They didn’t set out to make a statement. They simply were looking for a new president.
Their schools, er, uh, school — Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education — shares a storied history and a legacy for academic excellence in educator training and minister formation.
A year ago President Louis Weeks announced his retirement plans. Board Chair Art Ross commissioned the search committee, led by John Kuykendall, to find a gifted leader to succeed him.
The committee members hoped to find a strong scholar who would command the respect of the faculty and enhance the school’s academic reputation. They wanted to find an able administrator who could guide a complex institution. They needed a “networker,” whose fund development skills would strengthen the school’s financial footing. They longed to call a pastor, who could shepherd the seminary communities — students, faculty, administrators, trustees, and alums — and who would never forget that mission number one is to prepare pastors and educators for excellent local church ministry.
They found their person. He brings to the post a great education — The College of William and Mary, Princeton Seminary, Emory University. He has written and edited nine books, with two more on the way. He has authored many book reviews, sermons, and academic presentations. Many a conference seeks him out as a lecturer or preacher — he’s one of the most compelling preaching scholars of our day.
They found a collegial-style leader. If you ask him about his vision for the seminary, he’ll tell you that his first task is to listen. He won’t set any agenda for the future until he can feel the pulse of the communities he is serving.
Actually, one part of his agenda he will state without hesitation. He will work to bring greater “interweaving,” that is, more interdisciplinary studies on campus and greater connectionalism off campus, with local churches, than ever before. The integration of the academic disciplines and of church-and-seminary will mark his tenure, for sure. In the process, his leadership should help Union-PSCE better express at least in spirit the good intentions of the once-held requirement that all professors be experienced pastors before they ever were called to the faculty.
No, they did not set out to make a statement, except to underline their intent to help their seminary excel in its educational task. But they did make a statement, as well.
One might think that that statement is passé, or even token. But this is Richmond, Va., the capital of the Confederacy. And this is public America, where a TV and radio host can think it funny to hurl racially charged slurs at a successful, mostly African-American, women’s basketball team.
When he walked into the seminary’s community meeting, faces lit up with enthusiasm. Whether they knew him or were just catching his appearance, all felt the electricity that filled the room. John
Kuykendall handed the microphone to the search committee colleague who knew the candidate best — having been the other voice that co-authored Preaching Mark in Two Voices.
“He was born in Louisa County, Virginia, in 1820,” began Gary Charles. He paused just long enough for the heads to bob in befuddlement,
“… graduated from Union Theological Seminary in 1846 … served as a chaplain in the Confederate army, and became one of the most prominent Southern theologians prior to the Civil War and long afterwards … taught on the theology faculty of our beloved school. … I am talking, of course, of Robert Lewis Dabney. He is perhaps best known, though, for his book, A Defense of Virginia and the South, in which he offers an extended biblical and common sense defense of the institution of slavery.”
Charles immediately changed the subject to the gifts, skills, accomplishments, and character of the man who was standing next to him. Those were the real reasons for calling pastor-scholar Brian Blount to serve as president. He also extended a warm welcome and congratulations to Brian’s family members, wife Sharon, son Joshua (a junior at Morehouse), and daughter Kaylin (age 12).
But he did return to remind us of the shameful soil in which the seminary originally was rooted, and invited those present to celebrate this glimpse into a new day for the church, one in which a “distant ancestor of a Southern slave family has been called by the will of God to serve as President of our beloved school.”
The roar of an ovation made quite a statement.
— JHH
