Southwestern recognizes ninth president with portrait

Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary recognized Adam W. Greenway, ninth president of the institution, with a presidential portrait in an April 24 ceremony.

“We want to welcome back to the Southwestern campus the ninth president,” said President David S. Dockery, whose presidential portrait was unveiled last month in a ceremony held in the Rotunda of the B. H. Carroll Memorial Building.

“Everyone in the room is aware of the challenges of the past seven years, but it’s our hope today that this will be a genuine step toward living out our grace filled core values and the exhortations from the Apostle Paul found in Romans chapter 12, for us to live in harmony with one another, and so far as is possible for us to do so, to live at peace with one another,” he said.

“We pray today for the Lord’s divine blessings on Adam and Carla Greenway.”

In addition to his work to “navigate the challenges of the COVID season,” Dockery credited Greenway with various administrative and academic reforms, campus improvements, additions of key staff members, and bringing a number of current faculty members to Southwestern, making the seminary “stronger today” because of them.

“I want to say personally that I will always be truly grateful for Dr. Greenway’s kind invitation for me to return to my alma mater in August of 2019,” he said. Dockery earned the Master of Divinity degree in 1981.

Greenway, a 2002 Master of Divinity graduate of Southwestern who served as president from 2019 to 2022, expressed appreciation for the portrait and ceremony, noting “how good it is to be back home under the dome,” he said.

“It blesses me, and it blesses my family that you would take time out of your day to be here,” he said to guests in attendance.

“Whatever may have transpired in the past, as far as I’m concerned, it is time to put that in the past,” he said, expressing confidence that “because I trust that our God is a good God, and that His Word is true, then I do believe that the best days for the Greenways are not in the past, but in the future, wherever He leads and whatever that means. And the same is true for you.”

Greenway said, “I celebrate whatever God chooses to do and to bless Southwestern Seminary. … I will celebrate what happens from here into eternity,” quoting the first verse of the seminary hymn, “Lead On, O King Eternal.”

In addition to Carla, who earned the Master of Arts in Christian Education from the seminary in 2002, the Greenways’ children, Wade and Caroline, also attended.

Other invited guests included retired faculty member Malcolm McDow and his wife, Melba, several seminary trustees, representatives of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, and the pastoral staff of Avon Park Lakes Baptist Church in Avon Park, Fla., home congregation of the Greenway family. Also in attendance were some current and former faculty and staff.

Greenway currently serves as a member of the City Council of Frostproof, Fla., and he and Carla both serve at Cornerstone Christian Academy in Avon Park.

Portraits of the institution’s first through eighth presidents are displayed in the Rotunda. Greenway’s portrait is displayed with Dockery’s outside Truett Auditorium, which adjoins the Rotunda. Southwestern was founded in 1908.

The portrait was painted by Jonathan Linton, an artist who also recently completed the official portrait of Glenn Youngkin, former governor of Virginia.