Welcome President Tennent

Today Asbury Theological Seminary elected Timothy C. Tennent to be the seminary's eighth president. President Tennent is a Methodist who comes from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary where he was a professor of world missions.

My favorite lines of the seminary's press release were:

Tennent is passionate about classical, orthodox theological education.

"I am alarmed by the growing trend away from serious theological reflection and do not believe that the church will be adequately prepared to face the challenges of pluralism and post-modernism without a more robust theological preparation," he says. "I am also passionate about the emergence of the Majority World Church. I believe that the Western church continues to have an important role in global missions, in partnership with the increasingly vibrant Majority World Church."

It is my hope and prayer that President Tennent will guide Asbury Seminary down a road committed to theological orthodoxy and personal holiness. There are many who would have Asbury compromise in those areas. May he hold strong to Asbury Seminary's original purpose, "to prepare theologically educated, sanctified, Spirit-filled men and women to evangelize and to spread scriptural holiness throughout the world through the love of Jesus Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit and to the glory of God the Father."