OBU Unscathed as Storms Slam Central Oklahoma

Just a quick update tonight.

As our friends in Oklahoma know all too well (and as our friends around the country and around the world are finding out via news reports), several life-threatening tornadoes have touched down in the Midwest.  State and national media are providing extensive coverage.

OBU President David Whitlock reported that all students who remain on Bison Hill are safe and that the buildings and grounds were not damaged.

Here is a litany that is sometimes used in the wake of natural disasters, adapted from the Book of Common Prayer.  Grace and peace to you all.

A Litany in Response to a Natural Disaster

O God the Father, Creator of heaven and earth,

Have mercy upon us.

O God the Son, redeemer of the world,

Have mercy upon us.

O God the Holy Spirit, Sanctifier of the faithful,

Have mercy upon us.

Holy, blessed and glorious Trinity, One God

Have mercy upon us.

Remember not, Lord Christ our offenses, neither reward us according to our sins.  Spare us, good Lord, spare your people, whom you have redeemed by your cross and passion, and by your mercy preserve us forever.

Spare us, good Lord.

From all natural disasters, from hurricanes, fires, tornados, earthquakes, tsunamis, blizzards and floods,

Good Lord, deliver us.

From all disease and sickness, from famine and violence,

Good Lord, deliver us.

In all times of sorrow, in all times of joy; in the hour of death and at the day of judgment,

Good Lord, deliver us.

Hear our prayers, O Christ our God,

O Christ, hear us.

For the + repose of the souls of our brothers and sisters in Christ who have died in this disaster, that your holy angels may welcome them into Paradise,

O Christ, hear us.

Console all who grieve: those whose loved ones have died, whose families are torn; whose homes have been destroyed, whose possessions have been ruined, who are now unemployed.

O Christ, hear us.

Heal those who suffer from injury and illness, emotional and spiritual distress. Give them hope and encouragement to meet the days ahead.

O Christ, hear us.

Give food to the hungry and drink to the thirsty.

O Christ, hear us.

Give rest to the weary and peace to the restless.

O Christ, hear us.

Give strength to the governments of affected regions and all others in authority and leadership; grant them wisdom and power to act in accordance with your will.

O Christ, hear us.

Bless the clergy and people in areas of danger and destruction who strive to do your service in the midst of their own grief and pain.  Give them fortitude to serve as you would serve.

O Christ, hear us.

  

Grant your people grace to witness to your word, to open their hearts in love, and to give generously from their abundance, that they may bring forth the fruits of your Spirit.

O Christ, hear us.

Forgive us Lord, for all negligence and hardheartedness, for an over-reliance on technology and a lack of preparedness that result in bitterness and strife, in injury and death.

O Christ, hear us.

In the midst of loss, grant us eyes that see, ears that hear and hands that work so that we may discern how you would have us respond.

O Christ, hear us.

We give you thanks, Lord God for all agencies and individuals who assist in relief efforts; continue in them the good work you have begun, through them your presence is made known.

We thank you O, Lord

You are our refuge and strength

Our very present help in trouble

In you Lord is our Hope

And we shall never hope in vain

Glory to God whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.

Glory to him from generation to generation in the Church, and in Christ Jesus for ever.

O merciful Father, you have taught us in your holy Word that you do not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men: Look with pity upon the sorrows of your people [especially _______, for whom our prayers are offered]. Remember them, O Lord, in mercy, nourish their souls with patience, comfort them with a sense of your goodness, lift up your countenance upon them, and give them peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Congratulations, Class of 2013!

To the Class of 2013:

On Friday, OBU conferred degrees on 255 graduates in its annual spring commencement ceremony in Raley Chapel.  We wish to add our voices to the chorus of congratulations you are receiving from friends and family members.  Well done!

When your class entered in 2009, things were very different.  OBU was at the pinnacle of its national recognition for excellence, peaking at #109 in the Forbes college rankings.  Declining enrollment was a challenge, but it was being competently addressed by internal committees and outside consultants.  Difficult choices had been made in terms of budget cuts, but OBU's commitment to its core strength -- its rigorous Christian liberal arts curriculum -- was as strong as ever.

In 2009, the ideological gamesmanship in hiring had not started, no moderate professors were being forced out of the School of Christian Service, and OBU was in the upper echelon of evangelical colleges in America.  In comparison to other Baptist-affiliated colleges, to schools that have ended their affiliation with Baptist state conventions, and to non-Baptist evangelical colleges, OBU was absolutely outstanding.

Yet somewhere in Thurmond Hall (and maybe in the Baptist Building in Oklahoma City), a handful of people didn't think OBU was doing well at all.  Ask yourself: What was so wrong with OBU in 2009 and what makes them think it is so much better today in spite of its decline?  Class of 2013, this is what they did to OBU during your four years:

When you were freshmen and sophomores, members of the classes of 2010, 2011, and 2012 stood up.  Some of you stood with them.  Others did not know what the fuss was all about.  Maybe you weren't in departments where professors were terminated without cause or faculty morale was noticeably low.  At least a handful of you courageously spoke your minds and stood up for academic freedom and ethical administration at OBU.

Fortunately, things have been better at OBU since about the spring semester of your junior year.  Yet many alumni feel that a watchdog is still necessary.  This is especially true in light of the many other Baptist colleges across the country where administrators are squandering their institutions' reputations, effectiveness, and even risking accreditation in the name of fundamentalism.

Though they obviously got off to an unfortunate start, we trust that President Whitlock and Provost Norman want the best for OBU.  We believe that they have learned something from their mistakes, even though -- to our knowledge -- they have refused to acknowledge them to anyone.  And we know that OBU still has great trustees, alumni, and a network of Oklahoma Baptists who will insist on excellence and who will not tolerate ideologically-motivated games that disrupt professors' careers, denigrate academic quality, and devalue graduates' diplomas.

Our prayer is that things will continue to get better on Bison Hill.  But do not be deceived: a degree from OBU is probably worth a little less in grad school admissions, in the job market, and in terms of any objective assessment of rigor and quality than it was in 2009.

We trust you had an amazing experience at OBU.  Most of us did, which is why we feel so passionately about these issues.  But in spite of all the positives, you have been done a disservice, and your investment has been devalued.  For what?  So that a handful of OBU administrators can boast about their fundamentalist credentials to elites in the Southern Baptist Convention.

We find that unacceptable, and we welcome you to join our movement and stand up for academic freedom and ethical administration at OBU -- our alma mater and yours.

Congratulations and best wishes!  We send our prayers for God's abiding presence and guidance along your journey.

-Jacob Lupfer
OBU Class of '02
Silver Spring, Maryland

The Kentucky Situation...Resolved. For Now.

A couple weeks ago, we asked, "What's going on at Campbellsville University?"  Last month, Campbellsville, a liberal arts college affiliated with the Kentucky Baptist Convention, had its quiet existence disturbed.  Reports reverberated throughout the Baptist blogosphere about a professor's contract being non-renewed, ostensibly because he believes every word of the Bible is literally true, even with respect to history, science, geography, etc. -- you know, the whole fundamentalist schtick.

This seemed pretty shocking to us, because at OBU we're used to seeing faculty dismissed, silenced, or sidelined for not being fundamentalist enough.  So it seemed like good news!  Finally, a Baptist college had the sense and sanity to say, "We take the Bible seriously, not literally.  If you believe the earth was created in 6 24-hour days 6,000 years ago, take a hike, fundy!"

But alas, there was more to the story.

For starters, this young professor's fan club (unsurprisingly, he's a graduate of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) cried foul and started making noise about all the other profs at Campbellsville who allegedly don't take the Bible literally and manage to hold on to their jobs.  They flooded the inbox of KBC Executive Director Paul Chitwood, and many started calling on the KBC to de-fund Campbellsville.  (Like OBU, the KBC schools receive a tiny percentage of their operating budgets from the convention -- money the convention might spend on evangelism and missions but chooses not to.  Instead, the convention directs scarce offering plate dollars to institutions that raise tens of millions of dollars in annual revenue on their own.)

It was about to get ugly.

The Reverend Dr. Paul Chitwood, however, handled the situation masterfully.  Please take the time to read his blog updates on the situation here, here, and here.  Leaders from Campbellsville and from the KBC came together and re-affirmed their historic partnership.

Since we hadn't heard much noise from the KBC colleges in the cacophony of Baptist college disasters over the past year or so, I (very erroneously) assumed they must be pretty fundamentalist.  After all, they are in the shadow of SBTS which has its own undergraduate arm, Boyce College.  I had ignorantly assumed that, of necessity, the KBC colleges would be locked into a race with Boyce as to which has the most unforgiving doctrinal litmus tests and which loves the BFM 2000 the most.

Not so.

I'm amazed at how much freedom Campbellsville profs seem to have.  If you teach there, the default assumption seems to be that you are a believing Christian, but one who takes the Bible seriously (and thus not literally).  Yet in the spirit of Christian unity, cooperation, and openness, literalists are welcome, too.  So you might have a young-earth creationist from time to time.  But most profs are evidently moderates.  The KBC may not like it, but there seems to be little desire among the fundamentalists to remake the school in their own image.  This is a lot like the OBU I remember in my student days.

Today's OBU seems to start from the opposite assumption with respect to faculty: you are (or ought to be) a literalist who believes in young-earth creationism and the historicity of every miracle.  But, in the spirit of not being able to fire everybody all at once, we'll let it slide if you are a professing Christian and active church member who happens to erroneously believe that maybe Jonah didn't get swallowed by a fish and perhaps some variant of theistic evolution is more convincing than flat earth young earth creationism.

We'll look more closely at trustee dynamics at the KBC schools in the weeks to come, as we search for parallels and points of departure with OBU's relationship to the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma.

As legitimate media outlets report on the happenings, we'll share the news articles on our Facebook and Twitter accounts.  The SBC's public reliations shop, Baptist Press, unsurprisingly obfuscates the situation.  Their writeup quotes Dr. Chitwood as saying, "Everyone who teaches at Campbellsville is a professing Christian and believes God created the world."  But notice what Baptist Press says on Twitter: "Ky. convention, college affirm partnership (all Campbellsville profs are Christian creationists)."  Lots of people believe God created the world, but would not call themselves creationists.  Presumably most Campbellsville profs would fall into this category.  (But then again, no one but the most ardent SBC Takeover loyalists have taken Baptist Press seriously since 1990.)

How grateful Campbellsville must be to have a state convention whose senior leadership realizes that while having a few biblical literalists on faculty is important to many in the churches, the academic (and frankly, spiritual) integrity of the college depends on having devoted Christian faculty who take the Bible seriously, not literally.

I hope we have that in Oklahoma.  We certainly have some great trustees and some prominent pastors who support OBU's great liberal arts heritage.  But after the past four years, it would be nice to have some Kentucky-style assurances that OBU's lurch backward toward fundamentalism is something one or two over-zealous administrators came up with on their own, and not some grand design hatched in the Baptist Building.

Rep. James Lankford Named 2013 Commencement Speaker

[Ed.: Evidently the Lankford adress is a no-go. The OBU website is reporting, as of 5/8/13, that a well loved faculty member will give the address.]

In light of our mentioning the overtly rightward political tilt of OBU's invited chapel speakers, several readers sent in this item yesterday:

U.S. Rep. James Lankford will return to Oklahoma to bring the Spring Commencement Address to OBU’s graduates on Friday, May 17. 

Rep. Lankford was elected to the United States Congress on Nov. 2, 2010, representing Oklahoma’s Fifth District. The Republican legislator serves on the House Committees on Budget and Oversight and Government Reform, where he is the chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy Policy, Health Care, and Entitlements. He also was elected chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee for the 113th Congress.

Apparently there are at least a handful of -- shudder -- Democrats among the Save OBU faithful.  All three of them (!) sent me notes yesterday expressing dismay.

I told them to chill out.

Rep. Lankford represents Pottawatomie, Seminole, and most of Oklahoma County in Congress.  He has deep ties to Baptist life in the state, having been the director of the Falls Creek camp for 13 years before resigning in 2009 to enter the Republican primary to replace retiring Rep. Mary Fallin, who ran successfully for Governor of Oklahoma in 2010.

It's pretty typical to invite governors and members of Congress to speak at college graduation ceremonies.  Graduation speakers are also, I would argue, qualitatively different from chapel speakers.  Yes, this will mark the second Tea Party politician to speak at OBU this spring.  Maybe OBU students should have the opportunity to hear from a moderate Republican (Mickey Edwards, where are you?) or a Democrat from time to time.

But for now, let's just file this away and keep a tally.  If it truly is the case that Democratic politicians are systematically excluded from ever being invited to campus, then yes, we need to protest OBU's ideological rigidity.  But all 5 of Oklahoma's U.S. representatives and both senators are Republicans.  So it's not like there are any Democrats to choose from at the moment.

In the meantime, however, it may be worth considering that some OBU students may want to hear from speakers whose Christian commitments lead them to political and social views that are not in lockstep with the Religious Right.  Even Cedarville University, which recently completed its fundamentalist transformation, recently invited both Shane Claiborne and the Reverend Jim Wallis to speak.  These liberal evangelicals are less enthusiastic about translating their faith commitments into unconditional support for the Republican Party.  Perhaps it would be a helpful educational and spiritual experience for OBU students to consider the ideas of at least someone who is not a footsoldier of the Religious Right political movement.

As for Rep. Lankford, he will be speaking at a graduation ceremony, which even at a Christian college is not technically a service of religious worship (though there will be some hymns and prayers, as there should be).  When former Rep. J.C. Watts spoke about 10 years ago, there was some hand-wringing among the moderates that it would be an overtly partisan political speech.  Most people recall Watts giving a good commencement address.

Also, we may see Rep. Lankford moderate some of his more extreme positions as he develops his career in Congress.  Like his colleague, Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK), Lankford will find that he can have more influence if he works as a partner for the common good rather than a cheerleader for a platform that has no chance of passing.

Already, he may be moderating from the far far right to the merely far right.  As recently as March 29 of this year, Lankford had "liked" a page on Facebook called Outraged Patriots.  You can see the "patriots'" page here:

What could be more patriotic than noose imagery...?  I'll leave it to your imagination what this image connotes to many Americans.

Here's Representative Lankford's Facebook page, "liking" the Outraged Patriots as of March 29 of this year.

After some people expressed concern and asked him to clarify his position, the congressman "unliked" the page, indicating that he does not, after all, endorse the rhetoric and imagery of lynching.

So don't worry, OBU students and faculty.  At least your 2013 graduation speaker is on record opposing lynching.  Practically a moderate!

So chill out.

[Ed: If it matters, I've voted Democratic and Republican.  Presently, I'm not registered to vote and I did not vote in the 2012 presidential election.  Pretty bad for a political scientist, I know... And, to reiterate: Save OBU is completely uninterested in secular politics and supports no outside issues or causes.]

"You're Fired!" Are Students Routinely Fired from Campus Jobs for Disagreeing w/ the "New" OBU?

We've heard two very disappointing stories this week from students who were fired from their on-campus jobs for expressing disagreement with administrators at the "new" OBU.

Is this what it's come down to?  So they're under orders to purge certain departments... I get it.  But do they really need to fire students who are working part-time at minimum wage jobs to help put themselves through college?

The Questionable Faculty Dismissals
Until recently, we had only heard of three questionable firings on Bison Hill (in recent years).  People had concerns (many privately and some publicly), but only three had lost their jobs over it.  The first was a well loved and pretty conservative philosophy professor who had the audacity to believe that maybe, just maybe, the earth wasn't created in 6 24-hour days 6,000 years ago. All administrators will say, aside from "We can't comment on personnel matters," is that student demand for philosophy classes was declining.  The truth is that they want to replace philosophy, an ancient and core discipline in the liberal arts, with "apologetics" -- itself a legitimate branch of Christian theology that, in evangelical circles, has sadly become a Sunday-school like line of reasoning popularized by insecure, defensive fundamentalists.

Next out the door was another religion professor.  This one had tenure, but that apparently was insufficient to overcome the strikes against him.  First of all, he was a moderate in an academic division they are trying to turn fundamentalist (either of their own volition or under orders from the BGCO).  Second, as Faculty Council Chair, he stood up against the unethical actions taken against his ousted colleague the previous year.  And third, he was just too nice a guy to play hardball (get a 7-figure settlement, sue the university, drag it through an embarrassing public spectacle, etc).

The Questionable Student Worker Dismissals
There was a close call in 2010.  President Whitlock went ballistic when a 21-year old student committed the unpardonable offense of writing an honest, thoughtful letter to the editor of The Bison in October 2010.  But even then, the student did not lose his campus job.

Though infrequent and relatively small in scale, student protests have been effective.  "The Norm," an underground newspaper published twice in 2011, was particularly insightful in connecting the dots between the ever-rightward drift of the BGCO and the unprecedented changes at OBU.

So, even in the very rare instances when students did protest against the unprecedented policy and personnel changes, at least their on-campus jobs were safe.  But that apparently is no longer the case.  In recent days I've heard from two students who can trace their disagreements with the "new" OBU directly to their being terminated from campus jobs.

I hope there aren't others, but maybe now they will come forward, too.

The message is pretty clear.  If you disagree with us, well, shut up and smile anyway.  We don't want unhappy workers.  Maybe this works in business and the church.  But a Christian liberal arts college isn't a business.  And it isn't the church.  Freedom of thought, belief, and expression is a cherished value.  Freedom is bigger than the person exercising it.  You can try to "win" by stamping out an individual or two.  But you can't really stop freedom from being exercised in a university.  And the harder you try, the worse it makes you look.  Until you squelch all freedom of expression and you cease being a university at all.  Is this really where you want to take OBU?

New administrators: Play your ideological games with faculty if you feel you must.  But please, don't make students victims any more than they already are.  God knows students have suffered enough these past few years: seeing beloved professors cast aside inexplicably; experiencing the effects of all-time low faculty morale (I trust it's getting better, but still...); seeing their $100,000 investment lose value before their eyes as OBU has plummeted from #109 to #390 in the Forbes college rankings.

The BGCO and the upper echelon of administrators are hoping you won't notice or care.

We hope you will.

Pray for OBU.  It may look good on the outside, with a football program and gleaming new buildings.  But all is not well.

Stories We're Following (Please Circulate)

Last week, I mentioned that, after a quiet spell earlier this spring, we're actually monitoring quite a few issues at the moment.  Through mid-May, I'll try to keep this post at the top of the blog's front page and link to more detailed content as we're able to post it. Here's a brochure detailing what we're all about. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Student Journalism at OBU

Though the writing is very good and the production value is high, The Bison simply isn't what it once was in terms of journalistic inquiry into serious campus issues.  There are lots of impressionistic columns, general debates, and personal advice features, but there is no investigative reporting.  Editorial pages (with real editorials) have disappeared.  Journalists go berserk if you accuse them of censorship, but I don't know what else to call it.  I'll say it as nicely as possible: The gaps in news coverage and editorial content could lead a reasonable person to speculate that there is a) censorship, b) fear of censorship, or c) blow-back that creates self-censorship.

Of particular note here is the fact that The Bison recently decided against printing an open letter to "the OBU Family" (edited for length) in response to a chapel sermon by an "ex gay" evangelist on the grounds that Save OBU endorsed the letter (which is simply not true) and that we tried to bully the paper into printing the letter.

More on this soon.  We've addressed this issue before, and will tread softly.  But I feel strongly that aside from being an important educational experience for journalism students and other relevant majors, a campus newspaper has an obligation to its community to fill a vital need for rigorous inquiry and debate of campus issues that is, arguably, not being met.

Fine Arts Fiasco

Last month I wrote two posts about a perceived reorientation of the Warren M. Angell College of Fine Arts.  But before I could finish the series, several people asked me to hold off because (unbeknownst to me) a student was collecting opinions from other students and attempting to present them to college administrators.  Unsurprisingly, this did not go over well.  The student lost his or her on-campus job and endured some unfortunate treatment from administrators.  We've been down this road before.   It's amazing how one small, innocent act can unleash such a disproportionate reaction.  God forbid anyone actually have a legitimate disagreement with these people!

Finances & Priorities
New coaching hires and football scholarships have been big news on Bison Hill this year.  The incoming freshman class will be the biggest ever, which is wonderful.  Yet some people are concerned that the administration is scrimping in basic core area courses by increasing class sizes rather than approving departmental recommendations for additional faculty.  Of course, these challenges are not unique to OBU and don't necessarily impinge on academic freedom or ethical administration.  But more paying students should mean more paid professors.  Almost all alumni agree that small classes and top-notch professors are what made OBU great.  Let's not renege on those cornerstones of OBU's greatness!  And, as an adjunct instructor myself, I have to say: It's not the same.  If there are more adjuncts than ever teaching basic courses, that will be a shame.

Kentucky Baptist Convention/Colleges

Even as many non-denominational and non-Baptist evangelical colleges are doing quite well by rank, reputation, and recognition, what remains of Baptist academia is struggling -- almost across the board.  Kentucky Baptists will soon have a unique opportunity to either kick out or fully take over one of its colleges, Campbellsville University.  We've been so focused on following the fundamentalist power grabs at Shorter University and Cedarville University that we've lost sight of what we know to be the source of that power: the precise legal relationship between Baptist colleges and their state conventions.  More on that story as it unfolds.

OBU Chapel/Ideology

We spoke recently about what a sensible person might perceive as a lack of ideological, theological, and political diversity among the speakers who are invited to the Raley Chapel pulpit.  My co-editor, Veronica Risinger, wants to weigh in on the issue... As soon as she finishes the coursework for her seminary degree.

Christian Spirituality

Believe it or not, I've had a resurgent interest in spirituality of late.  It's very personal to me and may be of little interest to anyone else.  But I might, from time to time, share resources that I've found compelling.


At the present time, blog readership is high and interest seems high as well.  But I do plan on taking most of the summer off.  We'll have some book reviews and respond to significant OBU and Baptist news, of course.  But fewer people pay attention, and I need a break.  Until then, however, we're going full force!  I expect the next few weeks to be some of the most exciting in Save OBU's history.

God bless all of you.
-Jacob

"Who Are You Sleeping With?" Sex at Evangelical Colleges

[Ed.: Welcome to our new visitors. This post is getting a lot of attention. See here and here (a brochure) for summaries of our concerns, as well as here and here for a digest of past blog posts. Follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook. Keep sharing, emailing, and retweeting! -j-]

Once or twice I considered a blog post on the subject of sex at OBU.  But it always seemed ill advised.  Sexuality is serious, mysterious, controversial and, at best, only tangentially related to our constellation of concerns.  In my day (1999-2002), Bison Hill was a swirling mass of sexual confusion and repression.  Have things changed?  Sex was considered the worst sin.  Seemingly the primary way we expressed our Christianity was to be abstinent.  We heard about Bible verses such as Micah 6:8 and James 1:27.  But it seemed that as long as you kept yourself unstained by the world, it didn't really matter whether you cared for the fatherless and the widows in their distress.  Jesus taught that purity was a matter of the heart.  But our parents and churches taught that it was mostly a matter of the genitals.  Unsurprisingly, many of us got married very soon after graduation or, in a stunning number of cases, even before.  Of course, no OBU students get married at extremely young ages in order to have church/family/community/cultural approval of the sex they want to have.

Of course.

Luckily, on our wedding nights, when sex went from shameful to beautiful, all the confusion cleared up instantly.  Our sexual functions were blissful for the rest of our lives.  None of us got divorced, realized we were gay, or struggled to shake unhealthy coping mechanisms we adopted in our adolescent years to deal with the religiously-inspired repression/shame complex.  After all, we had read with great interest many Christian books on the subject.

Polling data indicate that much has changed since then: grad school, later marriage, moving away from "home," less shame and social stigma about premarital sex, etc.  But evangelical culture has come up with some pretty innovative ways to double down on the shame and to control the passion burning in youths' loins: abstinence pledges, "purity balls," "secondary virginity," etc.  So maybe conservative Christian college campuses today aren't so different from back then.

Anyway, consider this article, where the author recounts asking the Reverend Dr. Tim Keller (a Calvinist mega-church pastor in New York City) about obstacles to revival in the church:

Drawing on his experience in urban, culture-shaping Manhattan, Keller responded that one of the biggest obstacles to repentance for revival in the Church is the basic fact that almost all singles outside the Church and a majority inside the Church are sleeping with each other. In other words, good old-fashioned fornication.

Then it gets interesting.

Keller illustrated the point by talking about a tactic, one that he admittedly said was almost too cruel to use, that an old college pastor associate of his used when catching up with college students who were home from school. He’d ask them to grab coffee with him to catch up on life. When he’d come to the state of their spiritual lives, they’d often hem and haw, talking about the difficulties and doubts now that they’d taken a little philosophy, or maybe a science class or two, and how it all started to shake the foundations. At that point, he’d look at them and ask one question, “So who have you been sleeping with?” Shocked, their faces would inevitably fall and say something along the lines of, “How did you know?” or a real conversation would ensue. Keller pointed out that it’s a pretty easy bet that when you have a kid coming home with questions about evolution or philosophy, or some such issue, the prior issue is a troubled conscience. Honestly, as a Millennial and college director myself, I’ve seen it with a number of my friends and students—the Bible unsurprisingly starts to become a lot more “doubtful” for some of them once they’d had sex.

If you read the whole article, you will see how the author, a lay minister in Orange County, CA, tries to  draw a causal arrow from premarital sex to losing faith, arguing that the churches would see revival if more people abstained from non-marital sex.

As a person who grappled very seriously and honestly with my faith at OBU while remaining a virgin, I found this to be a bizarre idea.  Don't get me wrong, I was very interested in sex.  I remember a particular chapter in a Christian ethics anthology by a mainline Protestant seminary professor that presented an ethic of "appropriate vulnerability" which, at the time, convinced me that premarital sex might be permissible or even healthy, and was, in any case, not the Worst Sin in the Book.  (Disclaimer: This was one article in one book.  Most of the rest of the anthology presented conservative, traditional, and orthodox ideas.  So don't use this to say, "See, OBU teaches liberalism."  My experience of the School of Christian Service was that we were encouraged to read and study different perspectives on ethical, biblical, and theological matters.)

But I was also very serious about my faith.  There were science questions.  There were theology questions.  There were philosophy questions.  One of my biggest struggles was, essentially, whether I should understand belief in the supernatural to be continuous or dichotomous.  In other words, was it okay to say that Jonah didn't really get swallowed by a fish as long as you believed in the virgin conception of Jesus and his bodily resurrection?  Or was it an all-or-nothing proposition --- either all the miracles in the Bible were literally true or none of them were?  It was a thrilling pursuit to study and grapple with how to find a faith I could believe honestly and with integrity.

I am surprised by Tim Keller's suggestion that "the prior issue" to young people thinking for themselves is "a troubled conscience."  My conscience had never been clearer.  My faith grew, though not in the direction fundamentalists would find acceptable.  The struggles were honest, rigorous, and intense.  And it had nothing to do with sex.  These pastors' line of reasoning implies that if college students were being good little Christian kids, they would not think for themselves.  Taking legit, non-dumbed-down philosophy and science courses is implied here to be some kind of rebellion.  I get the feeling that many in the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma share that view, and that it motivated their design for the "new" OBU, which the new administrators have faithfully carried out.

The author I quoted above says that "the Bible unsurprisingly starts to become a lot more 'doubtful' for [young people] once they’d had sex."  I frankly don't see the relationship.  If anything, I would speculate that the causal arrow points the other way: perhaps once people cast literalist dogma aside, they may be less likely to adhere to premarital sexual abstinence.  Thus, I would think pastors would focus their energies on preventing young people from deviating from their childhood faith.  But evangelical pastors' bizarre obsession with young people's sex lives comes through loud and clear.  So does their lack of awareness that what they parochially call "the Christian worldview" is perilously threatened by pesky things like facts, knowledge, and people thinking for themselves.  Sex is not the issue here.

But is sex ever not the issue for these holy men, who seem to think they have such a vested interest in your "purity?"