
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 14, 1991                   TAG: 9103140338
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By Fort Worth Star-Telegram
DATELINE: FORT WORTH, TEXAS                                LENGTH: Medium

BAPTISTS QUESTION WOMEN'S ROLES/

Key Baptist conservatives say they oppose women teaching theology full time at the nation's largest theological seminary and want to stop the practice before it begins.

"I think it would be better not to have women teaching men," said K.R. "Bud" Funk of Bloomfield, N.M., a conservative trustee at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. "I guess that's just the way I was raised."

Conservative trustees haven't challenged four women who teach part time in the school of theology, but they said they are concerned about women being named to the theology faculty full time.

Fundamentalists who have wrested control of the 15 million-member denomination from moderates generally oppose women being ordained as pastors or deacons. The seminary's theology department mainly is a training ground for ordained ministers.

Funk and other conservative trustees at a meeting in Fort Worth on Tuesday blocked approval of a draft of a five-year improvement plan, saying they feared it would include an effort to recruit a female professor for the theology faculty.

No women are full-time professors in the seminary's school of theology. But conservative trustees noted that the plan is influenced by a recently released study done by the seminary faculty and staff that recommends women and minorities be elected to the faculty, particularly in theology.

Conservatives support seminary training for women to serve as chaplains, religious educators and as ministers of music.

Trustee Don Taylor, a layman from Asheville, N.C., withdrew a motion to table the goals document after seminary President Russell Dilday suggested a postponement until a full report on the seminary's "Visions of Excellence" plan can be presented in October.

Dilday noted that female professors were not mentioned in the general goals document. But conservative trustees noted that it was based on a self-study that urged the hiring of women and minorities in the theology school.

Many Conservatives oppose hiring women, based on the belief that the Bible teaches that women should not be ordained as pastors or deacons.

by CNB