182. Fundamental Footprints - Lee Roberson

For freedom, he set me free, not for chains, not for guilt, not for Pharisee. Grace lit the flame, now I'm puffing peace, cigars and victory justified, released. Welcome to the For Freedom Podcast. This podcast exists to bring the freedom of the gospel for everyday Christians with everyday issues. I ain't saved by dress codes, not by what I eat. I'm covered in the righteousness, washed from head to feet. No tally of tradition, no man-made code. Blood bought my freedom, now I ride that road. They clutch pearls when they see smoke rings rise. But my praise still ascends past the legalist cries. Christ plus nothing, that's the real math. So miss me with your fence laws and your extra path. He sat with sinners, I'm sitting with saints. Sipping grace from the bottle, no room for fakes. I light one for liberty, toast to the king. Every ash a sermon, death has lost its sting. For freedom, he set me free, not for chains, not for guilt, not for Pharisee. Grace lit the flame, now I'm puffing peace. Cigars and victory justified, released. For freedom, he set me free, not for chains, not for guilt, not for Pharisee. Grace lit the flame, now I'm puffing peace. Cigars and victory justified, released. Let grace begin. For freedom, you set me free. Not for change, not for guilt, not for Pharisee. Grace lit the flame. Now here are your hosts, James Seyfried and Brett Martin. Welcome back to the For Freedom podcast. We're so glad to be with you today. It's a wonderful day to be out in podcast land. And we've had some good interviews the past couple weeks, some good episodes. I've really, really been looking forward to it, to what we have coming forward. Looking very happy with what we've done. And James, how are you doing today? Man, I'm doing well. We had a great week and weekend at our church. We had a serve week, which we just service projects in North Carolina, where we go about doing some things in the community. We did a basketball camp, a volleyball camp, some service projects, some updating of some widows' houses and cleaning. We rebuilt our playground here at our church. And then we had our back-to-school bash this past Sunday. Had a great group from the community. Our church was there just right after the morning service. Lots of school supplies that were donated and just a good spirit around the church. And we had a great time looking forward to what the Lord's going to do in the future as school starts back, as public schools start back, as we've got games that are coming up. It's always an exciting time to be in the schools. I like to be in there. We do a Wednesday prayer meeting before schools every Wednesday. And it's a great time to just be a part of the kids' lives. Good News Club coming up. Being there with the young elementary kids. And just excited about that. That, our kids have started back at school. And that's always a breath of fresh air for me when they start back. My schedule opens up a little bit. But, man, we're still wide open. Counseling sessions daily. And just have a lot going. And always appreciate our listeners and those that tune in and listen every week faithfully. We appreciate your feedback. We appreciate your comments. The messages that you send us. It's always great. But, Brett, speaking of messages, we've got a couple. We want to do a couple of reviews. We did this a long time ago. Me and John did. Just a couple of our iTunes podcast, Apple podcast ratings. And when you leave a review, we do like to look at it. Sometimes we fail to look at it. It's not one of the things we go to every day. But it does help us out if you do leave a review. I prefer to leave a five-star review or a one-star review. And then tell us what's going on. Tell us what you think. Two, three, four stars. They don't really do much for us. But the ones and the fives, they help us in our ratings up or down. So, help us out by doing that. If you've never given us a review, go by, click on that five or one-star, however you appreciate our thoughts on it. And we'll go through these. Brett, how about I start with one and then you can go to one and then we'll go through a couple more. This one is by a person named Finding Normal. I don't know who Finding Normal is. Hopefully, you're listening. Hopefully, you haven't tuned us out. Apparently, they left an original review that was maybe a five-star. They went back in. They reverted this review and they made it a two-star review. The original review read as this. And this is how they labeled it, original review. I was moved by the host story when he started it on another podcast. This was John back with Eric Skorzynski. Having experienced something familiar and similar, we just discovered the podcast. We can't stop listening. The episodes covering the history of the IFB are crucial to understanding the issues we're facing today. A much-needed message. Keep up the good work. I think we've kept up the good work and I appreciate that. But then there's an updated review. The updated review, it says, no different than the IFB. I'm grieved and disheartened by this podcast. It's no longer a safe space for spiritual abuse survivors. The focus seems to shift, not in a good way, around the time it became part of the RFP network. The episodes about biblical counseling especially were eye-opening. A lot of problematic beliefs were exposed in those episodes. Beliefs exactly like the IFB from which they claim to be so different. They may not have legalistic standards about dress or music, but they hold the same toxic core beliefs. We'll unpack that here in just a minute. If the host reads this, which this is the first time I'm reading this, I'm sorry. I ask you, please, if you really care about helping hurting people, read The Body Keeps the Score, which I've read. It helps you understand trauma as well as Rebecca Davis' Untwisting Scripture books and her blog, HearsTheJoy.com, for a better understanding of why the counseling you advocate is so dangerous and actually enables wickedness. Well, Brett, that's a long review. We've actually brought on Rebecca Davis. Did not even read this. Did not read this, not knowing we were recommended by someone to reach out to her. And so we did, and she came on. We shared with her some of our counseling background, and she didn't tell us anything that our counseling background, John's counseling background was wickedness. I think she would have if it was. And so confused on that. And then the biblical counseling narrative that we have, just the newtetic counseling, I think it does have a bad rap at times. People do have that. I believe it was Jack Howes that used the term newtetic counseling and biblical counseling. And that's where sort of this, the drift away. I just had a meeting just today with a lady. I opened up to Psalms 57. We walked through Psalms 57 on David's repentant heart, how he was seeking the Lord in safety and refuge. And we just walked through the principles of Psalms 57. That's biblical counseling. It's taking scripture. It's applying it to our life. And it's helping and giving hope and help. And so that's really the core of what we do. And while we do it, we just use the Bible as our core belief doctrine to help people. So finding normal. I hate that this is there. Reach out to me, james.safe.gmo.com. Shoot me a call, 828-929-9144. We'd love to hear from you or talk to you or maybe discuss some of these things with you. But I'm sorry you gave us a two-star review. Brett, what's your thoughts? What's another one? Or maybe your thoughts on that? Well, you know, it seems like, you know, like the IFE stuff. But when you got into the, they're saying when you got into the counseling, they had a problem with that. Well, you know, I mean, I agree with everything that you're saying. You know, we're pastors. We're supposed to use the Bible to counsel with. But the difference is, I think you have to know that when it's time to pass somebody on. Like, if you come across a situation and you can please speak to this, you're probably more qualified to speak to it than me. But when you counsel someone and you come across a situation you're not qualified to handle ethically, it's ethically you're to pass that person on to somebody that is qualified. And just because you're a pastor doesn't mean you're, you know, you may be, you know, unless you have a specific training that you're, you know, that you're able to counsel every single situation. And I think people abuse that. You got pastors out here that are saying, hey, you know, I've, you know, I can counsel everything that you've got, every problem you have. And ethically, you know, when you have the right training, you pass someone on that's beyond your expertise. Is that correct? Yeah, I think there's, there's times for that. Right now in my ministry, I've never encountered that situation where I've had to pass them to someone else. I do believe that the scripture is enough for, for all the problems of life and what we go through. And so having scripture to bounce back on and the wisdom of the Lord, the wisdom of Solomon and David are positive or great things for us to do and to have. So I know there's times where there's, there's children and adults that have been hurt in different situations. And, and sometimes there is an appropriate time to seek a different trained counselor, someone that can help them in different situations. Maybe has specialization in, in, in a specific area. But, but yeah, I think that, that definitely we've got to have biblical counseling in our lives as Christians. We've got to go to the appropriate spiritual authorities. I always recommend everyone going to your own pastor first and having him help you, having him give advice and wisdom before seeking counsel somewhere else. That's the spiritually man that, that God's put in your life. And you need to respect that and respect that authority that's there. So yeah. All right. Well, let's go on to our next comment. This is by KB ship. And here, here it is. It's a one star review. All right. I don't get this podcast. Here's some biblical advice on how to live your life. Oh, but please buy our cigars that will potentially kill you as well. Make it make sense, man. We should just shut the shop down. Shouldn't we change? Yeah. You know, I'm, I'm not going to ride in my vehicle anymore because I could potentially die in a car accident. Um, don't want to make light of, of KB ship either, but I mean, I think that the whole, for me, and I, I, I do apologize if I come across in the mocking tone, I didn't mean to. Uh, but the, the thing for me is that, you know, our whole episode, I mean, our whole podcast is about the liberty we have in Christ. Mm-hmm. That, that, that's what it's about. That we, we're, we're not under the law. We're not under these man-made laws. We're under scripture. And the scripture, uh, you know, defines what we do and don't do and not man-made tradition or somebody's preference. And I think that, you know, showcasing our liberty in the, in like the cigars is something that, you know, scripture allows us to do. And that's the, that's the kind of the point of what we're doing. Do you agree? Yeah, I agree. And, uh, it's an opportunity that, that arose for us and, um, I don't, I don't have any, I've been smoking cigars since I was, uh, 18, 19, 20 years old. Um, and so I've always enjoyed it. It's just a sort of a little, uh, pastime that I've enjoyed. My, my grandfather did a pipe and a cigars often eventually went into cigarettes, but, uh, I don't, I say this often. I don't have an addictive personality. Um, there are people that naturally are addicted to things. Um, I could put down cigars and I've, I've went years without smoking before. Um, and so I think that it's, it's knowing who you are. If you have addictive personalities, Hey, don't do things that are addictive in nature. Um, and knowing who you are and what you are, um, are great things. Uh, long leaf premium tobacco cigars are very, very unlikely. There are chances, anything you, you eat the wrong food, you can get cancer and it can kill you. Um, so I'm not saying there's not a possibility for smoking cigars to get cancer or getting sick. Um, but I think there's wisdom and guidance and using those things. Um, and anything in excess and it can be bad. That's the, that's kind of the point of scripture is trying to tell us. Yeah. And, you know, for me, I did struggle a little bit. Hey, you know, is this, is this something, whatever. And I talked to my wife about it and she said, James, you are very high strung. I've got lots of energy. Um, she said, this is something that an hour of your day, if you can, you know, get away for an hour, you're going to on purpose, slow down. And so take that time. I think this is hobbies that are good for us to, uh, expend. You know, some people do golf, some people do hunting, fishing, whatever it may be. These are ways where we can decompress as men that have a good community that we can talk together. And I think that's what it's more about. It's more about using this as a tool to disciple one another, to evangelize, to tell people about the gospel. Um, I've never went to a lounge and never shared, never not share the gospel with someone. Uh, inevitably in that hour conversation, someone's going to ask, what do you do for a living? And I say, I'm a pastor. And we begin talking about, you know, they'll ask a theological question and I get to share the gospel with them. We're stuck there for an hour. Like they can get up and move and someone else come and talk. And so, um, I think it's a good tool, good Avenue. And for us, it's a good way for us to be able to, um, support the podcast and, and make just a little bit of money. Not we're not rolling in the dough by any means, uh, just a way to, to support some of the expenses that we do have. Exactly. I agree. Yeah. Hey, we'll read a positive one here. It says, thank you for having the courage to address this issue. This was a year ago. Uh, I may have been while we were in Nicaragua because it's a who hermano in the Cristo. So, uh, uh, your brother in Christ is what that translates to. And so, uh, grateful for that. And I did have one more two years ago, um, that I wanted to read. It was, uh, uh, by CJ knob IL. And, uh, this one, it says two star review. It says the beginning of this podcast is really great. The insights to the beginning of the IFB and Baptist secessionism are suburb. Unfortunately, things go downhill. I'm glad they did the episodes on biblical counseling recently. It makes perfectly clear whether or not a safe environment for survivors and spiritual abuse. They may understand legalism, but they don't understand the deep effects of God and the Bible being used to traumatize people. I do believe that that's there when, when scripture is used to bow, breed people, when it's used in the counseling room, it can definitely be a struggle. Um, and so that's, that's part of working through that. They're also continuing to perpetrate a lot of harmful IFB theology, despite standing against legalism. And then the last statement, which sort of just stood out to me as well from the last one. I'm not sure why perhaps doing the RFP network has gotten them off in the wrong direction or providing too much external control of their content. Perhaps it's just getting comfortable with familiar teaching without questioning their assumptions enough. Um, to go back, the RFP never dictated what we could and couldn't do or say, uh, both these comments came at the same time. So I don't know if it was something when the RFP network had some skiff and rough up that, uh, people were just uncomfortable with maybe with church split and all that. We're not going to rehash it, but, um, there, um, the RFP is no more. The, the network is no more and, uh, excited about what JC is going to be doing with his new podcast. Um, and, uh, the other side of that is, uh, we're potentially going to be joining a new network. Um, a guy has reached out to me, Mark Goodson about, uh, possibly joining a new podcast network. And so we're praying about that, looking it over and, uh, excited about what the Lord's going to do in the future. And, uh, so Brett, uh, we've got some things coming up. That's the reviews we've got, um, on iTunes, on, on, uh, Apple podcasts, go by, give us a review. Maybe we'll read it in two or three years when we get back to doing that. Um, Brett, what else we got going on? We got some, let's see, don't forget about Israel. We have never stopped planning on going to Israel. We still have our trip going. Uh, it seems like we're going to be going the same time as our buddy Marcus Merrick. So we might, you know, hook up with him while we're there. Um, but it's, you know, January, uh, let's see, it's the end of January, beginning of February. And I've got the dates up right here. No, I don't, but, uh, we'll look those up for you and we'll, we'll make those available to you January 30th through February 7th. Okay. Yes. And we are, uh, we are going to the Holy land and we want you to come with us. We've got our links and our website up our trip website up with the payment plan. Listen, things are safe. We've contacted people, uh, their tours on the ground right now. Uh, there's, there's no, there's nothing to worry about. Uh, things are safe and the, the country is open. And I'm telling you with, with, uh, the government that we've got in place now is probably some of the best time to go right now to Israel. And so, listen, we want you to go. It's something that you're going to, uh, never regret that you did. It's going to be, you know, you're going to spend the money and it's going to be totally worth it. Uh, so if you're interested in going to the Holy land, uh, hit us up, uh, check out our website on it, check out our trip, see what we have planned. Uh, check out our itinerary for what we're going to do. It's going to be a great time. Uh, it's going to bring your Bible to life. It's going to go from black and white to color. You'll never read your Bible or listen to preaching again. These places that are preached about you, you will have been there. You will have seen it. I'll give you an example. Me and my family, before we, uh, get to season five of the chosen, which I love the chosen. We're going back and starting from the beginning and rewatching the show up until season five. And last night we watched the episode where Jesus went to Nazareth. He's preaching in the synagogue and they take him up to the cliff and they're going to throw him off the cliff. And I told my boys, I've stood on that cliff. You know, it's not the exact same cliff that is shown in the show, but the actual cliff that they were going to throw Jesus off of me and James stood on. And it's called Mount precipice and you're looking out over the Jezreel Valley and listen, it's an amazing thing. You're not going to miss it. Come to Israel with us. Yeah, it's going to be great. Can't wait. I'm excited about it. And I hope you can join us. If you've got questions about it, shoot us a message. Um, or just go to our, our website. We've got all the details there with the password where you can go and check that out. Um, Brett, we've also, we talked about it for a bit. We won't talk about it much, but we've got some cigars and, uh, we'd love for you to support us, um, and go to our website. You can get the link there of, of what they are and how they are. And, uh, we appreciate all the ones that have bought in the past and have enjoyed supporting us. And, uh, then we've also, I've got a conference in September, September 11th, 12th and 13th in, uh, in, uh, Tullahoma, Tennessee, uh, which is right beside where John lives. And so I'm going to be going there. If you're in the Tennessee area that time, we're going to be setting up a booth. We'll have our products on the table. We'll have our newest released book out. Uh, we're going to have some exclusive signed copies while we're there with me and John. So he's going to sign it and we'll have those for sale. Uh, if you haven't checked out our book, go check it out on Amazon. It would be a great resource for you. If you are someone who has struggled with leaving the IFB or know someone who's currently struggling in that process, title of the books from brokenness to freedom. Um, how to find hope and healing and renewal, uh, in the journey forward from that. And so go by, check it out from brokenness to freedom. And, uh, I've got ebook hardback. I'm sorry, hardback and paperback. You can go and check that out. And I know it'd be a great resource for you. Um, I appreciate the feedback from those who have purchased it and reached out to me. Uh, several people have reached out and said, Hey, they appreciate it. And so thank you for that. Um, Brett, anything else we've got coming up? Uh, nothing comes to mind. What do we got? All right. That's all. I just, that's all. I think we're going to go. Let's jump into today's episode. And today we're going to be tracing the steps of the story of Tennessee Temple University, Highland Park Baptist Church, and its founder, Dr. Lee Robertson, uh, this school of ministry that left a huge, huge mark on the IFB landscape. Um, Lee Robertson was one of those heroes of mine three to thrive and then his voice, you know, it was just great, uh, to hear that. Uh, my pastor, Eric Pacey there, I went to college at, he was one of those students under Lee Robertson and he had him come in during those early years of gospel light. Um, and he could, man, he could mimic Lee Robertson three to thrive. I tell you what, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, he could just say it perfectly. Just like Lee Robertson, um, uh, Lee had him come in and preach a lot. Um, and so I had a lot of those sec third hand stories of Lee Robertson, uh, while I was in Bible college, but never, never was around him, never knew him in that way. Just always heard stories. And I know you've got some stuff, so we're going to share some things today and I hope you enjoy it. Right. And like I said, we're not going to just talk about the college. Uh, we're going to look at his influence through the South wide Baptist fellowship and ultimately what led to Tennessee temples closure, which, uh, my pastor growing up and my, uh, my youth pastor growing up graduated from Tennessee temple. Okay. Yeah. Um, I'm going to read a portion here of our, um, show notes. I found this, this past week, as we were studying and, and getting ready for this episode, um, said that the, we're willing to tie in from J Frank Norris to Lee Robertson and what that looks like as we walk through this. Um, it says as the national movement of the IFB returned to a biblical model, in their opinion, uh, the group began a natural fragmentation due to the varying doctrine and dogma of the various denominations, even among the independent Baptist, there was a great division. You had the Southern Baptist and the American Northern Baptist that had began to split in the SBC. Um, and this is where the began to talk about it says the Baptist had their split long ago, mainly over slavery, which was the Northern and Southern Baptist convention. J Frank Norris, as he left the convention, he was an SBC guy. You can go back and check out some of our earlier works. Uh, he started what was called the BBF, the Baptist, the Bible Baptist fellowship. Uh, Bob Keachum, he started the guard, the general association of regular Baptist. Myron Cedar home started the CBA and Lee Robertson started what was called the South wide Baptist fellowship. Jack Howells wrote in his book that he was 75% SBF South wide Baptist fellowship and 25% BBF, the Bible Baptist fellowship under J Frank Norris. John Rice was the one that came in and we talked about John Rice on some of our previous episodes as well. And he bridged the gap among these Baptist groups of non-denominational fundamentalists. Uh, Billy Graham went a step further and was calling for all these groups to unite once again in citywide campaigns. This was whole, Billy Graham's whole thing. When his, uh, he was doing, going through that among the Southern Baptist, there were the key players. Um, and you may not know this, but these key players led to the modern movement. So J Frank Norris, Jack Howells and Lee Robertson were all part of the Southern Baptist convention. They were all pastoring SBC churches and all three of them had gotten kicked out of the SBC because of, uh, various different things. J Frank Norris was loved the convention, um, and gotten kicked out because he did not agree with the way the funds were. Jack Howells and Lee Robertson did not fund and did not give to the convention. So therefore they voted to, uh, dismember them during their times. Uh, all three of them, they were voted out by their, not for their own choices to participate in the, uh, in the SBC program. So what this eventually led to was demoralizing for each of these leaders. Lee Robertson would go on to start his own fellowship of churches, the South wide Baptist fellowship that we're going to talk about later. Jack Howells seemed to harbor resentment. And again, this is an article that I'm reading. I didn't know Jack Howells, uh, Jack Howells seemed to harbor resentment toward the SBC and would not claim to ever have started another denomination or fellowship. Lee Robertson had already built the largest Sunday school in the world. And then I read this by one author, um, in one of my studies, he said that if Jack Howells or Lee Robertson were alive today and they were going into ministry to an SBC church, he believed they would not have left the SBC because it's more conservative now than it was then. Uh, this was by James Wickton, um, on page 233 of Lee Robertson, always about his father's business. Now, Brad, I understand that you've had some experience with Lee Robertson. There's a book that you've got and some time with camp joy. Uh, we'll turn this over to you for this moment as we begin jumping through this before we get into the early life of Lee Robertson. Yeah. Like I said, I, I, Lee Robertson indirectly influenced my upbringing in, in, in, I would say in a good way, uh, both my pastor growing up and my youth pastor growing up, uh, both are Tennessee temple graduates spoke very highly of Lee Robertson. In fact, I've, when I went to house Anderson, um, I heard Lee Robertson preach. Um, we started a camp at our church called camp joy. And the reason why is because of, you know, Lee Robertson started a camp called camp joy. And I want to read the history of camp joy real quick, because it, it means a lot to so many people. Camp joy began in 1946. Dr. Lee Robertson, the pastor of Highland park Baptist church purchased 66 acres in Harrison, Tennessee at a government auction. The camp was named after his baby daughter, joy, who had died of crib death. Dr. Robertson called camp joy, the place where boys and girls begin to live. 10 weeks of summer camp was held each summer from 1946 until a tornado destroyed much of the campus in the spring of 2013. Over the years, thousands of campers came from the tri-state area each summer, free of charge for one week of camp. The camp would alternate boys and girls week. The camp presently is able to host day camps and also host skateboarding Saturdays. We hope to reestablish overnight camping and retreats in the future. And I'll tell you, we had a camp joy at our church because of Lee Robertson and because of camp joy. And it was some of the best times that I had growing up. And I actually have a book here in my office, Lee Robertson wrote, and it's called preaching to America. And what Lee Robertson did is that, of course, this is a collection of sermons that he wrote on the country. But what he did is he went to all of his alumni's churches, all the people that have graduated from Tennessee Temple. He went to all of his, all of those churches, all of his graduates churches. And you can look in the back of the book and it's got years. And under each year is the city and state that he went to. And on page, if you have the book, Preaching to America on page 211, and I've got it highlighted here. It says Macomb, Mississippi. And that is, is the church that I grew up in. And what I want to do is I want to read the preface and introduction of this book. They're very brief, but they're written by Lee Robertson himself. And so this is the preface of the book. I have two purposes in my entire ministry of 71 years. My first purpose has been to win souls. Without Christ, men are lost and held down. I've wanted to tell them that the only way of salvation is trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior. As a result, I have had the joy of seeing thousands saved. The second purpose of my ministry has been to help Christians grow in grace and become mature, worthwhile servants of our Lord. In my pastures, I have watched many babes in Christ become useful, happy Christians. In addition to the work of Highland Park Baptist Church in Chattanooga, we established Tennessee Temple Schools in 1946 for the purpose of teaching and training men and women to be useful servants of the Lord. In my ministry, in hundreds of churches, in all parts of America, and in many foreign lands, I have maintained my dual purpose to win souls and to train Christians for useful service. And the introduction, just a couple paragraphs, says, I was 18 years old, timid and fearful when I preached my first sermon in a small country church outside of Jefferson Town, Kentucky. I had typed the message on green typing paper and had planned to read it. But a strong breeze through an open window scattered the pages all over the floor of the little chapel. I was left with only the Bible before me. I struggled through the first few sentences and then quickly pronounced the benediction. That was the beginning 71 years ago. My heart is overwhelmed with gratitude for the blessings of God throughout all these years. I pray that the message of this book will challenge, bless, and encourage many hearts. You know, James, I've got a special place in Lee Roberson because of my upbringing. I was so thankful that when I went to Howell's Anderson, I was able to sit under his preaching. I remember this one, you know, very old fashioned Lee Roberson. He carried a briefcase with all of his sermons in there. And I remember we were honoring him one day at Howell's and they gave him a digital Bible, you know, a little handheld digital Bible. And he just shook his head. No, he was just like, I don't like this. Like the whole time they were giving him the digital Bible, he was just shaking his head like he did not approve. And I remember it wasn't long after that, somebody stole his briefcase with all of his sermons in it. And he was so distraught after that. Years and years of his life was taken away. But I did respect Lee Roberson. I looked and I definitely looked up to him. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's great. And that's one of the things, you know, there wasn't a scandal that we could find for TCU or any type of, you know, hurt. We'll talk about later. He was more of the soft separatist. He was the guy that didn't call out guys like the Tony Hudson and Jack Howes that would call out guys. He was more of the, hey, let's come together for a belief and for unity. And so we'll see some of that. But we started talking about his early life. And so let's jump into sort of going back before Tennessee Temple, before Highland Park, the man behind it all. Before he was Dr. Lee Robertson and just young Lee Robertson. Brett, he wasn't exactly a big city preacher. What was he? Where was he at? No, it wasn't big city at all. Lee Robertson was born in 1909 in rural Indiana and actually grew up on a farm. His early years were marked by hard work, long days, and a simple lifestyle. And it's just kind of a world away from the massive ministry that one day he would be over and would lead. Yeah. It reminds me a lot of Billy Graham and some of these guys who just worked on the farm and just lots of rural life and just their upbringing they had. How did that farm upbringing shape him in his life? Well, you know, the discipline, the work ethic, the sense of responsibility he learned as a boy. You could just see that carry through his whole life. I mean, another thing happened early on. He showed a real gift for music. And before he was known as a preacher, he was actually known as a singer. Yeah, absolutely. He was involved in church music from a young age. He actually opened the doors. You may not know this, Brett, but he actually got an offer to sing and travel with a group. And he turned it down because he said it would interfere with his public speaking because he knew he was called to preach. And so he turned that down and chose to go in that way. I don't have a singing voice, but I have to leave music here. And so, yeah, I could definitely understand that. Right. His faith became personal when he committed his life to Christ. Not long after that, he sensed God calling him to preach. He decided to pursue formal Christian education. You know, that was a big step for a farm kid, James. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, as he was going through that training early in his life, he had pastored a couple of small churches. And then the early call to come set the foundation for him to be at Highland Park. And eventually the creation of Tennessee Temple University and the network of ministries that followed that. To the best of my knowledge and the way I could see this is I believe that Tennessee Temple was actually called Southeastern First. And that was the Southern Baptist Institute there that he had started. And then they later changed it to TTU, Tennessee Temple College and the university. And I believe around 46, 48 is when they left the convention or when he was disbanded from the convention. And so what happened is, is now he's in Highland Park Baptist Church. He became the pastor there in 1942. And to say it lightly, this wasn't a powerhouse church. This wasn't a church that was bringing in thousands and thousands of people, was it, Brett? No, it was a struggling church in Chattanooga, Tennessee with fewer than 200 members. But Brother Robertson had a vision and organization. And under his leadership, the church just kind of exploded in growth. Yeah. It wasn't just a Sunday preaching. He began to build a ministry ecosystem, a way that's and bring people in. Exactly. I mean, Sunday school, bus ministries, music programs, evangelistic outreach. Highland Park became one of the largest churches in the South, drawing thousands every week. Yeah. Robertson, he'd set his sights far beyond just a big congregation. He wanted a place where he could begin training the next generation of pastors, missionaries, and even Christian workers. He wanted to have this platform to be able to expand his reach and be able to expand the gospel in ways that we would never see, other than what we would see as like a house or something, which eventually led him to directly founding the college, Tennessee Temple University in 1946. Now, DTU started small, but it quickly became a hub for conservative Baptist training. And its influence spread nationally through graduates who went out into the ministry. And as we just see, this book that I read, and you go through all these different churches where he went to the churches of his graduates, these churches are spread out all over the country. Yeah. Yeah. And then what we begin to see here is now there's a church that is bringing in hundreds and hundreds and thousands of people, very large. I believe one number was 56,000 people at one time were coming to the church, bringing in just explosive growth with everything that was going on. And the college has now started and it's doing well. We're seeing great things happen. And so naturally this leads to sort of its own little mini denomination. And they called it the Southwide Baptist Fellowship. That was the Bible Baptist Fellowship. And so we're, hey, that was sort of middle of the range. J. Frank Norris had taken that and it was sort of in the north. Hey, let's do something in the south with Southwide Baptist Fellowship. And that started in 1956, 10 years after the college was founded, and it started right there at Highland Park Baptist Church. Right. Robertson, along with John R. Rice, gathered churches that shared a fundamentalist separatist vision. He gave pastors a network for support and accountability. He was kind of the king of soft separatism in the IFB movement. Everything was kept positive and upbeat. No, you mentioned earlier, a lot of these other guys and Jack Kyle and some of these other guys, they were loud. They would, you know, call you out. That wasn't Lee Robertson style at all. Yeah. If you remember back in our previous works of J. Frank Norris and John R. Rice, they worked together and they did a lot of things together. But there was a break in their relationship. They began writing about each other and crucifying each other in their periodicals. And so what happened was, is J. Frank Norris and John R. Rice, when that division happened, now John R. Rice begins to team up with Lee Robertson. And they formed this break of the Bible Baptist Fellowship, the Southwide Baptist Fellowship. And it became a different IFB circle. It was less about personality cults. Most of these were, hey, let's bring the biggest guys in. It's got the biggest followings in and let's give them the platform. And they're going to build this entity around who they are. It was more about a shared vision of church collaboration. They really took what I believe, as I've been doing this study, more of the SBC mindset and model of, hey, let's get these associations together. Let's get these Baptist state conventions together. And let's let some guys collaborate on what's going on. And let's do it less about big time preacher people. A couple of years ago, I believe it was California. They did the pastor's conference and the guy got up and he said, I just want to do a pastor's conference where everyone I bring up is just a no name, bivocational guy. And he said, they told me that no one's going to come to this if I do this. It's got to be the big name guys. And that year was probably one of the outside of this last year of the pastor's conference was probably one of those years that blessed my soul more than any other one. Because these are just random guys that you've never heard of that are speaking at the national platform. And they could relate. They could tell me, hey, I know what it's like to have a church member come into my office and just break down because their marriage isn't going well. Or they've got a kid that's that's living in sin. Like these are these are everyday people, everyday pastors that are dealing with the same thing we are. And that's what Southwide Baptist Fellowship was about. It was this church collaboration of shared vision. And it also created a pipeline of students and pastors for Temple helping college thrive for decades, really. Yeah, absolutely. They used it as a way to bring in college pastors and presidents and different things. So the challenges and the decline, because we know that if you know anything about Southwide Baptist Fellowship and Island Park Baptist Church, neither one of them are around anymore today. And so what the school with such a great legacy and such a huge platform, they eventually face some challenges. Brett, what are some of those challenges? Well, after Robertson retired in 1983, Tennessee Temple experienced some leadership transitions, and there were some alumni that felt that the leaders that came up didn't fully maintain the original mission and identity of the of the of the school. Absolutely right. We've got to go further to the right. We've got to go further, more conservative. If if Lee Robertson said we can't do these three things, well, we've got to add three more to these things. Right. That's how legalism works. You've got to add more and add more and add more. Well, what happened was, is they also had some financial struggles that began to compound and become to have problems. They did a direct mail campaign once they aimed to raise two million dollars. Now, that's a big goal. Two million dollars. This statistic here blew my mind when I read this and I saw this. This two million dollar campaign to raise money for the college and the church to continue what they were doing. It yielded a grand total of sixty five thousand dollars. That's pretty that's pretty low, Brett. Exactly. Maybe in its heyday it could have done that. But sixty five thousand is a low number. But not only that, enrollment plummeted. You know, there were four thousand students in the early 80s and by 2013, attendance had dropped down to four hundred and attempts to relocate to a new campus fell through because once again, they couldn't raise the necessary funds. Yeah. Now we've also got the broader cultural and theological shifts. The IFB world was changing and is always changing. These younger generations, they weren't as attracted to the TTT, TTU's strict or traditionalist approach. They were looking for some some linear, less rigid in that area. I see this even today. We're looking at my home church. You know, it's it's declining and struggling because people are just not looking for that rigid legalism anymore in these young families. Exactly. And by 2015, the decision was made to merge with Piedmont International University, now Carolina University. So TTU closes doors after nearly 70 years. Yeah. Now, Brett, I've got some connections with Piedmont University and Carolina University. It's actually just right down the street from my church, about 30 or 40 minutes away. They're actually doing some pretty big things right now with Carolina University. And so I believe TTU grads can have some benefits of that. But Piedmont University used to be a massive powerhouse. They went through some struggles of identity and just international stuff. But now they've rebranded. They've bought a massive building, college dormitory. It's doing really great. But what I wanted to bring back to and the reason why I read that opening, if you've stuck with this this long, is in 2008, Highland Park Baptist Church sort of went back to its roots after some 50 some years of being away from the SBC. They actually became an SBC church again. And this is part of leading to the decline. Now they've re-bought back into the SBC mindset. So now all these IFB people that they were training were coming and they were like, hey, you guys have changed. We can really, Lee Robertson really didn't change a lot of who he was from the SBC era. The convention had just become more conservative. In 2013, they changed the name of the Church of the Highlands. They dropped the SBC title. They became a non-denominational church. They sold their property. They moved to a different location. Now Scott McCurdy is the pastor. He is a TTU alumni. And he's also a Word of Life alumni. And we're going to have on next week an alumni of TTU. You may have heard of him. His name is JC Groves. And he's going to come on and share his time and story with us then. But looking back, Brett, what do you think we take away from Robertson and TTU? Well, they built the model of integrated church college ministry that influenced generations, influenced a lot of people. But it's also a reminder that leadership, culture, and financial sustainability are absolutely critical. These are things we can't overlook. Yeah. Yeah. You know, even though TTU's gone, you can look around and you can see, I mean, even in our world and where we're at, the alumni network, the Southwide Baptist Fellowship, the ministries that it began, inspired and remains even lasting legacies. I mean, even that Carolina University would bring in TTU because of that alumni network is great. And you begin to even see the influence of Lee Robertson that still has massive influence on people around. Listen, I talk to Southern Baptist pastors all the time that don't know anything about independent fundamental Baptists. They don't know anything about Jack House. A lot of them do, but most of them don't. But they know Lee Robertson and they know Tennessee Temple. Yeah. So that just goes to show you how much influence that they did have. And, you know, you know, this this is a story of vision, influence and the inevitability of change. And Lee Robertson, he made an impact. I know he made an impact on my life indirectly. And, you know, that's just kind of it's so interesting to just follow the story through the years. And you've got this great man. You've got this great church. You've got this great school. And I say great as in they've had a lot of influence over the years. Of course, we don't want to promote the legalistic standards and whatnot. But Lee Robertson, he was a horse of a different color. He wasn't like the other guys. Yeah. And I can I can confidently say that. He wasn't. Go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. Even what you're saying with I mean, he he built through his vision and through his just legacy that he had. I mean, before Jack Howells had the largest Sunday school book written about him by Stetzer, Lee Robertson had the largest Sunday school in America. At one point in America, Lee Robertson had the largest church in America, according to historical records that we found. And so, I mean, he he had a big impact. Um, now, 40 years at one church is another huge impact. And that's a legacy. And then after 40 years there, he preaches on the road as an evangelist for 30 or 40 years. I mean, he he's taking his message and, and hopefully, you know, he left at the right time and there should have been some things that were set up. But, um, unfortunately it didn't. And now it's no longer there. The church of the Highlands is there and, um, and they're, they're doing some things there with Scott McCurdy. Um, but that, that's what we've got today for you. Uh, looking forward, like I said, next week, we'll have, uh, JC Groves coming on, uh, talk about his time at TTU and his time as Lee Robertson's personal driver and assistant. Um, if you've not heard his backstory, um, and his time, we've, we've interviewed him a couple of times. So you can go back and listen to those episodes. Um, but we're excited about having him come on and then the week after that, Brett, we're having our final of the fundamental footprints. We're going to be talking through, um, four main people that were big time IFP guys. Um, and then we've got a guy coming on. That was a, um, direct influence under Lester Roloff and Peter Ruckman. He had his foot in both sides of that and he's going to come on and share his time. He was one of the roll off home directors. Um, I'm excited about that interview with him. Um, and then Brett, we're going to go into the future of fundamentalism. I'm excited about this. Oh man. We've got an interview in the chamber. It's burning a hole. We're ready to post it, but we got to wait, man. You're going to be excited to hear this interview. Yeah. Brett keeps asking me, Hey, is it ready? Can we go ahead and put it? We're getting there and we'll let you know about that. Uh, but future fundamentalism, we're going to go through some guys that are currently on the scene in fundamentalism. And, and then we're going to jump back to, uh, after that, the camp meeting of fundamentalism and talk through some camp meeting. Um, and hopefully that'll end our fundamentalism side of it. Um, got some good things planned for next year that we're already got in the chamber that we're working on. Um, talking about a couple of different things. And so, um, hopefully this has been a blessing to you. Hopefully you've enjoyed this as always go and leave a rating and review, share this if it's helped you. Um, and so hopefully until next time you enjoy what we've put out and, uh, to God be the glory. Great things. He has done. Found my new name. Found that good grace. Found that healing. And the tears fell down my face. When I found my beginning. Has no ending. Found that second chance. Found my best friend. Found my forgiveness. Found my happiness. I've been singing ever since. Found my freedom in you. Thanks for listening to the For Freedom Podcast. If you enjoyed our content, do us a favor by liking, subscribing, or sharing our podcast on whichever podcast platform you use. Be sure to join us next time for the For Freedom Podcast. For Freedom Podcast.

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