ONTARIO, Calif. (March 15, 2019) — Seventy-five years ago, Southern Baptists’ seminary to the West was born during a prayer meeting, the dream of a visionary man. Gateway Seminary celebrated the anniversary of that occasion on March 14 during a Founder’s Day event that culminated in a 10-hour prayer vigil by faculty, staff and students.
Iorg said the seminary was the dream of a man from Arkansas named Isam Hodges. He, his wife and five children moved to Berkeley, Calif., in 1935, one year before the first Southern Baptist church was founded in the state. He graduated with a master of arts degree from Berkeley Baptist Divinity School in May 1937 and accepted the call to serve as pastor of Golden Gate Baptist Church the next month. The church cooperated with the Northern Baptist Convention.
He said that Hodges’s frustration with the slow response of fellow pastors did not keep him from opening his heart to his own people. His sermons were filled with Baptist history and missionary information. He challenged them with the descriptions of sacrifice by those who had spread the gospel in other areas. He sought in every way he could to spur their evangelistic concern.
On Nov. 17, 1943 the Golden Gate Baptist Church voted 36 to 6 to seek affiliation with the Southern Baptist Convention. Hodges had been their pastor for more than six years. Although he did not join that fellowship to turn it toward Southern Baptist alignment, the six years of evangelistic and missionary promotion made a difference in the life of the congregation.
As Hodges looked about him in early 1944, he knew that only a great network of churches in every city, town, and village could accomplish what God would do in the West, Iorg said. New missions and churches had to be started. For this to happen, many more pastors and other church leaders would need to be trained. He prayed more about his lifelong dream and willingness to work toward creating the school he felt was needed.
Hodges was not a trained educator, but God was laying on him the responsibility to begin a school. How could there be more missions and churches without preachers? One of his friends, though, did have more school experience and theological training — Dallas Faulkner, pastor of the First Southern Baptist Church in San Francisco. Like Hodges, Faulkner was a native of Arkansas and a graduate of Ouachita Baptist College and Southwestern Seminary. He had continued his studies and earned the doctor of theology degree from Southern Seminary. He came to California in the 1930s, first settling in the Bakersfield area, before ultimately moving to San Francisco. Because of his background, Hodges decided to enlist his friend’s help.
The two talked, prayed, planned and took definite steps to organize the Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary. The next morning, March 26, 1944, at the morning worship hour in the Golden Gate Baptist Church, Hodges asked that the six ordained deacons be recognized as a committee from the church to meet with a like committee from the First Southern Baptist Church of San Francisco to begin establishing a seminary. The church unanimously adopted this recommendation, and these deacons, along with Hodges, met with the committee from the First Southern Baptist Church, San Francisco, on March 31, 1944. It was at that meeting the vote was taken to legally organize Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary.
Iorg said that members of the first board of trustees for Golden Gate Seminary were laymen, six each from the two churches. Hodges and Faulkner set about organizing the seminary immediately following the action creating the board of trustees.
The seminary maintained the name Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary through locations in Berkeley and Mill Valley until 2016, when the institution moved to Ontario, Calif., and changed its name to Gateway Seminary. The institution now also offers degrees on four regional campuses, in addition to all its master’s degrees being offered online.
A prayer journey began immediately following the Founder’s Day service, with participants engaging in one-hour sessions as they moved through the building. In a continuation of the anniversary observance, the seminary will host a birthday party in July to mark the issuance of its charter, followed by celebrations at the fall and spring trustee meetings. The 75th anniversary celebration will conclude in April 2020 with a final observance at the Ontario Convention Center.