Southern Seminary's Influence Holds Strong‎

The teens, from Kentucky and several surrounding states, had descended on Southern for a weekend seminar called "Give Me An Answer," where seminary professors warned them that American cultural trends posed challenges to orthodox Christian beliefs.

"Do you want us to water down our content this weekend, or do you want a challenge?" asked seminary professor Dan DeWitt.

"A challenge!" the teens roared.

"We're not holding back," DeWitt told the throng. "You're ready to be prepared and equipped and challenged to "take the gospel and speak intelligently to a culture that is hostile to what we believe."

It's the same message the seminary has echoed while shaping thousands of pastors, missionaries and others earning advanced degrees there.

As it marks its 150th anniversary this year -- a commemoration culminating with the hosting of the Southern Baptist Convention national meeting starting Tuesday, June 23 -- Southern remains firmly entrenched as one of the nation's largest and most influential theological schools.

It reports having 2,710 full- and part-time graduate-level students, including 1,661 in the master of divinity degree program, the most in North America. Those numbers reflect the school's rising priority on training pastors, and its de-emphasis on counselors, musicians or other vocations.

The seminary's students and recent graduates spread its conservative influence in pulpits throughout Kentucky, Indiana and beyond.

So does its ubiquitous president, Albert Mohler, commenting regularly in national media on cultural trends.

And so do its professors, influential in national theological societies and in think tanks such as the campus-based Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, which promotes male authority in families and churches.

Southern's "sound doctrine" and well-known professors drew Brian Hubert of Illinois, who received his master of divinity degree in May: "It's just a great environment."