Owen Strachan is leaving GBTS

[Polanus1561]

GBTS Public Statement June 5, 2024 - Grace Bible Theological Seminary

To our GBTS students, supporters, and friends, Owen Strachan was hired as the Provost of Grace Bible Theological Seminary in 2021. We are thankful for his time and service at GBTS, which will end in June of this year. We want to express our thanks for his time and involvement at GBTS for the...

gbtseminary.org

To our GBTS students, supporters, and friends,

Owen Strachan was hired as the Provost of Grace Bible Theological Seminary in 2021. We are thankful for his time and service at GBTS, which will end in June of this year. We want to express our thanks for his time and involvement at GBTS for the past three years.

GBTS is committed to honoring the Lord Jesus Christ by educating and equipping the next generation of pastors, church planters, and missionaries to see churches established and strengthened across the globe. We will continue to carry out the seminary’s mission with a reinvigorated commitment to training humble men to serve and glorify the Lord in His church.

A new academic year and exciting opportunities are on the horizon for GBTS. A strategic initiative is underway to clarify and reinforce our core values of serving Christ in His church, unwaveringly affirming the sufficiency of Scripture, and training godly men for Christ-exalting pastoral ministry that is humble, charitable, and experiential. GBTS is where an outstanding faculty of pastors train pastors in a confessionally Reformed Baptist context.

The Lord has blessed GBTS with an exceptional body of staff, supporters, administrators, faculty, and students. Our students at GBTS are a vibrant group of men who are and will be serving the Lord all over the world. We take the responsibility to train these men seriously and will continue to strive for excellence in this mission, always looking to the Lord for help.

Thank you for your support, prayers, encouragement, and involvement in Grace Bible Theological Seminary’s mission. The Lord has graciously blessed GBTS thus far, and we believe the very best is yet to come.

 

[retroGRAD3]

I wonder if this is over theological reasons or he just took a new job?

 

[Polanus1561]

All I can say is : it’s weird to have just one paragraph on him leaving and then to have several paragraphs talking assuring about the future. But what do I know

 

[retroGRAD3]

All I can say is : it’s weird to have just one paragraph on him leaving and then to have several paragraphs talking assuring about the future.

Agreed

 

[Polanus1561]

Introducing the Dobson Culture Center

The Dobson Culture Center is to help families and individuals live Scripturally-rooted lives and to engage culture with a biblical worldview, exposing darkness and exalting the light of Christ.

t.co

He is leaving to join another place

 

[retroGRAD3]

Based on some of the conversations I have heard around Strachan with Christian Nationalism (him being against it), it seems like this would be a logical step. I notice this one point specifically from their objectives: Help Christians to engage the culture and not become entangled by it

 

[Pilgrim]

It didn't strike me as a great fit from the beginning. The President of the seminary had never had a focus on culture before, although he's certainly not the type to endorse CN, so he would likely be in large agreement with Strachan there. Note the emphasis on core values in the rest of the statement, and what those are.

Also, Strachan is probably a loose 1689er at best, although I'm placing pretty heavy emphasis on his SBC background when saying that, and don't have a lot of knowledge about his views specifically. At some point in recent years it was emphasized that the seminary wasn't strictly 1689 across the board. I don't know if the reference to "confessionally Reformed Baptist" should be taken as a signal that they are tightening things up a bit in that regard.

Johnson has some obvious differences with White as well, (White's postmil, and "theonomy," Johnson's moderate Calvinism) but if nothing else White has been viewed as a RB for decades. I can't recall any strong emphasis on Calvinism from Strachan although I suppose he's Calvinistic generally speaking. Strachan strikes me as a somewhat more conservative version of Russell Moore, and this move to a culture warring institution that has always been sort of vague and wishy washy on theology only reinforces that. Both of them have been heavily influenced by Carl F.H. Henry. Strachan left the SBC over wokeness, not theology.

 

[jwright82]

All I can say is : it’s weird to have just one paragraph on him leaving and then to have several paragraphs talking assuring about the future. But what do I know

Yeah I agree but don't institutions usually do this sort of thing to keep the donors calm and reassured? Isn't that how WTS Philadelphia sort of handled the two or four controversies they had? I'm glad I don't run a seminary.

 

[Pilgrim]

Yeah I agree but don't institutions usually do this sort of thing to keep the donors calm and reassured? Isn't that how WTS Philadelphia sort of handled the two or four controversies they had? I'm glad I don't run a seminary.

Unless they had a bunch of donations pour in specifically because Strachan was there, I don't think there is much need for calming and reassuring. His leaving may calm and reassure more than might be upset by it.

Even though I never thought Strachan was a good fit there, (him leaving to work for Dobson is evidence enough of that) this is nothing like the controversy over Enns and others at WTS who weren't really even "conservative" in the end, much less reformed. The only "controversies" I've seen are mostly left-leaning and egal people who like to use Strachan as a punching bag and Christian Nationalists who don't like things that Strachan and others there have said against it.

 

[Gwallard]

Yeah I agree but don't institutions usually do this sort of thing to keep the donors calm and reassured? Isn't that how WTS Philadelphia sort of handled the two or four controversies they had? I'm glad I don't run a seminary.

WTS handled their most recent Tipton and Oliphint controversies very poorly, less by focusing on calming donors, and more by making everything obscure and opaque. I don't know if this is what GBTS is doing.

 

[Polanus1561]

I am more curious about their historical theology courses

Curriculum - Grace Bible Theological Seminary

gbtseminary.org

There seems to be no medieval church history.

 

[retroGRAD3]

I am more curious about their historical theology courses

Curriculum - Grace Bible Theological Seminary

gbtseminary.org

There seems to be no medieval church history.

Might be mixed in with Baptist history as that could be broad. But no explicit call out does seem odd.

 

[RamistThomist]

I am more curious about their historical theology courses

Curriculum - Grace Bible Theological Seminary

gbtseminary.org

There seems to be no medieval church history.

I would be surprised if there were, given some of Jeff Johnson's publications.

 

[arapahoepark]

I am more curious about their historical theology courses

Curriculum - Grace Bible Theological Seminary

gbtseminary.org

There seems to be no medieval church history.

Might be mixed in with Baptist history as that could be broad. But no explicit call out does seem odd.

I would be surprised if there were, given some of Jeff Johnson's publications.

Dig deeper. It's just not required for the degree.