Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary trustees have unanimously chosen Phil Roberts, an academician who specializes in missions and evangelism strategies, as fourth president of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) seminary in Kansas City, Mo.
His election at a called trustee meeting Jan. 8–9 concludes an almost 16-month search for a new leader following the forced termination of former President Mark Coppenger over conflict with faculty and administrative staff that trustees concluded diminished his ability to lead.
Roberts is completing a seven-year tenure with the North American Mission Board (NAMB) where he currently serves as vice president for the Strategic Cities Strategies Group.
He told trustees that he is accepting the position as “a trust from God, the Southern Baptist Convention and from you.”
“I believe seminaries are the lifeblood of the denomination,” he said. “We value those who are bivocational and lay pastors, but in the final analysis, those who take seriously theological education and commit themselves to it are the ones that rise to the surface in leadership.”
Roberts said he first met with the search committee nearly a year ago and then again in October. Board chairman Carl Weiser, pastor of Hyland Heights Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Va., served on a seven-member search committee that unanimously recommended Roberts. Roberts, 50, will begin the job, which pays $124,000 a year plus benefits, in mid-February. He and his wife, Anna, have two children — Naomi, 18, and Mark, 14
The president-elect said he would continue the seminary’s traditional emphasis on classical theological education that includes biblical languages, theology and church history.
He said he plans to teach courses, as he has in the past as a visiting professor at Midwestern, but not this semester. “I think it’s very important for the president to be in touch with the lives of the students,” he said.
Roberts said he is impressed with the seminary’s faculty and looks forward to working with them.
Raised in “a missions environment,” Roberts said he benefited from the example of his father, the late Ray Roberts, who served as executive secretary of the State Convention of Baptists in Ohio and helped plant churches in that state as well as the New York and Penn-Jersey conventions. “We live in a world of 6 billion people, most of whom do not know Jesus Christ or have not heard His name,” Roberts said, noting that he is committed to developing ministers who can reach the world for Jesus Christ.
He served as professor of missions and evangelism at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake‑Forest, N.C., 1990-94 and co-directed the Lewis Adison Drummond Center for Great Commission Studies.
He earned a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown College in 1972. He graduated from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., with the master of divinity degree in 1976. After additional study at Oxford University in England, he received his Ph.D. from the Free University of Amsterdam in 1989.
He was also dean of the theology faculty at the Institute of Biblical Studies in Oradea, Romania. He was pastor of International Baptist Church in Brussels, Belgium, 1985–1989, and worked as an adjunct professor of evangelism at Evangelical Theological Faculty in Leuven, Belgium.
He was assistant professor of evangelism at Southern Seminary from 1982 to 1985 and pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church in Wiesbaden, Germany, 1975–1978. (Compiled from wire services)
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