The Baptist Educational and Missionary Convention of South Carolina has voted to establish a formal partnership with Anderson University.
AU’s Clamp Divinity School will be the designated center for graduate theological education for the 1,100 predominantly African-American churches of the BEMCSC. Anderson University is affiliated with the South Carolina Baptist Convention.
“[This] will be a blessing to our member churches and to present and future generations of ministers who will benefit from seminary training through this relationship,” said James Blassingame, pastor of the Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Sumter and president of BEMCSC.
Members of participating BEMCSC churches will qualify for a scholarship for students enrolled in the master of divinity and master of ministry degree programs at Anderson.
The BEMCSC was founded in 1877 and represents 230,000 individual church members. The denomination supports two liberal arts colleges, Morris College and Benedict College, but did not previously have a formal affiliation with a seminary or divinity school.