Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary admits its first Muslim student [View all]

Greg Horton

(RNS) In the first instance of its kind, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, one of the Southern Baptist Convention’s schools, acknowledged it has admitted a Muslim to one of its doctoral programs.

Ghassan Nagagreh, a Palestinian Muslim, recently completed his first year of doctoral studies at the seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. Nagagreh, a Sunni Muslim, has worked with the seminary since 2008 as a volunteer on an archaeological site in Israel. He is pursuing a doctorate in archaeology.

“This young man asked about the Ph.D. program, and I told him we don’t normally admit non-born-again believers to the seminary, but there is no reason we can’t,” said Paige Patterson, Southwestern’s president.

Patterson said that as many as 80 people work on archaeological digs, and only about a quarter come from Southwestern, so it is not unusual to find students and volunteers from different schools and different faiths.

http://www.religionnews.com/2014/05/19/southwestern-baptist-theological-seminary-admits-first-muslim-student/