nineteen hundred and forty-six - Amazon Web Services

90 SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION
56. The report of the Committee on Negro Ministerial Education,
presented by Theodore F. Adams, Virginia, and discussed by T. B.
Maston, Texas, was adopted:
NEGRO MINISTERIAL EDUCATION
From the beginning of its work, the Committee on Negro Ministerial Education
has focused most of its attention on the program of the training of a
Christian leadership. It has not been unmindful of the ramifications of an increasingly
complex problem of race relations, nor has it overlooked the many
pressing needs of the Negro racial group. Its interest in these things has
tempted the Committee at many points to indulge in a program in terms of the
complexities of these problems as they exist. It has found it necessary to devote
considerable attention to the study of many related items in order to arrive
at an intelligent appraisal of the central problem of its consideration. Certainly
the exigencies of world conditions have brought into bold relief many things
that cry out for solution.
Your Committee has felt, however, that Southern Baptists could make
their greatest contribution to the well being of this neighbor race by concentrating
their assistance at the point of a most urgent need and where we believe
our conribution will be most consequential in relieving many other phases of the
Negro's problem. We have worked with an abiding conviction that an enlightening
Christian leadership, with the sympathetic cooperation of the Christian
forces of other races will be able to lead the Negro people into a more
abundant life.
A careful examination of the educational status of the Negro ministry reveals
appalling paucity of training for the task of leadership which is thrust upon it.
About 1% of the Negro Baptist ministers have college and seminary training.
Less than 6% have as much as a college background as equipment for their
life's work. Approximately 90% of the 24,000 Negro Baptist ministers havo
nothing more than an elementary school education. In view of these facts,
it is not surprising that the leadership of the Negro race is tending to pass from
the ministry to other areas where qualifications for leadership are more adequate.
Your Committee has sought to guide the interest of all of our forces into
constructive channels of service to Negro education in general, and Negro
ministerial education in particular. It has maintained contact with Northern
Eaptists who are engaged in maintaining more than 20 institutions of learning
in the southland, and who are alert to the opportunities and obligations for
training a Negro leadership.
We have kept in touch with the major Negro Baptist groups as we have
sought to engage in this common task. We earnestly solicit the sympathetic
and active cooperation of our churches and the agencies of our Convention
as we move along together to do a worthy work in this area of our Master's
Kingdom.
Respectfully submitted,
RYLAND KNIGHT, Chairman THEODORE F. ADAMS
JOHN W. SHEPARD S. A. NEWMAN
NOBLE Y. BEALL J. B. WEATHERSPOON
R. KELLY WHITE
57. The report of the Commission on the American Baptist Theological
Seminary was presented by Chairman E. P. Alldredge, Tennessee,
and after an address by President Ralph W. Riley was
adopted.