In my academic career, such as it was, I had some good teachers. Who taught me not just about thinking but about living. One of those was Dr. E. Glenn Hinson who just died at the ripe old age of 93. Hinson was primarily a historian but he had a strong interest in personal spirituality. He wrote extensively about both and proved that even a Southern Baptist could be interesting on those subjects. His parents, interestingly enough, were spiritualists who practiced seances and psychic communication. I never heard his story about how he became a baptist but an autobiography exists. Perhaps now I will seek it out.
I met him in my short and troubled time at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. Strange to think back on those days. Meeting Hinson was one of the only truly bright spots. Southern back then had a respected world class faculty. I was there and had a front row seat when the fundamentalists were taking over the SBC and later Prof Hinson was one of the casualties. Despicable.
Hinson had been a good friend of Thomas Merton and was a Protestant observer at Vatican II. He was also one of the most spiritual people I have ever met, said entirely without irony. He exuded it from his pores. During the semester he led a non-official seminar at his home on Thurs evenings where he guided interested students through the history of western mysticism. It was a small but fascinated group which included my pastor friend whom I’ve mentioned before. I was exposed to a world that I never even realized existed. (We were Southern Baptists remember!) It engendered an interest that has survived even my own personal loss of belief.
Hinson had a full life. He was much loved and respected. I hope these comments show how much I respected him.
I was raised in a hardcore fundamentalist church in rural Georgia. It was a close knit, loving community but in a sense that made it worse. I had no idea of what I was being protected from, and no impetus to seek it out. There were certain paths available to a studious bookish young man in the church. The ministry, or some kind of teaching career. I had no idea what I really wanted so I took the path available. My friend, one of those annoying people who knew their life’s work and heart’s desire since they were 14 years old, was going to Southern Seminary. So I went too.
In those days Southern was a highly respected graduate school, even among other denominations, a jewel among conservative Bible academic institutions. And it was hard to get into. Aside from applying I had to submit several recommendations and go up for a personal interview (at my own expense). I was accepted under probation. My status to be revisited at regular intervals. As I came to realize though Southern was set up to enable dedicated students who had firm goals and not a place for a drifting search. I was lost and got even more so. I did ultimate realize that life was not for me. At the time a painful realization. What else was there?
At the time I was there the administrative structure of the SBC was in the process of being taken over by a group of powerful right wing fundamentalist groups. This was the onset of the political evangelical church. What turned into the Moral Majority, the New Right, resulting in the situation today where the evangelical church in America is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican Party.
Not that most of the folks in the pews weren’t already conservative. My parents voted for Nixon in 1960 because they didn’t want Kennedy taking orders from the Pope. And the exemplar of the evangelical church then in the public mind was Billy Graham, who got his start back in the late 40s and early 50s crying against the threat of “godlessantichristcommunism”. But then it was theology, not politics. What I mean is that the pre-political evangelical church thought it’s main goal was saving souls not enacting legislation. Politics was a worldly obstruction to the main task.
So the “takeover” of the SBC was politics covered with theology. And the way they treated the faculty was despicable. Public attacks and personal smears. They ultimately drove most of these folks out of the SBC. The tragedy was the destruction of such a fine institution, which subsequently lost its accreditation by the way. It took nearly ten years for them to get it back.
I was gone before the process came to a head. But I saw it from the inside. I came out of the entire experience still not knowing what I did want but absolutely sure what I didn’t. So I did receive some sort of education.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert
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