Georgia Baptists Initiate Break with Mercer Univ.
by Jim Brown
November 28, 2005
(AgapePress) - - Southern Baptists in Georgia are disassociating themselves from a historically Baptist school that employs two Christianity professors and several other faculty members who support homosexual student activism on campus.
By a 98 percent vote, the Georgia Baptist Convention recently decided to sever ties with Mercer University in Atlanta because of the school's endorsement of the homosexual lifestyle. The school hosted a "gay pride" event whose supporters reportedly included faculty and members from the school's Department of Christianity. If the Convention votes in a similar fashion next November, Mercer will no longer be considered a Georgia Baptist school or receive $3.5 million a year in funding from the Convention.
Dr. Tony Romans is the pastor of North Peachtree Baptist Church in Atlanta. He says theological liberals are at home in an academic setting -- and likely could not survive in the pulpit.
"A lot of the men who go through seminary and get the academic training who are liberal in their theology cannot make it as a pastor in most of the local churches," Romans exclaims. "They can't go to their pulpit and preach that liberal theology; the people won't stand for it."
To support his point, he notes that pastors' sermons in "even the most liberal congregations [that] vote in a liberal way on a lot of issues" are not as "overtly liberal as some of these types of things are."
Part of the problem at Mercer, he explains, is that the Georgia Baptist Convention has been prevented from determining who is nominated to the school's board of trustees. "Basically Mercer has a board that is self-perpetuating in that sense," Romans says.
"So the ideology that has come to the campus, as we've seen through these recent events, just demonstrates that the people who are leading that institution do not share the historical Baptist roots or the historical Baptist beliefs that we as Georgia Baptists do."
Romans recommends that Georgia Baptists who want their college-age children to receive a solid Christian education consider schools like Shorter College in Rome and Brewton-Parker College in Mount Vernon. Mercer currently has approximately 7,000 students.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
