(inspirational orchestral music)
- When I came to Southern Seminary as a 20 year old,
I arrived with no money,
I had gone all the way through college with no money,
but I also had nothing except a Mustang,
a filing cabinet,
and what was already a big pile of books.
I was able to establish a relationship
with the then President of the school,
so I knew what that job was like,
and I also knew how this was functioning
in the middle of this great transformation
of the Southern Baptist convention,
and I saw how Southern could be,
and I also saw the grandeur of what Southern had been,
and could be again,
and I also saw the strengths, and I thought,
the weaknesses of Southern as it was.
I wasn't coming to wrap things up.
I came to get things ready.
(upbeat music)
I was nominated,
but in these big searches,
being nominated can be just a gesture of affirmation.
I knew the likelihood that that search committee
would turn to a 33 year old,
that was not a high likelihood,
and so I expected someone older be elected,
but I decided to go in and give the search committee
my full mind on what I believed
Southern Seminary could and must do,
and could and must be,
and when they asked the question
at about 7:30 in the morning,
if you were President of Southern Seminary,
what would you do, I started answering the question.
I assumed they meant it.
And it turned out,
they didn't mean all that I thought they meant.
- We went down, the meeting was in South Florida,
under all this cover of secrecy,
because
it got out who the three were but nothing else,
so we had the initial interviews,
and that was a full day,
and then the next day, there was a call,
and they said, the fax machines have been burning.
That's all they had in 1993
to say that things were happening.
There's a question out there that's circulating,
and we need to talk to you about this.
That's one of the worst things you can say to Albert Mohler.
You give him the bottom line,
his staff knows this, fill in the details later,
but don't be cloudy with me about this.
They make us sit through a whole meal,
and then when it's over,
the chairman of the search committee goes
up to the lectern and opens a file folder,
and he kind of does this with lots of pomp and circumstance.
This is his moment.
He says, as I said, the fax machines have been burning,
and there's a question that we need to ask.
At that point, I look around and some of the women,
the trustee wives who are there,
are pulling out cameras out of their purses,
and I get it!
It's like, oh my goodness, the question is this,
and he's still just laser focused
on that trustee at the lectern like,
what has someone said about me,
I'm going to be able to answer this.
He's thinking of that, and I start smiling,
and the question is,
will you accept the unanimous nomination
of the Presidential Search Committee
of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
to serve as the ninth president?
Then there's applause,
and then everything from there is kind of euphoric.
That's a night we will never forget.
- I was never anything other than thrilled.
Humbled, honored,
eager,
but I,
I think a part of the knowledge
I shared with that search committee,
and later with the board,
is the knowledge of how difficult this was going to be.
(peaceful music)
- A student body meeting will be held here on Friday.
- This is not the first time
there's been conflict over teachings at the Seminary.
- [Newscaster] About half the Seminary faculty
has left during the past six years, enrollment this fall--
- I knew enough about leadership to know
that at some crisis point the question would be,
can the guy that does the demolition
do the construction on the other side?
Can the guy who's called to win the war then win the peace?
I think up until that point, honestly,
the Board of Trustees wondered if
I might be pushing too hard too fast,
but I told them, you can't seduce an institution
from the left to the right.
You can seduce an institution from the right to the left,
that's what happens almost everywhere.
There's never an incremental move to the right,
and it's because, after all,
we're standing for an unchanging standard
of the inherency of God's word.
You can't be just a little bit committed
to the inherency of Scripture.
- There was more than just inherency at stake
when Doctor Mohler came to Southern.
There was theology at stake, and I mean seriously.
This is the test of a man,
it's his ability to endure in absolute faithfulness.
(orchestral music)
- Oh, I can remember that moment.
You bet I can remember that moment.
It was a Wednesday night,
the Wednesday before Easter in 1995.
What became just a few days later the protest on the lawn
had already been outside my office,
and had spilled over into the national media.
Everybody was shaken by the turmoil
in Louisville, Kentucky.
It was just, to use as an analog, is,
as a boy growing up in Florida, it was a big hurricane.
It was blowing everything flat.
I had reached the end of my rope.
Whatever leadership ability I had
was pretty much spent by that Wednesday,
and
Mary and I,
it was more than the two of us could bear.
We sat down on the floor
in the guest room, and just cried,
and gave it to the Lord,
and just said, if there's any rescue from this,
it will be your doing.
Katie was just barely,
actually, at that point, about to turn six,
and Christopher had just, just turned three,
and we kind of asked Katie
to watch Christopher for just a moment,
because we didn't want them to see us so upset.
Katie slid a piece of paper under the door that just,
in her own
childlike script, it said, I love you.
That was like a word from the Lord.
Sometimes, you just have that in ministry,
you have those moments where you go,
if there's any rescue, it's not me.
It's not us.
And rescue in one sense is going to be the Board of Trustees
arriving, and they would either
ratify what I had done or undo what I had done.
There was no middle ground.
(orchestral music)
- What we're going to do is have Dr White
make some initial comments, and then at that point,
we'll be able to take your questions.
- I join the President in welcoming you
in this news conference.
The meeting of the board has now concluded, as you know.
We deliberated for many hours.
We reviewed the procedure by which
the President dealt with this matter,
I was in constant contact with the President
during this time,
and we felt and affirmed that the President handled
this crisis and the procedure that was used
in a very responsible manner.
- April 1995 board meeting, significant turning point.
That's when the trustees definitively said,
yes, we're behind this direction,
this identity, this plan, this purpose.
Decisive turning point.
At that point, no one on campus
or in the larger constituency wondered
if the trustees firmly believed in this vision.
- And that's when I really began to realize,
and many of us began to realize,
you know what, for the first time in my lifetime,
they're going to go there and know,
we're starting with a foundation
of the inerrant Word of God.
The theology, the practice, the ministry
is going to be rock solid and biblically based,
never happened in our lifetime until that turning point.
(dramatic orchestral music)
- So I go back to my metaphor of a hurricane.
Once a hurricane passes,
you say, wow, the winds have stopped howling,
then you go outside and you say,
oh my goodness, what's left?
That's pretty much what it felt like in April of 1995.
We lost untold millions of dollars
in bequests and financial support,
because the people who were committed to the previous direction,
and they didn't at all like the new direction of the school.
Boy, the urgency was huge.
When we were trying to rebuild this faculty,
we had to figure out how we were going to do it financially,
and organizationally, and structurally.
Danny Akin and I spent many many days, weeks, nights,
praying faculty members to Southern Seminary,
and then world class scholars started coming,
and they started saying, you need that man,
and you need that teacher, you need that professor.
Then we would say, help us to make that happen,
and we would do it.
My gratitude goes beyond what I can express,
because so many of those professors
weren't looking to leave where they were.
The reason they came
was because they really wanted to be a part
of building the premier faculty
of a confessional Baptist theological seminary.
I'm so thankful they believed me
when I said that's what we were going to try to do.
A turning point came when
we had far more new donors gained
than other donors that were lost.
We knew that the Lord's blessing
was to give us a firm foundation.
It was a turning point when
we were no longer dealing primarily with
the students who were here when we came,
but rather the students who came because
we were here.
I look at the sweetness of the last,
almost 20 years now, and say, oh my goodness,
I am so thankful.
You have no idea how happy we have been for so long now.
When we look at the students, I mean, my goodness.
This is what we hoped and prayed for.
God has been so kind
to Southern Seminary.
- If you think about Southern Seminary's reputation,
if you think about its size,
in a day and age in which most seminaries are in decline,
are creating new degrees
and marketing to a different demographic,
all to try to kind of keep capital up,
so that they might keep doors open.
It seems that Southern's done the,
they've just said, here's who we are,
here's what we're trying to do,
here's where we land theologically,
here's how we'll train you,
and to see the enrollment numbers under Dr Mohler,
and the product that comes out of there,
man, it's a pretty stunning thing.
But to understand that, you have to understand that
this wasn't a five year project,
or this wasn't a ten year dream, but Dr Mohler,
this was something he was going to give his life to,
and he has given his life to,
continues to give his life to.
- People may know, but certainly should know that,
a great part of why he's able to do any of this
is because of my mom.
She was a sounding board, a literal shoulder to cry on.
Oftentimes, I think,
he knew she was his only friend in this fight.
She's really also given her life to this institution,
and it's really home for our entire family.
- You know, when people ask me,
how important was Mary to me in all of this,
I simply say, listen,
I can't tell any part of this story without her.
She's been the most stalwart partner
I could possibly have in this.
The sweetest wife.
I will never be able to bear adequate testimony
to how she gives herself.
- I think a verse that came to mind so often,
and that we both just claimed with great fervor,
was that he who began a good work
and you will be faithful to complete it.
The Lord has been so kind to us,
and we give him all the glory for it.
- [Mohler] This has been our life,
with our kids, and our church.
This is it.
- I think when I look back over
the past 25 years to where we are now,
what I'm most proud of is that my dad is still my dad.
He's the same man he was when he came,
he's as committed to the principles of God's word
and to scriptural authority as he was when he came here,
he's as committed to the mission
of this institution as he was when he came here,
and to see some of the fruit
that God has borne through him, it just makes me so proud.
- When I came here in 1993 as President,
I had a real clear idea that
I wasn't coming to wrap things up.
I came in order to get things ready
for what was yet to come.
25 years later, there's a generation yet coming.
There are yet people who have not heard
the gospel of Jesus Christ.
There are churches that must be planted.
People who must be reached.
Sermons that must be preached.
This is what the future looks like.
By God's grace, if the Lord allows us,
we're going to perpetuate this into the generations to come.
(peaceful orchestral music)