Board Voted 13-8 to Remove Shepherd as Assoc Prof of ST on Reports of Visitation Committee (Faculty Report Opposed Visitation Committee Recommendations)
Hewitson, Page 88-91
“[T]he controversy over Shepherd has reached such dimensions and such tangled complexity that it appears unresolvable.” (89)
Shepherd was to be suspended during full investigation with pay, but with pay no longer than through June 1983.
The committee appointed by the board was to report back to the next board meeting.
A faculty member transmitted through Clowney a possible statement to be included with Shepherd’s dismissal:
“The Board makes no judgment whether Mr. Shepherd’s views as such contradict or contravene any element in the system of doctrine taught by the Westminster Standards.” (90)
The board did not use this language.
They considered the:
a. The boards on “indiscretions.”
b. The indiscretions and at times one-sided and even slanderous allegations of others.
c. The deep inherent problems in the structure and the particular formulations of Mr. Shepherd’s views . . .
d. Mr. Shepherd’s manner of criticizing opponents as Lutheran or otherwise deviant rather than primarily incorporating their concerns more thoroughly into his own position in response . . .
e. Too many people in the Seminary community and constituency and the larger Christian public have come to judge that Mr. Shepherd’s teaching appears to them to contradict or contravene, either directly or impliedly, some elements in that system of doctrine taught by the Standards: such elements are indicated in the letter of May 4, 1981, and in the Report to the Visitation Committee by President Clowney. The Board judges the controversy over Mr. Shepherd has reached such dimensions and such tangled complexity that it is essentially unresolvable.
The board concluded:
The Board regrets, therefore, that it must remove Mr. Shepherd in order to effectively distance the Seminary from a controversy which otherwise might go on indefinitely. The Board pledges itself to try to make clear to the larger Reformed community the true grounds for its present action, in order that Mr. Shepherd’s name might not be unjustly damaged beyond what has already happened.”
The February 1982 Reasons and Specifications Document would read:
“Mr. Shepherd’s teaching regarding justification, the covenant of works and the covenant of grace, and related themes is not clearly in accord with the teaching of Scripture as it is summarized in the system of doctrine contained in the Westminster Standards."