WEBVTT 00:01.364 --> 00:04.208 [SPEAKER_01]: I'd like to welcome our listeners to another episode of The One in my C.M. 00:05.130 --> 00:10.478 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm one of your hosts, Leland Brown, and we are a podcast dedicated to serious thinking for a serious church. 00:11.219 --> 00:17.889 [SPEAKER_01]: And as we think, seriously, we'd like to steward our values as charity, curiosity, and cheerful confessionalism. 00:18.550 --> 00:30.628 [SPEAKER_01]: In other words, we just gladly old-fast to those things we are convicted about, but also have a curiosity about the positions of others and approach their positions with charity and kindness. 00:30.710 --> 00:34.354 [SPEAKER_01]: And we believe this kind of mutual dialogue is good for everyone. 00:34.414 --> 00:37.697 [SPEAKER_01]: It helps us stay sharp and often clarify our thinking. 00:38.118 --> 00:47.988 [SPEAKER_01]: And as we'll see today, it can even help us be curious about historical figures who had admirable qualities and some things that we consider a lamentable and hindsight today. 00:48.528 --> 00:55.215 [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm very excited about today's episode and glad to welcome our guest, Dr. Eric Smith, and my co-host, Dr. Hunter Heinzman. 00:55.803 --> 01:01.393 [SPEAKER_01]: Dr. Smith has reached and published an incredible critical biography of a historical figure of legend in southern Baptist life. 01:02.034 --> 01:09.047 [SPEAKER_01]: John Brottis, our episode today is going to discuss doing biography, who Brottis was and his times. 01:09.468 --> 01:12.493 [SPEAKER_01]: So, Dr. Smith, thanks so much for joining us today. 01:12.533 --> 01:13.936 [SPEAKER_01]: Really looking forward to this conversation. 01:14.477 --> 01:16.360 [SPEAKER_01]: Before we jump in, could you, 01:16.340 --> 01:22.628 [SPEAKER_01]: Tell us where you're serving right now and if you have any big research interests now that you've published this biography. 01:23.249 --> 01:28.375 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, thanks so much for having me first of all really honored to be with you and to talk about Brottis. 01:29.076 --> 01:33.221 [SPEAKER_00]: I am the senior pastor at Sharon Baptist Church in Savannah, Tennessee. 01:33.241 --> 01:43.714 [SPEAKER_00]: I've been serving here since 2013 and I'm also the Associate Professor of Church History 01:43.694 --> 01:55.352 [SPEAKER_00]: been serving there on the full faculty since the beginning of 2022 and just deeply honored to serve the seminary as well as going to be a pastor and I am working on some set right now. 01:55.372 --> 02:05.788 [SPEAKER_00]: I actually have a chapter in the works for a memorial volume for one of my heroes and mentors Keith Harper when home to be with the Lord last spring. 02:06.008 --> 02:08.993 [SPEAKER_00]: I actually 02:08.973 --> 02:35.892 [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm so thankful for his influence in my life, but I'm writing a book chapter about Charles Spurgeon Gardner, who is the most famous advocate for the social gospel and Southern Baptist life at the beginning of the 20th century, and I'm just knee-deep in that right now, and then on the other side of that, and I'm hoping the research is going to overlap, I would really love to take on a critical biography of Edgar Young Mullins, 02:35.872 --> 02:45.270 [SPEAKER_00]: was the fourth president of Southern seminary and really is a towering figure on of American evangelicalism at the beginning of the 20th century. 02:45.430 --> 02:46.693 [SPEAKER_00]: They could really fastening figure. 02:46.773 --> 02:54.808 [SPEAKER_00]: He hasn't had a full biography since the early 1980s and so maybe it's time for another look at E. Y. Mullins. 02:55.683 --> 03:12.186 [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I know a lot of Baptists in our audience are going to be following your work with eager anticipation on a lot of these figures, maybe just to get more ammo to Dunk-On Mullins or some other people, but I know Mullins is continues to be a towering figure with a complicated legacy. 03:13.227 --> 03:19.716 [SPEAKER_02]: But before we get into just your work on Brottis, would you mind just giving us like what's the Wikipedia 03:19.696 --> 03:31.471 [SPEAKER_02]: You know, entry on broadest that we can kind of for our listeners that may or may not know him, just kind of give us a brief overview and then we'll dive into some of the specifics of what we've prepared in different things. 03:31.951 --> 03:32.372 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, of course. 03:32.392 --> 03:42.485 [SPEAKER_00]: So he's born in 1827 in Virginia to a state politician and into a larger family of Baptist ministers. 03:43.486 --> 03:48.252 [SPEAKER_00]: He dies in 1895 in Louisville, Kentucky. 03:48.232 --> 04:16.703 [SPEAKER_00]: as the most celebrated beloved figure, maybe an American Baptist life, certainly in southern Baptist life, having just racked up a number of major Baptist achievements, like being one of the co-founders of the Southern Baptist theological seminary, publishing the most widely used textbook on preaching in American history. 04:16.683 --> 04:22.312 [SPEAKER_00]: on both sides of the sectional divide north and south throughout the late 19th century. 04:22.372 --> 04:37.155 [SPEAKER_00]: He was a scholar of great renown like far beyond the boundaries of the southern Baptist convention, a highly regarded for his work as a New Testament scholar and commentator textual critic. 04:38.384 --> 04:50.443 [SPEAKER_00]: he delivered the celebrated feature lectures on preaching that's America's most prestiging, most prestigious preaching lecture series at Yale University in 1889. 04:50.483 --> 04:53.929 [SPEAKER_00]: He also served his southern 04:53.909 --> 04:56.032 [SPEAKER_00]: a second president after the death of his good friend. 04:56.774 --> 04:58.416 [SPEAKER_00]: J. P. Boyce in 1888. 04:59.358 --> 05:02.683 [SPEAKER_00]: So really a Titanic figure in Baptist life. 05:02.703 --> 05:11.698 [SPEAKER_00]: But one thing I try to bring out in the book is also a really significant figure in Southern culture and was a real shapeer of 05:12.303 --> 05:21.997 [SPEAKER_00]: what Southern culture would look like really before and after the civil war, but specifically in the transition from what we call the old south to the new south. 05:22.417 --> 05:32.151 [SPEAKER_00]: I think brought us was a leading thinker in a what Southern society might look like on the other side of emancipation. 05:32.401 --> 05:33.843 [SPEAKER_00]: and a Confederate defeat. 05:34.624 --> 05:40.152 [SPEAKER_00]: So to me, he's a fascinating figure and really, really into it researching and writing this book. 05:40.272 --> 05:54.612 [SPEAKER_01]: So you're remark about brought us being a southern figure and sort of navigating that transition post-Civil War kind of brings us to your work being a great example of a critical biography. 05:54.912 --> 06:01.768 [SPEAKER_01]: Um, and I'd love to just hear you talk about maybe how this differs from other forms of biography and kind of what the aims are. 06:01.788 --> 06:14.136 [SPEAKER_01]: And then just how did you go about narrating brought us his life and then kind of situating him and making those judgments about, um, the kind, like him navigating that transition. 06:14.690 --> 06:15.391 [SPEAKER_00]: Great, sure. 06:15.431 --> 06:23.441 [SPEAKER_00]: So when I talk to students about writing biography, just I'm a Baptist preacher to my bones. 06:23.682 --> 06:24.963 [SPEAKER_00]: So I'll love to obliterate stuff. 06:25.003 --> 06:27.867 [SPEAKER_00]: So I think three seas are really helpful. 06:28.308 --> 06:36.478 [SPEAKER_00]: You've got the celebratory biography which completely ignores or is uninterested in any kind of, 06:36.458 --> 06:50.378 [SPEAKER_00]: flaws, failures, disappointing qualities, sins of the subject who you're studying because your whole goal is just to present kind of the stained glass figure who we can all sort of admire and aspire to be like. 06:51.720 --> 06:57.489 [SPEAKER_00]: But we can't really identify with them because they just seem to be kind of without flaw. 06:58.751 --> 07:01.895 [SPEAKER_00]: I find this to be rather unhelpful, ultimately. 07:03.598 --> 07:05.841 [SPEAKER_00]: We certainly want to celebrate 07:06.007 --> 07:16.508 [SPEAKER_00]: God's grace in the life of many women from the past and wherever there's something beautiful, noble, praiseworthy, all that kind of stuff, excellent. 07:16.788 --> 07:19.013 [SPEAKER_00]: We want to praise it and we want to point it out. 07:19.855 --> 07:23.963 [SPEAKER_00]: But we also kind of know deep down inside that no one's really like that. 07:24.043 --> 07:25.566 [SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's quite artificial. 07:26.327 --> 07:27.610 [SPEAKER_00]: It's not really honest. 07:27.590 --> 07:37.087 [SPEAKER_00]: It's also pretty discouraging if the only Christian biographies I read are of these people who's feet never touch the ground because that's that's sure in what's going on in my life wearing my heart. 07:37.628 --> 07:44.920 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm living in that Galatians 517 dynamic of the spirit at war with the flesh every single day until I go home to heaven. 07:45.261 --> 07:51.572 [SPEAKER_00]: So I find that the celebratory biography ultimately unhelpful 07:51.552 --> 08:02.608 [SPEAKER_00]: On the other end of the spectrum, you've got kind of the cynical biography, which is just looking to burn somebody down and just kick over any kind of 08:02.875 --> 08:24.020 [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, any kind of claim to an achievement or to a virtue to suspect the worst motives lurking behind everything that they said or that they did try to completely undo somebody's legs, he just, just for the sake of doing it, just to sort of prove that you're not writing an insider, hagiography kind of thing. 08:24.221 --> 08:26.183 [SPEAKER_00]: And hopefully that's not helpful. 08:26.298 --> 08:26.678 [SPEAKER_00]: either. 08:27.359 --> 08:33.006 [SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes the cynical biographies are driven by kind of a political agenda or something and certainly don't want to do that. 08:33.526 --> 08:50.466 [SPEAKER_00]: Instead, you know, I find the critical biography which seeks to just take an honest and holistic perspective of someone's life and times, I find that to be the way that the Bible presents biographical 08:50.446 --> 08:51.167 [SPEAKER_00]: material. 08:51.207 --> 09:00.935 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the Bible itself does not shrink from showcasing both the signs of God's grace in someone's life, but also the marks of sin and the fall. 09:01.676 --> 09:09.042 [SPEAKER_00]: And so we see that in David, we see it in Abraham, we see it in Peter, we see it in just about everybody not born under a star in Bethlehem. 09:09.743 --> 09:19.812 [SPEAKER_00]: We're going to get to see signs that they really did walk with God and God used them in their 09:19.792 --> 09:37.886 [SPEAKER_00]: that because that's if you human beings are who belong to Christ and so I hope to write that kind of just honest, unflinching in with who John brought us was, what he believed, what he taught, what he did, what's good, what's bad, what do we want to keep, what do we want to let go of? 09:38.687 --> 09:43.015 [SPEAKER_00]: Isn't it the first that sounds chapter five? 09:42.995 --> 09:52.623 [SPEAKER_00]: where we're carefully examining, we're practicing discernment, we're holding fast to what's good, we're rejecting whatever is evil, according to God's Word. 09:52.844 --> 09:55.030 [SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, that's just the way that I want to approach biography. 09:57.220 --> 09:58.001 [SPEAKER_01]: That's fantastic. 09:58.041 --> 10:06.335 [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's helpful to be balanced and just recognize good and the evil and humanity as we study, figure some history. 10:07.938 --> 10:10.983 [SPEAKER_01]: Tell us a little bit more about specifically choosing brought us. 10:11.023 --> 10:22.502 [SPEAKER_01]: You mentioned in your, the preface to the biography that, you know, there's this famous broadest gavel that he got in Europe on his vacation presented the boys and has been used in the SBC for. 10:22.482 --> 10:30.859 [SPEAKER_01]: you know over a hundred years and that was recently retired three or four years ago because of the association with white supremacy or racism. 10:31.901 --> 10:38.233 [SPEAKER_01]: So he's kind of a charge figure, you know hero, lion to some, villain to others. 10:38.293 --> 10:44.305 [SPEAKER_01]: So how did you go about picking, brought us in kind of navigating concerns about his legacy? 10:45.162 --> 10:46.023 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, thanks for asking. 10:46.043 --> 10:59.017 [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm just kind of privately pursuing this like chaotic project of writing a series of Baptists biographies that march through American history. 10:59.558 --> 11:08.588 [SPEAKER_00]: And so I've written a book about an 18th century Baptist figure named Oliver Hart and then a figure who kind of straddles the 18th and 19th centuries named John Leeland. 11:08.568 --> 11:28.872 [SPEAKER_00]: And so when I finished with Leeland, I was I was ready to move on to the next project and I was thinking about who what what figure in Baptist life is a significant figure left a major legacy, but who just hasn't been sufficiently covered and will provide a window into. 11:28.852 --> 11:35.660 [SPEAKER_00]: sort of the civil war era, the anti-belem period, civil war reconstruction, maybe get into the gilded age era a little bit. 11:36.261 --> 11:42.148 [SPEAKER_00]: And it was kind of amazing to think that John Broadtis had not received a full critical biography ever. 11:43.029 --> 11:48.795 [SPEAKER_00]: So his son-in-law, A.T. Robertson published a life and letters of Broadtis in 1901. 11:49.396 --> 11:53.661 [SPEAKER_00]: And then there've been, you know, dissertations or 11:53.641 --> 11:58.607 [SPEAKER_00]: Denominational piece is written on broadest, but there's there's been no full biography. 11:59.188 --> 12:22.939 [SPEAKER_00]: And so that was probably in 2020 that I made that decision to move to Broadest and of course, there's a wealth of material available on him much much more material than there was available on my previous subjects. 12:22.919 --> 12:24.222 [SPEAKER_00]: about halfway through this project. 12:24.343 --> 12:27.170 [SPEAKER_00]: I was honored to join the faculty of 7th seminary. 12:27.450 --> 12:30.739 [SPEAKER_00]: So that's a personal reasons why he was attractive. 12:30.779 --> 12:39.240 [SPEAKER_00]: But along the way, he also became a much more controversial figure than expected him to be when I first made that decision. 12:39.220 --> 12:58.417 [SPEAKER_00]: Think about some of the events of 2020 and beyond, lots of public conversation about the propriety of honoring those who had been involved in Southern slavery, those who held white supremacist views and all this kind of thing. 12:58.437 --> 13:04.202 [SPEAKER_00]: During that time, the broadest gavel is retired from usage at the annual meeting every year. 13:04.263 --> 13:09.227 [SPEAKER_00]: That decision has been 2021. 13:09.207 --> 13:11.492 [SPEAKER_00]: It's pretty interesting stuff. 13:11.552 --> 13:24.077 [SPEAKER_00]: There are controversial things happening around Charlottesville where John so much of John brought us a story unfolds at least in his early life at the University of Virginia. 13:25.120 --> 13:41.998 [SPEAKER_00]: So all of a sudden, all of these questions are arousing what do we do with these 19th century white leaders who were not just complicit, but actively involved in buying and settling. 13:41.978 --> 13:48.010 [SPEAKER_00]: human beings in the southern in southern slavery and help these views that we found a port today. 13:48.070 --> 14:02.620 [SPEAKER_00]: And I think southern seminary at that same time was was trying to reckon honestly with that past they came out with this steady on slavery and racism in the history of the institution and trying to provide 14:02.600 --> 14:10.015 [SPEAKER_00]: sort of this no holds barred account of the views of founders and trustees and early faculty members and all of that. 14:10.075 --> 14:19.393 [SPEAKER_00]: And so it's just for all of those reasons, it seemed like the right time to take a look at Rodis and really try to reckon with his life and legacy. 14:19.373 --> 14:34.432 [SPEAKER_02]: And so one of the things I think that you do in the book is that you you like you've mentioned already you're situating him is a man of southern culture and you know in his time period, but also you're describing how he's beloved and both the north and the south of even after the civil war. 14:34.492 --> 14:44.385 [SPEAKER_02]: So how how do you kind of like what's the what's the line between hey, this guy's a man of his times or you know, how do you navigate. 14:44.872 --> 15:00.919 [SPEAKER_02]: those kind of issues, some of the issues that we've already alluded to, and showing the ways that he was formed by his culture, the way he differed from his culture, and how he kind of held just different things in tension as he kind of took on a bunch of different roles. 15:01.340 --> 15:10.575 [SPEAKER_02]: And like you said, had a much broader impact than just Southern Baptist, you know, where he was at. 15:11.163 --> 15:11.523 [SPEAKER_00]: Yes. 15:11.884 --> 15:33.593 [SPEAKER_00]: One of the historical questions driving the book is what did it look like for a a Southern Baptist minister, a Southern religious leader, to be loyal to the Confederacy and an unapologetic, Southerner, and yet at the same time, 15:34.687 --> 15:50.012 [SPEAKER_00]: receive such a warm reception from northern audiences and be able to bridge north and south in the years after we recognize as a peacemaker be really beloved by all parts of the union. 15:49.992 --> 16:12.152 [SPEAKER_00]: that may sound like exaggerated a hyperbolic language or something, but it really is the case brought us in a very unique way and this is where the title of the book comes from was able to navigate between worlds and just just one example of the different worlds who's able to navigate word north and south after this civil war. 16:12.132 --> 16:21.906 [SPEAKER_00]: One thing that brought us never did is he never, he never apologized for being a southerner, he never groveled to northern audiences. 16:22.847 --> 16:28.956 [SPEAKER_00]: But he also was realistic enough to recognize that the old South is not coming back. 16:29.537 --> 16:35.145 [SPEAKER_00]: Slavery is not coming back, the old kind of planter system that's gone with the wind. 16:35.365 --> 16:40.873 [SPEAKER_00]: It's not going to return. 16:40.853 --> 16:44.079 [SPEAKER_00]: He would say it's it's good that it's not coming back. 16:44.239 --> 17:02.170 [SPEAKER_00]: We were we were even wrong in the way that we defended slavery from certain pastures of scripture and so he was realistic enough to know we've got to move forward as Southern people and to Southern Baptist and so he he was someone who would. 17:02.150 --> 17:05.254 [SPEAKER_00]: Um, preach, uh, let there be peace. 17:05.915 --> 17:10.502 [SPEAKER_00]: Um, we're now the United States god bless America, not just god bless the confederator. 17:10.562 --> 17:26.385 [SPEAKER_00]: He would say things like an Philadelphia and Boston, um, but he would also be, um, this, uh, this out now, seven or the entire time and not pretend that he was something, um, that he wasn't, uh, another thing that's motivating brought us to, um, 17:26.365 --> 17:38.317 [SPEAKER_00]: reconcile with the North and with the kind of the march towards a more modern South is the only way the southern institutions that he loves so much are going to survive i.e. 17:38.517 --> 17:40.939 [SPEAKER_00]: Southern Baptist Convention, Southern Baptist theological seminary. 17:41.220 --> 17:46.225 [SPEAKER_00]: The only way they're going to survive is if we have money and the South doesn't have any of that. 17:46.425 --> 17:54.533 [SPEAKER_00]: And so we're going to have to raise funds in the North and we're going to have to make friends with some northern benefactors and so obviously I can't be alienating them. 17:54.513 --> 17:57.799 [SPEAKER_00]: in the way that I talk about them and think about them and hate towards them. 17:57.839 --> 18:10.661 [SPEAKER_00]: And so he's able to kind of tow this fine line because if he's too, you know, if he calts house too much to Northerners, his own Southern constituents are going to reject him and reject the seminary. 18:11.362 --> 18:18.013 [SPEAKER_00]: But if he's too abrasive with his Southernness, those Northern benefactors aren't going to be willing to invest. 18:18.133 --> 18:19.035 [SPEAKER_00]: And so, 18:19.015 --> 18:25.764 [SPEAKER_00]: I think he's really uniquely suited to be that mediator between North and South. 18:25.784 --> 18:35.996 [SPEAKER_00]: We can talk about some of the other worlds that I think that he bridged, academy, and church, rural, and urban elite, and popular, all that kind of stuff. 18:36.017 --> 18:40.382 [SPEAKER_00]: He just, he was sort of the man for the hour for the job that he needs to do. 18:40.362 --> 18:54.557 [SPEAKER_01]: So something that you an episode you recounted in the book really just kind of stunned me, it was about brought us preaching before Northern audiences and you said how he kind of not make light of the war, but I think I think I have to quote right here. 18:54.618 --> 19:00.104 [SPEAKER_01]: He's preaching in Northern audiences and he says the words Washington was a rebel and so was I, but he won and I lost. 19:01.245 --> 19:05.970 [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm just trying to figure out what I can't really imagine that landing well. 19:06.050 --> 19:08.833 [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm just trying to 19:09.083 --> 19:14.731 [SPEAKER_01]: host civil war culture where a joke like that lands well in northern audience. 19:15.051 --> 19:19.757 [SPEAKER_01]: I mean obviously brought us was unique figure and he had turned but help me help me get that. 19:20.979 --> 19:33.816 [SPEAKER_00]: He is super charming and Winston and so he does it come across with this kind of heavy handedness the way that that some might in saying something like that. 19:33.836 --> 19:36.019 [SPEAKER_00]: I think the 19:36.640 --> 19:43.428 [SPEAKER_00]: was well received when he said things like that, speaks to kind of the appetite in the North for reconciliation. 19:44.429 --> 19:45.490 [SPEAKER_00]: They were tired of the war. 19:45.551 --> 19:49.876 [SPEAKER_00]: They were tired of this divided nation. 19:49.916 --> 19:52.038 [SPEAKER_00]: They were ready to reconcile. 19:52.178 --> 20:01.129 [SPEAKER_00]: And so if we can kind of laugh and joke and have reunions where there's Confederate soldiers and there's Union soldiers, I think, 20:01.413 --> 20:11.341 [SPEAKER_00]: The union side wanted that and certain southerners wanted that as well because it's the only way they're going to be able to move forward as a nation. 20:11.522 --> 20:16.536 [SPEAKER_00]: And so I think that brought us was viewed by northern audiences is kind of a safe. 20:16.516 --> 20:24.611 [SPEAKER_00]: Southerner, you know, he's got this wonderful draw and this incredible background at the University of Virginia and kind of the old Southern life. 20:24.651 --> 20:31.283 [SPEAKER_00]: And so he brings that certain ethos and vibe to their their meetings and their dedication ceremonies. 20:31.885 --> 20:33.748 [SPEAKER_00]: And yet he's not. 20:34.100 --> 20:35.362 [SPEAKER_00]: totally unreconstructed. 20:35.522 --> 20:36.263 [SPEAKER_00]: You know, he's not fine. 20:36.283 --> 20:38.106 [SPEAKER_00]: The Confederate flag and his right yard anymore. 20:38.867 --> 20:41.531 [SPEAKER_00]: He's not barricaded in against the Yankees. 20:41.912 --> 20:51.967 [SPEAKER_00]: He's really trying to class pan with northern Americans so that they can rebuild their institutions in the South. 20:52.708 --> 20:54.150 [SPEAKER_00]: With all it being said, 20:54.535 --> 21:00.181 [SPEAKER_00]: He is building bridges with the North to keep Southern institutions alive. 21:00.962 --> 21:14.396 [SPEAKER_00]: He is unwilling to concede to northern request for the Southern Baptist Convention to rejoin a northern Baptist and just make kind of a general missionary body. 21:14.737 --> 21:15.418 [SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't want that. 21:16.078 --> 21:23.226 [SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't want the Southern Baptist theological seminary to become the general theological 21:23.206 --> 21:34.645 [SPEAKER_00]: holding on to what he saw as the the best aspects of Southern culture, but he was willing to be he's willing to play ball with the North so that he could keep those things going. 21:34.786 --> 21:35.487 [SPEAKER_00]: Does that make sense? 21:35.767 --> 21:36.148 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it does. 21:36.168 --> 21:36.909 [SPEAKER_00]: That's super helpful. 21:37.130 --> 21:41.417 [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's often identified with what we call the new South. 21:41.397 --> 21:57.345 [SPEAKER_00]: And so he wasn't just so sold out to what would call the lost cause that he spins the rest of his life after the civil war just kind of gazing out the window depressed trying to hold on to this world that was he's not doing that. 21:57.365 --> 21:58.567 [SPEAKER_00]: He really is moving forward. 21:58.587 --> 21:59.829 [SPEAKER_00]: He knows he has to adapt. 21:59.909 --> 22:01.352 [SPEAKER_00]: He knows he's got to do things differently. 22:01.652 --> 22:04.317 [SPEAKER_00]: He knows he's got to travel in the north and all that kind of thing. 22:04.297 --> 22:10.486 [SPEAKER_00]: But he does all that reconciling work in the service of preserving southern institutions. 22:11.247 --> 22:32.717 [SPEAKER_00]: Because he, like, if he has a blended institution, then the northern ideology from their theological view points to their racial view points, which he finds objectionable, that's going to infect these institutions that are so important to him. 22:32.697 --> 22:49.238 [SPEAKER_00]: Um, uh, for the Southern Baptist Convention in Southern Summary and all that remaining, very Southern, and for many years after the Civil War, it was a very, it was very much an open question whether or not the Southern issues could survive just from a financial standpoint, but brought us was willing to. 22:49.218 --> 22:52.885 [SPEAKER_00]: just bleed himself drive basically to keep those southern institutions alive. 22:53.065 --> 23:00.179 [SPEAKER_02]: One of the other worlds that you mentioned that I would like to kind of talk about and explore is the kind of the world between the Academy and the Church. 23:01.141 --> 23:09.657 [SPEAKER_02]: And you know, in this time period, you know, you got a little bit of the beginnings of kind of theological liberalism or not maybe the beginnings kind of that's starting to really ramp up in the Academy. 23:09.637 --> 23:16.867 [SPEAKER_02]: But you also have this kind of more, at least, what I think to be a popularist movement of dispensationalism kind of starting to rise in his lifetime. 23:17.408 --> 23:19.711 [SPEAKER_02]: Like, how did he navigate some of those issues? 23:20.933 --> 23:31.307 [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I'm not, as familiar with like, his theological convictions is relates to dispensationalism, assuming he's more kind of in line with Philadelphia and those kind of views. 23:31.810 --> 23:41.922 [SPEAKER_02]: just how did he navigate these this transitional period in the theological landscape of America in his in his time period in addition to you know you know all the things that we've been talking about. 23:42.256 --> 23:42.597 [SPEAKER_00]: Sure. 23:42.797 --> 23:57.281 [SPEAKER_00]: So navigating those worlds of church and academy, that doesn't just enter brought us his life with the advent of dispensationalism or the rise of higher critical study of the New Testament in the 1860s and 70s. 23:57.601 --> 24:08.820 [SPEAKER_00]: Really from the very beginning of his ministry as a Southern Baptist pastor, he is trying to bridge those two worlds, a Baptist by 24:08.800 --> 24:12.824 [SPEAKER_00]: the 1840s when a brought us is first beginning to preach. 24:14.246 --> 24:27.381 [SPEAKER_00]: Baptists are one of the fastest growing and largest denominations in America because they're a popular denomination whose numbers have been swelled through the revivalism of the second-grade awakening. 24:28.462 --> 24:30.284 [SPEAKER_00]: Baptists appeal to the common man. 24:30.344 --> 24:33.087 [SPEAKER_00]: Baptists are able to 24:33.067 --> 24:51.464 [SPEAKER_00]: outpace the Presbyterians and the Congregationalists and the Episcopalians for one reason because they're able to move west with westward expansion and keep up with the frontier because they don't require their ministers to have certain educational credentials before they can preach the gospel. 24:51.805 --> 24:57.210 [SPEAKER_00]: They believe you have the internal call of God and the external call of the Congregation, then you can preach the gospel. 24:57.550 --> 25:00.913 [SPEAKER_00]: And that's one reason why Baptists were able 25:00.893 --> 25:02.035 [SPEAKER_00]: to become what they were. 25:02.696 --> 25:06.541 [SPEAKER_00]: By the 1830s and 40s, and brought us never lost sight of that. 25:06.602 --> 25:08.084 [SPEAKER_00]: He never forgot who his people were. 25:08.104 --> 25:12.530 [SPEAKER_00]: He never, he never despised Baptists for being a more popular generation. 25:12.931 --> 25:28.875 [SPEAKER_00]: But at the same time, he recognizes that Baptists are transitioning because by the 1840s, you have the growth of many towns and cities across the South where Baptists, 25:28.855 --> 25:34.868 [SPEAKER_00]: more upwardly mobile, more sophisticated, you got bankers and doctors and teachers and all the sorts of things. 25:34.908 --> 25:38.957 [SPEAKER_00]: And there's more of an appetite for an educated ministry. 25:39.318 --> 25:48.298 [SPEAKER_00]: Now, brought us never wanted to reach the point where he said, we have to have a formerly educated ministry as back to see just from a theological perspective. 25:48.278 --> 25:49.861 [SPEAKER_00]: he rejected that. 25:50.623 --> 26:05.992 [SPEAKER_00]: But he did desire to elevate Baptist ministry in any quip, particularly Baptist ministers and leaders of Baptist churches, with the tools they needed to understand and communicate the scriptures. 26:06.754 --> 26:10.000 [SPEAKER_00]: He wanted to elevate Baptist worship. 26:09.980 --> 26:28.495 [SPEAKER_00]: And yet he did that without ever becoming disconnected from those more revivalistic southern Baptist roots and so I think one reason I think that's one reason why brought us was uniquely effective in his time is he was able to bridge the world of the academy. 26:28.778 --> 26:33.964 [SPEAKER_00]: with the world of more popular revivalistic church life. 26:34.204 --> 26:45.677 [SPEAKER_00]: I think there are a lot of Baptist leaders in brought us this time who kind of dreamed of being a piscopalians and dreamed of being sophisticated Presbyterians in a big city somewhere. 26:45.758 --> 26:50.723 [SPEAKER_00]: And so it caused them to kind of look down on regular Baptist folk and they kind of forgot where they came from. 26:51.244 --> 26:53.166 [SPEAKER_00]: And John Ross really didn't ever do that. 26:53.146 --> 27:08.380 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not saying he wasn't capable of snobbery or arrogance or something like that, but largely I think that he was free of that because he actually had the educational credentials, he actually had the culture of sophistication unlike a lot of the kind of posers who were his peers. 27:08.901 --> 27:19.491 [SPEAKER_00]: He didn't need to impress anybody, he knew who he was, he could move in the circles whenever he wanted to, but he loved Baptist people and he wanted to 27:19.471 --> 27:32.049 [SPEAKER_00]: Um, he wanted to equip students at the seminary to be able to preach to Baptist audiences and give them a word of God and communicate, um, and, uh, and lead them into maturity and Christ. 27:32.169 --> 27:35.654 [SPEAKER_00]: And I just, I think that he did a good job of never forgetting where he was. 27:35.714 --> 27:41.583 [SPEAKER_00]: Now, at the same time, like we said, he is a, he's a, he's a top rank scholar, he's doing textual criticism. 27:41.643 --> 27:43.926 [SPEAKER_00]: He can read in like 14 different languages. 27:43.906 --> 27:49.137 [SPEAKER_00]: He's corresponding with scholars all over the world, different countries, different denominations. 27:49.157 --> 27:53.165 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, he is not just a big fish in a small pond, if you will. 27:53.746 --> 27:58.817 [SPEAKER_00]: And so he's wanting to do cutting-edge scholarship at the seminary. 27:59.358 --> 28:02.725 [SPEAKER_00]: And so one of the tensions in his life is, 28:02.873 --> 28:16.883 [SPEAKER_00]: exposing students to the the most recent scholarship, the most rigorous scholarship that Europe has to offer without them losing their evangelical commitments to scripture and to the gospel. 28:17.464 --> 28:19.228 [SPEAKER_00]: And I think it takes the 28:20.018 --> 28:27.350 [SPEAKER_00]: this kind of the tragic story of Crawford Toy departing from an orthodox position on scripture. 28:27.371 --> 28:39.411 [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's what it takes to kind of jar broadness back to reality that times are changing even faster than he realized and he's going to have to work harder to keep his 28:39.391 --> 28:47.842 [SPEAKER_00]: this rising generation of, you know, intelligent, academically inclined, Baptist ministry students from adopting liberal theology. 28:48.543 --> 28:49.744 [SPEAKER_00]: So that was a super long answer. 28:49.805 --> 28:52.268 [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't mean to talk for that one. 28:52.288 --> 28:59.757 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, and I, um, one thing you talk about in the book is sort of how people appropriated, brought us this legacy in different directions. 29:01.279 --> 29:08.689 [SPEAKER_01]: Some, you know, later liberal Baptist would say, well, he was the one 29:08.821 --> 29:11.385 [SPEAKER_01]: I'd love to just kind of hear from you. 29:11.545 --> 29:21.401 [SPEAKER_01]: What is your perspective on brought us seems to be sort of academically cosmopolitan open, but still had a pretty guarded, conservative view. 29:21.701 --> 29:26.869 [SPEAKER_01]: And the toy affair kind of exposed that that is hard to pass on to another generation. 29:28.552 --> 29:30.275 [SPEAKER_01]: So where did brought us land on this? 29:30.335 --> 29:33.580 [SPEAKER_01]: Like personally, still cosmopolitan, but as far as 29:33.779 --> 29:39.621 [SPEAKER_01]: teaching a little more guarded or how do you see that transformation in his life or what happened? 29:39.905 --> 29:45.212 [SPEAKER_00]: So, I'm a product of Southern Seminary, I'm graduated from near twice, and now I teach for them. 29:45.272 --> 29:50.138 [SPEAKER_00]: So, when I think of Broughtess instinctively for a wrote this book, I think of Broughtess and Boise going together. 29:50.198 --> 29:53.462 [SPEAKER_00]: James P. Boise is co-founder of the Seminary, they're the best of friends. 29:54.142 --> 30:03.174 [SPEAKER_00]: And I think of them as being kind of the same person, having the exact same views, the exact same personality, the same outlook, before I began research for this book. 30:03.334 --> 30:08.460 [SPEAKER_00]: And I came to realize how wrong I was about that. 30:09.267 --> 30:15.227 [SPEAKER_00]: the lines of demarcation between boys and broadest is exactly what you were just talking about. 30:16.331 --> 30:21.589 [SPEAKER_00]: Broadest is reared in this environment of kind of, 30:22.295 --> 30:25.700 [SPEAKER_00]: gentlemanly discussion of ideas in Virginia. 30:25.740 --> 30:32.651 [SPEAKER_00]: He goes to the university of Virginia Thomas Jefferson School, people from all walks of life and different denominations from backgrounds are there. 30:33.192 --> 30:42.567 [SPEAKER_00]: He really, he is comfortable with the open discussion of of new ideas, even if he always kind of lands in a conservative position. 30:43.248 --> 30:45.070 [SPEAKER_00]: And Bois has a different background. 30:45.131 --> 30:48.015 [SPEAKER_00]: He goes to Princeton theological 30:47.995 --> 31:04.182 [SPEAKER_00]: rigorously confessional school under people like Charles Hides and Samuel Miller and the Alexander's and all of them and he is he's much more doctrine air and he's more cut and dry on these matters and I think that's one reason why brought us 31:04.330 --> 31:17.406 [SPEAKER_00]: is able to, you know, enthusiastically recommend students from the seminary ghost study in Germany, because those are the top, top flight universes in the world at that time, like Zig and Birdland, and all these different places. 31:18.827 --> 31:30.962 [SPEAKER_00]: And because he thinks that they can do what he does, which is swim in those waters and engage in those discussions while retaining their hold on, you know, a right doctrine of scripture. 31:30.942 --> 31:33.085 [SPEAKER_00]: the person of Jesus and all that kind of thing. 31:33.706 --> 31:44.141 [SPEAKER_00]: And I think boys is much more guarded and skeptical about that from the beginning, I think boys blows the whistle on toy much faster than brought us does. 31:44.882 --> 31:54.115 [SPEAKER_00]: And brought us eventually comes to, I think, to occupy a position really close to boys on the toy situation and on 31:54.179 --> 32:01.706 [SPEAKER_00]: the need to be protective of the doctrine of inspiration, all that kind of thing, but it does take the toy theater show in that. 32:01.806 --> 32:08.212 [SPEAKER_00]: So he opens the door to German scholarship to a generation of Baptist ministers. 32:08.312 --> 32:12.676 [SPEAKER_00]: And I think by the 1880, he's desperately trying to close that door. 32:13.356 --> 32:15.999 [SPEAKER_00]: He's trying to talk his students out of going to Germany. 32:16.519 --> 32:24.186 [SPEAKER_00]: He's trying to recover students who he's 32:24.166 --> 32:26.429 [SPEAKER_00]: orthodox terminus and all that kind of thing. 32:26.970 --> 32:33.019 [SPEAKER_00]: And it's really saddened to see so many of them taking that journey that toy took. 32:33.380 --> 32:38.908 [SPEAKER_00]: He befriends someone like William Rainy Harper who was the founding president of the University of Chicago. 32:38.948 --> 32:47.220 [SPEAKER_00]: Game of Chicago, in the early 20th century, becomes the headquarters for the logical liberalism and modernism and all this kind of thing. 32:47.470 --> 32:48.972 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, Harper's brilliant. 32:49.473 --> 32:50.514 [SPEAKER_00]: He loves brought us. 32:50.574 --> 32:52.036 [SPEAKER_00]: He respects his scholarship. 32:52.076 --> 32:52.998 [SPEAKER_00]: He wants to befriending. 32:53.018 --> 32:57.744 [SPEAKER_00]: He kind of wants to use him for his own institutions that he's trying to build up and brought us to love him. 32:57.764 --> 33:00.008 [SPEAKER_00]: He sees all this promise in Harper. 33:00.588 --> 33:04.273 [SPEAKER_00]: And he's trying to kind of counsel him and shepherd him and father him. 33:04.314 --> 33:07.338 [SPEAKER_00]: Boys would have been a lot of reference on Harper. 33:08.059 --> 33:09.421 [SPEAKER_00]: He would have just cut Harper off. 33:09.721 --> 33:16.110 [SPEAKER_00]: But Ros is trying to hang on to Harper and is sad when he can no longer publicly. 33:16.360 --> 33:20.045 [SPEAKER_00]: endorsed Harper's work in his ministry by the 1890s. 33:20.386 --> 33:36.970 [SPEAKER_00]: So I think at the end of his life, brought a cease, there's a need to stake out a very explicit commitment to the evangelical doctrines of the Bible's inspiration, its authority, its an currency, while still pursuing rigorous scholarship. 33:37.271 --> 33:45.743 [SPEAKER_00]: I think one person who really gets that broad supervision and carries it into the next generation's AT Robertson, his greatest student, 33:45.723 --> 33:53.740 [SPEAKER_00]: Greek New Testament scholar of his generation as far as I'm concerned, and, you know, publishes that Greek grammar that people use, I mean, the Pope uses it for goodness sake. 33:53.760 --> 34:03.040 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's used the world over, and yet Robertson is also a committed disciple of Jesus Christ and preacher of the gospel. 34:03.020 --> 34:18.276 [SPEAKER_00]: I think he's kind of the last, you know, way of a dying breed of someone who can be fully committed to the Bible, to the doctor, the fundamentals of the faith and operate comfortably into the American Academy, think brought us in Robertson or kind of the end of the line for that. 34:18.396 --> 34:19.759 [SPEAKER_01]: Super helpful. 34:20.020 --> 34:21.062 [SPEAKER_01]: Do you think there's anything? 34:22.797 --> 34:51.032 [SPEAKER_01]: We can learn from that today as far as education being rigorous teaching, but being careful with our mentoring students and scholars and maybe to have not, but I'd also love to hear just your take on Brodison Boys, stewarding the institution and sort of figure and how we can learn about the cost and the nature of doing institutions well today. 34:52.075 --> 34:53.317 [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, of course, that's a great question. 34:53.517 --> 35:00.587 [SPEAKER_00]: I realize that influence for your last question, which is brought to this legacy, because he tried to live between this two worlds. 35:00.847 --> 35:03.390 [SPEAKER_00]: His legacy is really a little bit more complicated than voices is. 35:03.791 --> 35:05.293 [SPEAKER_00]: Or this is a lot more cutting dry. 35:05.333 --> 35:08.257 [SPEAKER_00]: He's the great defender of the abstractor principles. 35:08.297 --> 35:09.339 [SPEAKER_00]: He's the confessionalist. 35:09.359 --> 35:15.267 [SPEAKER_00]: He's when he's protecting the institution from harmful theological influences coming in from the outside. 35:15.707 --> 35:17.290 [SPEAKER_00]: Bross's legacy is a little more complicated. 35:17.310 --> 35:19.112 [SPEAKER_00]: That's why many different 35:19.092 --> 35:23.799 [SPEAKER_00]: in diverse voices are able to claim the broadest legacy. 35:25.261 --> 35:33.854 [SPEAKER_00]: So for today, I do think that there is something of a cautionary tale in broadest leadership. 35:34.636 --> 35:38.061 [SPEAKER_00]: Again, I think he always landed in what I consider to be the right place. 35:38.161 --> 35:43.429 [SPEAKER_00]: I think he always landed in just confessionally orthodox place. 35:43.409 --> 35:54.225 [SPEAKER_00]: But there was always this a lure of academic excellence, academic respectability, academic notoriety. 35:54.425 --> 36:08.927 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I don't think Bruce was insecure about his chops, the way that a lot of about his scholars of his day were, but still he wanted, he wanted the similar to hard the best professors of that he could, not just the, not just the godliest ones. 36:09.346 --> 36:27.270 [SPEAKER_00]: You know, there's always this caution of the first Corinthians eight knowledge puffs up love builds up any time you're you're learning any time you're devoted to some kind of academic enterprise there's there's going to be the danger of pride there's going to be the desire to. 36:27.689 --> 36:53.943 [SPEAKER_00]: You know, a pander to some kind of elite audience or something like that, and that always ends badly, you know, we, we, if, if no one recognizes our scholarship, if, if no one is inviting us to give lectures at Yale, if nobody knows our name outside the people were leading the survival study with, we want to be faithful to the Bible as the word of God, we want to be faithful to the gospel of Jesus Christ. 36:53.963 --> 36:56.987 [SPEAKER_00]: That is just so much more important. 36:57.659 --> 37:08.277 [SPEAKER_00]: I think brought us personally, thread of the needle about as best as he could during a time of tremendous change in a people in American theology. 37:09.620 --> 37:22.502 [SPEAKER_00]: But he does, he does remind us how important is to be grounded in the truth before you go swimming in some of those waters where that truth is going to come into question. 37:22.533 --> 37:23.234 [SPEAKER_02]: That's fascinating. 37:23.254 --> 37:43.427 [SPEAKER_02]: I want to ask a follow up question that just kind of zooms out a little bit on just the task of doing a critical biography kind of circling back to that idea and we're talking a lot about, you know, who brought us was what he thought, but also how he was received and different things and just the different things that he was engaged in and the different relationships. 37:43.407 --> 37:52.201 [SPEAKER_02]: Can you walk us through just how you go about selecting primary sources, which primary sources you would engage if you're going to write a biography? 37:52.221 --> 38:02.277 [SPEAKER_02]: I know many of our listeners have a fascination with history, particularly a lot of us have a fascination with Baptist history, and would you just 38:03.185 --> 38:14.730 [SPEAKER_02]: evaluating sources is a mainly looking at just what brought us wrote himself or is it, you know, we scouring newspaper clippings is just help us to understand I guess a little bit more about the process of writing a critical biography. 38:15.014 --> 38:22.725 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's a great question, whether you're writing a biography, or choosing a dissertation topic, where you're just beginning to think about this, this kind of things. 38:23.526 --> 38:29.915 [SPEAKER_00]: There's a reason why there are so many books written about Abraham Lincoln or George Washington or whatever. 38:30.055 --> 38:32.699 [SPEAKER_00]: One, people are just inherently fascinated with those folks. 38:32.779 --> 38:44.616 [SPEAKER_00]: And so there's always going to be an apt-a-type of this, but also there's tons of sources written left behind by that person and written about that person. 38:44.596 --> 38:52.375 [SPEAKER_00]: I think controlling factors and who you're going to choose to write a full skill biography on is are there sources, are there primary source documents? 38:52.755 --> 39:01.356 [SPEAKER_00]: Can I get back to that time period and hear this person in their own voice for the majority of their lifespan? 39:01.336 --> 39:06.964 [SPEAKER_00]: are there going, will I be able to listen in on other people talking about that person and evaluating them? 39:07.325 --> 39:20.744 [SPEAKER_00]: So that's really important for broadest thinkfully, there's a wealth of resources at the James Freed Boys Centennial Library and Archives at Southern Seminary at the Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives in Nashville and other places. 39:20.824 --> 39:23.648 [SPEAKER_00]: So plenty of sources there. 39:23.628 --> 39:32.121 [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, you want to be engaging with their primary source documents as much as you can, maybe they've got some published sources that are available. 39:32.302 --> 39:41.957 [SPEAKER_00]: That's great published sermons or embraces, case, there's some published, there's a preaching manual, there's a commentary on the gospel, Matthew and other published books. 39:41.937 --> 39:44.340 [SPEAKER_00]: So you want to have a handle on all of these. 39:44.360 --> 39:48.166 [SPEAKER_00]: You want to read them all and take notes on them, have a detailed outline of this book. 39:48.186 --> 39:51.551 [SPEAKER_00]: So the two are aware of what they said in those places. 39:51.951 --> 40:02.466 [SPEAKER_00]: But I also just have this ravenous appetite for personal writings, letters and diaries, letters written to the subject, letters written by the subject. 40:02.486 --> 40:05.310 [SPEAKER_00]: So I want to get a hold of as many of those as I can. 40:05.711 --> 40:09.396 [SPEAKER_00]: For a broadest, there was really too many to read every, 40:09.376 --> 40:10.918 [SPEAKER_00]: every single one. 40:11.399 --> 40:21.654 [SPEAKER_00]: And many of them, as you'll find, you know, if it's a seminary president or even a professor, tons and tons of the letters are going to be students asking for like financial aid. 40:22.295 --> 40:29.606 [SPEAKER_00]: And it's not that you can't learn anything from that, but I mean, once you've read the first 60, you kind of know the genre pretty well, you know what's coming. 40:30.147 --> 40:34.273 [SPEAKER_00]: But I tried to read as much of this personal correspondence as I could. 40:34.293 --> 40:38.539 [SPEAKER_00]: And, and so I would come into that practice, 40:38.519 --> 40:51.591 [SPEAKER_00]: If newspapers are a great source, someone like Bross is going to ride a lot in the denominational and Baptist newspapers, all those denominational newspapers don't hold the same position. 40:51.671 --> 40:56.315 [SPEAKER_00]: So if it's more in the Atlantic coast, like they're religious herald, it's going to be a bit more sophisticated. 40:56.335 --> 41:00.839 [SPEAKER_00]: It's going to be more open to higher learning and that kind of thing. 41:00.959 --> 41:08.526 [SPEAKER_00]: If it's out west, it's going to have a more popular flavor influence by J.R. graves and all that. 41:08.506 --> 41:20.783 [SPEAKER_00]: But I also want to look at newspapers that aren't not denominationally rooted, so like the Louisville Courts Journal or the Richmond Post Dispatch or something like that. 41:20.963 --> 41:38.327 [SPEAKER_00]: Newspapers.com is a great source for you to have a subscription to if you're doing this kind of work seriously because you don't want to be, you know, just totally provincial 41:38.307 --> 41:40.372 [SPEAKER_00]: talking about this person. 41:42.096 --> 41:52.298 [SPEAKER_00]: Because if the only people you are considering are people who obviously adored them, let's go to a pretty one-sided flat biography. 41:52.539 --> 41:56.147 [SPEAKER_00]: Of course, the funeral sermon about this person is going to be 41:56.127 --> 41:56.768 [SPEAKER_00]: flowery. 41:57.830 --> 42:00.314 [SPEAKER_00]: That's not helping you get to know that person all that much. 42:00.735 --> 42:15.541 [SPEAKER_00]: It sounds that you don't take any of that into account, but you need, if you're going to have a more critical perspective accurate perspective, you're going to need to hear from some other voices and so other newspaper accounts are helpful. 42:15.761 --> 42:18.726 [SPEAKER_00]: People from a different nomination opponents, critics, 42:18.706 --> 42:21.930 [SPEAKER_00]: And then a secondary sources are really important. 42:22.270 --> 42:43.714 [SPEAKER_00]: And I think once you get into PhD program or you're doing some serious research for a book or something, that's one of the barriers that you're going to have to crawl us from, say, getting an MDiv and writing a church history paper, you're not just analyzing this letter written by Andrew Fuller. 42:44.115 --> 42:46.097 [SPEAKER_00]: You're also understanding 42:46.077 --> 42:53.668 [SPEAKER_00]: the times in which he was living, what were the cultural issues, sort of the political things that are going on at that time, how's that shaping the way that they're thinking? 42:53.688 --> 42:58.154 [SPEAKER_00]: Because you want to be able to situate your subject in their actual times. 42:58.515 --> 43:04.463 [SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, so it's a lot of work, I mean, to be honest with you, but it's also an adventure of learning. 43:04.644 --> 43:06.126 [SPEAKER_00]: And that's really the whole reason why. 43:06.146 --> 43:11.493 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I started writing these books way before I had a job at Southern Seminary, just for the sheer fun of it. 43:11.593 --> 43:12.955 [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I just wanted to learn more. 43:12.975 --> 43:14.818 [SPEAKER_00]: I want to understand it better. 43:14.798 --> 43:18.023 [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm shocked that anybody will publish it or read it. 43:18.624 --> 43:20.267 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm just doing it for me, really. 43:20.307 --> 43:22.891 [SPEAKER_00]: And it's been so much fun. 43:22.951 --> 43:23.592 [SPEAKER_00]: It's a joy. 43:24.053 --> 43:27.458 [SPEAKER_00]: And so I know not everybody feels that way about research and writing. 43:27.879 --> 43:32.205 [SPEAKER_00]: But if you do, if you can identify with anything that I just said, then you know what I'm talking about. 43:32.225 --> 43:38.315 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's like they say at the beginning of a doctoral program, you get a PhD for you and you shouldn't expect other benefits. 43:38.335 --> 43:40.198 [SPEAKER_01]: You do it for your own benefit. 43:40.870 --> 43:41.371 [SPEAKER_01]: Um, okay. 43:41.391 --> 43:43.013 [SPEAKER_01]: So I have just a, it's been a great discussion. 43:43.094 --> 43:46.519 [SPEAKER_01]: I've got a closing question and then maybe a bonus that you want to answer it. 43:47.581 --> 43:59.520 [SPEAKER_01]: You've spent a significant season of your life and burst and John brought us an obviously we talked a lot about the complexity of his legacy, but. 43:59.500 --> 44:06.808 [SPEAKER_01]: Just give us something about him that really gripped you that you think is just exemplary. 44:06.848 --> 44:12.014 [SPEAKER_01]: And then if you want as a preacher to talk about something you loved about his preaching, you can do that too. 44:12.815 --> 44:14.036 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, thank you for asking that. 44:14.437 --> 44:28.292 [SPEAKER_00]: As far as brought this personal character, I think that from the beginning of his life, like as an adolescent to the end of his life, 44:28.272 --> 44:43.314 [SPEAKER_00]: On the one hand, he has this drive, this insatiable drive to be great, to rise, to be imminent, to leave his mark, to do something significant with the life that God gave him. 44:43.374 --> 44:46.719 [SPEAKER_00]: I think some of that was nurtured in his family, his father's estate politician. 44:46.779 --> 44:48.782 [SPEAKER_00]: He comes from a family of prominent Baptist ministers. 44:49.262 --> 44:56.052 [SPEAKER_00]: He was not just going to sit at the house and look out the window every day, waiting for somebody to tell him what to do. 44:57.314 --> 44:59.217 [SPEAKER_00]: spread his wings and take flight. 44:59.638 --> 45:06.828 [SPEAKER_00]: And so he has an honest to goodness and vision that I think drives him all the way to the end of his life. 45:06.929 --> 45:18.206 [SPEAKER_00]: At the same time, when he gets converted as a teenager, he becomes a genuine born again follower of Jesus with a renewed heart that submitted to God. 45:18.486 --> 45:24.435 [SPEAKER_00]: And he knows that he also needs to pursue humility and service. 45:24.415 --> 45:28.707 [SPEAKER_00]: and he's to submit his desires to God's desires. 45:29.028 --> 45:36.670 [SPEAKER_00]: And I think holding those two things and I think he had the self-awareness to know, I'm going to have to monitor this. 45:36.937 --> 45:43.085 [SPEAKER_00]: for the rest of them, so when people are throwing him flowers for this great sermon that he preached for the book that he wrote, he's obviously imitations. 45:43.465 --> 45:45.468 [SPEAKER_00]: And that's the kind of thing that could really go to your head. 45:46.149 --> 45:53.939 [SPEAKER_00]: I think he has an awareness that he needs to stay low before the Lord and not become an ego maniac. 45:54.740 --> 46:00.227 [SPEAKER_00]: Because in that celebratory Baptist culture in those days, it would be easy to become an ego maniac. 46:00.267 --> 46:03.771 [SPEAKER_00]: And I just love the way that he tries to hold together 46:03.751 --> 46:12.163 [SPEAKER_00]: a real ambition to do something significant with his life, with a real desire to be humble and holy before the Lord. 46:12.784 --> 46:20.234 [SPEAKER_00]: And I mean, he doesn't navigate that perfectly, but I think that he does it sincerely and ultimately does a really good job. 46:20.595 --> 46:22.317 [SPEAKER_00]: That ambition is what 46:22.465 --> 46:31.470 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's what enables him to hold the seminary together like with his two bare hands for about 15 years after the civil wars. 46:31.490 --> 46:37.487 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that is what enables him to do what he ultimately accomplishes. 46:37.467 --> 46:53.940 [SPEAKER_00]: But it's also what keeps him away from his family is what keeps him traveling all the time to preach and to raise funds and to make connections and so he's regretful that he's away from his wife and his kids and some of the letters between them are really heartbreaking and so I mean it's it's just very real. 46:53.920 --> 47:04.116 [SPEAKER_00]: And it's very relatable and like I don't have John brought a size gifts, but whatever, you know, size two gifts that God may have given me, I just want to get the most out of them. 47:04.837 --> 47:12.989 [SPEAKER_00]: And I want to maximize whatever opportunities the Lord might send my way, but I want to want to pursue it with humility and consecrate to him and all that. 47:13.009 --> 47:16.515 [SPEAKER_00]: And so I think there's a lot that's really admirable about brought us out there. 47:17.136 --> 47:22.003 [SPEAKER_00]: On the preaching side, I'll be a much quicker, 47:22.473 --> 47:28.125 [SPEAKER_00]: of the preacher's task which is communicating God's word to God's people, to regular people. 47:28.366 --> 47:32.836 [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that he really kept voice grounded with this. 47:32.956 --> 47:40.633 [SPEAKER_00]: I think was could end up being a little, could tend towards a leadism, a little more than brought us even. 47:41.086 --> 47:50.039 [SPEAKER_00]: And because when they're forming the seminary, it was so important to broaden that we remember our constituency. 47:50.340 --> 47:52.883 [SPEAKER_00]: Like don't educate yourself out of the ministry. 47:53.164 --> 48:02.658 [SPEAKER_00]: Don't get so educated that all you can talk about are these kind of abstract theological things and you can't communicate scripture to a Baptist congregation. 48:03.299 --> 48:10.890 [SPEAKER_00]: And so just the way that he's able to bring all of his learning and all of that culture, 48:10.870 --> 48:22.369 [SPEAKER_00]: to just Baptist pulpit ministry weekend and we got whether it's in a big city church or it's way out in the sticks and where, I really get it's a beautiful thing and it's very commendable to this day. 48:22.389 --> 48:23.551 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, thanks so much, Eric. 48:23.591 --> 48:24.652 [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks again for this book. 48:25.694 --> 48:28.759 [SPEAKER_01]: Published by LSU Press is called Between Worlds. 48:30.081 --> 48:33.286 [SPEAKER_01]: John Brodos and then Southern Seminary in the Prospect of the New South. 48:33.447 --> 48:34.228 [SPEAKER_01]: That's the title. 48:35.069 --> 48:39.029 [SPEAKER_01]: So great, read and encourage you to purchase it and enjoy it. 48:39.411 --> 48:44.938 [SPEAKER_01]: For our listeners, thanks for listening to the only confessional and Baptist podcast on the planet until we meet again. 48:45.220 --> 48:45.923 [SPEAKER_01]: Stay Baptist.