Tennessee Temple Today

Tennessee Temple University has changed dramatically since I graduated from there in 1977. The school’s heyday was in the 1970s and early 1980s with 4,000 students enrolled. By 1992, enrollment had fallen to 650 and today stands at about 400. The founding congregation, Highland Park Baptist Church, is down to 300 members, having changed its name to Church of the Highlands to reflect its new location and generic contemporary flavor (“Tennessee Temple Carries on,” Times Free Press, Chattanooga, Sep. 17, 2012). When I graduated from Temple, church attendance was about 4,500. Since then the church and school have gone back into the Southern Baptist Convention, where they now belong. Steve Echols, Tennessee Temple’s President since 2012, says, “I am Southern Baptist from my toenail to the little bit of hair on my head.” He was educated at Mercer University, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, and Beeson Divinity School, and was on the faculty of New Orleans Seminary for 11 years. He also pastored SBC churches and always “emphasized the Cooperative Program” (“Tennessee Temple Univ. Strengthens SBC Ties,” Baptist Press, Apr. 19, 2012). Founded in 1946 by Lee Roberson as an educational arm of his church, Tennessee Temple began as a Bible School for the training of preachers and Christian workers. As the years passed, a college and seminary were added and the emphasis changed to Christian education in general. We have documented the philosophical and doctrinal changes at Tennessee Temple in The Old Highland Park Baptist Church, available as a free eBook from www.wayoflife.org.

(Friday Church News Notes, March 21, 2014, www.wayoflife.org [email protected], 866-295-4143)

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