Duke Kimbrough McCall

Duke Kimbrough McCall (born September 1, 1914)^[1] is a Christian religious leader who has served as Chief Executive Officer of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) Executive Committee, as president of two seminaries, as president of the Baptist World Alliance, and a Baptist preacher.

Childhood, college and marriage

Born in Meridian, Mississippi, McCall grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, one of five children of John W. McCall, a judge, and Lizette Kimbrough McCall, a leader in Southern Baptist mission support.^[2]

McCall attended Furman University, Greenville, South Carolina, from which he graduated as valedictorian in 1935.^[3]

While attending Furman, McCall met Greenville resident Marguerite Mullinnix. The couple married shortly after McCall's graduation and raised four sons.^[4]

Following his first wife's death in 1980, McCall married Winona McCandless, the widow of Louisville telephone company executive Paul McCandless.^[5]

Early career

After deciding to pursue ministry instead of law, McCall declined his acceptance from Vanderbilt Law School^[6] to enroll at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, earning the Th.M. degree in 1938 while serving as a fellow to the Seminary's president, John R. Sampey. McCall then earned a Ph.D. from the seminary in 1941. While completing his Ph.D., he served as pastor of a small Baptist church in Woodville, Tennessee.^[7]

McCall’s first full-time pastorate, during the early years of World War II, was at Broadway Baptist Church, in Louisville.

In 1943, McCall become president of the Baptist Bible Institute of New Orleans, Louisiana, which less than three years later became New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.^[8]

Denominational leadership

In 1946, McCall became Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the SBC Executive Committee, the Southern Baptist Convention’s central coordinating body, leading it during a time of growth that eventually saw the SBC become the largest Protestant faith group in the United States. He also led the SBC's war relief efforts.^{[citation needed]}

Presidency of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

McCall’s tenure as president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary was from 1951 to 1982. During that time the seminary's student body grew from 800 to more than 2,000 students at the end of his tenure, ranking as the second largest of the 200 accredited theological schools in the United States.^[9]

Soon after becoming president, McCall integrated the seminary's classrooms in defiance of Kentucky's segregationist state law.^[10] Later, at the height of the civil rights movement, McCall invited Martin Luther King Jr. to speak on campus, making Southern the only SBC institution to host the Baptist civil rights leader.^[11][12]

McCall completed three capital campaigns, one of them funding the construction of the James P. Boyce Centennial Library;^[13] another endowing the Billy Graham Chair of Evangelism; and a third that, at more than $10 million, was then the largest-ever seminary campaign.^[14]

McCall organized Southern into three graduate schools—theology, Christian education, and church music. In 1984, a school of church social work was added, and became the first seminary-based school of social work accredited by the Council on Social Work Education.^[15] He also led the seminary to launch Boyce Bible School (now called Boyce College), an adult education division for students without college prerequisites.^[16]

Writing and television

McCall wrote several books, including What is the Church?, God’s Hurry, and A Story of Stewardship. For 30 years he wrote a monthly opinion column, Thinking Aloud. In the early 1960s he helped inaugurate a weekly interfaith dialogue, Moral Side of the News, on Louisville's WHAS-TV in which Protestant, Catholic and Jewish leaders discussed the week's headlines in light of faith.^[17]

Later career

In 1980, McCall was elected to a five-year term as president of the Baptist World Alliance, representing 37 million Baptists in 120 nations. He had long been active in the Alliance, beginning with his attendance at the first BWA-sponsored Baptist World Youth Conference, in Prague, Czechoslovakia, when he was 16 years old.^[18]

In 1982, McCall ran for and lost in the SBC presidential election to James T. Draper^[19]

In 1990, McCall and several others established the Baptist Cooperative Missions Program, which provided resources to help launch the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, an alternative association of about 2,000 moderate and progressive Baptist congregations.^[20]

Honors

McCall has been recognized through the endowment of the Duke K. McCall Chair of Christian Mission and World Christianity at the Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond, Virginia, and in the naming of the Duke McCall Welcome Center on the Southern Seminary campus in Louisville, Kentucky.^[21]

References

1. ^ Lives of Mississippi Authors, 1817-1967
2. ^ Duke McCall: An Oral History. with A. Ronald Tonks. Brentwood, Tenn.: Baptist History and Heritage Society, Nashville: Fields Publishing, Inc., 2001.p.17
3. ^ http://archives.sbts.edu/partner/Article_Display_Page/0,,PTID325566_CHID717900_CIID1978922,00.html
4. ^ http://archives.sbts.edu/partner/Article_Display_Page/0,,PTID325566_CHID717900_CIID1978922,00.html
5. ^ Tonks: Duke McCall, An Oral History, 2001. p.464
6. ^ Tonks: Duke McCall, An Oral History, 2001. pp. 29-30
7. ^ http://archives.sbts.edu/partner/Article_Display_Page/0,,PTID325566_CHID717900_CIID1978922,00.html
8. ^ http://archives.sbts.edu/partner/Article_Display_Page/0,,PTID325566_CHID717900_CIID1978922,00.html
9. ^ http://www.ats.edu/Resources/Publications/Documents/FactBook/1982-83.pdf, p.55
10. ^ Tonks: Duke McCall, An Oral History, 2001. pp. 141-142
11. ^ Tonks: Duke McCall, An Oral History, 2001.p p. 223-224
12. ^ Audio of King's speech | url=http://saidatsouthern.com/martin-luther-king-mp3/
13. ^ http://archives.sbts.edu/partner/Article_Display_Page/0,,PTID325566_CHID720054_CIID1984192,00.html
14. ^ Tonks: Duke McCall, An Oral History, 2001. p.333
15. ^ "Cora Anne Davis 1937–2006: Pioneer in Church Social Work". American Council on Education. 2007. http://www.acenet.edu/Content/NavigationMenu/ProgramsServices/OWHE/cora_ann_davis.htm. Retrieved 2010-03-03. 
16. ^ Tonks: Duke McCall, An Oral History, 2001. p.319-324
17. ^ Kleber, John E., ed (2000). "Moral Side of the News". The Encyclopedia of Louisville. p. 626. ISBN 978-0-8131-2100-0. http://books.google.com/books?id=pXbYITw4ZesC&pg=PA626. Retrieved 2010-03-03. 
18. ^ http://media.sbhla.org.s3.amazonaws.com/5099,29-Jul-1980.pdf
19. ^ Wicker, Tom (June 24, 1982), "The Baptist Switch", The Dispatch (Lexington, N.C.): p. 4, http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1734&dat=19820624&id=veYbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=llIEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3433,8818044, retrieved 2010-03-03 
20. ^ http://www.abpnews.com/content/view/4501/53/
21. ^ http://inside.sbts.edu/?s=pavilion+named+mccall

Persondata
Name	Maccall, Duke Kimbrough
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	September 1, 1914
Place of birth
Date of death
Place of death