Familiarity with the Past Breeds Contempt for the Present

If you visit the campus of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, it is rare to hear the story of the institution and not be made aware of the controversy surrounding Crawford Howell (C.H.) Toy. In fact, whenever I serve as a member of the campus preview tour or guide people on a tour of Cave Hill Cemetery, I tell the story of how Toy departed Baptist orthodoxy and embraced a destructive view of the Bible. The Toy Controversy shook the seminary. Unfortunately, I fear that because of the familiarity of the story, many do not grasp the layers of the events surrounding the departure of Toy from the faculty at SBTS. Furthermore, John A. Broadus played a critical part in the story that often gets overlooked. Eric C. Smith’s recent biography of Broadus stirred my mind to think about how nonchalant the story of Toy, Broadus, and the seminary can be told.

For Broadus, the Toy controversy served as an event where so many different threads came together. Smith observed that “it seems that when the Toy controversy broke in Louisville, Broadus found himself walking a tightrope of academy, piety, constituency, and personal friendship.”[1] This line struck me for it shone a light on how difficult and painful the entire Toy controversy was for so many. After all, it was Broadus himself who referred to a young Toy as “the jewel of our learning” and “the pride of the seminary.”[2] Toy’s abandonment of a robust view of biblical inspiration cannot be seen in a vacuum. Real relationships were involved. The account of how Toy became a heretic often is relayed in a sterile, cold manner. A not so small group of Southern Baptists rallied to support Toy and thought that both James P. Boyce, along with Broadus, were too rigid in their handling of “the jewel” of the seminary. Others can tell a story that Broadus and Boyce were theological champions ready to stamp out any divergence from orthodoxy. The truth is that the Toy controversy grieved Broadus and cost him dearly.

Due to their close relationship, Broadus experienced a period of his own fellow Southern Baptists eyeing him suspiciously. Smith points out that “many Southern Baptists questioned Broadus’s orthodoxy regarding inspiration in the wake of the Toy controversy.”[3] The suspicion that fell on Broadus caused him to be more emphatic in his conservative views regarding the nature and authority of the Bible. In the years following Toy’s dismissal, Broadus found himself under the microscope. After all, his place at the seminary meant that he was responsible to the denomination. Southern Baptists were eager to know whether one of the giants of their tradition was as faithful as they thought he was. It was not only Toy’s but Broadus’s reputation that became mired by theological controversy.

In reviewing Broadus’s role in the whole situation, it struck me that we often interpret the past with an emotional sterility that fails to grasp the significance of the events. Broadus was a faithful servant of Jesus Christ who gave his life to preaching the Bible and training men to handle the text well. He desired a seminary that was not only faithfully teaching the Bible but was excelling in academic rigor and reputation. At the same time, C.H. Toy was not just any student. He was Broadus’s protégé. He was the first man hired to the faculty outside of the original founding four. He was the first professor dismissed in America over what became Protestant liberal theology. Broadus was concerned for Toy’s well-being both professionally and spiritually. Finally, Broadus sensed the gravity of the denomination. Southern Baptists entrusted their young preacher boys to him. That constituency was never to be forgotten. All these factors weighed on Broadus’s mind in his deliberations as to the best course of action regarding Toy.

What does this say to us today? I think that it should remind us to be mindful of how many factors go into institutional decisions. Broadus operated many times in a pragmatic way. We can hear that and think that is a horrible course to take! Yet, there is a sense in which healthy pragmatism must guide institutions. The balance is a tightrope between holding fast to proper principles and remembering that the institution’s goals are bigger than one’s personal aims. Furthermore, the story of Toy and Broadus is instructive to how easy it is for us to know history but not really know it. People are quick to say that they are champions for truth and that they know how they would handle a situation. Often, situations are messier and more complex than we realize. When we are outsiders to an event, a certain humility should cloak our outlook. Broadus would disagree with people who say that dismissing Toy from the faculty was an easy call. Complexities abounded. If we are honest, they abound in our own lives far more often than we care to realize. This is why familiarity with history breeds contempt. Instead, renewed appreciation for the past should equip us with humility to steward the present well.

[1] Eric C. Smith, Between Worlds: John A. Broadus, The Southern Baptist Seminary, and the Prospects of the New South (Baton Rouge, LA: LSU Press, 2026), 137.

[2] Smith, Between Worlds, 118.

[3] Smith, Between Worlds, 136.