Southern Baptist Theological Seminary honored former president Duke K. McCall on the 60th anniversary of his election as president of the seminary. Current Southern Seminary president R. Albert Mohler Jr. led Alumni Chapel in celebrating McCall’s more than 30 years as president of the school. McCall, who served at Southern Seminary from 1951 to 1982 as the institution’s seventh president. He turned 97 on Sept. 1.
“Moments of grace are often rare. And this was an incredible moment of God’s grace and mercy to be able to welcome back a patriarch, Dr. Duke K. McCall, whose involvement with Southern Seminary spans more than half of its 152-year history,” Mohler said at the Sept. 6 event. “It was a very rare and singularly important occasion for Southern Seminary to honor Dr. McCall for the 60th anniversary of his election as president of this institution.”
McCall, whose contributions to the Southern Baptist Convention cover most of the 20th century, massively shaped both Southern Seminary and the convention in ways that continue to define them today.
The celebration took place the same day as the inaugural address in the Duke K. McCall Lectures on Christian Leadership series, which was endowed by the McCall Family Foundation, an endowment that includes the establishment of the Duke K. McCall Chair of Christian Leadership.
“Dr. Duke McCall is representative of a generation of Southern Baptists who served and built this denomination, its churches and institutions,” Mohler said. “We need to remember that we are living in houses we did not build and we are drinking from wells we did not dig. And, as God’s people are warned not to take these things for granted, we must live in constant appreciation to those who helped to build all that we build upon.
“At the same time, it is very important to be able to articulate what has taken place in the life of the Southern Baptist Convention and why it’s so important to affirm the inerrancy of Scripture, the faith once-for-all delivered to the saints and all that Southern Baptists believe and expect their institutions to believe and teach,” Mohler continued. “To have Dr. McCall come back, given his own lifespan and role in the Southern Baptist Convention and see him received with honor by a chapel filled with people, most of whom were not alive when he was elected as president, and many of whom were not alive when he retired as president of Southern Seminary was something that was really, really important.”
After Mohler’s remarks, McCall had the opportunity to respond, and he did so with his characteristic wit.
“The only appropriate response to all of this is silence,” McCall said. “But that’s one quality I’ve never had.”
McCall went on to encourage those in attendance to give themselves fully to God and to allow Him to shape the course of their lives.
Attending the event with McCall were his wife, their four sons and daughters-in-law and members of their extended family.
“The McCall family,” Mohler said, “has meant so much to the history of the Southern Baptist Convention and to Southern Seminary.” (BP)
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