When Jesse Mercer began the institute which would become Mercer University, it was “designed principally for the benefit of young men engaging in the ministry…of good moral character…members of some orderly Baptist church, having a license from their church to preach.”[1] A three-year institution, it trained men, nine of whom would die in the Civil War. An early Baptist college in the South, Mercer University was also involved in the establishment of the first Southern Baptist Seminary, a school modeled after seminaries of other denominations. Mercer Trustees voted to establish the seminary in 1849; SBC leaders, however, determined that the Southern Baptist Seminary would be established 225 miles away in 1859 at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. It would later move to Louisville, Kentucky in 1877.[2]
After the Civil War, Mercer University was moved from Penfield, Georgia to Macon, Georgia in 1871. The trend of college graduates to go on to stand alone seminaries continued throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. In 1924, Mercer opened a School of Theology on its own, and reportedly offered seminary degrees; however, the School of Theology was merged back into the College of Liberal Arts in 1927. In 1945, the Board of Trustees voted to establish the Columbus Roberts School of Christianity, which never included graduate coursework, but exists today as an outstanding department within the College of Liberal Arts.
Mercer’s Board of Trustees voted in June of 1994 to officially establish a school of theology to begin classes Fall of 1996 after a year of marketing and fund-raising research. The trustee vote was conditional, requiring five million dollars in beginning endowment and pledges of $600,000 for annual operating expenses.[3] In establishing the theology school, Mercer University did not seek denominational approval. Instead, the University sought and received endorsement from 200 churches in Georgia by the time of ground breaking ceremonies in February of 1996. Instead of being pledged to a particular denomination or creed, the school was established on a set of founding principles penned at the time of the school’s founding by Mercer president R. Kirby Godsey. Godsey also appointed Dr. R. Alan Culpepper as dean to begin July 1, 1995, and charged him with assembling the faculty. By October of the same year, the first five faculty members had been appointed. Mercer University School of Theology began classes in the Fall of 1996 with forty-four entering students meeting in the basement of the Monroe F. Swilley Library located on the Atlanta Campus of Mercer University. The School of Theology received a pledged gift of ten million dollars from James and Carolyn McAfee and became The James and Carolyn McAfee School of Theology during the spring of 1997.
As a graduate program of Mercer University, the Mercer University School of Theology would be considered a Georgia Baptist Concenvtion (the state level organization for the SBC) affiliated seminary. The GBC Foundation of the provided 15 percent tuition grants to students who were members of a GBC church. Although the Georgia Baptist Convention (1822) and Mercer University (1833) would begin as sisters with the same parents, the older sister would eventually disown the younger after 172 years of sibling rivalry. In November 2005, the executive committee of the GBC recommended that the 172 year-old relationship be dissolved at the annual meeting of the GBC.
McAfee holds partnership status with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF), an organization founded by former Southern Baptists in 1990.[4] McAfee’s accreditation status through the Association of Theological Schools (ATS) is under the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF) denominational title. The CBF provides about a 15 percent grant to all Baptist students and additional leadership scholarships.
Despite denominational chaos, and probably due to it, the McAfee School of Theology has succeeded in becoming a well established seminary. McAfee is accredited by the Association for Theological Schools (ATS) with 210 Master of Divinity Students and 20 Doctor of Ministry students. Seventy-five percent of the students are Baptist and 25 percent of the students come from approximately 15 other denominational, and non-denominational groups. Twenty-eight percent of the students are African-American and the student body is evenly distributed between males and females. Out of 14 full-time faculty, eighty-five percent are Baptist, ten-percent Methodist (CME), ten percent American Baptist. There are also seven additional regular adjunct professors.
Consistently the top five reasons why students choose McAfee are: “Reputation of McAfee,” ”Quality of Faculty,” “Degree Requirements/ Programs of Study,” “Degree Concentrations,” and tied for 5th place are “Total Cost to Attend” and “[geographic] Location.” Though the school of theology has grown significantly since admitting those first 44 students, it remains a close-knit community. From weekly chapel services and open discussion forums, to spiritual formation and mission immersion, McAfee School of Theology is an engaged group of scholars and practitioners.
The Mission of the McAfee School of Theology
The Mission of the McAfee School of Theology is to extend the mission of the Church in the world by equipping women and men called of God for authentic ministry, the pursuit of spiritual maturity, and the lifelong process of theological inquiry. We are a community:
Centered on God in Jesus Christ,
Led by the Holy Spirit,
Guided by sacred Scripture,
Founded on the heritage of Baptists, and
Committed to the ministry of the Church.
Our vision is to graduate ministers whose passion for God and neighbor leads Christian communities to integrate head and heart, worship and witness, tradition and innovation, responsible theological inquiry and prophetic vision.
The Ten Founding Principles of the McAfee School of Theology
Based on Jesse Mercer’s vision, the McAfee School of Theology is founded on ten principles that have guided its inception and will continue to guide its formation and character:
1. The School shall be founded upon the belief that Jesus Christ is the Word of God, the center and focus of faith.
2. The School shall spring from Mercer University’s conviction about its own vocation as an institution, borne and nurtured by Baptists and Baptist churches and committed to undergirding the work and witness of the church as a community of faith.
3. The School shall seek to educate students who are:
•literate and disciplined in the study of sacred scripture;
•articulate in understanding the historical and theological issues of faith;
•effective preachers and interpreters of the Christian gospel;
•wise and compassionate in personal and social ministry;
•prepared to integrate faith and life in the spiritual formation of congregations.
4. The School shall be devoted to the preparation of men and women who combine the call of God’s spirit with the intellectual gifts, the emotional maturity, and the spiritual discipline to become effective and responsible pastors and leaders in ministry.
5. The School shall be inclusive in spirit and practice, affirming the open search for truth, and fostering tolerance for religious and intellectual diversity.
6. By underscoring both scholarly discipline and the experience of ministry, the School shall seek to break through the dichotomy of theory and practice, claiming both reason and compassion, the mind and the heart as gifts of God and conceiving ministry as bringing the sacred to bear upon every dimension of human experience.
7. The School shall hold steadfastly to the high and defining traditions of Baptists, including the priesthood of believers, the separation of church and state, the autonomy of the local congregations as the context for mission and ministry, the centrality of scripture to the life of faith, and the resolve that neither creeds nor human affirmations of faith should stand as tests of orthodoxy.
8. While holding firmly to its high calling and to its specific responsibility for theological education among Baptists, the School shall also accept its responsibility to embrace the whole world as the creation of God and to serve the wider Christian community as the people of God who are called to live out God’s purpose and presence in the world.
9. The School shall embody the historical traditions of Mercer University, valuing both intellectual freedom and the affirmation of faith as the foundations of the University.
10. The School shall serve as a continuing resource to churches, pastors, and professionals in ministry for their continuing education and as a reference and placement service for churches, pastors, and other church leaders.