Texas Seminary: No Speaking in Tongues
Pastor Dale Morgan
Thursday October 19, 2006 8:46 AM
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) - Trustees at a Baptist seminary have put it in
writing: They will not tolerate any promotion of speaking in tongues
*[Glossolalia] on their campus.
The 36-1 vote Tuesday came nearly two months after the Rev. Dwight
McKissic of Arlington said during a chapel service at Southwestern
Baptist Theological Seminary that he likes to speak in tongues while
praying.
McKissic, a new trustee at the Fort Worth school, passed the lone
dissenting vote on the resolution.
It states: ``Southwestern will not knowingly endorse in any way,
advertise, or commend the conclusions of the contemporary charismatic
movement including Glossolalia. Neither will Southwestern knowingly
employ professors or administrators who promote such practices.''
Seminary President Paige Patterson did not allow a videotape of
McKissic's sermon to be posted online or saved in the seminary's
archives with the sermons of all chapel speakers.
McKissic called for the Southern Baptist Convention to weigh in on the
matter.
Asked whether the convention would make a statement, SBC executive
committee spokesman John Revell told The Associated Press by e-mail:
``We will all find out the answer to that question in June when Southern
Baptist messengers gather in San Antonio for their annual convention.''
During his sermon at the school's chapel, McKissic described
experiencing Glossolalia.
Seminary leaders have said the McKissic's comment conflicts with the
SBC's International Mission Board, which voted in November to ban
missionaries from speaking in tongues in priuraged from speaking in
tongues publicly.
The controversy has erupted as some Baptist churches become more
accepting of charismatic forms of worship.
Speaking Glossolalia or tongues is common among Pentecostals, whose
more exuberant brand of Christianity is spreading in the United States
and in foreign countries where Southern Baptist missionaries work.
``I have opposed (Glossolalia or speaking in tongues) for all of these
years because I think it's an erroneous interpretation of the Bible,''
Patterson told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. ``Southern Baptists
traditionally have stood against what we feel like are the excesses of
the charismatic movement.''
*Glossolalia: The unintelligible speech or sounds that are currently
claiming to be a gift of the Holy Spirit. These speech patterns are
commonly associated with a trance state or certain schizophrenic
syndromes. Many primitive tribes and world religions practice glossolalia.