NASHVILLE (BP) — Two Southern Baptist seminary faculty members have resigned their positions, vacating ministries that previously had placed them in the news.
The resignations of Christian George at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and David Sills at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary were reported by the Biblical Recorder, newsjournal of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, on June 4.
George, curator of Midwestern Seminary’s Spurgeon Library and its digitized Spurgeon Archive, had edited two volumes of previously unpublished sermons by Charles Spurgeon in a planned 12-volume series, “The Lost Sermons of C.H. Spurgeon,” published by the B&H Academic division of LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Sills, professor of missions and cultural anthropology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, had been a member of the International Mission Board presidential search committee seeking a successor to David Platt, who is transitioning to a pastor-teacher role at McLean Bible Church in Northern Virginia.
George resigned on May 3 while Sills resigned on May 23, the Biblical Recorder reported. George’s resignation was “due to a personal moral failing,” Midwestern told the Recorder on June 1. For Sills, no reason for his resignation was stated by Southern.
George, as curator of the Spurgeon Library and digitized archive, worked with the personal library of the famed 19th-century London preacher. The collection, which Midwestern purchased in 2006, consists of more than 6,000 books and hundreds of artifacts, letters and assorted materials. The Spurgeon Library facility on the Kansas City, Mo., campus was dedicated in 2015 after 10 months of construction.
George also was on Midwestern’s faculty as assistant professor of historical theology and is a former faculty member at Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland; an M.Div. from Beeson Divinity School at Samford University in Birmingham, Ala.; and an undergraduate degree from Samford.
George’s departure, Midwestern said in its statement to the Biblical Recorder, “has not affected the employment of anyone else at Midwestern or Spurgeon College. As sad as we are to lose Dr. George, we are optimistic about the future of the Spurgeon Center and look forward to introducing hundreds of new students to Spurgeon this [f]all.”
Sills, in addition to resigning his faculty position at Southern, has resigned as president of Reaching & Teaching International Ministries, an organization with 13 staff members seeking, according to its website, to help meet “the great need for deep discipleship, pastoral preparation, leadership training, and theological education around the world.”
Sills joined Southern’s faculty after serving as an International Mission Board missionary in Ecuador as a church planter and general evangelist among the Highland Quichua people in the Andes and as a seminary professor at the Ecuadorian Baptist Theological Seminary.
He is the author of numerous books on missions and missiology, including “The Missionary Call: Finding Your Place in God’s World” (Moody) and “Changing World, Unchanging Mission: Responding to Global Challenges” (IVP).
Southern Seminary, in a statement to the Biblical Recorder, said SBTS President R. Albert Mohler Jr. “received the resignation of Dr. David Sills from the Southern Seminary faculty on May 23, 2018. Southern Seminary is committed to the highest standards of both principle and policy. Our policies and procedures are clear and are consistently applied. Because this is a personnel matter, we cannot comment further.”
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