IDENTITY AND DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS
While our programs and methods distinguish us to a large degree from other religious schools and seminaries, we freely identify ourselves with Ecclesiastical Landmarkism and the Doctrines of Grace.
In Baptist ecclesiology, Landmarkism is the term that has come to be used for the belief that the church Jesus instituted during his earthly ministry is always and only to be found in local visible assemblies of baptized (immersed) believers. We further hold that there has been an unbroken succession or continuity of this kind of church from that day down to the present and that this kind of church is only to be found today within the denomination called Baptist. It follows then, that the Baptists alone were granted the authority to carry out the work of the Great Commission to evangelize, baptize, teach, ordain, and constitute other local assemblies of like faith and order. Landmarkism stands for the complete rejection of the modern day universal invisible concept of the church in which all believers in Christ regardless of creed or church affiliation make up the one big “church.”
As to our soteriology, we hold to the Doctrines of Grace. To distinguish ourselves from forms of Arminianism, we place ourselves within a Calvinistic understanding of the Scriptures. While differences are to be expected within our faculty as to their understanding and application of these doctrines, we proudly identify and distinguish this institution with these two most important doctrines.
"FOR CHRIST AND THE CHURCH"
