Beeson Podcast, Episode #530 Dr. Doug Sweeney Jan. 5, 2021 >>Announcer: Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University. Now your hosts, Doug Sweeney and Kristen Padilla. >>Doug Sweeney: Welcome to today’s Beeson podcast. I am your host, Doug Sweeney, and I am here with my co-host, Kristen Padilla. We want to begin this episode by wishing you a happy new year! We thought we’d try something new for the first podcast episode of 2021. Instead of interviewing a guest, Kristen and I thought we’d have a conversation about the year 2020 and what we’re looking forward to in 2021. >>Kristen Padilla: That’s right. I’m actually going to be the one asking the questions, because I thought it would be of interest to you, our listeners, to hear how Beeson has fared this past year from the perspective of our Dean. So, I’m going to put him in the hot seat today. Many of us on staff kept saying all throughout the spring semester of 2020, “What a crazy first year this has been for you,” Doug, Dean of Beeson. Kind of glad that God did not tell you what was in store for your first year as Dean, because otherwise you may not have decided to come. (laughs) But we are so grateful for your leadership and that you are our Dean. But I just want to begin hearing from you. How would you describe your first year as Dean? I’m reaching kind of back into 2019, but I think that will help frame the 2020 calendar year for us. How was your first year, Doug? >>Doug Sweeney: My first year was wonderful. Of course it’s not what we expected, nobody expected the COVID epidemic, but we love Beeson. We love Birmingham. We feel like we landed really well. We’ve been very well received and supported by all the faculty and staff and students here at Beeson; by churches in the area, alumni in the area. So, I think it’s been great. We have a lot for which to be thankful. Wilma and I are regularly grateful to the Lord that he’s seen us through this year. >>Kristen Padilla: Well, 2020 started with your official installation as Dean. This was of course prior to the pandemic. I believe at the very end of January 2020, Doug. You had some special friends in town. One of your dear friends, Kevin Vanhoozer, was here for it. Can you reflect for a moment on that special day? >>Doug Sweeney: Yeah, it was a wonderful day. One of the highlights for us was some old friends came to participate with us. But Dr. George was part of the ceremony. My dear friend, Kevin, gave the address at the inauguration. President Westmoreland put on a very nice luncheon for all of us – the faculty and staff – that included our guests. My pastor, Krista Green, was here. It was a real special day. A day where we look back on the history of Beeson and gave thanks to God and to all kinds of other people as well who have participated in the building up of this place. And then also look forward to the future in anticipation and hope that Beeson’s best days are to come. We had a really special time. >>Kristen Padilla: I just thought it was special, as a staff member and an alum, participating in your service, Doug. I thought it was a momentous occasion, because we’ve only had two deans in our history. So, it was a very special occasion in the life of our school. As we think about the 2020 year there are two news stories that I think really stand out. Pretty obviously, and you’ve already mentioned one, that’s the COVID-19 pandemic, and the second, I would say, were the increased acts of racism. I want to begin with the first of these, with the pandemic. Like other institutions, Beeson had to pivot quickly to virtual teaching and learning. Our listeners probably know this, but our faculty had never ... and I would say probably most of them had never taught virtually. So, we had to pivot quickly, go online, learn a new system. Can you describe what leading a seminary through a pandemic was like? Especially in those first couple of weeks. What were some of the kinds of decisions and problems you were having to work through? And how did Beeson respond? >>Doug Sweeney: Well, Beeson responded very well. You’re right. We have an older faculty who are not used to teaching online. Of course we’re all about life together in community here at Beeson. So, normally we don’t do a lot of online teaching. But the faculty responded very well. And they had only a few days to get ready to move their classes online. We sent the students home for spring break 2020 and while they were away the administration decided that the second half of the spring semester would be taking place online. So, the faculty had to hurry up, in a few days time, and get ready to do something that most of them had never done before. They did it with good spirit. They did it with a willingness to learn. They did it, of course, with great love and care for the students. I thought it went very well. Samford has a wonderful structure and administration, and if you have to go through a pandemic it’s a good place to do it. Because at the university level there are lots of people involved in the health sciences and in public health. We had all kinds of experts who are part of the seemingly endless dean’s meetings that I participated in as we made plans to keep everybody safe during the COVID epidemic. I feel like Samford did as well in handling the epidemic as any university I’ve heard of. So, at the end of my first year at Beeson and as Dean at Beeson of course I wasn’t thrilled about all the extra Zoom meetings and the planning that needed to be done, but I was even more proud to be a member of the Beeson and Samford community than I had been when I arrived. >>Kristen Padilla: There were some other things that happened as a result of the pandemic that was not something that we were expecting. Not only we were not expecting virtual teaching, but we weren’t expecting a virtual commencement. Our graduation service and service of consecration is always so special. Can you reflect for a moment on those difficult decisions and how we tried to honor our graduates? And maybe you can share about what a few of us did on a Saturday as we tried to honor our graduates. >>Doug Sweeney: Yeah, Kristen, I will but you should chime in here, too, because you worked harder than I did to make sure that commencement 2020 was wonderful for our students. It was kind of heartbreaking for me. I know our students love in-person worship, in-person education, and in-person commencement. I know that a highlight of all our commencement services is the time when faculty lay hands on every student graduating. Every faculty member prays for every graduate by name. We couldn’t have that kind of contact. We had to do a virtual commencement. I’m not here to tell you that’s just as good as in-person commencement. It’s not just as good. But I think we did as well as we possibly could have with it. We had faculty members who did pray for all the students by name, and of course Kristen Padilla, my co-host, did all kinds of things on Facebook and Instagram and with our social media to honor each and every graduate, and thank the Lord for his gifting of them and the way he’s using them, and the way he’s brought them through Beeson Divinity School. The other thing you eluded to was that we did mask up on Saturday and go visit every graduating senior from Beeson – apartment by apartment, house by house, and give them gifts and encouraging words as a way of sending them off in a somewhat more personal way. So, it wasn’t as good as it could have been, but it was wonderful. I think given COVID restrictions it was a wonderful way to honor them. >>Kristen Padilla: Doug, I just would be interested to know what kept you grounded during COVID, especially that difficult early season when everything went online, we weren’t together – personally, what kept you grounded? >>Doug Sweeney: My deep belief in the providential care of God for me and for us. And prayer – my communion with the Lord through prayer. My wife, Wilma, who loves me and cares for me in amazing ways, and prays for me and with me about Beeson and its people every day. And then I’d say just the fabulous people I work with here at Beeson and Samford. If you’re going to go through a pandemic, if you’re going to have to lead people through a crisis, there’s not a better group of people to lead than the people at Beeson Divinity School. Seminary deans sometimes talk about this in the context of larger university life, but divinity school deans ... we’re serving people who are ministers of the gospel, who are mature Christians, who are committed to growing in holiness and sanctification. It makes moving through a crisis a lot easier than it would be otherwise. >>Kristen Padilla: Now the other big news from that spring was the killings of un-armed Black men and women. While these killings weren’t new in our history they received greater attention and reaction from the public. I’d love to hear what was going on in your mind during that time and how were these acts of racism affecting your personally and the way in which you sought to minister to our minority students and alumni? >>Doug Sweeney: Well, of course it was heartbreaking for me personally. A lot of our students and some of our faculty and staff, a lot of our alumni, a lot of our friends, and I’m talking about personal friends and friends of Beeson Divinity School as well are African American, members of other minority groups, who were worried, who were frightened, who were looking for the hand of God in the midst of the crisis, trying to figure out what the Lord would have us to do. It was just a very emotional and difficult, difficult time for everybody. Obviously more so for our Black brothers and sisters than for White brothers and sisters, but for everybody. And what I kept thinking about as a member of the Beeson community and as Dean of Beeson is how best to love and care for the people in our community who were suffering the most during the racial crisis. And then I kept thinking, too, as somebody who is involved from time to time in the media and asked to speak about these things or write about them, we go through media cycles – not just in the United States, but almost everywhere in the world. I’d been through things like this enough before to know that the media cycle that was spending a lot of time and energy on the racial crisis last spring and summer was probably going to peter out. I wanted to take advantage of the media cycle and shine a light on the will of the Lord with respect to love and care for the whole body of Christ. But then also work for the long haul, take a long view about these things. I didn’t want to be one more dean who stood in the lime light and talked big about our commitment to care for African American students and alumni and churches and so on while the cameras were rolling. I wanted to be really practically invested in thinking about what we can do at Beeson week in and week out, year in and year out, to make this place more helpful and a more loving, warm, and hospitable environment for African American students and their churches. >>Kristen Padilla: Our listeners may remember that podcast series that we did with four African American alumni who serve as pastors. It was your idea to gather this group. We had two men and two women. It was the first time that we had four people on the show at the same time. It was also at a time when even the podcast went completely virtual. So, the technology for us was new. But I remember when we recorded that conversation I think we spent about four hours from beginning to end, and it was difficult listening to their stories. It was heartbreaking. It was, at times, hard to hear the acts of racism that they had experienced. But it was also necessary and I think good for us to just sit and listen to them share not only their stories, but their pastoral wisdom. What would you say about that special series we did on the podcast? >>Doug Sweeney: Well, I think it was timely, necessary, helpful, painful – all at the same time. I was committed to hearing from folks in our own Beeson family ... alumni pastors who know us and are part of our community. I was less interested at the height of the crisis in getting people who write books about race and racism in America on the show than I was interested in just hearing from people who are part of the family. Hearing their experiences, listening to them, and learning from them about how to make Beeson and the churches that Beeson serves better for Black people. >>Kristen Padilla: I want us to move on to another thing that happened this spring, and that was the retirement of Dr. Gerald McDermott who served as our Anglican Chair of Divinity, also as the Director of our Institute of Anglican Studies. With his retirement you have begun a search for a new Anglican Chair. Can you tell us about Dr. McDermott and then that Anglican search? >>Doug Sweeney: Yes, well, our listeners know about Dr. McDermott already. What they might not know about him is that he was one of the reasons I came to Beeson. I’ve known Gerry for, goodness, probably 30 years. We both write books about Jonathan Edwards and we wind up at the same conferences, and we’ve developed a friendship. That is one of the things that was attractive to me about coming to Beeson. So, I gave him a lot of grief when he told me about this retirement of his. I miss him and his wife, Jean, terribly. And so does Wilma. But this is one of the things in the providence of the Lord that gave us an occasion to think about who might come and serve as the next Anglican Chair of Divinity and Director of the Institute of Anglican Studies here at Beeson. So, it’s an exciting opportunity as well. We’ve got a bunch of faculty members invested on the search committee, praying hard, and spending hours and hours talking about who we think the Lord has for us here at Beeson. Of course, now during COVID we’re in the middle of a hiring freeze and a spending freeze across the board at Samford. So, we made great progress as a committee and then had to put the brakes on. We’re ready as soon as we’re given the green light to proceed. We’ve got a short list of people that we’re really excited about and we’re right about at the point where we’re going to invite some people for some on campus interviews when we can bring people on campus again. So, I’m optimistic. I love Gerry and he did a wonderful job, but I think the Lord has somebody equally wonderful in store for us. I’m looking forward to seeing who that is and working with that person to serve our Anglican churches in the larger Anglican communion down the road. >>Kristen Padilla: Let’s go on to the fall of 2020. How surprised were you to make it all the way to the end without having to go into quarantine? >>Doug Sweeney: Well, we were praying hard about that and working hard, again, with help from a lot of the health sciences people at Samford to ensure that we could keep our campus from being a spreader campus. We’ve all heard stories of campuses all across the United States and in other parts of the world as well where students and others spread COVID around quite a bit. We worked so hard at making Samford’s campus, Beeson’s campus, a safe place for our people. We wound up saying in the meetings where we continued these COVID plans that Samford University’s campus is the safest place, other than one’s own home, to be during the COVID epidemic! We made sure people were masked and distanced from one another. Of course this was a pain in the rear-end, nobody was thrilled about this, but I think it did enable the kind of in-person instruction we value so dearly to continue all semester long. And we think we’ll be able to do it all spring semester long as well. And then hopefully by next summer enough of us will be vaccinated that the epidemic will be going away and we can be back to normal next fall. >>Kristen Padilla: We had some other exciting things happen this fall. And I want us to talk about at least a few of these because they’re going to continue this spring and these are things that we’re going to want to have more conversations with other colleagues about. But perhaps you can give us a little teaser as to some of these exciting things happening at Beeson. We had a new scholarship, so I would love for you to say a word about the scholarship, and then I want you to talk a little bit about our Thriving Pastors Initiative. But first, let’s talk about this new endowed scholarship in Dr. Smith’s name. >>Doug Sweeney: Yeah, Kristen, actually as most of our listeners know we have lots of endowed scholarships and a few new ones, even. But the biggest new scholarship campaign that we’re engaged in these days is a campaign in the honor of Dr. Robert Smith, the long time professor of preaching here at Beeson. One of the most beloved Beeson professors, one of the most beloved preachers in the world. Deans are used to bragging about their people and listeners to deans are used to sort of discounting some of what they say, but in this case I mean, goodness, it’s hard to think of anyone who is a more widely beloved preacher in the United States than Robert Smith. So, what a wonderful person after whom to name a student scholarship. Lots of people, I can testify, are already excited about contributing to the Robert Smith scholarship. We’re trying to raise half a million dollars. We’re already over $100,000 and we just started this scholarship campaign a month or two ago. He’s just so beloved by so many students, so many churches, so many pastors that lots of people are pitching in. We have a wonderful Robert Smith Scholarship Fund steering committee that’s being co-chaired by Dr. Ralph West in Houston and Dr. Vicky Gaston who used to be our chapel curator and is now retired nearby here in Alabama. And things are going really well. We’re excited about this. We’re thankful to the Lord for his provision here. We’re looking forward to caring for even more students with this scholarship fund down the road. We do invite our listeners to pitch in and contribute. >>Kristen Padilla: Before I ask you about the Thriving Pastors, since we’re talking about Dr. Smith perhaps you can say a word for those who don’t know about one of our new courses that began this fall that Dr. Smith co-taught. I heard on the street that the students loved his class that was co-taught with Dr. Tyshawn Gardner at Beeson Alum. Tell us about this course. >>Doug Sweeney: Yeah, Kristen, I heard the same things from the students. They just loved this. It was a weird COVID thing, right? I mean, Dr. Gardner was in the room with the students, masked up and socially distanced, and Dr. Smith was teaching it virtually for COVID reasons, and our media man, Rob Willis, was working really hard with Dr. Smith so that he could be on a big TV screen in the room while Dr. Gardner was there in person in the room, and Dr. Smith could hear the students talking to him and they could hear and see him talking to them. So, technologically speaking it was a challenge. But this was a first at Beeson. One of the things I thought about and prayed about last spring at the height of the racial crisis, again, with respect to the long view at Beeson, is what can we do even in our curriculum to make Beeson a better place for African American students and their churches? One of the things we decided to do with the participation of Dr. Smith who was excited about this, too, was begin a new course that will be a regular elective course here at Beeson called The African American Church. That was Dr. Smith’s desired title for it. Co-taught by Dr. Smith and Dr. Gardner. Despite all of those technological challenges the students raved about it and what I heard was that they wanted to stay. I mean, it’s a long class that met once a week for a long time in the afternoon. And when the class period was over students didn’t want to go home. They wanted to stay and continue talking with Dr. Smith and Dr. Gardner about the history and theology and practices and challenges of African American churches. >>Kristen Padilla: Next week we’re going to have a colleague of ours, a new colleague who came in October, Stephen Johnson. He was hired to serve as the Associate Director of the Thriving Pastors Imitative. That was one of the exciting things happening at Beeson in the fall. Can you tell us a little bit more about the Thriving Pastors Initiative and what’s been going on since Stephen’s arrival? >>Doug Sweeney: Yeah, the Reverend Stephen Johnson is a wonderful colleague. I look forward to interviewing him soon here. But the Thriving Pastors Initiative is something we’ve shared with our listeners a little bit about before. A couple of years back Beeson received a million dollars, approximately, from the Lily Foundation to develop a program in the service of helping Beeson alumni and other pastors maintain habits that will keep them resilient and thriving in ministry. We’ve all heard stories and some of us have read books and articles about pastoral burn out, about how easy it is for pastors to feel weary, particularly in a season like this where they’re surrounded by an epidemic and they too are making new creative decisions all the time about how to hold worship services and events and engage in ministries from their congregations. But this program is meant to equip them. It’s meant as a way to help us do life together with pastors even after they graduate from Beeson Divinity School. So, there are all kinds of elements to it, maybe we can get into these elements with Stephen when we interview him. But we’re going to start an annual alumni conference, we’re starting alumni chapters, we’re providing resources, there are special prayer initiatives, there’s all kinds of things going on to encourage Beeson alums and other pastors to thrive in pastoral ministry and maintain a commitment to congregational ministry for longer than many of them would otherwise be able to do. >>Kristen Padilla: Doug, we’re almost done, but I want to just ask you: What are you looking forward to this spring? Or maybe even for the 2021 year? I know it’s hard to make plans knowing that sometimes those plans may change due to circumstances out of our control, but what’s on the horizon that you’re excited about that you want to share? >>Doug Sweeney: Oh, Kristen, so many different things and I hesitate to just pick a couple of them, because I don’t want to sound like these are favorites more than others. We’ve just begun an accelerated M Div program, a six year program in cooperation with folks in the biblical and religious studies department, and the Christian ministry department at Samford University, that enables properly called and gifted students to complete a bachelor’s degree and an M Div, a master of divinity degree, in six years rather than seven. So, we’re excited about launching that in 2021. We’re talking about developing a masters degree program in Christian Counseling. We’re excited about the work we’re doing there. We’ve received a lot of scholarship money recently for prospective students or current students interested in military chaplaincy. So, we’re interested in investing there. My co-host, Kristen Padilla, is helping us lead a new initiative that we hope will become a center in support of female students interested in Christian ministry. So, we’re excited about that. There’s really a lot in the hopper. Even though we’re in a little bit of a freeze here because of COVID we’re ready to go as soon as the freeze is thawed and we’re given a green light to move forward. >>Kristen Padilla: Doug, as we close our time today perhaps we can go back once more to 2020 and bring us in some closure. Were there any texts of scripture that were particularly helpful to you during this difficult year? Or was there something that God was just really teaching you and working on your heart about in 2020 that you could share with our listeners? >>Doug Sweeney: Yes, Kristen, and what comes to mind here is something I was working on with the guys in my spiritual mentor group this fall. The longer I go as a theological educator, a professor, and a divinity school dean, the more committed I become to making sure that young people in ministry develop the kinds of habits, spiritual habits, devotional habits, that will sustain them in ministry. I keep preaching about not letting all the sophisticated theology people are learning in seminary get in the way of regular time spent reading the Bible and praying each day. Scripture texts that pertain to the importance of prayer and regular communion with God have been especially important to me. In a way that has been deepened by the COVID epidemic and my intensified need to remain day by day dependent on the Lord. I’ve been thinking about all the places in the Gospel of Luke, for example, where Jesus himself retires to pray, or stays up all night praying, or talks about the importance of prayer. I’ve been thinking about Jesus’ teaching about the persistent friend in Luke 11. Or the impertinent widow in Luke 18 – encouraging us, even sophisticated theological types, to keep going to the Lord and pleading with him for help. That does put us in a position of humility, right? Because we’re obviously as we plead with the Lord, like the impertinent widow, in a dependent relationship with him. We’re making our needs known to him. Of course we know as theologians that God already knows our needs. He doesn’t need us to articulate them in order to understand them, but he asks us to articulate them. And he promises us from eternity to respond to articulated needs, to respond, to hear and respond to our prayers. I shared Psalm 145 with my mentor group this year, which in part says, “The Lord sustains all who fall and raises up all who are bowed down. The eyes of all look to Thee and you do give them their food in due time. You open your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing. The Lord is near to all who call upon him, to all who call upon him in truth. He will fulfill the desire of those who fear him. He’ll also hear their cry and will save them. The Lord keeps all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy.” So, these are the things that have been important to me this year. These are the things that have sustained me through all the difficulties and crises of 2020. And these are the things I’ve been working on, even in small group settings with other people this year. It’s important now. It’s more important than ever to be dependent, to realize we’re dependent, to act like we’re dependent on the Lord. Go to him every single day, multiple times, asking for his help. >>Kristen Padilla: Thank you, Doug, for your leadership at Beeson, for your wisdom, for your love for all of us at Beeson who serve with you, and who are under the ministry of both you and Wilma. Wilma is such an integral and vital part of the life of Beeson and the ministry that you have here. So, I just want to say thank you to you. Thank you to all of you who listen weekly. We are so appreciative that you choose to give your time to meet us here. We do pray for you and we pray that as we go into 2021 that you will be reminded that we will be reminded that it is God who keeps us. The God who loves us is the God who keeps us. So, we want to wish you a happy new year, again. We will be back with you next week. >>Kristen Padilla: You’ve been listening to the Beeson podcast. Our theme music is written and performed by Advent Birmingham of the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama. Our engineer is Rob Willis. Our announcer is Mike Pasquarello. Our co-hosts are Doug Sweeney and, myself, Kristen Padilla. Please subscribe to the Beeson podcast at www.BeesonDivinity.com/podcast or on iTunes.