FROM THE PRESIDENT’S DESK (1958) by Dr. Robert G. Rayburn Dr. Robert G. Rayburn served as an Army chaplain during World War II and with paratroop units during the Korean War. He pastored the College Church of Christ in Wheaton, Illinois, and later was president of Highland College in California until 1955, when his denomination, then known as the Bible Presbyterian Church (Columbus Synod), asked him to be the founding president of Covenant College, and, in 1956, of the college’s sister institution, Covenant Theological Seminary. When the college moved to Lookout Mountain, Georgia, in 1964, Dr. Rayburn stayed in St. Louis to run the Seminary until his retirement in 1977. After a year-long sabbatical during which he taught at the China Graduate School of Theology in Hong Kong and the Presbyterian Theological Seminary in India, he returned to Covenant, where he chaired the Practical Theology Department, taught homiletics, and directed the Doctor of Ministry program until cancer claimed his life in 1990. The following statement by Dr. Rayburn clearly articulates the school’s commitment to the Word of God, the solid foundation on which we still stand, by which we live, and according to which we pursue the purpose the Lord has given us to train his servants to walk in God’s grace, minister God’s Word, and equip God’s people—all for God’s mission. This article originally appeared in the college and seminary’s newsletter The Bagpipe in April 1958 (vol. 3, no. 4).
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have just returned to the campus after more than five weeks away. It has been a real joy to visit a number of our Bible Presbyterian churches as well as some churches of other denominational groups. I’ve been greatly encouraged to find that many of God’s people throughout the land are vitally interested in what the Lord is doing here on the campus of Covenant College and Seminary. Again and again, however, I have talked with people who do not realize that there is a great difference between some Christian schools and others, especially with respect to the matter of absolute loyalty to the Word of God. These are days in which so many are using the terminology of orthodox Christianity without meaning the same thing that the Christians down through the ages have meant by the use of the same terms.
Thank God for the fact that Covenant stands solidly upon the doctrine of the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures, and prepares young men and women to defend this Word of God against all of the attacks of unbelief, no matter how insidious they may be. Without the absolutely authoritative Book we have nothing but a human religion based upon frail human authority. This country, yes, and the world, needs wide-awake intelligent young Christians who know the Book and are committed to its proclamation and its defense. I hope that all the readers of these brief words will resolve to pray faithfully each day for Covenant College and Theological Seminary, that it may stand strongly through the years for absolute faithfulness to the Word of God.
BRETHREN, PRAY FOR US (1958) by Dr. J. Oliver Buswell Jr. Dr. J. Oliver Buswell Jr., one of the founding fathers of Covenant Seminary, was a chaplain in the 140th Infantry during World War I. After pastorates in a Presbyterian church in Milwaukee (1919–1922) and a Reformed church in Brooklyn (1922–26), Dr. Buswell served as president of Wheaton College from 1926 to 1940. He then served as president of the National Bible Institute of New York City
and its successor, Shelton College, in Ringwood, New Jersey, from 1941 to 1955. In 1956, he became dean of Covenant College (1956–1964) and Covenant Seminary (1956–1970). The libraries at both Wheaton College and Covenant Seminary bear his name. Following is a printed version of a homily Dr. Buswell preached on Ephesians 6:10–20 that originally appeared in The Bagpipe, Vol. 3, WWW.COVENANTSEMINARY.EDU
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