the
Baylor Line
Winter 2016
Magazine of the Baylor Alumni Association
Where
Have
All the
Baptists
Gone?
Why the numbers
have been in decline
at Baylor for decades
and what it means
moving forward
24
1948 Men’s Basketball
Team Trip to the Finals
40
Cruising Waco’s Newest
Restaurant Row
44
Advice for Financing
a College Education
Where
Have
All the
Baptists
Gone
by Peter Osborne
Kirsten Dickerson ‘94 may be the
poster child for the “new reality” for churchgoers, including Baylor students and alumni.
“I was christened in the Lutheran church,
confirmed in the Methodist, and then
baptized in the Baptist church in college — so
that’s when I became Baptist,” says Dickerson,
founder and CEO of Austin-based fashion
retailer Raven + Lily. “But I haven’t identified
myself as a Baptist since. We have attended a
variety of churches based on where we lived.
Most are more modern or non-denominational
though we did a stint at Hollywood Presbyterian. My husband is actually an ordained
Baptist, but we started/planted a non-denominational church in Hollywood over 10 years
ago. We currently attend a church in Austin
called Vox Venaie, which is Evangelical Covenant. I don’t really pay attention to denomination as much as the heart of the church.”
?
Back in 1991, around the time Dickerson
entered Baylor, nearly half of the students
on campus described themselves as Baptists
to the admissions office when they applied.
Today, the number has fallen to just over 30
percent, with only 27 percent of the current
freshmen declaring the university’s founding
denomination. In real numbers, with a
total enrollment that has increased nearly 42
percent from 11,682 to 16,577, university
figures say that there are 4,992 Baptist
students at Baylor today, compared with
5,754 in 1991. By comparison, Catholics have
increased 69 percent, to 15.9 percent (now at
2,632 from a starting point of 1,099 in 1991).
Why the numbers have been in decline at Baylor for decades — and what it means moving forward
the baylor line winter 2016
Gallup Editor-in-Chief Frank Newport ‘70
says the most plausible explanation of
the shrinking number of Baylor students who
self-identify as Baptists is the simplest: The
percentage of the overall population who identify as Baptists has decreased. There are fewer
BaylorAlumniAssociation.com
Stanislav Fadyukhin/getty images
30
While the number of Baptists on Baylor’s
campus has apparently fallen, nobody is quite
sure what the “real” number is. The university
doesn’t formally track the spiritual journeys of
the students. There is no intuitive way for
students to let Baylor know that they’ve
changed their affiliation — and probably no
incentive to do so. Neither is there a way to
determine the number of students who
checked the Baptist box when they applied in
hopes that might help their case for admission.
Baptists in the United States, hence fewer to form the pool of
applicants, admittees and enrollees.
But at Baylor, that decline has been exacerbated by a combination of factors that include the 1990 charter change, which
limited the number of Baptist General Convention of Texas
(BGCT)-elected trustees and infuriated conservative Texas
Baptists; by philosophical changes toward recruiting nonBaptist students and faculty that began with President Robert
Sloan and his Baylor 2012 initiative; and by sharp increases in
tuition over the past decade that have made it more difficult
for middle-class Baptist families to choose Baylor over less
expensive alternatives.
The decrease in Baptist full-time faculty has been less
precipitous — a 20 percent drop since 1992 to 41.9 percent
from 51.8 percent — while the percentage of Catholic faculty
has increased from 6.8 percent in 1992 to 12.3 percent, with the
raw numbers going from 40 to 126 because of the growth of
the overall size of the faculty.
Additionally, Baylor’s Board of Regents voted in February 2011 to amend the university’s bylaws to allow up to 25
percent of the board to include fellow Christians who are
active members of a church in a historic Christian tradition
other than Baptist. The University declined to say how many
non-Baptists currently serve on the board.
At the heart of the decline is a simple question for Baylor
leaders: Was the decrease in Baptist enrollment inescapable,
Denominational Identity Takes a Hit at Baylor
—
—
—
—
—
60%
Baptists
Catholics
Methodists
Presbyterian
Non-Denominational
40%
20%
0%
1991 32
1997 2003 the baylor line winter 2016
2009 2015
intentional, or just a by-product of the other changes? Does it
really matter in 2016, with:
• Record undergraduate enrollment of 14,189, up from
13,859 students in fall 2014.
• Overall minority enrollment at 34.4 percent
• A seven-percentage-point increase in fall-to-fall retention
among Baylor freshman (with this year’s numbers at a record
88.9 percent).
• Unprecedented interest from out-of-state students: Nearly 30 percent of current enrollment of U.S. citizens came from
outside Texas, up from less than 20 percent between 1998 and
2009. The current roster of 4,799 non-Texans is nearly double
the 2,434 who came in from other states in 2002.
Does fewer Baptists overall mean fewer Baptists
at Baylor?
Let’s start with the overall numbers.
In the big picture, Gallup data trends show the percentage
of 18+ American adults who explicitly identify themselves as
Baptists between 1992 and today has gone from as high as 20
percent down to 13 percent today. Looking at just those who
identify themselves as “Southern Baptists,” the percentage
has gone from 10 percent down to 3 percent during the same
time frame. Those who self-identified in the “Non-Denominational” category have gone from 1 percent in 1992 to 5 percent
of the population today.
The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) remains the largest Protestant denomination in the United States with 15.5
million members, down from a peak of 16.3 million in 2003.
The SBC lost more than 200,000 members in 2014, the biggest
one-year decline since 1881 and the eighth consecutive year it
dropped. The pace of annual decline is accelerating and with
the SBC seeing the lowest number of baptisms since crossing the 300,000 mark in the late 1940s, a resurgence seems
unlikely at this point.
The American Religious Identification Survey, conducted
by a Trinity University research team, posted numbers that
showed 32 percent of Texas adults as Baptists in 1990 and
20 percent as Baptists in 2008. Though that may be more a
reflection of statewide population growth outstripping statewide Baptist growth, says Clay Price, a longtime BGCT data
analyst who says there may be no simple way of determining
the change in Texas Baptist numbers.
But staffers at the BGCT and the Southern Baptists of
Texas Convention (SBTC) wonder how the SBC can be so precise with its data. The problem, say the BGCT’s Price and the
SBCT’s Gary Ledbetter, is that fewer than 50 percent of their
members provide annual membership data (e.g., attendance,
baptisms, and Sunday School attendance). The problem is
compounded by the fact that the BGCT lost 1,200 affiliated
congregations to the SBC-affiliated SBTC when it was formed
in 1998 and that many Texas Baptist churches are members of
BaylorAlumniAssociation.com
Kirsten Dickerson in east Africa, “I don’t really pay attention to denomination as much as the heart of the church.”
both conventions, making data analysis even more difficult.
Of the BGCT’s 5,333 affiliated congregations, only 857 have
reported membership data every year from 1994 to 2004. For
those churches, membership has actually increased since
1994 from 854,174 to 920,092. But the BGCT also reports that
it has 2.1 million members, down 500,000 from 2.6 million in
1994 after adjusting its data for the loss of congregations to the
SBTC.
The numbers say that “Southern Baptists in Texas [both
state conventions] increased by 462,000 between 1990 and
2010 – a 14 percent increase,” says Price, who concedes that
organizations like his have to extrapolate some data. “However, the state population grew a whopping 48 percent during
those 20 years. For Texas, the issue is not so much a declining
Baptist population as much as it is an exploding population
that has greatly reduced the portion of the population that is
Baptist.”
“A large percentage of our new churches are ethnic –
they’re small with no infrastructure, run by part-time pastors
with full-time jobs and who are hard to contact,” says Ledbetter in explaining the challenges gathering data. “I still have
to say that our numbers are too soft to know [whether] we
are trending upward or downward. The SBTC church count
is a solid, well-managed number netting upward at about 50
per year (2544 currently) but we also see broadly that a high
percentage of our churches are not growing (older, rural, transitioning). If we are growing, it is, as you heard from BGCT,
more slowly than the population. But it may be that whatever
BaylorAlumniAssociation.com decline we might see in numbers is not so much in attendance
as it is in membership. Many who no longer occupy our
membership rolls or who self-identify as a “none” never were
regular attenders or significantly engaged.”
“I came out of the Church, where we don’t think as much
about data,” says Baylor Chaplain Burt Burleson ‘80, who
has been in his current role since 2007 after 12 years as pastor
of DaySpring Baptist Church in Waco. “We really don’t have
good data that informs what changes students may make
while they’re at Baylor. We do have a broad understanding, however, about the spiritual experience that students
have or can have because we’re with them and know them
and because we are doing assessments on various programs
in Student Life that are targeted toward specific outcomes.
Because students migrate and move and change and come and
go here and there, it would probably be more helpful to talk to
them a decade after graduation as they look back on their time
at Baylor than to ask them at some “point” while they’re at
Baylor where they are spiritually.”
When Burleson attended Baylor in the 1970s, he says it
felt like his classmates were all on similar journeys, with it
seeming like 80 percent were Texas Baptists. In fact, one of his
classmates was Catholic, but they never talked about it.
“Baby Boomers saw lines. Everyone else’s religion was
just a little bit off. It’s not that way now,” Burleson says.
“Today, it’s common to talk to Protestant students about their
faith and see that they don’t use the denomination as a noun. Protestants don’t have a sense of institutional loyalty like we
winter 2016
the baylor line 33
“Baby Boomers saw lines. Everyone else’s religion was just a little
bit off. It’s not that way now.” —Baylor Chaplain Burt Burleson ‘80
“Protestants don’t
have a sense of
institutional loyalty
like we once did –
and that’s a blessing
in a way,” says
Baylor Chaplain
Burt Burleson ‘80.
once did — and that’s a blessing in a way. They’re exposed to
lots of different views.”
Are “Labels” less important these days?
So where have all the Baptists gone? Perhaps they’ve just
taken a side step over to the non-denominational side of the
aisle — or perhaps away from the church completely. Today,
more than 22 percent of Baylor students self-identify as NonDenominational.
At Baylor, calculating the number for “non-denominational” growth comparisons isn’t simple. Over the years, the
school has changed its categories and phased out a category
called “Not Specified,” which could include a group that is just
protective of their privacy. If you include as Non-Denominational anyone who characterized themselves over the years
as Christian Non-Affiliated, Non-Denominational, Christian
Church, Interdenominational, Other Than Listed, or Evangelical, the percentage was less than 10 percent prior to 2005;
although, the Not Specified category prior to 2005 hit double
digits and could have been Non-Denominational.
In addition, back in 1991, the university didn’t even capture data on students who might fall into the Non-Religious
category. The reasons behind the fact that the Non-Religious
group now stands at 4 percent in 2015 – one out of every 25
students at an “unapologetically Christian” school may be a
question for a different day.
“There’s a consensus among scholars that denominational
identity has vastly declined in America over the last 50 years,”
34
the baylor line winter 2016
says Dr. Barry Hankins ’78, MA
‘83, a Baylor history professor and
co-author of the 2015 book, “Baptists
in America.” “It’s caught up with
our mobile society. In the past, if you
moved, you found the best Baptist
church. Now you look for something
close to you. It’s now more about
differentiating yourself as to whether
you’re conservative, moderate, or
liberal.”
Dr. Daniel Bagby ’62, MS ’64,
has been Minister of Pastoral Care
at River Road Church, Baptist, in
Richmond, VA, since 2011 and was the
pastor of Seventh and James Baptist
Church in Waco for nearly 17 years.
He thinks “changing needs” are the
reason for the shift.
“The Baptist label means less and
it’s the same across denominations,”
Bagby says. “It’s less important these
days to describe oneself as Southern
Baptist, and less important to attend
church. In the 1990s, 70 percent to 80 percent of the new
people joining my church were Baptists. Now it’s 50 percent.
And it’s the same for those who are going to other churches.
People just want to know if a particular church meets their
needs. I’m seeing a lot more couples who come from different denominations and are looking for a place where both can
connect.”
Hankins says that “Lots of kids come to Baylor believing what Baptists have always believed — conversion, daily
walk with Christ, Bible reading, prayer, going on missions
— but their families were taking them to some sort of generic
evangelical Bible church because of denominational identity.
They believe the same things as Baptists but happen not to be
Baptists.”
Baylor Professor Byron Johnson responds to a Pew Research study which determined that a whopping 44 percent
of Americans have left the faith affiliation in which they were
raised, a finding that many people in the media immediately
claimed meant religion is on its deathbed, that atheism is on
the rise, or that people are becoming less religious.
“That doesn’t mean they have left their faith altogether,”
Johnson told the National Press Club during a November 2015
panel. “We look at that study and say that it is a phenomenal
thing that people would switch churches.”
What’s going on with Admissions?
Enrollment is a function of three steps in the application process: (1) composition of the pool of applicants; (2) composition
BaylorAlumniAssociation.com
of the pool of those accepted; and (3) composition of the pool
of those who enroll for classes.
Baylor declined to provide numbers around the percentage of Baptist applicants at each of those points in the process.
But a review of the Baylor Institutional Research and Testing
(IRT) report for the current freshman class shows that only
32.1 percent of the 2,954 self-described Baptists who were
accepted by Baylor chose to enroll. That compares with 38.2
percent of the 1,929 Baptists who were accepted in 2005, the
earliest data available on the IRT website. While the numbers
show a fairly substantive decrease, it should be noted that the
overall enrollment (also known as “yield” rates for 2015 and
2005 were 24.2 percent and 31.2 percent, respectively (with the
Baptist numbers included).
At a time when Baylor is trumpeting its stronger freshman class, it is worth noting that the university continues to
acknowledge that it’s losing gifted students to other schools.
“In my generation, if you were a Baptist kid in a Southern
Baptist church across the south and you were really bright,
you wanted to go to Baylor,” says Ella Wall Prichard ‘63,
a member of the Board of Regents from 1992 to 2001. “At the
most, you might have gone to Vanderbilt or Duke. Now they
go to Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, etc.”
That view is supported by a statement that accompanies
the data that Baylor IRT publishes on Non-Enrolling Accepted Students. In nine of the past 11 years, Baylor says “students
who were accepted but did not enroll at Baylor had higher
entrance test scores and high school percentiles than those
students who did enroll.”
It should also be noted that Baylor is doing very well with
its alumni’s children and grandchildren. Within this year’s
freshman class, nearly 31 percent reported a legacy connection
to Baylor, up from about 28 percent a year earlier. Most of the
people interviewed for this story agree that members of the
Baylor Family understand and see the value of a Baylor education. Whether they can afford it, with tuition, fees, and room
and board heading toward $53,000 next year, is a different
question.
René Maciel, MS ‘91, president of both the Baptist
General Convention of Texas and Baptist University of the
Américas in San Antonio, thinks the cost of attending schools
like Baylor is a primary driver of the decrease in Baptist
enrollment.
“I’ve watched every Texas Baptist school drop in numbers
and percentage of Baptist students,” he says. “We’ve priced
ourselves out of Baptist kids. Even though the quality of education at these schools is incredible, it’s a challenge for Baptist
families to invest because of costs per year of tuition.”
When Maciel was director of student services and then
Assistant Dean for Administration and Academic Services
at the George W. Truett Theological Seminary at Baylor from
1999 to 2003, he saw students from Baptist schools arrive with
BaylorAlumniAssociation.com $40,000 to $60,000 in debt and then doubled that as they studied to become a pastor. With tuition continuing to skyrocket
at many schools, the problem continues to grow.
“I’ve seen many of them get out of the ministry because
that debt became a burden that impacted their ability to take
care of their families,” Maciel says.
Maciel worked in Admissions at Baylor from 1985-1990,
during which time he talked to dozens hopeful applicants.
“They would tell me in the summer that they really wanted to go to Baylor and couldn’t wait to apply. Later, they’d tell
me they got in and couldn’t wait to go but it depended on what
the university would give them for financial aid. Then I’d run
into them and they’d tell me they were going somewhere else,
perhaps to a community college.”
“I’d have similar conversations with their parents, many of
whom were pastors and many of whom also graduated from
Baylor. They’re all excited about what’s going on at Baylor, but
they know their pastor salary isn’t going to pay for it. They
talk about it and pray about it, but they ultimately decide they
have to go somewhere else.”
In February 2011, the Board of Regents endorsed a plan
to increase scholarships awarded to the children of Baptist
ministers and missionaries (up to $5,000 each) and said they
expected to award more than $500,000 per year. Beyond
those grants, the university offers a range of scholarships to
Baptists, from matching church and state Baptist convention
scholarships (up to $1,000) to educational assistance to Baptist
students preparing for careers in church-related vocational
ministry (20 percent of tuition for undergraduate hours).
Baylor spokesperson Lori Fogleman says Baylor advertises
in several publications in Texas and around the country and
the Admissions team attends more than 500 college fairs and
high-school visits across the country and world – and rallies
in the spring at large churches in the top 10 Texas markets as
well as Denver and southern California. And the success of
Baylor’s athletics program certainly attracts its share of Baylor
Nation fans.
Fogleman says the university has made “a concentrated effort over the past decade to strengthen our faith commitment.”
She cites an increase in Baylor’s student mission trips that
also are tied to their academic experience, such as business
students working with small businesses in Uganda, Rwanda,
and Zambia, and increasing research productivity by bringing
in more outstanding scholars who also believe in involving
undergraduate and graduate students in their research.
“During this same period, we have planned for and transformed our campus, and I believe that is one of the reasons for
the increased popularity of Baylor as a college choice,” Fogleman adds. “Athletics has been incredibly helpful in bringing
attention to Baylor because of its success, but during this time
of tremendous growth, we also greatly enhanced our student
life and academic experiences. We’ve created a multitude
winter 2016
the baylor line 35
“We’ve priced ourselves out of Baptist kids.” —René Maciel, MS ’91,
President, BGCT, President, Baptist University of the Américas
of new academic programs, and we’ve added more than a
half-billion dollars in new and renovated facilities, including
three new residential communities and new buildings for the
sciences, law, theology, and business.”
Baylor’s success cannot be denied, but those new facilities
comes at a price. Minimal endowment growth continues to
impact the cost of tuition. Paying long-term debt depends on
continued fundraising success. Baylor’s tuition has steadily
grown, rising 32 percent since the 2011 school year, but Baylor
leadership says they want to keep future rate increases at no
more than 4 percent. President Ken Starr has consistently
said the the solution to reducing the cost of tuition is increasing the endowment which is currently at $1.2 billion, up from
$871 million when he took office in 2010. Starr told the Waco
Trib last year that the goal is to hit $2 billion with an emphasis
on attracting more endowed scholarships. Under his leadership, the school completed a $100 million scholarship campaign well before its scheduled end date.
Others point out that significant increases in Texas’s Hispanic population could be a driver in the increased Catholic
enrollment at Baylor. Maciel recalls that as one of the few Hispanics on President Herbert Reynolds’s staff in 1985, Reynolds
asked him how Baylor could attract more Hispanics.
“I told him to tell me about our Hispanic vice presidents,
about our Hispanic faculty, about our Hispanic staff,” Maciel
says. “When Hispanics came to visit Baylor, they didn’t see
any Hispanic faces. And then I introduced my dad [Eleazar
Maciel ‘52] to Dr. Reynolds and he became the first Hispanic
Regent.”
Hankins says he thinks “Baylor is a decision of faith for a
minority of people. We really don’t know why kids go to the
schools they do for the reason they do. We certainly know
that football success drives applications. The spike we’ve seen
in applications is not likely driven by religion.”
Rebranding: The move to a “Christian university
in the Baptist tradition”
For some, the importance of being Baptist became less important than being “Baptistic,” a phrase that was often used by
President Sloan and those committed to a different trajectory for Baylor. While not everyone agrees on the concept of
“Baptistic,” few would argue that the focus on being Baptist at
Baylor has changed.
In an effort to broaden its appeal beyond its historic
Baptist base, the university launched a rebranding effort.
The charter change and the split in Texas Baptist churches,
along with the emergence of Baylor 2012, Sloan’s controversial
10-year strategic plan, led to the university becoming more
“intentionally Christian,” with a greater emphasis on hiring
explicitly Christian professors who could help the university
achieve its goal of being a top-tier research university, regardless of denominational affiliation.
“Over the last 20 years, Baylor has rebranded itself as a
Christian university in the Baptist tradition more than as a
Baptist university,” Hankins says. “We’ve even changed the
language. It goes back to the 2012 project. We have lots of
young people on this campus who are not Baptists, but they
are committed Christians, including Catholics. They want to
go to a Christian school and see Baylor as a place they’d like to
go to for that reason.”
Is THE CAMPUS MORE “RELIGIOUS” TODAY THAN
B
aylor Chaplain Burt Burleson, who oversees students’
spiritual journeys as Dean
of Spiritual Life, says he’s
not sure he can answer that particular
question and others agree that it may
be unanswerable.
“It’s different religiously. I think
there’s much more intentionality
around many parts of the community.
I believe that leadership at Baylor became much more international about
exploring the commitment to and
depth of a candidate’s Christian faith
as a part of the hiring process. I think
we’re imagining more about what it
36
the baylor line winter 2016
means to be a Christian university.
We’re trying to bring everyone into
the conversation. As an old Baylor
guy, I kind of bowed up at first, but it
became very exciting.”
Baylor History Professor Barry Hankins is more definitive with his answer:
“Yes, there are more faculty engaged
in scholarship on religion than ever
before. There are faculty in history,
sociology, political science, literature,
and, of course, religion, for whom the
study of religion is their life’s work.
This has made Baylor one of the most
exciting places to be in the country for
scholars of religion.”
But does scholarship on religious
subjects necessarily make a faculty
more religious? Older alumni recall their professors in their Baptist
churches on Sunday teaching Sunday
school, serving as ushers and deacons, and singing in the choir. And
students were in church on Sunday
during a time when Baylor was clearly
far more conservative than it is today.
Those alumni also remember a
four-semester chapel requirement
and two semesters of religion. Today,
at a time of growing religious diversity, the issue of even twice-weekly
mandatory chapel for freshmen re-
BaylorAlumniAssociation.com
Burleson sees it as a reflection of a changing profile with
strong students and worldwide recruiting.
“I don’t recall knowing an international student when
I was here,” he says with a smile. “I think it’s been deliberate and intentional. It’s a broader recruiting effort, trying to
reach scholars and go worldwide. It’s not just a more ecumenical experience.”
Indeed, Baylor hired a professional enrollment management company, Noel-Levitz, during the Sloan years that drove
higher inquiries and applications. It was during this time that
the term “Baptistic” emerged to broaden the applicant pool.
Burleson remembers hearing people talking about becoming a world-class university and asking, “What is wrong with
the way we are now?”
“When Baylor rebranded as a Christian university, it suddenly became appealing to non-Baptist evangelicals in other
parts of the country,” Hankins says. “We got onto their radar.
Baylor began placing ads in Christianity Today, which is
largely a magazine of Midwestern and Northern evangelicals.
We were marketing ourselves in ways we had never before
bothered to.”
More students come from out of state. Back in 1997, 78.7
percent of Baylor’s 12,472 students came from Texas; today,
that number is 74.8 percent — an increase of 2,262 to 4,799
non-Texans. Where Illinois and Washington State didn’t
appear on 1997’s Top 10 States of Origin list, Illinois ranked
fourth on this year’s list.
Former Provost Emeritus Donald Schmeltekopf ‘62
says that by the end of his 12 year tenure in 2003, Baylor was
“recruiting new faculty members exclusively on the basis of
Baylor’s identity as a premier Christian university. The ‘Baptist
tradition’ part was usually understood, but that was not the
lead argument for attracting faculty and students to come to
Baylor. Most people tended to know from Baylor’s reputation
that we were historically Baptist. What we needed to make
clear by the year 2000 was that we were going to be a Christian research university, and that Baylor was uniquely positioned to be the only such university in the Protestant orbit.”
“Baylor is a long way from ever not being viewed as a Baptist university as long as it remains intentionally Christian,”
says Hankins. “The focus must be on intentionally cultivating
its religious identity or its religious identity won’t last long
because the forces of higher education push toward a secular
position.”
He points to a lot of schools founded as denominational
or Christian, including Duke, Harvard, Yale, Princeton,
Vanderbilt, and Emory, that have little religious identity left.
“If you don’t intentionally hire professing, practicing
Christians you’re not going to have a very Christian university
within about one generation,” Hankins explains.
Charter Change, Split in Texas Churches Leads to
Baylor Becoming More “Intentionally Christian”
“Prior to 1991, Baylor was essentially a Baptist university,”
says Schmeltekopf. “About half of its student body was
Baptist and about half of its faculty members were Baptists.
In addition, its governing board was totally Baptist and all
were from Texas. The charter change of September 21, 1990,
was the catalyst for the changes.”
Burleson, who described himself as “an old, moderate
20 YEARS AGO?
gardless of their religious affiliation is
somewhat troubling for Burleson, who
describes himself as “a Baptist whose
basic core conviction is you can’t coerce faith. It’s different for academic
subjects. But Chapel is different because we’re praying. It’s worship.”
But Burleson is testing “alternatives” to the historic requirement of
two semesters of Chapel with a limited number of students, adding that
“the great majority of students will attend University Chapel, but there are
a limited number who can receive one
of those credits through alternatives
that are led by my office [including]
BaylorAlumniAssociation.com small groups or daily prayer services in
our campus chapels.”
In the final analysis, Burleson says
the university’s goal is to “grow in its
understanding of how to be faithfully Christian and yet minister to and
welcome students who are coming
from different religious cultures. As a
University, we’re asking what it means
to offer hospitality in the name of
Christ; we’re into a new day of trying
to crack that nut.”
Baylor’s cross-cultural ministry
includes interfaith dialogue with students from all other traditions. “Our
work in the chaplain’s office is a part
of a larger movement on the campus
related to Global Engagement and
Cultural Competency goals,’ Burleson
says.
“We want them to know we’re trying to understand and be with them,
which is the essence of compassion,”
he told the Waco Trib.
Burleson says his team has a “ways
to go to institutionalize that. But
we’re not beating people over the
head with the Bible. But as Baptists,
we ought to all squirm a bit about
making people come into places
where we pray.”
winter 2016
the baylor line 37
38
the baylor line winter 2016
So does the sharp decrease in Baptists matter?
Are we in a good place?
Dr. Barry Hankins, “In the past, if you moved, you found the
best Baptist church. Now you look for something close to you.”
started noticing but I don’t think [the leaders] would have
said that being ecumenical was critical as it relates to the
student population, and that they had to do this with respect
to faculty.”
But Schmeltekopf says that these numbers were not cause
for discussion or concern.
“Those of us in the administration were aware of the shifting numbers, but with the adoption of Baylor 2012 in 2001…we
needed to recruit the finest students and the finest faculty possible, and if that meant bringing in more non-Baptists, so be
it. In fact, what we found was that serious non-Baptists, such
as other evangelicals and Catholics, were immensely attracted
to Baylor because we were committed to becoming a first-rate
Christian university, and, not surprisingly, our Baptist principles strongly contributed to this ecumenical approach.”
Burleson concedes that “all that was troublesome for a lot
of Baylor. They asked whether we would lose our great teachers because now they’d have to publish or perish. It was the
financial model — we never borrowed money for buildings.
So it was all of that and people were very anxious — even if
they were thoughtful.”
Burleson adds that it was a question of “spiritual disposition” in the days before the hiring of Sloan to replace Herbert
Reynolds as Baylor’s president.
“We’d wonder if there was a fundamentalist behind this
bush or that bush, and then Robert comes in and says we’re
going to change this and change that,” Burleson says. “And
many people worried about whether he was going to turn us
into a Bible college. There was a lot of fear, which made it difficult to consider new things.”
The apparent end result was a shift in thinking and conversation across campus.
“I meet amazing kids and faculty and they’re so excited to
be able to have conversations about their faith,” Burleson says.
“They can begin to wonder about what faith looks like for
an economist, think about the purpose of an economy from
a Christian perspective. Might a Baylor student and their
degree equip them for that conversation differently from an
A&M degree?”
BaylorAlumniAssociation.com
eric guel
Baptist who was pastoring people on both sides,” said people
were “battle-weary” at the time he became chaplain, adding
that his pastoral experience relative to Baylor 2012 was as a
pastor in Waco as the university was reimagining its mission
and dealing with the turmoil of that.
“Texas, North Carolina, and Virginia were the only states
that did not fall to fundamentalist takeover. One of the
reasons Texas didn’t fall was because Baylor and BAA were
in lockstep,” Burleson says. “You have to remember that in
the 1980s, if you came from a conservative background, you
would come to Baylor and say, ‘wow, we can ask questions
and we can think and we can disagree with our pastors’ and
we got a broader understanding of not only Baptist faith but
the Gospel. It was freeing and it got us excited…and then here
come the fundamentalists taking over all these institutions.”
Hankins agrees that “one of the main reasons Baylor
became more intentionally Christian — in fact the whole 2012
project — was because of the charter change. President Reynolds said there was no way he would allow this university to
go off in the direction of secularism. That’s what normally
happens. Once the university loses its ties with its sponsoring
denominational body, one generation later it has almost no
identity.”
But the change came at a price.
“Texas Baptist pastors felt Baylor pulling away from Baptist principles and that spooked them,” Maciel said. “They
didn’t fully understand that Baylor wasn’t pulling away. They
were protecting themselves from takeover.”
Relationships with the conventions have yet to recover.
“Baylor lost the SBC connection with the charter change,
and the SBC lost, in some people’s view, “its crown jewel,”
former Regent Prichard said. “Fundamentalist leaders never
forgave Herb Reynolds and John Baugh, and the throngs of
students who came from conservative Baptist megachurches
in Dallas and Houston dwindled.”
Some of those interviewed for this article argue that
Baylor operated for a long time under the belief that academic
scholarship didn’t have a lot to do with Christian faith. The
introduction of Baylor 2012, they say, represented the first
integration of Christian faith with academics.
“The two places to look for serious Christian scholars were
the Catholic Church and the Reformed/Calvinist tradition,”
says Hankins. “Those two areas had the deepest history of intellectual engagement at all levels and Baylor recruited there.”
This was particularly true for departments being asked to
start PhD programs that began hiring distinguished professors in an effort to attract graduate students.
“Would the creators of 2012 have anticipated this blue
line” of decreasing Baptists, asks Burleson. “They were pretty
much Baptist. When I came here in 2007, I do remember
people started noticing and remember a conversation that
we need to work harder to get some Baptists in here. People
“If you don’t intentionally hire professing, practicing Christians
you’re not going to have a very Christian university within about
one generation.” — Dr. Barry Hankins ’78, MA ‘83, Baylor professor and
co-author of the 2015 book, Baptists in America
Burleson says Baylor is ending up in a good place, even
though he recognizes there have been bumps along the way.
“I wouldn’t say that it doesn’t matter, but I don’t find myself carrying a lot of angst about that,” he explains. “I think
there are less Baptists to go around and as the competitiveness
of getting into Baylor goes up, there are more people coming in
from other places. There are just more people applying. But I
don’t find myself waking up and feeling burdened about that.
What is God calling me and calling us to do? Baylor has a
unique opportunity; I don’t think what we’re trying to do has
ever been done.”
Hankins suggests that “some people do care. My take is
that the primary opposition to 2012 was (1) the concern that
integration of faith and scholarship and being more intentionally Christian was a move toward fundamentalism and (2)
that becoming a research university would damage Baylor’s
emphasis on teaching.”
“In my view, the first of those concerns was simply unwarranted. If Baylor were to move toward fundamentalism,
the first thing it would do is fire, not hire, Catholics, and put
an emphasis on hiring fundamentalist Baptists. As to the
second concern, I believe it was warranted as a concern but
hasn’t happened. Virtually all the professors hired at Baylor
in the past 12 years are publishing scholars. If they weren’t,
they wouldn’t get tenure and would be gone after six years…
Virtually every Christian scholar I meet across the country is
excited about what has happened at Baylor and love to come
on the faculty here.”
Dr. Bagby says the trend could be concerning to almuni,
who value tradition and the spiritual repution of the school.
“Does it matter? It depends on your generation,” he says.
“My parents both went to Baylor and for them fidelity and
faithfulness was important, so yes, it would matter to them.”
Schmeltekopf believes it is critical that Baylor sustain a
strong Baptist connection, largely because such a tie helps
contribute to its faithfulness as a Christian university.
“The capacity of Baylor to become an ever-stronger Christian university depends, in part, on a core of Baptist leaders
who find their religious identity in what we might call ‘bigtent orthodoxy,’ a grand tradition that embraces both religious
freedom and historical Christian teaching,” he says. “This
tradition has produced a distinct culture at Baylor and a large
community of support that depends, in part, on our Baptist
faith and heritage. Perhaps the best way to summarize this
perspective is to say that Baylor remains Baptist-related while
clearly welcoming to Christians of all sorts who seek a serious
educational alternative to the prevailing anti-religious ethos of
BaylorAlumniAssociation.com our age.”
Fogleman says “not one student should come through on
an official visit and not leave knowing that Baylor is unapologetically Christian and that the university’s Christian mission
is central to their entire education.”
Dickerson says that encountering Baylor’s diversity as a
student set her on the path to her current career as CEO of an
ethical fashion and lifestyle brand dedicated to empowering
women through design.
“I volunteered at Mission Waco and traveled internationally,” she says. “I explored my faith as a college student, grew
spiritually, and then applied it in a world context. My faith
had never been stronger, but it didn’t fit into a traditional
Baptist church.
“I definitely became more liberal socially in my faith but
am still conservative theologically if that makes sense. So I
love diverse churches that are actively involved in the arts and
social justice, with a community that really accepts you as is. We love churches that practice some of the ancient liturgy,
something we didn’t have in our modern Baptist experience. Nothing formal or stuffy, just meaningful and rich.”
And perhaps that means she’s had the kind of spiritual
journey over these past two decades that Burleson and his
predecessors dream of shepherding. BL
Let’s Talk
We invite you to join the conversation on the
BAA website about whether declining percentages of
Baptist students and faculty at Baylor “matter.”
•
Are you part of the growing number of people who
see denominational identity as less important?
Was the decrease in Baptist enrollment inescapable, intentional, or just a by-product of the charter
change, implementation of Baylor 2012, and rising
tuition?
Have these trends strengthened the Baylor
Family and Baylor Experience?
How do you see the future for Baylor as a
“Christian university in the Baptist tradition?”
•
•
•
Please share your thoughts on this article, on
this issue, and whether you’d like to see more
stories like this in the Baylor Line through either
the Comments on our website or with an e-mail to
[email protected]. Please
provide your name, YOG, and location when posting.
winter 2016
the baylor line 39
the
Baylor Line
BaylorAlumniAssociation.com
[email protected]
1-888-710-1859
You can contribute to our Legacy Scholarship Fund at
https://btl.bayloralumniassociation.com/baa-donation-landing-page/
The BAA awarded $1,000 Legacy Scholarships
to 55 students including: (top, l-r) Megan Anderson,
Holly Herald; (middle, l-r) Caleb O’Quin, Luke Willson,
Micah Marroquin, Logan Willson; (bottom, l-r) Emily Knaub,
Annie Richmond, Mary Woodall, Sarah Pitman,
Julia Paxton, Katie Dyck, Cali Cox, Sherilyn Hardy,
Eliza Newman, and Corrie Coleman
www.jspublicationdesign.com
eric guel
Editor: Peter Osborne
Art Director: John Sizing