Frank Stagg (theologian)

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Frank Stagg (October 20, 1911 – June 2, 2001) was a Southern Baptist theologian, seminary professor, author, and pastor over a 50-year ministry career. He taught New Testament interpretation and Greek at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary from 1945 until 1964 and at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky from 1964 until 1978. His publications, recognitions and honors earned him distinction as one of the eminent theologians of the past century.[1][2] Other eminent theologians have honored him as a "Teaching Prophet."[3]

No one...has ever taken the New Testament more seriously than Frank Stagg, who spent his entire life wrestling with it, paying the price in sweat and hours in an unrelenting quest to hear the message expressed in a language no longer spoken and directed toward a cultural context so foreign to the modern reader.

— Malcolm Tolbert, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary[4]

Dr. Frank Stagg was born October 20, 1911, on his grandfather's rice farm near the small community of Eunice, Louisiana. Although the family name comes from an English ancestor, the Stagg family was of French Catholic descent, commonly called Cajuns. His grandfather and his uncle were the first of the Staggs to become Evangelical Christians. His uncle became a preacher who ministered in the native "Cajun" dialect. Frank was proud of his Louisiana French heritage and of his upbringing in the home of a Baptist deacon and Sunday School teacher.

In his junior year at Louisiana College, Frank met his wife: Evelyn Owen of Ruston, Louisiana, who would become an integral part of his future endeavors. They married in 1935 and raised three children.

Beliefs

Counted among the "best-known progressive activists,"[5] Stagg addressed a variety of contemporary issues. These included civil rights, gender equity, Vietnam, the First Gulf War, ecumenism and aging. He also argued for the Bible's relevance. "The Bible is relevant," Stagg said. "We don't have to make it relevant."[3] He said that the First Gulf War presented the ideal opportunity for Southern Baptists to "reassess and reject" the just war doctrine and embrace pacifism as the appropriate Christian response to all wars.[6] He opposed Reformed points of doctrine such as predestination and other Calvinist beliefs in Southern Baptist life.[7]

Library collection

Through the years, Dr. Stagg amassed an extensive library and wealth of knowledge and scholarship in the form of correspondence, writings, articles, speeches, commentaries, book reviews, photographs, sermon notes and even private musings. The papers of Dr. Frank Stagg (1938–1999) now reside at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama.

Recognition and honors

Frank Stagg is included in various lists of distinguished twentieth century Baptist theologians: E. Y. Mullins, W. T. Connor, W. O. Carver, Frank Stagg, W. W. Stevens, Dale Moody, Dallas Roark, James Wm. McClendon, Morris Ashcraft, E. Frank Tupper, Warren McWilliams, A. J. Conyers, and Curtis Freeman.[8] He also has been called "one of the foremost interpreters of the New Testament among Baptists in the twentieth century."[9]

At the Louisville seminary he held the James Buchanan Harrison Chair of New Testament Theology.

The Stagg-Tolbert Forum for Biblical Studies is an annual event named in his honor. It is designed to make excellence in biblical scholarship accessible to the lay person.[10]

Education

1934B. A. Louisiana College
1938Th.M., Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
1943Ph.D., Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
1955LL.D., Louisiana College
1948Advanced Study, Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York, New York
1953-54Advanced Study, University of Edinburgh, Scotland and University of Basel, Switzerland
1967-68Advanced Study, University of Tübingen, Germany

Professional

1941-44Pastor; First Baptist Church, DeRidder, Louisiana
1945-64Professor of New Testament and Greek; New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary
1964-77James Buchanan Harrison Professor of New Testament; The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
1977-82Senior Professor of New Testament; The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
1982Emeritus Professor; The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

Publications

References and notes

Further reading

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