Biblical Seminary 2003, A Very Sad Day!

"three days of trash talking conservative evangelical Christianity" 

A former BTS student shares his experience. First some more excerpts: 

“What I didn't realize is that they had bought into [Postmodernism] hook, line, and sinker”

“Franke openly touted himself as the ‘postmodern Martin Luther’”

“They appeared so impressed that they were getting to go to some roundtable with some 'noted liberal scholors'”

“Apparently these guys (back then) had already gained a reputation for being ‘controversial’ and seemed to delight in that reputation”

“When you have to ask a professor if he considers himself an evangelical, you already have a problem”

“these guys were CLEARLY OUTSIDE anything I would consider evangelical” 

"Shame, shame, shame on them for what they have done to the school and the legacy of those whom they have ruined."

My name is Andrew Straubel, a pastor and life-long student. Feel free to share this story. It is short but is my story while attending my third and final course at Biblical Seminary in Hatfield.

A long time friend in ministry emailed me your website and I read it with mixed emotions.

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Emerging Trends at Biblical Seminary

. . . for your encouragement, continued prayer and publicizing of BTS' departure from its evangelical roots. We hope that these trends will also serve as a warning to other institutions not to follow the BTS example (recall that BTS is trying to show the rest of the church how to do it right), and a warning to people who should know better (such as Sam Logan, former president of WTS) not to come along for the ride.

In the following, bear in mind that June 2006 was when the BTS board resigned so that Dave Dunbar could select whom he wanted to remain on the board, i.e. those who were fully onboard with the seminary's new direction in connection with the emerging church movement. Coincidentally, I began a sabbatical in the US the same month and saw the new vision and mission statements (with their odd terminology) posted on the walls of the seminary. In early 2007 Steve and I (with the help of an alumnus who is knowledgeable about such things) started this web site, and alumnus Fred Zaspel started his. Much of my own impetus for deciding to "do something" was when I attended a lunch at BTS to which the public was invited (September 2006) where the new NT prof Daniel Kirk was introducing himself to the seminary community, telling about a low point in his spiritual life (after being rejected for PCA ordination), screaming at God over and over at the top of his voice, "WHAT THE F@@@ DO YOU WANT FROM ME!?" Starting then and for the next few months as I took a look at the emerging church movement I felt a bit like Ezekiel must have felt (chapter 8) when the Lord gave him a tour of the apostasies of Judah; "Do you see, son of man, what they are doing? Yet I will show you still greater abominations than these."

[Update: After hearing from a couple of alumni I guess I didn't make it clear enough that the financial figures I'm giving here only cover through the end of June 2008, thus do not include the effects of the stock market crash, housing bubble bursting, and consequent increase in unemployment.  Yes, I am very aware that since then all ministries are suffering financially, as is our own missionary support]

Figures below are taken from BTS press releases. A printable graph can be seen here:

2005      82

2006      96

2007      91

2008      81

2009      56

These figures represent negative progress towards the fulfillment of the BTS vision:

To be the first choice for training * leaders
for the * church of the 21st century

* represents words dropped for public relations purposes: "missional" and "emerging"

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Thoughts on the New Direction of Biblical Seminary
or, Has Dave Dunbar Done What He Said He Would Do?
or, an open letter to BTS alumni

Greetings, fellow BTS alumni, and other interested parties,

I'd like to "join the conversation" about the new direction of our alma mater. I and a lot of other alumni are not so enthusiastic.  In this post I'd just like to make a beginning, by looking at three portions of Dave Dunbar's employment application, in which he listed his qualifications for the job of president of Biblical Seminary and spoke of his vision for what direction he wanted the Seminary to go in the future.  I compare what he said then with what he has done since and is doing now, in order to assist alumni and others in evaluating whether Biblical Seminary is worthy of ongoing support. I will quote the three items from his application and then comment. 

#1. I have benefited greatly from the education I received at the seminary and am especially appreciative of the exegetical and homiletical emphases that have been the trademark of Biblical’s approach to theological education.  My own concern would be to maintain these distinctives of the seminary (p. 3).

For its 35th anniversary (2006), the seminary adopted the slogan “Celebrating the Past, Engaging the Future.”  I asked a former professor & BTS alumnus (who was fired on the initiative of Dave Dunbar) what he thought about BTS’s claim to celebrate its past.  Here is what this long time faculty member said:

I don’t understand their claim to “celebrate the past”. They certainly do not mean “celebrating our [the BTS] past”.  I was told a number of times by John Franke (then Chair of the Faculty), David Dunbar, and Todd Mangum (present Moderator of the Faculty) that I wanted the “old Biblical”, and they were not at all interested in being or becoming “old Biblical”. The same individuals spoke quite disparagingly about “old Biblical”, saying that it was “all right for its time”, but then qualifying that by adding that they weren’t sure that even “then” Biblical was doing what the church really needed. I cannot cite dates and times, but I heard these statements and others like them a number of times, increasingly during my last two or three years there (e-mail, February 9, 2007).

Contrary to his deduction, “celebrating the past” is meant to refer to the BTS past, which is clear from the fact that the dates 1971–2006 appear under the slogan.  It looks to me like this professor was fired for wanting to do as a professor what Dave Dunbar said in his employment application he would do as president (maintain “the trademark of Biblical’s approach to theological education”).

Read more for the next two points:

Update May 2007:

After feedback from readers who are suspicious of anonymous comments, I contacted alumni and past students who are quoted here to see if they would like to have their names put on the web site with their comment, or if they would prefer to be described generally (e.g. what they do in ministry, what year they graduated or attended if they did not graduate). Those whose names are not attached can still be contacted through the web site if you'd like to do so.

Some alumni took the opportunity to revise or amplify on their comments, so if you've already read these it would be worth your while to do so again.

I especially appreciated the "spirit of '76" with which alumni from the class of '77 (Rick Klueg) and '78 (Joe Basile) responded. Rick said he wanted his information printed "large enough so that the king of England can read it without his spectacles." For those who don't know to what that refers, Joe explains: "Make my name look like John Hancock wrote it."

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[this was sent about July 1 as a letter to the editor of Christianity Today]

It is with great concern that a significant number of alumni of Biblical Seminary in Hatfield PA. have started the website http://postbiblical.info/ Members of Christ's body are urged to weigh in on this subject.   Alumni are especially concerned with Biblical's new commitment to the Emergent Church movement and Professor John Franke's book “Beyond Foundationalism”, his teaching, and this book that indicates a departure from orthodoxy. 
Alumni who endorse http://postbiblical.info/ include Professors: Will Varner of the Masters Seminary (seen on the History Channel's documentary on Hell), John Bloom of Biola University, Carl Martin of Clearwater Christian College.  Dedicated alumni who are committed to charity in the non essentials felt this a matter of great importance.

Terry Wilcox MA, MDiv
Pastor Open Doors Christian Fellowship
Litchfield, NH
Former Area Director - Church Dynamics International

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Thank you for putting together this site. I was wondering what other alumni of BTS thought about the current direction the school is taking. I first found out about this sad turn a couple of years ago when a student who graduated from the Bible College where I am a professor attended BTS. He began sending books and other comments to some of our current students. It was then that I was forced to read the heresy of Brian MaClaren and other sources this student had recommended. To discover that he was turned on to these at BTS broke my heart. I pray often for a drastic change for BTS to occur, but I am afraid that without a new president, new board, and maybe all new faculty (especially the removal of Franke), this change will not take place. It is very sad when you are unable to point students who want to learn to your alma mater, but now I point them in another direction.

Dr. Kevin D. Newman, MDiv 1986

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I have recently started my journey ("conversation") with "emergent church' study and I have been made aware of BTS's moving toward it and was very unsettled, and you and your site have added some meat on the bones on what is happening. I am a local church shepherd and must work outside my church ministry, and I am very grateful for your analysis and very informative website. (Sad, but grateful.) What I have found is that most of us are so busy, we need people like you to distill and organize the material.

RD Harris, MDiv 1975

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I was attending Biblical back in 1999-2001 where I sat under Franke for numerous classes. It was his teaching, his theology, and his personality which made me decide to come to Southern [Seminary]. His understanding of theology was so negative and destructive to the over all theological task that I as a young seminary student couldn't handle it. I would literally leave theology class depressed. His book (co-authored with Stan Grenz) Beyond Foundationalism was the final straw. I moved to Louisville to finish my degree at Southern.

William E. Turner, Jr.

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We’ve had several BTS students attend [our church]. When I started hearing some of the things they were rebutting in Franke’s classes, I couldn’t believe my ears. Nor could I imagine that if the alumni at large were aware, there wouldn’t be an outcry. 

Penny Orr, former Assistant Director of Admissions & Dean of Women at BTS, MA (Counseling) 1993

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