Columns

For sixteen years, Russell Dilday was president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, one of the largest and most well-respected seminaries in the world. In 1994 his presidency ended in the wake of the Southern Baptist Convention's attempts to remake the Baptist world in its own fundamentalist image. Columns: Glimpses of a Seminary Under Assault chronicles these events by revisiting Dilday's monthly presidential columns at Southwestern. Through Dilday's words it is possible to reimagine a remarkable seminary both at the height of achievement and under the weight of an unjust assault on Baptist principles which continues to this day. While Dilday's columns are revealing, the book includes detailed accounts of events, personalities and dynamics that occurred each year during his tenure as president. These sketches paint a detailed picture of both the voracity of the assaults and the extent of loss for the seminary community and Texas Baptists.