This panel discussion moderated by Walter Strickland (Special Advisor to the President for Diversity), features Dr. Fred Luter (SBC President), and Dr. Danny Akin (Southeastern President). This was one of three events held on Southeaster’s campus on August 20, 2013 to kick off to a school-wide ‘Kingdom Diversity’ initiative (see sebts.edu/kingdom_diversity). The topic of the panel is The State of Diversifying the SBC and Southeastern Seminary.
Southeastern is a ‘Great Commission’ seminary that desires to recruit students from every corner of the Kingdom, and equip them to serve in every context of the Kingdom. To help hold ourselves accountable to this vision, the following benchmarks are the goals of the Kingdom Diversity initiative:
1. Southeastern strives to foster a campus environment that encourages God-honoring interaction across racial and cultural lines.
2. By 2022 SEBTS aims to be comprised of 20% non-white students, 15-20% non-white faculty, 15-20% non-white staff, as well being 35% female.
3. Southeastern will conduct faculty development and curriculum reform to assist students to minister to people who do not share the same ethnic and cultural background.
4. Southeastern hopes to build and strengthen partnerships with diverse churches, church networks and educational institutions.
5. Southeastern desires to emerge as a servant to the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention and beyond, and become a resource to help foster diversity within the church and the broader denominational environment.
Although the pursuit of these goals are costly, it is far more costly for the Church to press forward without intentionally trying to reflect the Kingdom that we hope for. We would love to hear your thoughts, enjoy the panel.
