rooted in Christs love. May we

create community by following Pauls admonition to the

church at Colosse: And now, just as you received Christ

Jesus as Lord, you must continue to follow Him. Let your

roots grow down into Him and let your lives be built up

on Him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you

were taught and you will overflow with thankfulness.

Welcome to the partnership.

Jim, welcome to the Boston area... an area of the world

that constitutes three nurseries that nurture our Christian

soul. There is, of course, the school of the prophets, or

the school of the preachers...There are nine schools of the

prophets in the Boston area and I stand here representing

those schools...and welcome you on their behalf... schools

that represent the Methodist, Episcopal Anglican, American

Baptist, Methodist, Roman Catholic, Jesuit and Diocesan,

and the Orthodox communities of faith...nine schools of

theology. Now I dont know what that means to you, but it

means to me there had better be a fair amount of healthy

dialogue among these schools.

...Boston is also the nursery for evangelicalism. I think...

of the wonderful heritage of this city...most particularly as

that heritage became focused on Harold Ockenga and Park

Street Church and the foundation of the evangelical move-

ment after 1948a movement that was not to repeat the

errors of either fundamentalism or modernism, but to seek

to be a new and winsome theological movement in the 20th

Century. So not only are we challenged by what it means to

be an academic community, a school of the prophets, but

were also challenged by what it means to be this nursery of

piety as well, as we seek all that God intends for us...

...Boston is also, in many ways, a nursery for the 21st

Century. Not only is this the city from which airplanes flew

to wreck their devastation five years ago, but...also the

city that is exploring artificial intelligence, exploring the

boundaries of genethics and ...many other avenues in the

sciences in our time. I challenge you, Jim, to join this...

community of discourse, of piety, and this community that

is very much shaping the 21st Century in a variety of ways;

because just as surely as Bin Laden sought to divide us as

a people five years ago, so we must seek ways, grounded in

the integrity of Gods Word...to bind people together, to find

the way forward, that we may indeed be Gods people of the

21st Century...

Rodney L. Peterson, Ph.D.Executive Director, Boston Theological Institute


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Life-size cutouts on the walls, picket fences cordoningoff hallway spaces, a stage on which dramas and puppetshows regularly take placeall testify to her enthusiasmfor creating a fun and captivating MecKidz environmentin which some 500 infants to fifth graders each Sunday

can learn about the love of Jesus.Susan, the wife of Gordon-Conwells new president,

Dr. James Emery White, is Director of Childrens Minis-try at the church she helped her husband found in 1992.Leadership of the ministry is a role she assumed in theearly months of the church, gave up with some tears dur-ing the years her children were young, and joyfully reas-sumed some years later.

I knew I would need to help Jim in his ministry, helphim build the church, she says of her initial developmentof childrens programming for the fledgling church plant.The most natural area for me was with the kids. We hadthree kids at the time and we had to have something forthem. Im not a singer, I dont play beautiful music andIm not a speaker. But I love kids, so it was a good fit. Ijust thoroughly enjoyed teaching the children, investing intheir lives. Moreover, she brought academic preparationto the role, having majored in education at AppalachianState University.

Susan was born in Henderson, North Carolina, andmoved a number of times with her family before land-ing in Charlotte, North Carolina, in the eighth grade.In Charlotte she was soon active in Young Life at South

Mecklenburg High School and was led to Christ by aYoung Life leader. Through a small group at the highschool, she was also discipled by a woman whom Susansays was very strategic in taking a young Christian andhelping her grow in faith.

I grew up in the Methodist church and we were veryfaithful churchgoers, but it really didnt clickthat wholerelationship of having Christ be lord of my lifeuntil I wasin high school. Thats when I gave myself fully to the Lord.

She met Jim through the leadership team of InterVarsityChristian Fellowship at Appalachian State. She was activein the prayer ministry; he was, as she recounts, doing alittle of everythingsinging, playing guitar and serving asthe chapters leader. They dated for a year; got engaged ina beautiful chapel where they had often talked and prayedtogether; were married six months later at the church inBoone, North Carolina, where Jim was serving as direc-tor of the churchs youth ministry; and lived in a little logcabin while he completed a double major.

A year later, they moved to Louisville, Kentucky,where Jim pursued a Master of Divinity degree andultimately, a Ph.D. at The Southern Baptist TheologicalSeminary. Susan recalls the seminary years with muchfondnessa busy time during which, to make ends meet,she worked at a bank and waited tables at a restaurant,he coached basketball, served as Assistant Director ofProspective Student Services at the seminary, and wasinterim and then senior pastor of a church in nearby

Susan Whites love for children and passion for childrens ministry show up

in bright, kid-friendly splas hes of color in the classrooms and corridors of

Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, Nort h Carolina. Anne B. Doll

M e e t t h e W h i t e F a m i l y

1 Dr. and Mrs. James Emery White at Inauguration 2 Zack White at church 3 RacheWhite singing with worship team 4 Zachary (Zack) White helping with Meckidz 5 SusaWhite directs Childrens Ministry 6 Jonathan in MecKidz acting team drama 7 Rebecc

teaching weekly lesson 8 Susan and Jonathan at Inauguration 9 Jonathan and Rebeccleading MecKidz 10 Rebecca White 11 Rachel White 12 Jonathan Whit


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1 2

4 5

7 8

10 11


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Charlestown, Indiana. In 1987, two years into seminary,their eldest daughter, Rebecca, was born, and 19 monthslater, Rachel joined their family.

We look back and Gods hand on our lives has beenso present, Susan observes. Doors will open, and youdont realize what youre learning until much furtherdown the road. Even some of the relationships we built

are still with us. There were hard times, but great times.It was during those years that their vision for the

church began to take shape. We would sit and dream,What would it be like if the church could be like this...? Wespent a lot of time just dreaming and cementing the vision.In 1990, about the time their first son, Jonathan, wasborn, the Whites moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where

Jim became Pastoral Leadership Consultant for Preachingand Worship for the Sunday School Board of the SouthernBaptist Convention. That was a good experience, Susanrecounts. Jim would go around teaching, and thatswhen he began thinking, I want to be on the frontlines.We just began sensing this overwhelming calling to planta church.

We were in a nice home there, but we thought thatwe needed to get out of debt and get prepared to planta church, so we moved into a little apartment. Then in1992, we loaded all our belongings into a U-Haul anddrove down to Charlotte. That was an adventure. Therewere some really significant moments of God just speak-ing to us through that whole time. Thats where the fam-ily really took root in our lives. Zack was born there...and we started home schooling and building the church.Those were beautiful years.

A less than beautiful moment was the weekend theirnew church was scheduled to launch in a Charlotte hotel.A tropical storm with pelting rain hit the city, knockingdown power lines and shutting down electricity. We hadprepared so much so we could have a good crowd, and itwas so discouraging. But God brought about 100 people,

probably half of them family and friends. The next Sun-day we had about 50, and thats where we started.

We plugged away and for about a year, we were atthe hotel, which was very expensive. About the time wehad no more money, a brand new school opened up andwe were able to get into that area, which was a wonder-ful location. We spent about four years there.

It was during this time that Susan experienced a defin-ing moment in her spiritual journey. The church wasgrowing; the childrens ministry was growing; and shewas home schooling four young children. I was tryingto do everything, and one night it hit me very hard. I wastotally overwhelmed. And God said, Youve got to let goof the ministry. In 10 years, that will still be around, but

your kids wont be. What you have now is an opportunityto invest 10 years in an area you will never get again....To the core of my being, I heard God say ...Let

go of the ministry. And that was very hard...because Iloved it. I had been with it from the beginning. It wasmy ministry. I think it was Gods way of saying, Susan,this is not your ministry. Its my ministry and Im goingto have someone else lead it for awhile because you needto be focused on your husband and your home. I neededto hold it with an open hand and that wasnt something Iwas doing at the time.

While Susan was wrestling with the prospect of layingdown the ministry, she experienced a poignant momentduring a retreat Jim held for the church leadership team.He asked members of the group to think about what eachcould do that no one else could do, and then challengedthem to commit most of their time to that. Susan says shewalked away thinking that she couldnt think of anythingthat no one else could do. Jims response was, Sure youcan. Youre the only person who can be a mom to ourchildren; youre the only one who can be my wife.

He was not saying Give up your dream to be mywife, Susan explains. What he helped me understand

Susan White thoroughly enjoys teaching the children in the MecKidz program she directs.


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was that being a mother is a ministry...and that my min-istry to him was a ministry to the church...So I let it go,and for about six months I was devastated...I didnt wantto just home schoolI was fighting that. Ministry in thechurch is fun; mothering is hard work. But I began reallyfocusing on the family and that was wonderful. It wasexactly what I needed to do as a mom and a wife.

Early on in this new phase of her life, Susan read EdithSchaeffers book, , that gave her a visionof what she wanted for her own family, and the steps shecould take toward that end. She also kept returning to 2Corinthians 4:16: Therefore, do not lose heart. Thoughoutwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are beingrenewed day by day. For our light and momentary trou-bles are achieving for us an eternalglory that far outweighs them all.So we fix our eyes not on what isseen, but what is unseen. For whatis seen is temporary, and what is

unseen is eternal.Susan says she went back tothat verse over and over and overagain, reminding herself that amother can see how reading sto-ries, washing dishes, long nightswith sick children, family dinners,climbing trees and all those thingsyou do as a mom are setting youreyes on the visionwhat is un-seen. Then you can see that youreallowing God to build the family. That was a visionfor my family that was crucial during those years.

In the decade-plus years since Susan made that piv-otal decision, the White children have grown and flour-ished, and all have been actively involved at the church.Church has been huge in our family, Susan says. Partof that was because we were church planters; we neededhelp! But children can get involved in ministry, too.

Nineteen-year-old Rebecca, a sophomore journalismand communications major at the University of NorthCarolinaChapel Hill, was a childrens ministry teamleader for the large group communicators who teach theweekly lesson. At Chapel Hill, she is on the InterVarsityleadership team, and also volunteers at a nearby childrens

hospital.Rachel, now 17, is a talented vocalist who sings with

the church worship team and is being mentored to leadworship. A senior at Charlotte Christian High School,she sings with the praise band, and has acted in theaterproductions of and . She iscurrently applying to colleges, and wants to major in the arts.

Fifteen-year-old Jonathan is a sophomore at CharlotteChristian and a member of the cross-country team. At thechurch, he is on the MecKidz acting team, performing forFamily Night dramas, and also serves as a large group

communicator. Susan says he loves children and thinks hewants to be a pediatrician.

Zachary, 13, Susans remaining home schooling stu-dent, is in the eighth grade. Hes a drummer, loves to playgolf and read, serves on the MecKidz worship team andhelps out in first and second grade classrooms.

The lessons Susan learned during her full-time days at

home formed one of her passions for childrens ministryto reach families. God gave parents the responsibility ofraising children to love the Lord, she notes. He is not nec-essarily saying, Churches, you train up your children. Andso helping moms and dads take seriously the responsibilityof investing in their children spiritually and spending thetime to read the scriptures and pray together is something

we hold very highly at the church.Because 70 percent of the

churchs more than 5000 active at-tenders were previously unchurched,Susan says many parents indicate

they dont know to train theirchildren spiritually. To help them,teachers give parents tools each weekthat describe what children havebeen learning, offer suggestions onwhat they can discuss as a family,and provide topics youngsters canuse during quiet times. A monthlyFamily Night brings parents andchildren together for worship anda lesson.

If we can give them examples of how were doing itin all our struggles and imperfections, Susan adds, if wecan show them what it looks like, thats one of the great-est ministries a church can have.

Susan says she has come full circle since she gave upthe childrens ministry. When the former director resignedin order to spend more time with her young family, shereturned as interim director and eventually, she laughs,the interim label came off! Moreover, the position af-fords her flexibility to complete Zacks home schooling.God was so right in saying that in 10 years, the ministrywill still be here. Right now, I hold the ministry withopen hands, because I know its probably not going to beme who takes it to the next level.

I think so many times with decisions we have tomake, its hard. I dont want to sugarcoat that. Its sadsometimes. But God always blesses that, even if itschanging your heart to have a passion for what Hescalled you to. You have a choice to be happy and find thegood in it. There are always blessings in that. God blessesour obedience.

Anne B. Doll is Director of Communications at Gordon-Conwell.

I think it was Gods way of saying,

Susan, this is not your ministry. Its

my ministry and Im going to have

someone else lead it for awhile

because you need to be focused on

your husband and your home.


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Since its founding in 1969, Gordon-Conwell TheologicalSeminary has been led by four presidents: Harold JohnOckenga, Robert E. Cooley, Walter C. Kaiser, Jr. andJames Emery White. I feel privileged to have worked un-der the leadership of the first two presidents as AcademicDean and the third as a member of the faculty. Now atthe beginning of President Whites presidential leader-ship, I anticipate Gods continued blessing upon this veryspecial institution.

There is a sense, of course, in which our seminary ismuch older than its formal beginnings at the end of the1960s. The 1969 merger that created Gordon-ConwellTheological Seminary brought together two much older

schools: Conwell School of Theology and Gordon Divin-ity School. Both of these institutions had been foundedin the 1880s. Both had been started by Baptist ministers.Both were rooted in the city (Philadelphia and Boston).Both offered classes at night so that working folk couldattend. Both were open to men and women. Both wereBible centered. Both were built upon the vision, as RussellConwell phrased it, of making an education available for allyoung men and women who have good minds and the will towork or as Adoniram Judson Gordon phrased it, of equip-ping men and women in practical religious work and furnish-ing them with a thoroughly Biblical training.

The need for such education was obvious. The late

19th Century was a time of enormous change withinAmerica and around the world. Urbanization, industrial-ization and immigration were transforming the landscapeof American life. Indeed, with the explosive growth ofPhiladelphia and Boston, for example, urban pastors suchas Conwell and Gordon were faced with a whole set ofnew problems and new opportunities. Into our doors,observed A. J. Gordon in his 1887 address to the Evan-gelical Alliance at its Washington, D.C. gathering, theuntaught and unregenerated populations of the Old Worldare pouring by the hundreds of thousands every year,while through our doors we can look out upon every na-

tion of the globe as a field ripe for missionary harvest.The church according to its primitive ideal, Gordoncontinued, is the one institution in which every manswealth is under mortgage to every mans [need], everymans success to every mans service; so that no laborer inany part of the field should lack the means for prosecut-ing his work so long as any fellow-disciple in any otherpart of the field has ability to supply his lack. Conse-quently, he continued, as surely as darkness followssunset will the alienation of the masses follow sancti-monious selfishness in the church. If a Christians mottois, Look out for number one, then let him look out

garth m. rosell, ph.d.

AHeritage The Historical Roots of

Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary

a.j.

gordon

russell

conwell

j. howard

pew

harold john

ockenga

billy

graham

robert e.

cooley

walter c.

kaiser, jr.

james emery

white


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for estrangement and coldness on thepart of number two. Indeed, Gordonconcluded, it is not an orthodox creedwhich repels the masses, but an ortho-dox greed.

In Philadelphia, to the south, Rus-sell Conwell was expressing similar

sentiments. Troubled by the growingproblems of poverty, hunger, unem-ployment and despair he observed allaround him, he could see but one general remedy for all these illsnamelythe provision of a more useful educa-tion for those who were in need. So iwas, in 1884, that what Conwell cameto call the Temple College Idea wasbornand the tuition-free, Bible-cen-tered, night school for working adults(eventually to be known as Temple

University) was launched in the base-ment of the Temple Baptist Church inPhiladelphia. Within five years, it had astudent population of over a thousand

Meanwhile in Boston, plans for asimilar school were being laid. Thirtystudents (20 men and 10 women)gathered in the vestry of the ClarendonStreet Church early in October of 1889to help launch the Boston Mission-ary Training School. Established, asGordon phrased it, to help meet thedemand for a large increase of our missionary force, the new school was toprovide the early foundations for ourseminary.

The stories of these two schoolswhile different in many respectsareremarkably similar when it comes tothe core convictions that gave shapeand direction to their histories: namelytheir commitment to Jesus Christ, tothe importance of the church, to theauthority of the Bible, to the need foreducation, to the necessity of social

reform and to the task of spreading theglorious Gospel around the world.

The Roots of Gordon-ConwellTheological Seminary

So it was, in 1969under the leader-ship of Billy Graham, Harold JohnOckenga and J. Howard Pewthatthe two institutions were combinedto form Gordon-Conwell Theological

Inauguration 2006: The Dedication Prayer

Walter C. Kaiser, Ph.D. President Emeritus and Coleman M.Mockler Distinguished Professor of Old Testament

...To you, O Lord, we come this night

to dedicate Dr. James Emery White,

Susan, and each of the family... For you

are from everlasting to everlasting and

you are the One who sets apart. And

therefore, we call upon the help of all

heaven and the great resources that

are ours and theirs in Christ Jesus, our

Lord. Yours, O Lord, is the greatness, the power, the glory, the majesty, the

splendor. All that is in heaven or on earth belongs to you. And yours is the

kingdom and you are exalted as head over all. All honor and all promotion

come directly from your hand. Therefore, we pray that you will, by your Holy

Spirit, set apart President Jim, Susan, and their family, and this faculty and

this Board of Trustees and this student body, and all those who will come,

and for all those in the church of Jesus Christ...who are part of your family

and to whom we are presently ministering, and for many who have not yet

come but will be part of that great company. We pray, Heavenly Father, for

your blessing from heaven above. Grant your grace, grant your wisdom, your

discernment, to our president to lead Gordon Conwell, to lead his family, to

lead in the church of Jesus Christ, and to lead with all his heart and the pas-

sion of his soul in the kingdom of your wonderful name.

...[G]ive to him a vision that is as big as all outdoors. Give to him also skills

as sensitive as those of your servant Solomon, a joy for the work, joy for your

presence, and a joy for your commendation, above all other commendations,

that is so contagious it will be the joy of his life and the strength of all that

he does. Grant to Jim an insatiable desire to daily enter into your presence,

to pray without ceasing for the task of the seminary. May he have a passion

to bring help to your church by the wonderful work of bringing an end to the

famine for the Word of God that is so rampant throughout the land.

And most

Documents

Gordon-Conwell Contact Magazine Winter 06/07