“Most concerning, however, was the worldview taught in his Ethics and Hermeneutics classes. “One of my professors was touting who he was calling theological masters. He included Barth and Bonhoeffer, but then he included James H. Cone, a liberation theologian.”

Students who, like me, grew up a part of an Assemblies of God church in the Deep South had two popular college options when it came to traditional, orthodox higher education: either attend Southeastern College of the Assemblies of God if you wanted to live in Florida or Southwestern Assemblies of God University if you favored Texas. I would prefer Florida. But according to one Southeastern graduate, some concerning theological shifts have ensued at the Assemblies of God’s largest university.

David Thrower graduated in 1996 from Southeastern College of the Assemblies of God (renamed Southeastern University in 2005) with a bachelor of arts in Church Ministries. Raised in the Holiness Pentecostal denomination, he was attracted to SEU’s charismatic style coupled with a historical commitment to traditional Christian teaching. “My undergraduate experience was wonderful. It was what you expected from a traditional Pentecostal school,” said Thrower. “But when I returned for graduate work a few years later, it was like I had returned to a different planet.”

Thrower reportedly encountered several startling changes on campus including the presence of the Emergent Church, a movement of so-called “progressive” adherents who question the supremacy of God, the authority of His Word, and stir confusion and doubt by painting inconsistencies in Scripture. “For example, they use to have campus revivals and things like that. No longer. Campus revivals have been replaced with what’s called leadership forums and some of the speakers invited were Erwin McManus and Brian McLaren, a co-founder of the Emergent Church.”

Most concerning, however, was the worldview taught in his Ethics and Hermeneutics classes. “One of my professors was touting who he was calling theological masters. He included Barth and Bonhoeffer, but then he included James H. Cone, a liberation theologian.” Thrower continued, “It gets even more interesting because there were people who believed that Marx was a prophet of God. We were taught that in class too.”

To clarify, Thrower added, “The Ethics class, taught by Dr. Murray Dempster (touted by his colleagues as the ‘Grandfather of Modern Pentecostal Pacifism,’ which says something there!), was the one [faculty member] that used Cone’s text along with Barth’s and Bonhoeffer’s in that course.”

Thrower continued, “The Marx quote —that actually that actually happened in a Hermeneutics class that was taught by Dr. Ken Archer (who teaches Bible and Theology at SEU now), and he was basing it on a text written by Merrold Westphal entitled Whose Community, Which Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009). Westphal wrote on page 140 of this book that he essentially considered Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud ‘prophetic voices of Christendom,’ and this book was used as a textbook in a Hermeneutics class although it is technically a postmodern philosophical textbook.”

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