Introduction

Honoring President Ted Wardlaw

Someone who knows him well has said, “Ted’s whole life is an act of worship,” and so we present these reflections on President Theodore J. Wardlaw’s twenty-year tenure at Austin Seminary using the four-part structure of the Presbyterian Order of Worship: gathering, Word, Sacraments, sending. From the invitation to the community into the worship of God, through the proclamation of the Word and the stewardship of the mysteries of faith, culminating with the benediction and charge to go forth and share the Good News, may these ruminations on President Wardlaw’s leadership clearly demonstrate why we are profoundly grateful for his years with us.

I was chair of the Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary Presidential Search Committee that enthusiastically recommended Ted Wardlaw to be president of Austin Seminary in 2002. As we began our process, I reminded the members that Robert McAfee Brown (in The Bible Speaks to You) said: The Bible isn’t just another book “with a lot of interesting information about God. It is a book in which people find God ‘coming alive,’ making his way into their hearts, and demanding that they do something about him … We have to be prepared for surprises and unexpected news.”

How this committee was led to “surprises and unexpected news”! We set an ambitious goal to find leaders in the church who were recognized and respected by other leaders of the church. We aggressively tried to identify those people that would cause the collective voice of the church to say “Wow” if Austin Seminary could name as president any of those on the short list. Ted Wardlaw was on everyone’s “Wow” list.

Most of us did not know Ted Wardlaw. That year the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) elected a new moderator, Fahed Abu-Akel. In his nominating speech and later in his acceptance speech, the new moderator referred to Ted Wardlaw by name as a bridge-builder, one of two leaders in the Greater Atlanta Presbytery who helped find common ground for those who hold different views on the contentious issues of the church. The references were made as an example of how to achieve one of the new moderator’s three priority goals, Unity in Diversity.

I was on the three-member team that went to Atlanta to interview Ted Wardlaw to determine if we would invite him for a full committee interview. We met with him for lunch and had five plus hours of interview. Then in Dallas our committee met with him for four hours. In those almost ten hours I learned a lot about a person I had never met. In my opinion and in the opinion of many references, Ted Wardlaw had all of the qualities Austin Seminary needed for its leader as we entered our second century.

Windows interviewed Jack Stotts as he was leaving the Seminary presidency. In response to the question, In the grand scheme of theological education, where does Austin Seminary fit? Here is his answer: “Austin has a glorious future. In the year 2025 it will be looked at as exemplary. United States demographic trends are with us. The Presbyterian Church will find its strength in the Sun Belt of which we are a part. Population trends show people coming our way. Austin is an extremely attractive place to live and work. Theologically, we have a tradition of not being captured by either the right or left … Our faculty will continue to write, speak, publish, and serve the church.”

It is not yet 2025, but I believe Jack Stotts would say, “Amen. Ted Wardlaw has given exemplary leadership to Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary.”

– Max Sherman, Trustee Emeritus