by Matthew Pinson | Jun 24, 2015
Many of my readers are interested in the Arminian-Calvinist debate, specifically as it regards the Reformed Arminian approach to that dialogue. I discuss that approach in my new book, Arminian and Baptist: Explorations in a Theological Tradition.
Two of the first scholarly reviewers to take notice of that book have been Roger Olson of the George W. Truett Theological Seminary at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, and Terrence Tiessen of Providence Theological Seminary in Otterburne, Manitoba, Canada.
Some of my readers will be interested in these notices; so I have linked them here and here.
by Matthew Pinson | Jun 19, 2015
Dear Friends of Welch College,
I am thrilled to report that the college has closed on the sale of its West End Avenue campus and is set to begin construction on its new campus site!
The campus was purchased by Mike Ford Custom Builders, LLC, a custom home building company in Middle Tennessee that is well-known for its fine homes in neighborhoods such as Westhaven, Windstone, and LaurelBrooke in nearby Franklin and Brentwood. That firm plans to construct multi-family units on the four contiguous lots on West End Avenue and single-family homes on Richland Avenue. Davidson Hall, the college’s first building, will be restored and sold as a single-family home.
CEO Mike Ford said, “We are so excited about this project. We are very thankful to be able to play the major role in adding 50 wonderful homes to this community. It’s already been very rewarding to meet and work with folks at Welch College. We couldn’t be happier that we have been able to help the college realize its dream of a new campus. I’d just like to thank everyone involved.”
The sale included all the campus property except Welch Library. We believe that the buzz of new construction in the neighborhood will increase the price of that home, one of the most important historic homes in Nashville.
This transaction is even better than the offer the college had from Aquinas College two years ago. We are grateful for that, because construction costs have risen since that time. Furthermore, we are increasing the square footage of our residence halls because of the 30 percent growth in dorm enrollment Welch experienced over the past two years. We are grateful to our development consultant, Dudley Smith of Land Innovations, and his team, as well as our realtors, Rick French and Ellen Christianson, for their invaluable help in making this sale a reality.
The new campus will be built on a 66-acre site in Gallatin, Tennessee, which the college acquired for $3 million in 2008, and which was recently appraised at $5.8 million. This property, a short 25-minute drive from downtown Nashville, is situated in a fast-growing suburban community in Sumner County.
The site meets all the criteria the college set at the beginning of its land search. Much like the current campus, the new property is close to a limited access freeway, being less than a mile off State Route 386 (Vietnam Veterans Boulevard). It is near medical and educational resources and job opportunities for students, is surrounded by new housing developments, and is still in the Greater Nashville area.
Summer County is experiencing rapid economic and population growth. An array of restaurants, shops, and malls are opening in retail developments such as the Streets of Indian Lake, located a few minutes from the campus. Healthcare facilities and housing developments are also being built at an impressive rate.
Bob Bass, campus relocation consultant, said, “The location of the new campus site is excellent. Within a few minutes of the campus are both affordable homes for faculty and staff, as well as Fairvue Plantation and Foxland, high-end housing developments that provide job opportunities similar to what the college’s current Belle Meade surroundings have offered Welch students for decades.”
Sumner County’s vibrant economy, along with its inviting small-city atmosphere, means that the college will have the benefits of the larger Nashville community as well as the charm and convenience of the Gallatin and Hendersonville communities.
Colonel Mark Johnson, chairman of the Relocation Task Force, who spearheaded the property search, said, “We looked at over 100 potential sites before deciding on this beautiful land in Sumner County. Gallatin city officials, as well as business and educational leaders, have warmly welcomed us to the community. We’re now ready to take the next step.”
Gallatin Mayor Paige Brown said, “Gallatin is delighted to welcome Welch College to our community. We are honored that this highly respected institution has chosen to relocate its campus in Gallatin. We look forward to the day that Welch opens its doors and welcomes students to its new campus. Welch College has demonstrated its commitment to exceedingly high standards and that commitment to excellence is a perfect fit for the City of Gallatin.”
The Gallatin property is more than seven times the size of the West End Avenue campus. This means the college will not have to cap enrollment or curtail new academic programs planned for the future. There is room to construct buildings for instructional needs and student housing adequate for the present and far into the future.
The new campus will have a traditional, residential college campus feel. The campus quadrangle and buildings will feature classic, Jeffersonian campus architecture with fresh, new, and technologically up-to-date interiors. The larger campus site will have much more green space than the old campus. It will permit the construction of outdoor sports facilities for students and provide adequate parking for students, faculty, staff, and guests.
The college has secured the services of Focus Design Builders, a Wake Forest, NC-based firm, to construct the campus. They are working with Raleigh, NC-based Design Development Architects, who are providing architectural and engineering services, and Brentwood, TN-based Southland Constructors, who will handle construction management for the new campus. The goal for completion of construction and opening of school on the new campus is September 2016, January 2017 at the latest.
We are thankful to God for bringing to fruition the vision of a new campus that was initiated by president emeritus Dr. Tom Malone and his team more than two decades ago. A number of steadfast supporters of this vision have been supporting it financially over the past several years. This has enabled the college to pay down debt on the new campus site as well as engage in planning and design for the campus.
Our capital campaign to raise needed funds for campus construction is entitled Building on the Legacy. In a silent phase to the Building on the Legacy campaign, we have already raised $2.1 million in pledges ($1.6 million of which has already been received). We need to raise an additional $5.4 million in cash and gifts-in-kind ($3.4 million in five-year pledges and $2 million in gifts-in-kind of materials, labor, fixtures, etc.).
These funds, together with those raised from the sale of the West End campus and cash reserves, will pay for the $20 million-plus construction of the new campus. We are calling on friends of the college to invest in this campaign, which will be a once-in-a-lifetime investment in the kingdom mission of Welch College.
We will be unveiling more about the new campus and the Building on the Legacy campaign at the annual meeting of the National Association of Free Will Baptists in Grand Rapids, MI, next month. We also invite everyone to a groundbreaking ceremony on the new campus site, which we will host Tuesday, July 14, at 10:00 a.m. Details about campus relocation can be found at Buildingonthelegacy.org.
Please be in prayer for Welch College as we embark on the most important transition in the history of our beloved institution. Pray that God will provide the needed funds for this endeavor, and pray about your involvement in this historic event of the relocation and construction of a new campus for Welch College, for the glory of God and the extension of His kingdom.
Sincerely,
J. Matthew Pinson
President
by Matthew Pinson | May 7, 2015
We are living and ministering in an era of unprecedented change, especially regarding the definition of gender, sexuality, and marriage. These past two weeks, with all the attention on the transgender movement and then the oral arguments regarding same-sex marriage before the Supreme Court, I was reminded how swift the pace of moral change is.
A couple of weeks ago, I watched an evening news program on one of the major networks that featured a five-year-old girl who had decided to become a boy. The reporter interviewed the parents, who were going along with the girl’s wishes and attempting to change her into a boy. The reporter also interviewed experts who lauded this.
One thing was clear: This network presented no alternative viewpoint—no alternative perspective even slightly questioning the prudence of doing this to a five-year-old. This was simply an unmitigated celebration of the transgender movement, with no need for an alternative viewpoint—as if the topic was why you shouldn’t eat foods high in saturated fat—with no alternative perspective presented.
In the wake of this onslaught of media momentum for the same-sex marriage and transgender movement, some conservative evangelicals have concluded that we have “lost the culture war.” And they have decided that the best way to react is to withdraw from the public square, at least for a time, and build up the church’s internal resources.
James Davidson Hunter, the sociologist at the University of Virginia, is an example of this approach. He believes Christians should be “silent for a time” in the public square, concentrating on improving the internal resources of the church.
But is this the approach we should take? If conservative religious people are behind in the current battle for the hearts and minds of Americans regarding the definition of gender, marriage, and sexuality, is withdrawal a viable option?
I don’t think it is. It presents a false dichotomy, as if the only way for the church to build up its internal resources, re-learning its identity and mission (and there is no question that it needs to do this), is to withdraw from the public square.
Jesus’s teaching pushes us away from this false dichotomy. This is seen nowhere more clearly than in His high-priestly prayer in John 17:14-19:
“I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth” (NKJV).
In this passage, Jesus says this regarding our relationship with the world: We must withdraw from the world and permeate the world at the same time. We withdraw from the world in our values, attitudes, priorities, habits, and practices. But we permeate the world in our presence in and active engagement with the world.
Jesus takes us radically out of the world and puts us radically into the world at the same time! I can’t imagine how withdrawal can be justified biblically.
Christian witness cannot be artificially limited to just private, “spiritual” witness. What are we to tell Christian artists or scientists or judges or doctors or political leaders or psychologists? Must their witness in the world be limited to sharing the plan of salvation with individuals? Are we to tell them not to bear witness, in their spheres of influence, to how the law and gospel and kingdom of the Trinitarian God transform our lives together?
I think Jesus’s teachings lead us to avoid this false dichotomy. We dare not make an arbitrary decision to withhold our witness to the world in the public sphere—whether this be how doctors deal with abortion, or how judges or governmental leaders deal with same-sex marriage, or how psychologists deal with a transgender five-year-old, or how scientists deal with genetic engineering, or how artists deal with portraying the reality of God’s creation and the distortions fallen humanity brings to it.
Yes, we need to get serious about the need for the church to rediscover its biblical and historic identity—about orthodox faith and practice. This is going to mean calling a halt to our infatuation with popular culture and being accepted by that culture. As I said in a previous post, “the reason evangelical Christianity is losing influence over the moral direction of our culture is that it has lost its stark, prophetic difference from the world in its quest to attract the world by being as much like the popular culture as it can be.”
Yes, we need to ask serious questions about how the religious right has sometimes borne its witness in the public square in ineffective and even less-than-Christlike ways. But the answer is not to pendulum-swing to the opposite extreme from what we don’t like about some in the religious right, thus withdrawing from the public square in the various spheres of influence in which Christians engage.
Instead, we must be radically in the world, bearing witness to the transforming rule of Christ in every area of life. But we must also be radically not of the world, living out what it means to be Christ’s redeemed people, called out from the world, set apart for His holy purposes. This nuanced posture will bring kingdom transformation to the world around us.
by Matthew Pinson | Apr 29, 2015
Yesterday the Supreme Court heard oral arguments regarding the legalization of same-sex marriage in all fifty states. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito asked the U.S. Solicitor General, who was arguing in favor of same-sex marriage on behalf of the Obama Administration, some pointed questions concerning religious liberty. Specifically, they asked how a ruling in favor of the legalization of same-sex marriage in all fifty states would affect religious institutions.
The Solicitor General was asked, first, if religious institutions that barred homosexual couples from living in married student housing would be subject to legal sanctions for doing so. Second, he was asked if religious institutions would be in danger of losing their tax-exempt status on the grounds of discrimination against individuals on the basis of sexual orientation.
In brief, the Solicitor General did not answer in the negative to either question. He simply said that the question of institutions barring homosexual couples from living in married student housing would likely be up to the states. He replied that the question of an institution losing its tax-exempt status on the grounds of discrimination against individuals on the basis of sexual orientation would be “an issue.”
We are in the midst of massive changes in the legal and moral landscape of Western Civilization and of the United States. When the Solicitor General of the United States, representing the President of the United States, advocates for same-sex marriage before the U.S. Supreme Court and gives vague answers on the question of the religious liberty of institutions whose religious faith compels them to uphold the millennia-old definition of marriage, religious liberty is in grave jeopardy.
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects the free exercise of religion, along with freedom of speech and of the press. Christians need to be praying and working to protect the first amendment liberties that the U.S. Founders provided for. And we need to be praying for wisdom, guidance, and courage for Christian institutions that will face opposition for their support of biblical morality.
Goethe wrote, “What you have as heritage, take now as task; for thus you will make it your own.” It is time to engage, in a kind, peaceful, Christ-honoring manner, in the important task of praying for and working for religious liberty. It is not a time for silence or withdrawal. I ask my readers to join me intently in these prayers, and in this work, to safeguard religious liberty in these United States.
