graduations

Saturday the 20th of May was a momentous day for the Price family. After a long time I graduated with a B.A.R. or a Bachelor of Arts of Religion. The unique thing is that my daughter will be graduating May 25th from kindergarten. The ceremony was wonderful with Dr. John M. Adams of Mantachie, Ms as the commencement speaker.

One unique feature of the service was the hooding of M.Div. student Dr. Dan Baber. Dan is a teaching elder at a Church plant, father of five, husband of one and a emergency room doctor. When they hooded him, the seminary staff did not just give applause. They rose to thier feet and gave him a standing ovation. Dan is rumored to have never recieved anything less than a hundred on his work at B.M.A.T.S.

This was not the only standing ovation for he day. Jim Shine, Pastor of Enterprise Baptist Church of Jacksonville, Tx and New Testament Greek Professor at B.M.A.T.S. had studied at Baylor Univeristy many years ago for his Ph.D. He left after about Thirty hours due to theological diffrences. He is not the first nor the last. The Seminary conferred upon him a honorary Doctorate of Divinity. Bro. Shine, can not be called Dr. Shine, which is somethign he has always told his students not to do becuase he felt it should be reserved for those who have earned it.

The D.D. was become a meaningless degree due to some handing it to anyone who walked by. But this was not always so.

From Wikipedia - In the United Kingdom, D.D. has traditionally been the highest doctorate granted by universities, usually conferred upon a religious scholar of standing and distinction. In descending order of seniority, the D.D. degree is followed by LL.D. (or D.C.L.) for law, M.D. (or D.M.) for medicine, Litt.D. (or D.Litt.) for letters, and D.Sc. (or Sc.D.) for science. The high status of the D.D. qualification in British universities owed to their traditional affiliation with the Christian church. As universities became increasingly secular in the 20th century, the D.D. degree lost much of its preeminence in practice, though officially it is still the most senior qualification at the universities of Oxford, Durham, and Cambridge