Dear Friends:

This issue of our newsletter announces my impending retirement on June 30, 2008, as president of ABSW. During my last year I want to reflect upon some of the issues that I regard as important for the future of our seminary.

After 10 years of seeking to lead our school, I am struck by several realities of our context, some of which we inherited and some of which we helped to create. In the first category of things we inherited there are two realities:

Theological education is a very fragile enterprise. This is true in large part because of the changing landscape of life in the churches. As an historic Baptist school founded in 1871, we can no longer count on the support of Baptist congregations or of the judicatories of American Baptist Churches. Less and less financial support is coming from these traditional sources. As a matter of fact, the amount that we can expect from our ABC churches has declined by more than one half in my 10 years as president. Whose fault is this? That is hard to say, but clearly the changes in mission giving covenants nationally and regionally have had a big impact. The other reality is what I characterize as a theological turn to the right by many of our national and local leaders. This is a reality Baptist seminaries around the nation are facing. The landscape of support has changed dramatically.

A second inherited reality is the collapse of a missional vision at the national level of our denominational life. We are no longer the denomination that has a tent big enough to include everyone. The center is coming apart as factions fight for various pieces of our denominational life. We are a fractured body without any clarity as to what will emerge in our future. Free market forces seem to be driving our current denominational life far more than the Biblical mandates of redemptive love and salvific justice. This means that every seminary is on its own and will not be able to maintain much of a denominational identity in the immediate future. ABSWÕs future has to have a more ecumenical focus now than in the past. While we honor our Baptist roots, we cannot be limited by them. Personally, I grieve this new reality but know that the mission of the school must continue in a new context.

One of the realities that we have helped to create is the Graduate Theological Union. As a founding member of the GTU, the future of ABSW is inextricably bound to the GTU. Our context for theological education is ecumenical; our programs are offered in partnership with the member seminaries of the GTU. It is clear that by ourselves we could not offer to our students anywhere near the resources we share with the GTU. This would include library, cross-registration and student services. One of the challenges of the GTU is to discover greater efficiencies in our consortium that reduce costs for all of us. Likewise, we need to ask how individual schools might work more closely to provide programs and support for our students. The GTU has formed an Alternative Futures Taskforce that is raising all these questions and involving each school in a new conversation. This conversation will be very much a part of the future of ABSW.

Another reality that we helped to create is the implementation of an interdisciplinary and contextual Master of Divinity program. We cannot go back to "a cafeteria style" of education. We now know that our current curriculum provides an integrated approach to both theory and practice with a sensitivity to a multiracial and multicultural student body and that we are producing men and women trained to minister in the 21st century. What we are doing works Ð it is exciting. Our current approach, however, will need a recommitment from faculty and trustees as we go forward. We have learned too much to go backward. The way forward requires the continuing development of a faculty committed to this kind of learning and the continuing development of partner churches and pastors.

I will explore other realities in future columns, but for now the four realities I have described are important to the unfolding future of ABSW. I certainly have been grateful for the support of churches, alumni, friends, and colleagues during my tenure here. I know that I can continue to count on your help and support as we makes this transition from one leader to another.

Please pray for your school. Encourage trustees, faculty, and staff to seize the opportunities of this new day. Surely, God is a God of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

Gratefully yours,

Keith A. Russell
President