1961. [Pensacola Theological Institute Opens Here]. The Pensacola News. Aug. 28
Ministers and seminary students from at least eight states attended the opening service of the fifth annual Pensacola Theology Institute yesterday.
Presiding at the initial service in McIlwain Memorial Presbyterian Church was the Rev. Donald C. Graham, who founded the institute while McIlwain pastor.
Delivering the opening sermon was the Rev. Gordon H. Clark, philosophy department chairman at Butler University, Indianapolis, Ind.
The Rev. Mr. Clark, who also was a member of the institute's first faculty, declared in his sermon that faint belief "gives up and quits when hardship comes."
The philosophy professor briefly recounted Biblical telling of the origination of Christian communism, communion and creed.
"Presbyterian," he stated, "have a congregation communion, whereas the Roman church celebrates Mass privately. We insist it be public.
"Roman theologians never say preaching is necessary. Priests say Mass daily but don't have to preach. The reformed insist on the preaching of the Gospel."
The Rev. Mr. Clark also mentioned a recent national magazine's survey among 100 seminarians as the basis for an article on the "surprising beliefs of our future ministers."
The survey, he said, was not scientifically accurate but still represented a "very large, very powerful, very rich segment of American Protestantism."
More than half the interviewed seminarians denied the virgin birth and only two per cent believe a future life has any importance, the professor of philosophy declared.
The ministerial students also believed in such things as racial integration and slum clearance, the Rev. Mr. Clark added.
Results of the survey were seen by the professor as "almost incredible, even from left wing, radical students."
Yet, he saw the results as a vivid illustration of the separation and division of creeds.
"It's really the modernists who are divided," he also remarked, adding that fellowship cannot exist without a creed of some kind.
The Rev. Mr. Clark preached at 8:30 a.m. to a sanctuary audience which included persons from all over Florida and sections of Texas, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Arkansas, and Indiana.
Preaching at 9:40 a.m. yesterday was the Rev. R. Laid Harris, professor of Old Testament at Covenant Seminary in St. Louis, Mo., and president of the Evangelical Theological Society.
The preacher at 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. was the Rev. Jerome DeJong, minister of Immanuel Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Mich.
Dr. Gregg Singer, chairman of the history department at Catawba College, Salisbury, N.C., delivered a public lecture at 6 p.m.
All told there will be 40 separate services and study hours at McIlwaine Memorial Presbyterian this week during the fifth annual Pensacola Theological Institute, also known as the All South Bible Conference.
Advance registrations for the institute included 65 ministers and 50 seminary and college students.
Also on the 1961 Institute faculty are Dr. William C. Robinson, professor of ecclesiastical history and church polity at Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Ga., and Dr. Claude Rhea, dean of the school of church music, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.
Institute sessions will begin daily at 8:30 a.m., today through Saturday, with chapel services each morning at 10:30 and a public worship service each evening at 7:45.
Lectures dealing with Biblical archaeology and highlights and interpretation of the history of Southern Presbyterianism will be given today through Friday at 6:45 p.m.
Next Saturday will feature a morning and evening picnic, to which McIlwaine members may attend if they register at the church office by Friday.
The Institute will end next Sunday with guest speakers at the various services, 8:30 and 11 a.m. and 7 p.m.
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