Southeastern Christian College provided a two-year liberal arts degree and a three-year degree[1] in biblical studies in Winchester, Kentucky from 1957 to 1979.[2] Following its closure, the college formed a non-profit in 1983, the Southeastern Christian Education Corporation, to provide scholarships to students from a list of Churches of Christ congregations.[2]
College Building, Kentucky Wesleyan College (Winchester, Kentucky) in 1909. The future administration building for Southeastern Christian College.
The origins of Southeastern Christian College began in 1949 in Louisville, Kentucky. It was first incorporated as “Kentucky Bible College” on March 23, 1950 at 2500 Portland Ave, Louisville, KY.[3] At its founding it was co-located with Portland Avenue Church of Christ and the Portland Christian School. The filing for incorporation listed three people as the board of directors: Carl Vogt Wilson, Albert Von Allmen, and James H. Frazee.[3] In its 1954 annual report to the state government, the college declared its plans to move to Winchester in September of that year to occupy the former location of Kentucky Wesleyan College on Wheeler Avenue.[4] In 1957, the college’s president, Winston N. Allen, notified the Commonwealth of Kentucky that Kentucky Bible College had been renamed to Southeastern Christian College.[5]
Southeastern Christian College was accredited as a two-year college, but also offered a subsequent, three-year degree as a bible college.[1] The college was established as an educational institution informed by the interests of the Churches of Christ that sympathized with premillennialism[6][7][8] -- Robert Henry Boll, the minister at Portland Avenue Church of Christ from 1904-1956, was a key figure in both the establishment of the college and the premillennial movement in the Churches of Christ.[9] The college provided a meeting place for many debates about the nature and direction of the Church of Christ movement. For example, in an effort to encourage unity in the churches, “Rightist” and “Centrist” leaders met on the campus in 1959 to address a “factional spirit” in the movement.[10] However, the efforts to foster unity in the Churches of Christ sometimes resulted in controversy; in 1970 the president (LaVern Houtz) and ten of the college's fifteen faculty members were asked to resign for their acceptance a charismatic movement in American Christianity.[9]
With approximately serving 3000 students in its thirty year existence, Southeastern Christian College was always small; it struggled to support itself with tuition, grants, and gifts from the churches that funded it. The college closed in 1979 for lack of funds.[2] Purchased by Clark County, Kentucky, most of the campus buildings have been demolished, but the site now serves as a municipal park, College Park.
Publications
The college published an annual yearbook, The Beacon (later renamed The Torch), of enrolled students.[11]
Winchester is a home rule-class city in and the county seat of Clark County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 18,368 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Lexington-Fayette, KY Metropolitan Statistical Area. Winchester is located roughly halfway between Lexington and Mt. Sterling.
Dispensationalism is a theological framework of interpreting the Bible which maintains that history is divided into multiple ages or "dispensations" in which God acts with his chosen people in different ways. The term "dispensationalism" is attributed to Philip Mauro, a critic of the system's teachings in his 1928 book The Gospel of the Kingdom.
The Restoration Movement is a Christian movement that began on the United States frontier during the Second Great Awakening (1790–1840) of the early 19th century. The pioneers of this movement were seeking to reform the church from within and sought "the unification of all Christians in a single body patterned after the church of the New Testament."
Premillennialism, in Christian eschatology, is the belief that Jesus will physically return to the Earth before the Millennium, heralding a literal thousand-year golden age of peace. Premillennialism is based upon a literal interpretation of Revelation 20:1–6 in the New Testament, which describes Jesus's reign in a period of a thousand years.
The Churches of Christ, most commonly known as the Church of Christ or church of Christ, is a loose association of autonomous Christian congregations. The Churches of Christ are represented across the world. Typically, their distinguishing beliefs are that of the necessity of baptism for salvation and the prohibition of instruments in worship. Many Churches identify themselves as being nondenominational. The Churches of Christ arose in the United States from the Restoration Movement of 19th-century Christians who declared independence from denominations and traditional creeds. They sought "the unification of all Christians in a single body patterned after the original church of the New Testament."
Christ Gospel Church is a fundamentalist, Pentecostal Christian denomination. It was founded in the 1950s by Berniece R. Hicks and fellow believers starting in a small Christian mission in Louisville, Kentucky.
The group of churches known as the Christian Churches and Churches of Christ is a fellowship of congregations within the Restoration Movement that have no formal denominational affiliation with other congregations, but still share many characteristics of belief and worship. Churches in this tradition are strongly congregationalist and have no formal denominational ties, and thus there is no proper name that is agreed to apply to the movement as a whole. Most congregations in this tradition include the words "Christian Church" or "Church of Christ" in their congregational name. Due to the lack of formal organization between congregations, there is a lack of official statistical data, but the 2016 Directory of the Ministry documents some 5000 congregations in the USA and Canada; some estimate the number to be over 6,000 since this directory is unofficial.
Amillennialism or amillenarism is a chillegoristic eschatological position in Christianity which holds that there will be no millennial reign of the righteous on Earth. This view contrasts with both postmillennial and, especially, with premillennial interpretations of Revelation 20 and various other prophetic and eschatological passages of the Bible.
John Franklyn Norris was a Baptist preacher and controversial Christian fundamentalist.
The Christian Connection was a Christian movement in the United States of America that developed in several places during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, composed of members who withdrew from other Christian denominations. It was influenced by settling the frontier as well as the formation of the new United States and its separation from Great Britain. The Christian Connection professed no creed, instead relying strictly on the Bible.
Portland Christian School, based in Louisville, Kentucky, United States, is a private Christian school traditionally supported and affiliated with those Churches of Christ which held to a premillennial eschatology characteristic of Robert Henry Boll. Founded in 1924 in the rear of the Portland Avenue Church of Christ in the Portland neighborhood with Boll's support, today the school system has over four hundred students at its campus on the east side of Louisville.
The Gospel Advocate is a religious magazine published monthly in Nashville, Tennessee for members of the Churches of Christ. The Advocate enjoyed uninterrupted publication since 1866 until the COVID-19 pandemic.
Robert Henry Boll was a German-born American preacher in the Churches of Christ. Boll is most known for advancing a premillennialist eschatology within the Churches of Christ, in articles written during his editorship of the front page of the Gospel Advocate from 1909 to 1915 and after 1915 in Word and Work, leading to a dispute which was a significant source of division within the Churches of Christ in the 1930s. Boll was one of the most influential advocates for the premillennial point of view, and was most singularly opposed by Foy E. Wallace Jr. By the end of the 20th century, however, the divisions caused by the debate over premillennialism were diminishing, and in the 2000 edition of the directory Churches of Christ in the United States, published by Mac Lynn, congregations holding premillennial views were no longer listed separately.
Foy Esco Wallace was an influential figure among American Churches of Christ in the early and mid-20th century. Through his writing and speaking, Wallace gathered a considerable following among that autonomous group of churches. His skilled use of logic, combined with his charisma, propelled him to the forefront of at least three major controversies in the Churches of Christ.
Dr. Charles Richard Brewer (1890–1971) was a notable professor, preacher, poet, and leader for the churches of Christ. Born in near Gimlet Creek in Giles County, Tennessee, Brewer's career included many publications, television and radio shows, and a reputation for biblical learning. His funeral in Nashville, TN, was attended by some 3,000 people. Brewer was named "Speaker of the Year" in his final year and eventually a "Lipscomb Legend" by the university. He was scheduled to speak at Pepperdine University, in April of his last year, where he was to receive the school's annual Most Distinguished Service Award. A belltower that was built on the campus of Lipscomb University in 1935 was dedicated to the memory of Charles R. Brewer after his death, and it continues to bear his name..
As of the 2010 census, the United States Commonwealth of Kentucky had an estimated population of 4,339,367, which is an increase of 297,174, or 7.4%, since the year 2000. Approximately 4.4% of Kentucky's population was foreign-born as of 2010. The population density of the state is 107.4 people per square mile.
Word and Work is a religious journal associated with those Churches of Christ that hold to a premillennial eschatology. It was founded in 1908 by Dr. David Lipscomb Watson.
Louisville Bible College is a private, co-educational college located in southeast Louisville, Kentucky, United States. It was founded in September 1948. LBC's mission is "to educate preachers and other Christian leaders for Christ's Church."
John William McGarvey was a minister, author, and religious educator in the American Restoration Movement. He was particularly associated with the College of the Bible in Lexington, Kentucky where he taught for 46 years, serving as president from 1895 to 1911. He was noted for his opposition to theological liberalism and higher criticism. His writings are still influential among the heirs of the conservative wing of the Restoration Movement, the Churches of Christ and Christian churches and churches of Christ.
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