The year of our Lord two thousand and twenty-six is a milestone year for Central Baptist Theological Seminary. This September marked our seventieth birthday as a seminary. And those seventy years have been packed with ministry.
In 1956, the Northwestern Schools (founded by W. B. Riley of First Baptist in Minneapolis) were facing a financial crunch. The administration made the difficult decision to close that seminary. The faculty of the seminary appealed to Richard V. Clearwaters to reopen the seminary under the umbrella of Fourth Baptist Church.
At the time, Fourth Baptist was involved with the Conservative Baptist Association of America. The CBA had started a seminary, but it was already showing signs of drifting away from a separatist and dispensationalist position. Clearwaters seized the opportunity to start a seminary that would counterbalance the drift of the original Conservative Baptist Seminary.
The CBA was divided into three regional fellowships. Fourth Baptist Church was part of the Central Regional, the most conservative section of the Conservative Baptist Movement. Clearwaters’ vision was for his new seminary to become the flagship school of the Central Regional, so it was given the name Central Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary.
Eventually, the CBA repudiated its more conservative, separatist, and dispensational churches. It refused to recognize the new seminary. In the long run, it disenfranchised Clearwaters and his allies. So the “Conservative” was dropped from the new seminary’s name, and it became simply Central Baptist Theological Seminary.
Over the years, the seminary has not deviated from its core commitments. It sees the Gospel as definitive for Christian fellowship. It defends the Baptist distinctives. It teaches an explicitly dispensational, premillennial, and pretribulational approach to Scripture. It has also taken a position against Pentecostal and Charismatic influences, and it has become a defender of young earth creationism.
Just as importantly, Central Seminary has remained committed to evangelism, to Christian growth, and to the centrality of the local church in God’s program. We have focused in training pastors and missionaries, with a sprinkling of Christian scholars and educators. More recently, we have identified with the Biblical Counseling Movement, offering programs for local church counselors. We have hundreds of graduates around the world serving in these ministries.
The span of our ministry has never been broader. We have trained students from every continent except Antarctica. Every moment of every day the sun is shining on graduates of Central Seminary who are ministering somewhere. In fact, the sun is even shining on students of Central Seminary who are ministering around the world.
It shines on Scott Ashby as he pastors Graceway Baptist Church in Milton, Ontario. It shines on Ryan Stuckey as he ministers to students in Hart, Michigan. It shines on Rajesh Kumar as he teaches and serves at Faith Baptist Bible College and Seminary in Kerala, India. It shines on Alfred Yokoju as he plants Community Bible Church in Juba, South Sudan.
None of these students pays the full cost for their education. Those who live in impoverished countries pay very little. Training to preach, teach, evangelize, and counsel is expensive. And the truth is that people who go to seminary are preparing for callings that will never make them rich. Not only can’t they pay for their education, they’ll never be able to pay back their education.
Most of the cost of a seminary education is borne by us who benefit from the ministries of seminary graduates. Seminary education is a team effort. Donors provide the means. The seminary provides the schooling. The students provide the rigorous labor of learning. Every part of this team is essential if graduates are going to be sent into the Lord’s work.
We are asking you to join that team.
There’s no better time than now. “Give to the Max” season is always a special time for Central Seminary’s donors. It is an opportunity to see our gifts double in value. Until November 19, every dollar that is given to help the students of Central Seminary will be matched by another dollar. No gift is too small to matter.
Our staff and faculty members give to the ministry of Central Seminary. We invite you to join us. Become part of our team, and “Give to the Max” during this special season. You can donate online at www.centralseminary.edu/give/, then click on the “Give to the Max” button. You can call the seminary with a credit card number at (763)417-8250. You can drop a check in the mail to us at 900 Forestview Ln. N., Plymouth, MN 55441. However you donate, we and our students thank you.
Central Seminary is seventy years old. But we’re not feeling our age. We’re still doing what we were created to do. We’re doing it better than ever. And we want to do it for another seventy years, or until Jesus comes back for us.
Through All the Various Shifting Scene
Samuel Collett (c. 1705–1770)
Through all the various shifting scene
Of life’s mistaken ill or good,
Thy hand, O God, conducts, unseen,
The beautiful vicissitude.
Thou givest with paternal care,
Howe’er unjustly we complain,
To each their necessary share
Of joy and sorrow, health and pain.
Trust we to youth, or friends, or pow’r?
Fix we on this terrestrial ball?
When most secure, the coming hour,
If thou see fit, may blast them all.
Thy pow’rful consolations cheer;
Thy smiles suppress the deep-fetch’d sigh;
Thy hand can dry the trickling tear
That secret wets the widow’s eye.
All things on earth, and all in heav’n
On thy eternal will depend;
And all for greater good were giv’n,
Would man pursue th’ appointed end.
Be this my care;—To all beside,
Indiff’rent let my wishes be.
Passion be calm, abas’d be pride,
And fix’d my soul, great God! on thee.
