Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

The Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Waco, was officially chartered on March 14, 1908, after having begun initially as part of Baylor University in 1905. At that time, Carroll was the most influential leader in the Southern Baptist Convention. His vision for the new seminary was so compelling that seminary trustees elected him as the first president.

The former, longtime pastor of Waco’s First Baptist Church, Carroll knew that Southern Baptists desperately needed a denominational seminary situated in the Southwest. Carroll had strongly supported The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, but the expansive population growth of the American Southwest placed urgent demands for gospel labor that a seminary a thousand miles distant could not provide. Throughout the Southwest, God was saving sinners through gospel witness. A great host of pastors was needed to build up churches to be sound in doctrine, love, and zeal. These pastors needed training, and most would not leave the Southwest. There must be a new Baptist seminary.

Carroll persuaded Baylor to give up its own new theological seminary to make possible the establishment of Southwestern Seminary. Carroll had largely created Baylor’s seminary, serving as its dean, raising its funds, and building its excellent faculty and curriculum. Carroll recognized, however, that a theological school-bound to a university could not accomplish the task as successfully as a freestanding seminary under direct denominational control. Such seminaries, he believed, were absolutely essential for effectively accomplishing Christ’s Great Commission.

As a confessional institution, the Seminary is committed to theological integrity and biblical fidelity. The Confession of Faith of the Seminary shall be the Baptist Faith and Message as adopted and amended by the Convention and shall be subscribed to in writing by all faculty, without hesitation or mental reservation. The last substantial revision of the Baptist Faith and Message was adopted by the Southern Baptist Convention in 2000, with a limited revision to the article on The Church adopted in 2023. The Confession of Faith does not exhaust the extent of the Seminary’s beliefs, however. The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, the Danvers Statement on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, and the Nashville Statement are recognized by the Seminary as guiding documents that clarify and establish the meaning of the Confession of Faith. Furthermore, the Bible itself, as the inspired, inerrant, and infallible Word of God that speaks with final authority concerning truth, morality, and the proper conduct of humankind, is the ultimate source of all that the Seminary believes.