(JACKSON, Miss.) May 17, 2011 – It is our pleasure to announce that the board of trustees at their meeting May 13, 2011, elected Mr. Richard Ridgway, Esq., as chairman of the board of Reformed Theological Seminary effective June 1, 2011. Mr. Ridgway follows Mr. James (Jim) Moore who served as chairman for 11 years. Mr. Ridgway is the fourth Chairman of the Board since the founding of RTS as the Reformed Theological Institute in 1964. Rev. Sam Patterson served from 1964-1975, Mr. Robert (Bob) Cannada, Sr. 1975-2000 and Mr. James Moore 2000 – 2011.
Over the last decade RTS faced significant financial and organizational challenges as well as extraordinary opportunities for further expansion and growth. During this important time, Jim Moore has been a “steady hand” as Chairman of the Board at RTS. He has demonstrated his lifetime characteristic of integrity, has shown faithfulness to the founding purpose and vision of RTS and to our commitment to the Lord and His Inerrant and Infallible Word.
Dr. Robert (Ric) Cannada, Jr., chancellor and CEO said, “Having had a close relationship with the family of Jim and Betty Moore since I was a child, it has been a distinct privilege and joy to work closely with Jim and under his leadership at RTS over these last years. Jim and Betty both are great encouragers. I am very pleased that Jim will remain on our board and the board’s executive committee, further contributing to our ministry, his time and talents for many years to come”
“Serving as chairman of the board of trustees of Reformed Theological Seminary for the past eleven years has allowed me to see how God has blessed and guided RTS, said Mr. Moore. “We are truly in His hand and God has uniquely positioned RTS to accomplish great things for the Kingdom of God. What a joy to be a part of this Kingdom work”
Mr. Richard Ridgway has served on the board of trustees for 19 years, since 1992. During that time he has chaired the RTS Board’s development committee and served as chairman of the board of the RTS Foundation. His knowledge of RTS and his commitment to our mission and distinctives will enable him to lead RTS well as our board chairman during important and strategic future years.
Dr. Cannada said of Mr. Ridgway, “Richard has been for many years one of the key leaders on the executive committee of the RTS Board. Richard’s ‘infectious excitement’, his enthusiasm, and his vigor about the things of the Lord, along with this same spirit that is evident in his wife Melissa, will be a blessing for all of us at RTS. I praise the Lord for raising up Richard to this place of leadership at this important time in the history of RTS.”
Mr. Richard Ridgway remarked, “The Lord has strategically placed RTS to provide biblical training from a Reformed perspective to peoples and churches globally, which just a few years ago would not have been possible. Both technology and a new openness to the Reformed faith have made opportunities for RTS to contribute to church planting both here and abroad like no other time in our history. We who are blessed to serve on the board are excited yet humbled to be a part of what God is doing though RTS to win people to Christ and to build strong and healthy churches. We have witnessed His hand in this work in the past. Watch with us what He is now doing to expand and strengthen His Kingdom.”
Reformed Theological Seminary is an independent institution with a self perpetuating board of trustees made of twenty one members. Refusing to accept Government funds, another unique distinctive of the RTS board of trustees from its inception, is that it is made up almost exclusively of laymen. Each year each member is required to recommit by signature to the RTS Statement of Belief.
To ensure that the original purpose and doctrinal distinctives of the seminary are maintained, each member of the board of trustees, faculty, and ministerial advisors is required initially and annually to subscribe to the following Statement of Belief and Covenant as set forth in the seminary’s by-laws:
“Believing that there is but one only, the living and true God, and that there are three persons in the Godhead, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost; and that these three are one and the same in substance, equal in power and glory, and with solemn awareness of accountability to Him in all that we feel, think, say and do, the undersigned engages in and subscribes to this declaration:
1. All Scripture is self-attesting and, being truth, requires the human mind wholeheartedly to subject itself in all its activities to the authority of Scripture complete as the Word of God, standing written in the sixty-six books of the Holy Bible, all therein being verbally inspired by Almighty God and therefore without error.
2. Reformed theology as set forth in the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms as originally adopted by the Presbyterian Church in the United States is the system of doctrine taught in Scripture; and, therefore, it is to be learned, taught and proclaimed for the edification and government of Christian people, for the propagation of the faith and for the evangelization of the world by the power of the
gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
3. And I do solemnly promise and engage not to inculcate, sanction, teach or insinuate anything that appears to me to contradict or contravene, either directly or implicitly, any element of that system of doctrine.
4. NOW THEREFORE, the undersigned in the presence of God, states and signifies that he consents, agrees, and binds himself to all of the foregoing without any reservation whatsoever, and that he further obligates himself immediately to notify in writing the trustees should a change of any kind take place in his belief and feeling not in accord with this statement. Amen.”