A pedagogical success
Back in the 1970s Gordon Johnson, who was then dean of Bethel
Seminary in St. Paul, remembers the great opportunity that establishing
a West Coast presence represented for Bethel. Just a year earlier,
classes taught by professors from another seminary had been well-received
at College Avenue Baptist Church. Bethel responded to the demand
for more by flying in faculty to teach weekend courses at the church’s
facilities. “We flew in all of the faculty to teach the same
courses there as we did here in St. Paul,” Johnson says, “and
discovered that students did just as well in a concentrated way
of doing things.”
Clifford Anderson, on the faculty of Bethel St. Paul since 1959,
accepted the invitation to become the first dean of Bethel Seminary
San Diego. “Clifford had such a grasp of the nuances that
were a part of it,” Johnson remembers. “He was the
right person.”
Things went so well, in fact, that within two years the Association
of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada (ATS) awarded
accreditation to Bethel Seminary San Diego courses as an extension
of the courses taught in St. Paul, pointing to the exceptional
quality of the education being offered to San Diego students. “It
was an exciting period,” Johnson says. “President [George
K.] Brushaber [president of Bethel University], Clifford
Anderson, and I met with the whole board of the ATS.” The
Bethel group responded with good answers to tough questions. Although
other seminaries had offered extension classes, there had never
been a full-blown extension of a seminary before. “We were
pioneers,” Johnson explains, “and it was a pedagogical
success.”
By 1988 construction began at 6116 Arosa Street in San Diego to
accommodate a student body already exceeding 150 ethnically and
culturally diverse students. Then in February 1990, the school
moved into its new $2 million seminary building housing a chapel
and lecture hall, library, classrooms, student body and lounge
areas, administrative and faculty offices, and a communications
center. “We didn’t expect it to be a big place, but
the growth kept on,” Johnson reflects. “It’s
been exciting to see. We never could have dreamed what it [the
seminary] would be, couldn’t envision then the ultimate result.” And
the growth continues. This year Bethel Seminary San Diego enrolled
more than 200 students in four master’s degree programs:
Master of Divinity, Master of Arts in Theological Studies, Master
of Arts in Christian Education, and Master of Arts in Marital and
Family Therapy.
One faculty, two locations
“One faculty in two locations” became a guiding principle
under Clifford Anderson’s leadership from 1978 to 1995, and
he faithfully carried out that vision. “I was involved in
curriculum and based my planning on the home campus so that the
degrees would not be watered down,” Anderson notes. His role
also involved recruiting qualified faculty, including Bernard Ramm,
author, theologian, and apologist; Clarence Bass, seminary professor
of theology; and Millard Erickson, theologian and Bethel Seminary
dean from 1984 to 1992. Anderson considers Walter Wessel’s
10-year stint as professor of Old Testament, New Testament, and
Greek a “great impetus forward,” and Ronald Youngblood’s
coming as full-time professor of Old Testament and Hebrew from
1982 to 2001 “a wonderful addition.”
But it mattered little to the students whether their professors
traveled halfway across the continent to teach or lived nearby;
they just wanted to learn. “Professors would fly out to teach
difficult classes for six hours or so on Friday and Saturday,” Anderson
recalls. “The students, who sat on metal folding chairs,
just ate the lectures up. The quality of the faculty was among
the best in the country. The presence of Wessel and Youngblood,
who were editors of the New International Version Study Bible,
drew other scholars who met on our campus.”
A team effort
While Bethel Seminary San Diego enjoyed significant growth under
his leadership, Anderson downplays his contributions and points
to the work of others. “The credit goes to the Lord,” he
declares, also voicing high praise for staff members, volunteers,
and an advisory council of representatives from local churches. “For
those who work at the school, it’s not been a job—it’s
been a ministry,” Anderson says. “Our staff cared for
the students in wonderful ways. Assistant to the dean Sally Kennedy
and librarian Mary Lou Bradley, for example, went the extra mile
and stayed extra hours many times. Faculty and staff wives met
weekly for prayer.”
History Prof
James D. Smith III, M.Div., Th.M., Th.D.,
is associate professor of church history at Bethel Seminary
San Diego.
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“But we existed simply to extend the rule of Christ,” he
continues. “A great school was not the goal. A great library
was not the goal, nor was [hiring] a wonderful staff. The goal
was extending Christ’s rule on earth. People studied and
went out. At one time, we counted our graduates in 20 countries
of the world, in many denominations, engaged in everything from
working with children, to pastoring, counseling, serving as chaplains,
and laboring in missions. All kinds of vocations.”
Anderson also remembers the nurturing role College Avenue Baptist
Church played in the growth of Bethel Seminary San Diego. Before
the school occupied its own building, the church provided space
for classes and a library by remodeling an old fellowship hall,
even paying for utilities and janitorial services. The church’s
support and partnership continues to this day.
Growing into the ’90s
While College Avenue Baptist Church initiated the demand for seminary
courses, other churches soon began sending their ministry personnel
to Bethel Seminary San Diego for training as well. Further growth
led to the formation in 1994 of the Bethel Seminary San Diego A.D.
2001 Task Group, whose mission was to develop a strategy for “preparing
ministry persons for the rest of the decade and into the 21st century.” This
excerpt from a Bethel Seminary accreditation report is revealing: “In
the context of the ethnically rich and diverse population of the
San Diego area, it became clear to the leadership at Bethel Seminary
that what this region needed most was not a transplanted Upper
Midwest version of itself, but one that was designed to address
the needs of the emerging context in both the western sector of
the United States and the Pacific Rim.”
Clifford Anderson’s successor as dean in 1996 was well suited
to face that challenge. The son of Christian and Missionary Alliance
missionaries, Steven (Esteban) Voth grew up in Argentina in a bilingual
and bicultural environment. He and his wife, Mariel DeLuca Voth,
said that Bethel’s desire to prepare students for an ethnically
diverse world was key to their sense of call to come to Bethel
Seminary San Diego.
Putting it into context
Among Voth’s first acts as dean was to initiate discussions
among the faculty concerning the issue of contextualization, or
the process of communicating God’s Word in terms that are
maximally relevant to today’s world cultures, while at the
same time not compromising biblical truth.
Indeed, contextualization became a major theme of “One Gospel,
Many Voices,” Bethel Seminary San Diego’s response
to Provost Leland Eliason’s mandate in 1997 to create a five-year
strategic master plan for growth and change. “This document
should not be mistaken for an eclectic wish list,” the faculty
wrote. “It has a soul. And this soul is a shared commitment
to one gospel and its expression in many different voices.”
Contextualization remains at the very core of Bethel Seminary San
Diego’s vision for ministry preparation today.
Building on a solid foundation
Voth’s resignation in 2000 to work with the United Bible
Societies in Latin America prompted a year-long quest for a leader
to guide Bethel Seminary San Diego into the new century. John Lillis,
accompanied by his wife Gail, accepted the call as dean and executive
officer of Bethel Seminary San Diego in July 2001. Lillis’ 19
years of experience holding both faculty and administrative positions
at Cornerstone University, Grand Rapids, Mich., as well as his
eight years of mission work in Thailand and the Philippines, uniquely
qualified him to take on the task. “I want to continue the
emphasis that this particular campus has on providing a contextualized,
diversified approach to theological education,” Lillis says. “By
that I mean preparing people for ministry in such a way that they
are not culture bound, but are able to go into a variety of cultural
and socioeconomic settings and enact effective, biblically based
ministry.”
Among Lillis’ goals are to offer additional degree programs
and to establish additional class sites throughout Southern California
so that more students can access Bethel resources. “But financial
resources are always a challenge,” Lillis notes. “The
reality of the situation is figuring out how to make the numbers
work without setting tuition out of the reach of students who need
the education.” To that end, he is committed to forming partnerships
with people who will share Bethel’s vision and support it
financially.
“Part of my vision for the future includes building on the
fantastic foundation laid here by Clifford Anderson,” Lillis
says. “He helped create a solid base here, a seminary that
emphasizes good scholarship in the context of effective ministry.
Steven Voth also built on that foundation and really developed
the whole contextual diversity type of orientation. As I look to
the future, I will certainly continue to build on that foundation
of ministry preparation, biblical studies, and theology, with hopes
to develop an ever greater sensitivity to and appreciation for
the great diversity of the kingdom that will be so vital for ministry
in tomorrow’s world.”
Lillis believes that Bethel Seminary San Diego is ideally located
for ministry preparation, an asset that transcends the region’s
reputation for wonderful weather. He notes that Bethel’s
position on the edge of the Pacific Rim, coupled with the seminary’s
distributed learning system and relationships with the many fine
ethnic Christian organizations in the area, hold significant potential
for Bethel’s next 25 years. “We’re poised to
take off and greatly expand the outreach of the seminary and provide
opportunities for others to enjoy the Bethel experience,” Lillis
declares. “There is great ethnic and social diversity, as
well as diversity of the local church here. Filipino, Vietnamese,
and Chinese ethnic associations are nearby, and ministries range
from new church plants to some of the best-known mega-churches
in the nation.”
“Our students don’t have difficulty finding practical
ministry experience,” Lillis concludes, “because these
opportunities are tailor-made to whatever God has laid on their
hearts.” •
Patty Thomson is a development communications
specialist for Bethel University. She and her husband
Richard live in Blaine, Minn.
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