The Open Door

What I know about litigation I have learned from three sources: Perry Mason, The Practice, and the Shorter College lawsuit against Georgia Baptists. The first two sources of knowledge have been entertaining, but the third has been anything but entertaining. Since January 7, 2002, when I first learned of a plan on the part of the trustees and administration of Shorter College to remove the College from the Georgia Baptist Convention, I have been on a merry-go-round of activity which, for the most part, though educational, has been painful.

The Georgia Baptist Convention is a wonderful Christian organization made up of 3,543 Baptist churches and nearly 1.5 million members who have as their aim the preaching of the Gospel of Christ and the advancement of God’s Kingdom on earth. We love to sing. We love to worship. We think it a privilege to give our tithes and offerings to support missionaries who circle the globe preaching, teaching and living the Gospel. We enjoy being together; fellowship is vital to who we are and how we do our work. We see ourselves in partnership with God. Thus, we cooperate together in ministry and giving so that we can more effectively impact the world for Christ. Contrary to what has been reported about us, we are a peaceable group of people, but we have firm convictions about many things including the Bible, the church, marriage, prayer, sin and the absolute necessity of the confession of and repentance from sin and commitment to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ for salvation.

Serving among Georgia Baptists for the past eleven years has been a blessing to our family. We love Georgia Baptists. We absolutely believe that God called us to Georgia and that this has been confirmed in many ways. We rejoice in the wonderful future of the Convention. Breaking ground this week for our new building located in Gwinnett County was an uplifting moment. God has provided an opportunity for our Convention to be located at one of the busiest thoroughfares in Georgia. The Convention’s new facilities will be “front and center” as will the witness of our ministry for years to come. Our work will be enhanced greatly by planning our office space so that our employees will be in close proximity to one another and organized according to function. The building has literally been designed to multiply our effectiveness from the physical arrangement of office space to state-of-the-art technology. We have a lot to look forward to.

In the midst of our joy is Shorter’s lawsuit, this ugly thing that was thrust upon our Convention by the Shorter College trustees. It persists as though it has a life of its own. So many Georgia Baptists have asked how all of this ugliness happened; where did it come from?

From the outset it has appeared that it was born in the heart of Dr. Schrader, president of Shorter College, or perhaps, in the heart of the executive committee of the Board of Trustees. Surprisingly, Dr. Schrader has stepped forward and admitted that all of this began in his own heart and involved a studied approach on his part to extricate Shorter College from the Georgia Baptist Convention. What we believed has been openly confessed by Dr. Schrader on the Shorter College website in an article titled, “Returning to the heritage of its founding fathers, Shorter College turns to the past with goals for the future.”

The following is a portion of the article. You can draw your own conclusions:

“Schrader looked to the past to create a vision for the future, adding that the vision began as his own personal project, designed to successfully lead Shorter College through a smooth transition from being affiliated with the Georgia Baptist Convention (GBC) to being disaffiliated with them. He began the project by visiting other private Baptist institutions that have experienced similar transition phases, including Wake Forest University, Furman University, Carson-Newman College, Stetson University and Samford University.

“Schrader said the visit to Stetson proved most rewarding, as the current president is the same man who led the university through its transition stage. ‘The visit to Stetson was important,’ he said. ‘When they separated from the Florida Baptist Convention, they drifted around spiritually for five years. They began to realize the school was in a spiritual rut. They had lost their heritage from the Baptist church. They tried to bring back the Baptist roots, but were too late.’

“Schrader said he will use the lessons learned from Stetson University to prevent the same occurrence from happening at Shorter, emphasizing equal commitment to education and spiritual growth.”

So, Dr. Schrader has now confirmed our suspicions about efforts to “disaffiliate” Shorter from the Convention – his vision, his own personal project. I’m sorry, but these kinds of shenanigans do not represent who we are as Georgia Baptists.

I am thankful that the Georgia Court of Appeals issued a strong opinion in favor of the Georgia Baptist Convention and against Shorter. Shorter has announced their plan to extend this travesty through another appeal. I am committed to patience and prayer until the final appeal is exhausted. My hope is that Shorter College will be returned to Georgia Baptists, and we can move forward in restoring a fine Baptist College and focus all of our efforts upon ministry through evangelism, missions and education.