Rev. Dr. Hugo H. Culpepper
Missionary to China
Prisoner of War
Bible Scholar

The edge of the tablet had curled and yellowed with the passing of 45 years, but Hugo Culpepper thumbed through it like a child through a new coloring book.

"This is the list I made of the 500 most infrequently used words of the Greek New Testament while I was interned by the Japanese," Culpepper said.

Today, Hugo H. Culpepper, 76, reads his daily devotionals directly from the Greek New Testament, the language he mastered 45 years ago in a concentration camp. As the W.O. Carver Professor of Missions and World Religions at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., from 1960-1965 and 1970-1981, Culpepper brought his life experience as a missionary, prisoner of war, Home Mission Board administrator and scholar of the biblical languages to the classroom.

A native of Pine Bluff, Ark., and a graduate of Baylor University, Culpepper was studying at the Annapolis Naval Academy when he was called into missions at the age of 20. "I've always been a seeker," Culpepper said, "from the time I was a teenager I've asked God to reveal his will. Life was too big for me." He left the academy and came to Southern Seminary with his wife, Ruth. She completed the WMU Training School and he graduated with the ThM degree in 1939.

In the spring of 1940, the Foreign Mission Board sent the Culpeppers to Kaifeng, the interior of China, to teach in the All-China Theological Seminary. As the storm clouds of war gathered to the north, the U.S. State Department issued evacuation notices. Culpepper worked out a plan with the FMB to go to the Philippines with an ecumenical endeavor to continue Chinese language studies.

On Dec. 28, 1941, the Japanese army swept across the Philippines. For one year no word was available to the outside world about the welfare of the Culpeppers. On Christmas, 1942, the American Red Cross cabled the heartening news: "Mr. and Mrs. Hugo Culpepper interned at Baguio. Are in good health. Do not worry."

The words flashed across the front page of the Arkansas Baptist state paper headlined, "Best Christmas News."

As prisoners of war, the next three years found the Culpeppers shifted among three work camps and eventually were rationed down to one cup of corn meal mush a day. At a Manila work camp, the missionary camp was separated from the American soldiers by a 20-foot high wall.

Culpepper recalled, "The American soldiers had no way to grind their corn (the only food they had), consequently they were dying in the camps of starvation at the rate of 15 a day. We asked the Japanese authorities If we could grind the soldiers' corn for them and they consented. Between Ruth and I taking the midnight to 2 a.m. shift, and the other missionaries, we kept the grinder going 24 hours a day. We noticed afterwards the death rate was cut in half."

When Culpepper wasn't on the work detail, he made wise use of these three years of internment by studying the Greek New Testament. He read it through 12 times while filling his tablet with the most infrequently used Greek words. Culpepper read through his fifth edition A.T. Robertson Greek Grammar book three times, looking up each of the 21,000 references once.

In the spring of 1945 the Allied Forces liberated the Philippines and the Culpeppers returned to Louisville for several months of convalescence. The Foreign Mission Board then assigned them to Santiago, Chile, to teach at the Chilean Baptist Seminary. The following five years the Culpeppers taught at the International Baptist Theological Seminary in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

When Culpepper completed his ThD studies in 1959, he was asked to teach at Southern Seminary. He taught until 1965, when the Home Mission Board asked him to be director of the Missions Division. In 1970 Culpepper returned to his teaching post at Southern.

"My teaching has been an overflow of my seeking the knowledge of God," explained Culpepper.

When his son, Alan, joined Southern's faculty in 1974, history was written as they became the only simultaneous father-son teaching team in the seminary's history.

The Culpepper's younger son, Larry, is currently associate professor of family medicine at Brown University in Providence, RI.

Since retirement in 1981, Hugo and Ruth Culpepper have enjoyed life in their comfortable Louisville home near their three grandchildren.

When asked about his heart attack suffered on Thanksgiving Day last year, Culpepper said, "Because I have a confidence and trust in one ultimate conviction, 'God is,' I can say that at no time in my life have I experienced fear. If 'God is,' then that's enough. At times I've had a consciousness that I might be entering into the mystery of transcendence. But I viewed that as more of an interest in death as a next step instead of fear."

Though his pace has slowed, Culpepper still enjoys reading and teaching an occasional Sunday School class. He and his wife love travel-trailering and manage several trips a year with their black cocker spaniel, Lady, in tow. The penciled Greek lettering on Culpepper's old tablet has faded with time, but the story of its owner is still unfolding with a freshness and vitality that only a seeker can possess.

Culpepper Ancestry: Rev. Dr. Hugo H. Culpepper is the son of John Hurlston Culpepper (1891-1970, AR), son of John Francis Culpepper (1863-1906, AL/AR), son of Civil War veteran John Malcolm Culpepper (1835-1927, GA/AL/TX), son of Rev. William Henry Culpepper (1813-1909, SC/GA/AL), son of John (and Nancy Gillespie) Culpepper (1772-1855, SC/GA/AL).