Southern Baptist History, Influences, and Advice for Young Pastors: Interview with Dr. Gregory A. Wills (Part 2)

Click here to read part one of our interview with Dr. Gregory A. Wills, Professor of Church History at Southern Seminary.

JG: Obviously a lot of the sources which you used in writing the history of Southern Seminary aren’t accessible to pastors and church members.  What books would you recommend which would help people understand not only the history of the seminary, but also the history of the SBC in general?

GW: Unfortunately, there is not a satisfactory history of the SBC. In fact, I don’t think there is one in print right now at all. But there are books that give insight into various parts of it. There is a biography of E. Y. Mullins by William Ellis [A Man of Books and a Man of the People, Mercer Press, 1985] which is helpful for understanding not only Mullins and the seminary, but also what the SBC was experiencing at that time.

James Thompson’s Tried as by Fire [Mercer Press, 1982], deals with the same period, the 1920s, and how the SBC experienced that period.

Nancy Ammerman’s Baptist Battles [Rutgers University Press, 1990] is a very helpful window on Southern Baptists from the late-70s through the mid-80s, a time of intense denominational controversy.

As far as related to the seminary, the new biography of William Whitsitt by James Slatton [W. H. Whitsitt: The Man and the Controversy, Mercer Press, 2009] reveals the sealed diaries of Whitsitt, which have never seen the light of day except for a few excerpts which have gotten out a couple of times.  Slatton quotes extensively from those diaries, so it’s important for that reason alone.

There is still a lot which needs to be done.

JG: You’ve written on First Baptist Columbia, S.C., Baptists in Georgia, and The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; it seems the next logical book to write is a comprehensive history of the Southern Baptist Convention.  When should we expect this book?

GW: In about 5 years.  I don’t have a contract and I haven’t written anything yet, but I have an outline.  I’ve had it as an ambition to do for some time, and I think, finally, I can make room to do it.

JG: What books have most influenced you personally and professionally?

GW: Personally, C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity would have to be number one.  This is the book which the Holy Spirit used it to open my eyes to my sinful estate and the truth of the Gospel and to the Savior.

Professionally, George Marsden’s Fundamentalism and American Culture. This book was important in deepening my interest in history, especially to the history of American Christianity.

At about the same time I also read Mark Noll’s Between Faith and Criticism, a very well done history of the American church’s engagement with historical criticism.

JG: You are associated with American and Baptist history; outside of these areas, which era of church history most interests you?

GW: My ambition would be to spend ten or twenty years working on Baptist, American, modern European, Reformation, Medieval, Patristics . . . . I love every era and find each one compelling and interesting in different ways.  While there are common themes and questions, each era frames the issues in different ways.

JG: What reason can you give pastors and seminarians to study Southern Baptist history and remain within the SBC?

GW: Well, first of all, we do start from somewhere.  We start with a heritage, and we do not know what that heritage is in many cases.  Also, sometimes we do not even realize that we are assuming certain truths, practices, and expectations because we grow up wearing them and do not realize that we are wearing them until someone questions them.

When you read history and realize that people interpreted and applied Scripture in a different way, it forces you to stop and ask, “Why did they do that?” and “Why don’t I do it that way?”  Then you begin to expose those assumptions and presuppositions that are a part of your heritage and now you can question them, asking, “Is that a biblically justified presupposition that I have?”  This helps you conform your beliefs, practices, and expectations more and more to the Scriptures.

I hope that in studying Baptist history that Baptist pastors will come to a deeper appreciation of their heritage.  There is much to appreciate.

I also hope that by studying Baptist history we can develop a more precise habit in evaluating the merits and demerits of ideas and practices. If you study history enough, and in enough depth, you recognize that there are no untempered goods, no unmixed evils, no perfect heroes, and no perfect villains. And that helps us to make more precise evaluations. . . . It also prepares us to appreciate the good in those with whom we profoundly disagree and helps us to be unsurprised when our heroes teach or practice something which we disagree with or perceive to be sinful and foolish.  So the study of Baptist history helps pastors to be more faithful stewards and ministers of the truth which is committed to us as shepherds of the flock.

JG: Is there a particular weakness that you see with young pastors and/or aspiring pastors?

GW: First, there is an indifference to the flock that masquerades as courage sometimes. Sometimes we take a stand for principle, which we believe demonstrates our courage to suffer for truth, but sometimes what it actually reveals is a lack of that love for the flock which would suffer patiently with the flock’s weakness while we seek to strengthen the sheep.

Second, and conversely, there is at times an accommodation to the weaknesses of the flock which, generally speaking, masquerades as love and patience for the flock that may in fact be a failure of courage. We need the spiritual wisdom required to discern the difference between a patient love and a cowardly accommodation, between courage and embarrassment.