Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Johnny Hunt's Growing Number of Doctorates

There have been a number of moderate Baptist bloggers who have giving attention to Johnny Hunt, newly elected president of the SBC. It seems, as you can see from my earlier post, that he is called "Dr." by admirers and is even introduced that way. However, he does not have an earned doctorate. His bio on his website only lists two honorary doctorates from diploma mills in Georgia.

But there is a new development this morning. It seems that during the night, his webmaster changed his bio on his website: http://www.itsanewdayonline.com/abouthunt/index.cfm

Now, he has three honorary doctorates. That's right! Overnight he gained a doctoral degree! Wow! That must be a record!

His bio now says that he now has honorary doctoral degrees not only from Covington Theological Seminary and Immanuel Theological Seminary (previously listed), but he has gained one from Tennessee Temple University in Chattanooga.

The question yet to be answered is when did he receive the Tennessee Temple degree? Robert Parham of the Baptist Center for Ethics has written a new editorial about this issue. http://www.ethicsdaily.com/article_detail.cfm?AID=10623 He is following the issue closely and has called Tennessee Temple to find out when they awarded the degree. No answer yet.

Tennessee Temple University is a school that originally was founded in the tradition of Bob Jones University. But, in recent years they have been trying to gain legitimacy and to a great extent have done so. Rumor is that they are trying to become a Tennessee Baptist Convention institution which would replace Belmont University which just recently left the TBC.

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