Remembering Cecil Sherman

Cecil Sherman died today. When I heard it, my mind went back almost fifty years. I entered Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in the fall of 1960. One day in chapel, some two years later, the preacher was a young associate from the Texas Baptist Evangelism Department, Cecil Sherman. He was thin, angular, with a sharp mind, and a sharp tongue.

His subject was "Rot." He had three points. First, Wren's Rot, after Christopher Wren who designed the forerunner of the colonial church building. Baptists, he said, were too concerned about buildings. Second, Raikes' Rot, after Robert Raikes, who invented the Sunday School. Baptists were too hung up on their organizations and programs. Third, Carroll's Rot, after B. H. Carroll, the founder of Southwestern Seminary. Baptists were too proud of their institutions and their doctrines. Cecil talked about the kingdom of God, which was not the same as the Southern Baptist Convention. Our seminary administration was not pleased. But I remembered that sermon.

Cecil himself was a graduate of Southwestern Seminary, with a doctor's degree. He was working for a Baptist denominational agency. But that did not keep him from sounding a prophetic criticism of these institutions. For the next half century I watched him do that. He was devoted to the church and to the people called Baptists. But he never hesitated to challenge them with the truth he found in the Bible and in his relationship with God.

Cecil was brilliant, eloquent, and courageous. He was not afraid of controversy. He disturbed many Baptists with his early warnings about the coming fundamentalist takeover. Many refused to believe what was happening, and they accused Cecil and his friends of making it worse. They thought they could get along with the fundamentalists and work out some sort of accommodation. When the seminaries and the mission boards were finally taken over and the presidents and many of the teachers and missionaries terminated, they saw that Cecil was right.

When many of us found ourselves displaced from the SBC and looked around for a new way of being Baptist together, we turned to Cecil to lead the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, which he did faithfully and well.

For most of his ministry he was a pastor. His sermons were biblical (unlike the "Rot" sermon I first heard). In retirement he was a teacher, helping prepare students at the Baptist Theological Seminary of Richmond to be pastors and teachers. He cared for his wife during her long final illness and then battled his own leukemia with courage and grace. He had countless friends. He was a writer. Above all, for me, he was a model pastor and preacher who gave me hope in a time when it was not easy to be a Baptist pastor who cared about truth and justice as well as evangelism and missions.

I am grateful to God for the life and ministry of Cecil Sherman.