Div School Attractive to Baptists

Duke University Divinity School may be one of the nation's leading United Methodist seminaries, but the school is becoming an increasingly popular place for Baptists to study, too. More than 100 Baptists students are registered for the 2000 fall semester, including 35 first-year scholars, and both are record numbers, said Dean L. Gregory Jones. "These are significant milestones in our effort to provide the comprehensive theological education that many Baptist students are seeking," he said. Baptist students have also taken leadership roles in the divinity school. Last year's student government directors were both Baptists, as is the current head of the Black Seminarians Union. Baptists have been co-directors of the divinity school's Women's Center for the last two years. Duke Divinity School is one of the United Methodist Church's 13 seminaries. Approximately 60 percent of its students identify themselves as United Methodists. This fall, the school has enrolled a total of 460 students representing nearly 40 Christian denominations. The school stepped up its recruitment of Baptist students in 1988, soon after the conservative wing took control of the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest Protestant denomination. Baptist enrollment has been rising at Duke since 1988, when only about a dozen Baptist students attended the divinity school. "It's not a surprise to me that Baptists are coming to Duke," said W. Randall Lolley, former president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C. "Duke is well known for its academic and practical preparation and is making an effort to place these students. There's no doubt that the university responded well to the controversy and to changes that occurred in Baptist seminaries." Lolley, who pastored large Baptist congregations in Winston-Salem, Raleigh and Greensboro, also noted the appeal of Duke's diverse campus. "There's a wonderful mix of ethnic and gender diversity at Duke, and many strands of Baptists from the North and West, as well as the South," he said. Will Willimon, dean of Duke Chapel and professor of Christian ministry, called the increasing presence of Baptist students at Duke Divinity School "one of the most dramatic developments in theological education at Duke in the past decade." "They have enriched us," he said. "Preparing Baptist students for the challenges that they face in their church has been a great challenge for us as faculty." A key component of the Duke Divinity School's recruitment effort has been the Baptist House of Studies program, which was organized in 1988. The program hosts monthly social events, provides counseling and assists with field education and employment placements for students in the divinity school, the graduate school of religion and the chaplain intern program at Duke University Medical Center. T. Furman Hewitt, who was hired as the program's first full-time director in 1992, said Baptist students are attracted to Duke because of its openness to women - who constitute 40 percent of the entering class - and its recruitment of African Americans, who make up 13 percent of the entering class. "Our students enjoy an academic environment in which the faculty challenges their assumptions while honoring their Baptist traditions," said Hewitt, who teaches the divinity school's courses on Baptist polity. Anna Kate Ellerman, a third-year master of divinity student from Radford, Va., said, "The Baptist House of Studies is an important network within Duke's ecumenical environment. It has allowed me to ground myself in my Baptist tradition while gaining a greater appreciation for the other Christian traditions represented here." Support for Baptist students in the divinity school includes the Roger Williams Fellowship, which is a student organization whose members are primarily Baptists. Local Baptist pastors lead spiritual formation groups in which all first-year divinity students participate. And there are eight Baptists on the divinity school faculty. Duke Divinity School is one of 11 schools supported by the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, an organization that sprang up as an alternative to the Southern Baptist Convention, said Ray Allen, recently retired pastor of Blacksburg (Va.) Baptist Church and chairman of the Baptist House board of directors. To date, Duke's divinity school has graduated the second-largest number of Baptist alumni. "Our graduates are becoming the leaders that the moderate churches desperately need," Allen said.