Fuller Theological Seminary, the largest Protestant interdenominational seminary within the nation, named Black church theologian and missions chief David Emmanuel Goatley its subsequent president.
Goatley, who leaves a publish at Duke Divinity School to start in January, says he needs to counter the “partisan poison” he sees in American evangelicalism, and switch college students’ eyes to the testimonies of the worldwide church. And like presidents in greater training in all places, he additionally faces the issue of declining enrollment.
He would be the first Black president on the 75-year-old establishment. Outgoing president Mark Labberton stated when he introduced his departure final yr that he hoped his substitute could be a woman or person of color.
Goatley has a Baptist background however centered within the Black church. Ordained within the National Baptist Convention-USA, he pastored a Black Baptist church in Kentucky for 9 years, then spent the following 20 years as CEO of a historic Black missions company, Lott Carey Baptist Foreign Mission Society.
“There’s a certain representation that is important … The journey of which I am part matters,” Goatley instructed CT. “I am a Black person in the United States, which means some of my story has to do with discrimination and segregation and slavery, and all of that helps to give insight to how I handle myself and how I seek to handle creation and engage with other people.”
He added: “It also means something significant that Fuller Theological Seminary was able to take seriously the candidacy of a Black man. They did not explicitly or implicitly rule me out. I’ve had that happen to me before.”
As it has expanded packages for on-line and nontraditional college students, Fuller emphasizes its ethnically various scholar physique and goals to develop its international attain. At round 3,000 college students, the historic California college is outnumbered solely by Southern Baptist-affiliated establishments amongst Protestant seminaries, with Southern Baptist Theological Seminary on the prime of the record for enrollment, based on the Association of Theological Schools.
Fuller’s management the final 30 years has come from Presbyterian and Reformed traditions. Labberton, who was president for a decade, is ordained within the Presbyterian Church (USA).
Richard Mouw, a Reformed theologian, served as Fuller’s president for 20 years earlier than that. The seminary has all the time described itself as evangelical, although it doesn’t match into neat evangelical classes. It has allowed an LGBT scholar group on campus nevertheless it additionally successfully defended in court its code of conduct for college students, which features a conventional Christian intercourse ethic.
Goatley, who hung out in 35 nations whereas main the Lott Carey mission company, thinks US seminaries may be restricted to “a Euro-centered vision, or a Western North Atlantic vision of theology.” He recalled being in Liberia on the eve of its civil struggle, going via checkpoints guarded by youngsters with weapons but additionally seeing church buildings persevering with to work faithfully via wartime.
“One of the challenges we have in the United States is to come to the realization that we are not the axis of the universe,” he stated. “We are not the center of what God is doing. We need to…come alongside our siblings in other places of the world where God is working despite the challenges that people are experiencing.”
“It’s not that that’s bad,” he stated. “But there are other sheep that the Lord has. There are other voices…I’m not saying we need to do away with European and Western North Atlantic insights and frameworks. What I’m saying is we don’t need to rely exclusively or primarily on that alone.”
His personal training at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary came about earlier than the “conservative resurgence,” when he stated “Southern and Fuller were more similar in temperament and theological trajectory.” That expertise gave him mental rigor, he stated, nevertheless it included an “over-reliance” on European-centric theology.
“Fortunately I was nurtured in a household and a church that had a commitment to missions, both nearby and globally, so we had glimpses of what God was doing other places,” he stated. “My theological formation was not exclusively grounded in the institution where I got degreed.”
Jimmy Mellado, a Fuller board member and the CEO of Compassion International, stated Goatley was chosen from a couple of thousand candidates, and that the board voted for him unanimously. Mellado sees Goatley as carrying ahead a worldwide imaginative and prescient for the college: “We’re not looking for a 180-degree turn here.”
The board appreciated that Goatley is a “holistic leader,” stated Tom Lin, a Fuller board member and the top of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. Goatley introduced a background as a pastor, group chief, mission company chief, and tutorial.
“He’s going to lead ethnically diverse leaders in an ethnically diverse world,” Lin stated. “I was one of the first nonwhite presidents of a large national evangelical organization, Jimmy [Mellado] and I share that. I understand the challenges Dr. Goatley will face…people will want him to speak to particular issues in the Black church because he’s a Black leader, or assume that he’s going to lead it in a direction that’s this or that because of his ethnic background. We chose him because he’s an outstanding candidate.”
Lin added: “He holds dearly that the evangel that Jesus proclaimed is truly good news.”
Goatley does desire a extra constructive gospel imaginative and prescient for US church leaders, who’re in peril of a “partisan, politicized, polarized poison, that takes our eye off Jesus,” he stated. “We have to work in that toxic environment without succumbing to the poison.”
The seminary he acknowledged should cope with extra sensible issues too like declining enrollment and making training reasonably priced. He stated the pipeline from church buildings to sure graduate packages “has burst.”
Seminaries with out denominational ties, like Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, have suffered financially and seen enrollments drop. Fuller has equally gone via monetary turmoil and enrollment decline in recent times. Enrollment has dropped from about 4,000 in 2019 to three,000 now.
Saddled with debt, Fuller closed some satellite tv for pc campuses and put its historic campus in pricy Pasadena, California, up on the market in 2018, with the thought of shifting to a cheaper space in Pomona. That would even have made it cheaper for college students.
But in 2019 the college reversed course, citing excessive building prices in California and “differences” with town of Pasadena over the sale. It diminished a few of its Pasadena footprint.
The college’s most up-to-date tax documents present that it has trimmed down annual bills by about $8 million since 2015, nevertheless it has been working within the crimson for some years, with a $14 million deficit in 2017.
Mellado stated newer monetary news, which the most recent 990s from 2019 don’t seize, is healthier: The seminary posted two years of revenues exceeding bills, and the college is 85 % to its purpose of elevating $150 million.
Goatley sees the cultural and monetary job forward: that Fuller should make the case for seminary training globally.
“The world needs good churches, churches need good pastors, organizations need good leaders,” he stated. “We can help.”