Dub Oliver Elected President of Union University

There is huge news this week in the world of Baptist higher education.  Union University in Jackson, TN announced the election of the Reverend Dr. Samuel W. "Dub" Oliver as its 16th president.  Dr. Oliver, currently president of East Texas Baptist University, will succeed David Dockery, who is transitioning to the role of chancellor.

At first glance, this news seems like a win for academic freedom and respectability in Baptist higher education.  Like OBU President David Whitlock and unlike recent Baptist college presidents that have pushed their schools toward fundamentalism (including Shorter's Don Dowless and Cedarville's Thomas White), Dr. Oliver does not hold academic degrees from post-Takeover SBC seminaries.  This alone may be an indication that he has little appetite for fundamentalist encroachment in academic institutions.

Oliver's ETBU is more moderate than Union and most other Baptist colleges.  Along with a handful of schools, ETBU is affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas.  After the Conservative Resurgence progressed from the national SBC to the state conventions, moderates in two states (Virginia and Texas) successfully resisted the resurgence.  In those states, conservatives formed rival conventions in order to avoid sharing power with moderates.  Today's SBC leaders have a complicated relationship with the BGCT.  The BGCT pours millions of dollars into SBC seminaries and agencies through its Cooperative Program giving.  At the same time, many Texas Baptist congregations contribute to the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.  The BGCT contributes to organizations that post-Takeover SBC leaders loathe, such as the Baptist Joint Committee on Religious Liberty.

While solidly committed to distinctively Baptist Christian higher education and employing only believing Christians as faculty, ETBU is nowhere near conservative enough for today's SBC leaders.  They will not be pleased that Union's new president did not personally intervene to prevent ETBU from hiring a female Bible professor.  They will also not be pleased that at Oliver's former institution, the religion department does not employ a single post-Takeover SBC seminary graduate.  ETBU's religion faculty typically present their research at the mainstream American Academy of Religion/Society of Biblical Literature meetings rather than the Evangelical Theological Society's conference.  The fact that Oliver tolerated moderates will not inspire the confidence of certain SBC insiders.  At least he had the good sense to sue the federal government over the Affordable Care Act's contraceptive mandate.

However, Union University is a very different environment than the ETBU that Oliver leaves behind.  Union is widely considered to be the flagship of Baptist state convention-affiliated colleges.  Numerous SBC agency staffers and seminary faculty send their own children to Union.  Like Cedarville, the only female employee in Union's religion department is the secretary.  The exclusively male religion faculty is largely composed of SBC seminary alumni.

Union is not a fundamentalist university.  It is a strong, thriving, growing institution.  There is no evidence to suggest that it is on the same trajectory as Cedarville and Shorter, let alone Baptist colleges that are in danger of losing their accreditation.  Like Bob Agee, a former Union administrator who was president of OBU from 1982 to 1998 , David Dockery masterfully earned and kept the trust of two forces in Baptist higher education that, since the Conservative Resurgence, are increasingly at odds with one another.  These tensions will continue to exist at OBU, Union, and many other universities.  I wrote about the two competing forces in my last post:

First, there is a majority among the trustees, faculty, and alumni that wants [the school] to remain academically strong, respected, and rigorous (while, of course, being true to its Baptist heritage).  At the same time, there is a powerful force within Southern Baptist life today that wants doctrinal conformity, is more trustful of authoritarian leadership, and is less tolerant of dissenting perspectives (while also desiring, if possible, academic respectability).

Hiring a president who has never studied or worked in a post-Takeover Southern Baptist institution is a big step for Union.  It proves that Union is ultimately run out of Jackson, not out of Brentwood, Nashville, Louisville, or anywhere else.  Though a few SBC leaders have tweeted out congratulatory messages to Dr. Oliver today, it seems reasonable to assume that some would have preferred a more fundamentalist-friendly president at Union.

Oliver's inauguration service at ETBU in 2009 included greetings and blessings from friends at Baylor and Carson-Newman.  That alone is enough to make today's Southern Baptist power brokers wary.  Presumably his installation service at Union will be more SBC-centric.  The dynamics of relating to the Tennessee Baptist Convention will be different than how Oliver's ETBU relates to the BGCT.  But ultimately Union's trustees have the responsibility to protect and defend Dr. Oliver's stewardship of the institution when he finds himself opposed to forces that would erode academic freedom and encroach upon fragile Baptist freedoms.

Deservedly, Dr. Oliver will begin his tenure with reservoirs of trust and goodwill from both "sides."  He will have an inestimable ally and confidant in Chancellor David Dockery.  There will be plenty of time in years to come to speculate about the role of the Union presidency in the Baptist battles.  For now, it is enough to congratulate Dub Oliver and wish him our best.  Remembering that his election was unanimous, let us be unanimous in our prayers for him for Union, and for all the Baptist institutions we so dearly love.

Ergun Caner is Brewton-Parker College's New President

The big news in Baptist higher education (such as it is) this week comes from rural South Georgia, where trustees of the fledgling Brewton-Parker College unanimously elected a new fundamentalist president. If B-PC rings a bell to our Oklahoma friends who may not know much about Georgia Baptist life, it may be because we've written about Brewton-Parker here before.

As usual, Associated Baptist Press has a solid write-up:

Caner, 48, comes to the post in Mount Vernon, GA from Arlington Baptist College in Texas, where he served as provost and academic dean since 2011.  Before that, Caner was the dean of the Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary in Lynchburg, VA, named by the school's founder, Jerry Falwell, in 2004. 

Controversy arose in 2010, when bloggers questioned written descriptions of Caner's academic credentials and apparent embellishments in recorded versions of his "Jihad to Jesus" testimony popular with evangelical audiences in the aftermath of 9/11.

That rustling of paper you hear is the faculty of Brewton-Parker dusting off and updating their CVs.

Caner's election signals that B-PC and the Georgia Baptist Convention continue to believe that unassuming moderate, competent administrators are not the way forward.  Instead, their strategy is to double down on fundamentalism and controversy in a naive hope that somehow there will be enough GBC cash and new revenues from fundamentalists willing to send their children to nominally accredited Bible colleges.

As many people know, the Reverend Dr. Ergun Caner may be the most controversial intellectual in the Southern Baptist Convention -- and that's saying something!  His bizarre statements are well known and have been widely reported elsewhere.  Far from being a liability to future employment, it seems that Caner's lies and delusions actually make him a more competitive applicant for a leadership position in Southern Baptist institutional life.

I do know that a veteran college administrator who has extensive experience within and outside Baptist higher education never had an opportunity to be considered for the position because, although this person is a principled conservative with a high view of Scripture, he is just not conservative enough for today's fundamentalist Georgia Baptist Convention.

It looks like the GBC's executive director, the Reverend Dr. Robert White, did not have to personally intervene to get his man.  The fundamentalist majority on the B-PC Board of Trustees could be trusted to deliver a yes-man no matter who it chose.

Caner's brother, the Reverend Dr. Emir Caner, is president of Truett-McConnell College, which is also affiliated with the Georgia Baptist Convention.  Unfortunately for all you other Baptist colleges out there, it looks like there are no more formerly jihadist Caner brothers to lead you into the future.

From an OBU perspective, I must say that Caner makes OBU's president, provost, and religion dean look fantastic!  Hopefully, fundamentalist encroachment at OBU is all in the past.  But in the fraternity of Southern Baptist-affiliated college presidents, I fear there is always pressure on members to one-up each other and prove his fundamentalist bona fides.  Therefore, please pray that OBU leaders never perceive that God is calling them to out-Caner Caner.

Recognition for Excellence in Science -- Good or Bad for OBU?

Earlier this month, a U.S. Navy officer was on campus to invite OBU students apply for the Navy's Nuclear Propulsion Officer Candidate program.  The program recently designated OBU's physics and math majors as the only "tier one" undergraduate majors in Oklahoma and North Texas.  What a fine honor!

Or is it?

Not so long ago, it wouldn't have surprised me if certain administrators in Thurmond Hall were upset or embarrassed that a secular government institution like the U.S. Navy recognized OBU for excellence in science.  After all, most fundamentalists approach science with suspicion at best -- and usually with fear and loathing.  They like science when it offers solutions to problems or prolongs and enriches their lives.  But they are constantly having to figure out how to convince themselves and others that science poses no threat to cherished religious ideas like young earth creationism or the literal historicity of the miracle stories recorded in Scripture.

Fortunately, the administrators cited in the article affirmed the value of rigorous academic preparation in science and mathematics at OBU.  The Reverend Dr. Stan Norman, OBU provost, said:

"We are pleased the Navy has designated these academic programs as their one majors for the NuPOC Program.  The success achieved by our physics and mathematics graduates is evidence of the high level of academic excellence provided by our faculty in the Hurley College of Science and Mathematics . . . The recognition of these programs by the Navy is further validation of that academic quality."

Let's hope this attitude prevails throughout the university.  Especially in the College of Theology and Ministry, it will be important for students to realize that excellence in science does not threaten excellence in theology, philosophy, biblical studies, and ministry.  And, as news of OBU's continued excellence in science education spreads, it will be important to protect the Hurley College faculty from colleagues and BGCO pastors and laypeople who would prefer to replace them with fundamentalists.

There's a lot of credit to go around.  The students should be commended for their hard work in some of the most rigorous majors on campus.  Our thanks to the president and provost for their commitment to legitimate science education and for resisting what must be rather intense pressure from friends and colleagues in post-Takeover Baptist higher education to water it down.  Not lost in all this are the contributions of an administrator closer to the students and faculty -- a well-loved former chief academic officer who now serves as dean of science and math.  Finally, our deepest thanks to Hurley College faculty, old and new.  They are the best in the business!

A Brief Revival for Save OBU

As I noted a few times over the summer, I've deliberately scaled back the Save OBU effort.  For one thing, I believe it would be counterproductive to keep hammering OBU's now veteran administrators for offenses that occurred 2-3 years ago.  We made our point.  The last thing I want is to make things more difficult for the students and professors who are still trying to engage in rigorous, intellectually honest Christian higher education on Bison Hill.  Another fact is that I spent too much time on an issue that is near and dear to my heart, but not very relevant to my personal or professional life.

We certainly celebrate the university's many recent successes.  But we hopefully trust that things have stabilized.  Unless the situation at OBU takes another turn for the worst, you won't see daily updates and commentary on every OBU news release here.

Even so, there are a few developments I would like to keep before our friends and supporters.  The most recent Forbes list indicates that OBU's slide in the rankings has, mercifully, stopped.  The Hobbs College of Theology and Ministry has a new faculty member this year.  And sources confirm that OBU is planning to follow the lead of several other Catholic and evangelical institutions and sue the United States in federal court over an administrative rule issued by the Department of Health and Human Services last year.

I'll report on each of these matters in the days to come.

I also want to say more about an idea I considered over the summer.  The several Southern Baptist colleges that have reverted back toward fundamentalism in recent years should band together and petition the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities.  Ideally, other evangelical colleges would join us in solidarity.  The CCCU should give guidance about how to protect academic freedom and ensure ethical administration when fundamentalists threaten and obliterate long-standing norms of institutional behavior.  Or, alternatively, the CCCU should give its blessing to these takeovers and say publicly that it does not care about what many Christian colleges have experienced in recent years.

Let's stay informed and stay connected.  Given that another unethical firing or any number of fundamentalist-inspired violations could potentially occur at any moment, we need to keep our movement active so that we can mobilize more easily when the next crazy thing happens.  Has the war already been lost?  Perhaps.  But if we truly want to be "loyal to our alma mater," the least we can do is stand up for what we know is right.

Save OBU is not dead yet!

OBU Honors Union University's David Dockery

We've wondered before about parallels between OBU and Union University, a Baptist college in Jackson, TN.  Longtime OBU President Bob Agee came to OBU from Union and retired to Jackson.  Union's president, the Reverend Dr. David Dockery, is widely considered to be the dean of Baptist college presidents.

At the 2013 SBC Annual Meeting in June, OBU honored Dockery for his contributions to Southern Baptist life over the past 20+ years:

OBU presented the Herschel H. Hobbs Award for Distinguished Denominational Service, named in honor of a legendary Southern Baptist pastor and denominational statesman, to Dr. David S. Dockery on Tuesday, June 11, at a reception in the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas. 

The reception was part of the 2013 Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting. 

Dockery, who serves as president of Union University in Jackson, Tenn., received the award from Dr. David W. Whitlock, president of OBU. 

“David Dockery has had a profound impact on Christian higher education, generally, and OBU, specifically,” Whitlock said. “In the providence of God, the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities paired me with Dr. Dockery in their first-year mentorship program when I became president of OBU. His wisdom and influence was so important to me in that first year, and I count it a blessing to consider him a friend.”

Forgetting, for the moment, how revisionist (and maybe even offensive?) it is to honor post-Takeover SBC elites in the name of Herschel Hobbs (who fundamentalists booed at the 1980 SBC meeting), now seems as good a time as ever to compare how OBU and Union relate to the SBC and its post-Takeover leadership.  We'll take up that topic in a series of blog posts this week.

Among the few dozen state convention-affiliated Baptist colleges, Union is clearly the darling of the SBC.  I can't even keep track of how many SBC seminary professors and high-level agency staffers have sent their own children to Union in recent years.  Whenever one of them gets married, graduates, or gets a job, the elite SBC Twitterverse becomes a virtual Union Alumni Association meeting.  We have to ask why so many post-Takeover SBC elites send their kids to Union.  Is Union objectively and uniquely better than all other Baptist colleges?  Or that good for these guys' careers?  Or is proximity to Nashville decisive?

Dockery has mastered one of the most delicate dances in evangelical life: keeping hardline constituents happy while also maintaining some mainstream legitimacy.  In addition to his prolific writing, Dockery has served on advisory boards for evangelical institutions, including Christianity Today and the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities.

His involvement with the CCCU is noteworthy as we try to get a sense for where the CCCU stands on the recent spate of fundamentalist encroachments at Baptist-affiliated CCCU institutions.  I'm sure Dockery wants to stay above the fray, and at this point in his career perhaps he's earned the right.  But I can't help but wonder if he smiled or frowned when he heard about the firings at OBU in 2010 and 2011, the wholesale faculty exodus at Shorter in 2012, or the takeover of Cedarville in 2013.

In a future post, we'll look more deeply at how OBU and Union each relate to SBC leadership.  We'll look for answers to the question of why so many SBC elites send their kids to Union while so few (if any) send their kids to OBU.  And we'll consider OBU's prospects for success if it abandons its rich heritage just to try to win over a few dozen guys who are always going to prefer Union anyway.

Dr. Dockery, who will retire next summer after 19 years on the job, will continue to be relevant to SBC life, especially in his role as chair of the Calvinism Advisory Committee.  I, for one, will always eagerly listen to anything Dr. Dockery has to say about Christian higher education.  And I wish him and Union success in this transition period.

Summer Update & FAQ

Greetings to longtime readers and a warm welcome to the many new people who have stumbled upon this site!

I mentioned in early June that the blog would be quiet this summer.  After a tumultuous 2010 & 2011, OBU's fundamentalist encroachment has subsided somewhat.  Top administrators have made their true intentions known, however.  This means OBU still needs a watchdog. OBU administrators currently lack the political cover necessary to complete their desired transformation.  But as soon as they believe they can get away with it, they will complete the fundamentalist re-orientation of the religion department and move on to other areas of the university.

These days, I'm spending less of my "Save OBU" time and effort on OBU.  Sure, I'm getting emails about various staff and faculty personnel changes.  I hear from a number of prospective students weighing their hopes for a great experience at OBU against the realities of what the administrators' actions have wrought.

Increasingly, however, I'm hearing from constituents of other Christian colleges.  Some are asking why I'm complaining about relatively minor goings-on at OBU when several other Baptist schools are in the throes of full-on fundamentalist takeovers that may result in harm to their reputations, financial ruin, and loss of accreditation.  Others, mostly from evangelical colleges that are not Baptist affiliated, are wondering how the problems at OBU, Cedarville, Shorter, Truett-McConnell, Brewton-Parker, Louisiana College, etc. could even happen at all.

I'll continue to monitor the OBU situation as best I can.  But in a future post, I'll lay out a vision for a collective effort wherein constituents of a variety of Christian colleges will appeal to the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU) for guidance about how to prevent fundamentalist-inspired trustee takeovers, presidential selections, administrative reorganizations, firings, and incursions against institutional norms and academic freedom.  The CCCU needs to strengthen and enforce standards for its member institutions.  Non-Baptist evangelicals need to understand what fundamentalists are doing to a significant swath of Christian higher education.  And Southern Baptist leaders need to get a clue and stop turning our colleges into their ideological playgrounds, presumably with the CCCU's blessing.  We need to find out: Does the CCCU even care?

Since the site has received hundreds of new visitors this summer and since many of you have written to ask about what's going on, I have responded to some frequently asked questions.

Click here to view our FAQ page.

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.

Reflection on Calvin College (and Other Non-Baptist Evangelical Schools)

I've spent the past three days attending a conference at Calvin College.  Calvin's Paul B. Henry Institute for the Study of Religion and Politics hosted the Seventh Biennial Symposium on Religion and Public Life on the school's Grand Rapids, Michigan campus.  (Outside my involvement with Save OBU, I am a political science Ph.D. student with research interests in the area of religion and politics.)  I had occasion to talk with many professors who work in evangelical higher education, all of whom were very interested in Baptist schools' recent lurches back toward fundamentalism.

Lately, our blog has focused attention on happenings at colleges that are, like OBU, affiliated with Baptist state conventions:

• The coming split between the Kentucky Baptist Convention and Campbellsville University
• The transformation of Cedarville University from a liberal arts college to a fundamentalist Bible academy
• The ever-bizarre goings-on at Louisana College
• The Georgia Baptist Convention's shameful assault on Shorter University
• The GBC's support for fledgling fundamentalist schools like Truett-McConnell and Brewton-Parker
• Ongoing problems at my own beloved alma mater, Oklahoma Baptist University

Considering the all-out assault on OBU's liberal arts heritage from 2009-2001, it has been very disheartening to learn that, with respect to academic freedom and ethical administration, OBU actually has it better than a lot of Baptist colleges.

But we have talked about non-Baptist evangelical schools before.  Last summer, when the new round of Forbes rankings came out, we saw that non-Baptist evangelical colleges not only have fewer restrictions on academic freedom, but also better reputations than Baptist colleges.  (We've also talked about how, before the changes, OBU was regarded as the best Southern Baptist CCCU-affiliated college.  Now it is quickly losing ground to Union, Ouachita, Samford, and others.)

We also speculated about how the purported "Evangelical Renaissance in Academe" is likely not to include Southern Baptists as long as their rightful heritage as legitimate liberal arts colleges is continually under attack from fundamentalist forces.

Baptist power brokers want you to think that if they don't exercise control over colleges, the colleges will quickly abandon Christianity.  That idea is laughable to people affiliated with schools like Wheaton College in Illinois and Gordon College in Massachusetts which, in spite of having no denominational ties, manage to sustain a strong Christian commitment and identity.

Calvin is a bit of an anomaly.  The denomination that controls it, the Christian Reformed Church in America, is not nearly as fearful or dogmatic as today's Baptist state conventions.  Yet in spite of having a rigorous faith examination as part of new professors' hiring process, Calvin does not seem interested in imposing restrictions on academic freedom.  Calvin faculty hires must produce a letter of affirmation from a pastor, commit to joining a Reformed congregation within two years, and appear before a committee of faculty and administrators to discuss matters of faith and the meaning of Christian education.  Yet no one is being run out of the Calvin philosophy and theology departments for doubting  that Jonah was really swallowed by a fish or that the earth was created in 6 24-hour periods about 6,000 years ago.

Also to Calvin's great credit, it attracts academically talented students.  Just as a team is only as good as its worst player or an orchestra is only as good as its worst instrumentalist, there is a sense in which a university is only as good as its least academically capable student.  Let's be honest.  OBU has a HUGE problem in this area.  OBU admits almost everyone who applies, often probationally.  Calvin (and many of the top-tier evangelical colleges) are more selective in admissions and less willing to compromise academic rigor and quality.  If OBU truly wants to be a peer of Wheaton, Calvin, and Gordon, it needs to be more intentional about attracting (and retaining) better students.

When I tell evangelical professors about the worsening state of Baptist undergraduate education in certain quarters, they are almost universally sympathetic.  They cannot fathom seeing colleagues dismissed for the reasons OBU (and so many others) has given.  They cannot believe how much power is concentrated in fundamentalists' hands.  They are frankly offended at the notion that fellow evangelical scholars/professors cannot be trusted to sustain an institution's Christian identity without heavy-handed administrative intervention and denominational oversight.  They are perplexed by the dismantling of philosophy departments and the increasing trend toward dumbed-down "apologetics" and bizarrely defensive "Christian worldview" classes.

For the record, these people are NOT liberals, let me assure you.  They are people who believe in Christ as their personal savior, trust the Scriptures as authoritative, and go to theologically conservative churches every Sunday.

The more I reflect on the massive variation in academic freedom among Christian colleges, the more I think the CCCU needs to get involved.  We've expressed our qualms about the CCCU before.  But for better or worse, it is the institutional representative of these conservative Protestant schools -- Baptist, nondenominational, and otherwise.  Obviously the CCCU lacks an incentive to meddle in member institutions' internal affairs.  But the quality of the schools that have academic freedom starkly contrasts with frankly embarrassing turn of events at Cedarville, Louisiana College, Shorter University, OBU, and elsewhere over the past few years.

The fundamentalists won the Takeover fight in the SBC -- we get it.  "To the victor goes the spoils."  But now that the Takeover has moved from the state conventions to the colleges, we have to ask, when is enough enough?  There are many fine examples of academic freedom, ethical administration, and the responsible integration of faith and learning at so many evangelical institutions.  Baptists can do better.

What's Going On at Campbellsville University (KY)?

We began the Save OBU project concerned about one university.  But we have seen that dozens of other evangelical colleges have been down some version of our path.  As crazy as this may seem to those who have seen OBU's great liberal arts tradition threatened in recent years, OBU is actually in much better shape than a number of Baptist state convention-affiliated schools, some of which have essentially given up their heritage as liberal arts colleges and become fundamentalist Bible academies, throwing away their histories, their reputations, and perhaps ultimately, their accreditation in the process.

The debacle at Shorter University in Georgia was covered elsewhere, though we definitely spent time agonizing over Shorter's decline here.  Recently, we considered the situation at Cedarville University in Ohio.  Many Southern Baptists are watching with (depending on their perspectives) glee or horror as Louisiana College stumbles along.

No Baptist state convention has been as blatant as Georgia's about its desire to jettison academic freedom and respectability in favor of turning its colleges into fundamentalist Bible academies.  I sense that Tennessee may be next, having already parted ways with Belmont and probably wanting to cast Carson-Newman aside in order to further bolster its flagship school, Union University (and perhaps eventually fund the fledgling Tennessee Temple University).

We haven't assessed the situation in Kentucky, where, in the shadow of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, the state convention has a relationship with a few small liberal arts colleges.  Last fall we noted Georgetown College (KY) President Bill Crouch's retirement.  But we haven't yet offered much analysis on the situation in Kentucky.

That will have to change.

This week, the Kentucky Baptist Convention's executive director, the Reverend Dr. Paul Chitwood, has been dealing with calls to to de-fund Campbellsville University over a tenure decision in the university's theology department.  Chitwood's statement was very diplomatic, calling for patience as facts are investigated:

Recent news that the university will not tenure a popular professor in their school of theology has solicited both an outpouring of support for the professor and swirling accusations about the university. For most Kentucky Baptists, a personnel matter at one of our nine agencies or institutions is a matter that should be handled privately by the administration without interference by the public. 

Claims, however, that CU retains other professors in the school of theology who reject biblical authority and professors in other disciplines who affirm evolution, are difficult for many Kentucky Baptists to swallow. This is especially true when well over $1 million of their missions offerings are helping pay the salaries of those professors every year. 

As I peruse emails I have received calling for the defunding of CU and threatening to defund the Cooperative Program if the KBC does not take action, I understand the concerns but am equally concerned that we do not rush to judgment. I earnestly pray that accusations regarding one institution will not be used to undermine all that Kentucky Baptists support, including the education 16,000 Southern Baptist Convention seminary students and more than 10,000 missionaries and church planters taking the gospel to Kentucky, North America, and the ends of the earth. 

I am, however, genuinely troubled by the testimonies of some current and former CU students. 

Tenuous and fragile are words that describe the relationships between most state conventions and their liberal arts universities. Higher education, by its very nature, requires the kind of academic freedom and exploration that is sometimes difficult to envision being funded by missions offerings. But if academic freedom is no longer afforded to those who hold to “the faith once delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3) and teach a high view of Scripture (2Tim 3:16), the time for church support has clearly passed.

Chitwood, for the moment, still has to try to be fair to the fundamentalist lay and clergy leadership of the convention as well as the college's constituents.  But I suspect that if KBC leaders think seriously and strategically about this issue, they will realize it's time to part ways.

Separation is obviously the better course of action for both entities.  We'll speak to insiders and offer more nuanced perspectives in the weeks to come.  But for the moment, let us hold out OBU's experience with the BGCO as evidence that, if the KBC and its colleges continue their tenuous relationship, the pain and agony far outweigh whatever modest benefits each entity thinks it gets from the other.

Campbellsville students, faculty and alumni: If your beloved university decides to stick it out with the KBC, you can expect doctrinal witch hunts, fundamentalist-inspired meddling in personnel and policy decisions, a precipitous and irreversible decline in reputation and national rankings, and ultimately the end of legitimate liberal arts education on your campus.  In ways visible and invisible, you will see consequential decisions made out of the Baptist Building, not your administrators' offices.  Tears will be shed, careers will be disrupted, and pain will be widely felt.

KBC pastors and laypeople: If your convention decides to "fight for biblical authority," "return to biblical roots," or whatever you want to call your decision to flex your muscle at Campbellsville, you can expect a long and drawn-out battle that will exhaust your resources, divert needed funds from other vital mission and ministry efforts, and frankly distract you from your core mission.

More on this later.  Prayers for all involved.  We've been there.  It hurts.  It's ugly.  Sometimes we can both be most faithful to our missions apart rather than together.  Consider that such a time may now be at hand.

Multiple Storms Brewing on Bison Hill

It was bound to happen sooner or later. Our run of good fortune/divine blessing may be ending.

Regarding academic freedom and respecting the institution's norms and heritage, the past year has been pretty great at OBU compared to the 3 years before that.  Last April, Provost Stan Norman finally underwent a performance evaluation that included faculty input.  (And notice how quiet he's been since then...)  Last spring, most departments were allowed to hire their candidates of choice for faculty positions.  As far as we know, the candidates did not face the provost's fundamentalist litmus test questions that previous years' job candidates reported facing.  There were no ideologically-motivated firings last summer.  The new trustee leadership seems as great as the last.  This winter, a well-respected professor was granted senior faculty status --- a victory, given that some faculty feared that the administration may use the tenure decision as a weapon.

But the news has not been all good.  OBU continues to fall in the Forbes rankings, losing ground to Southern Baptist peers and to other evangelical colleges.  And we were disappointed that the usual faculty search procedures were once again ignored in the College of Theology and Ministry, this time so that a young-earth creationist could be brought in from Southwestern Seminary.

Two current developments:

College of Fine Arts
As we began to see encouraging signs last spring, I thought it best not to open yet another line of criticism against the administration.  But there was widespread student and faculty anger about goings-on in the Warren M. Angell College of Fine Arts.  Last week, I explained why I neglected to bring these issues up last year and began writing about some of those concerns.  It looks like there may be some developments to report soon, so I'm holding off on finishing the "Fine Arts Fiasco" series.  The Angell College of Fine Arts has a hard-earned reputation for excellence, and it's heartening to see people standing against unasked-for changes that threaten to degrade the College's quality and reputation.

Alumni Respond to Christopher Yuan Sermon
A group of several dozen alumni wrote an open letter to the OBU community in response to "ex gay" evangelist Christopher Yuan's April 3 chapel sermon.  The letter can be found here.  Note that Save OBU has not and will not endorse any outside issues or causes.  I suspect our supporters hold a wide diversity of opinions about human sexuality and the place of homosexual persons in the life and ministry of the Church.  We remain committed to two issues and two issues only: 1) Preserving academic freedom at OBU and 2) Insisting that the institution's norms and heritage be honored.

A recent poll indicates that 51% of white evangelicals aged 18-34 support same sex marriage rights.  Given those numbers, it follows that a significant number of students were troubled by Yuan's message.  I figure a campus-wide conversation is underway about how OBU should treat the gay and lesbian members of its own campus community.  The alumni letter speaks to that issue.


I hope all is well with each of you,
-Jacob

P.S. I have been very busy with work lately, and have not been able to devote much time to Save OBU.  I have family in town this weekend as my bride and I celebrate our daughter's first birthday.  I'll try to keep you updated on OBU happenings as I'm able.

Where is the CCCU!?

Before I begin, let me extend a warm welcome to our hundreds of new readers this week.  Please look around the site and get to know us a bit.  Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.  And please excuse this hastily composed stream-of-consciousness post.

I hate to interrupt guest contributor Sarah Jones's excellent series on Cedarville University.  But as fundamentalist encroachment proceeds apace at a number of evangelical colleges with no sign of letting up, I have to ask, Where is the CCCU?

For the uninitiated, the Council for Conservative Christian Colleges & Universities is a Washington, D.C.-based lobby for a very small subset of Christian colleges.  We've written about the CCCU here before.  Last March, we quoted Gordon College Professor Karl Giberson, who rightly said that some CCCU schools' "lingering attachment to some of the more dubious certainties and habits derived from Fundamentalism" badly hurt their credibility as legitimate academic institutions.  In April, Save OBU Contributing Editor Veronica Risinger  wrote a series on women at OBU.  She prefaced it by looking at women in CCCU schools, which the CCCU strongly implies are the only schools that are "intentionally Christ-centered."  On this score, Veronica noted that only 6% of CCCU institutions have female presidents: "For women who want to lead, the odds are a lot better if your school isn't intentionally Christian."  Finally, in July, I congratulated outgoing CCCU President Paul Corts and welcomed the newly-elected president, Ed Blews.

My interest in academic freedom and ethical administration in Christian higher education began when I heard about failings in those areas at my alma mater (Oklahoma Baptist University) from 2009 to 2011.  But I have been saddened (though not surprised) to learn that the situation is worse -- much worse -- at peer institutions like Shorter, Cedarville, and Louisiana College.  This is without even mentioning other Baptist schools who have apparently made their peace with the new, fundamentalist direction of the post-Takeover SBC such as Union University, Southwest Baptist, and North Greenville University.  And we constituents of institutions related to Baptist state conventions are just beginning to learn about goings-on at colleges related to other, smaller evangelical and pentecostal denominations that comprise a majority of the CCCU's membership.

Now, I suppose the CCCU does not want to meddle in its member institutions' internal affairs.  But unlike accrediting bodies, which must verify colleges' independent governance, the CCCU seems either unconcerned about or uninterested in stopping problematic threats to academic freedom and lapses in ethical administration that occur when fundamentalists take control.

Thank God moderates at OBU still had enough clout to prevent, or at least delay, the new administration from turning it into a fundamentalist Bible academy.  But if we OBU constituents are losing the battle slowly, constituents of Louisiana College, Cedarville, and Shorter are losing the battle swiftly and forcefully.  Will no one in the CCCU stand up for them?

I would think the tide of embarrassing press (Cedarville, Shorter), threats to accreditation (Shorter, Louisiana College) and dramatic declines in national rankings (OBU, maybe others) would get the CCCU's attention.  But I know of no evidence that this is the case.  CCCU President Ed Blews wants to focus on protecting scholarship and loan programs (which is good, I guess, though the wisdom of borrowing heavily to finance a private undergraduate education is debatable).  Blews also wants to protect "religious freedom" (i.e., challenge the so-called HHS Mandate, which is a little strange since the CCCU excludes all Catholic universities as insufficiently Christ-centered).  Of course it's vital for the CCCU to advocate on issues relevant to all its member institutions and I am as confident as anyone that under Blews's leadership, the council will continue to do so very effectively.

But the CCCU needs to realize something.  All is not well.  Sure, there are a handful of mainline-affiliated (literally no more than 15) and a few unaffiliated CCCU schools where academic freedom is secure and denominational politics cannot or will not interfere.  But at many member institutions, faithful Christian scholars and students are suffering.

I know it's a fine line for the CCCU to walk.  After all, the CCCU is a big tent considering its rather precise definition of what constitutes "intentionally Christ-centered."  Its membership includes some very reputable, academically rigorous institutions and some pretty wacky, nominally accredited, and avowedly fundamentalist degree mills.  But at this point, the CCCU's silence is deafening.  One prominent evangelical blogger, noting problems at several institutions (CCCU and otherwise) more eloquently characterized the current collective problem as an "Evangelical Inquisition."

It's well and good that Ed Blews was smiling and joking around with Messiah College President and CCCU Board Chair Kim Phipps at his inauguration last month in Washington.  But it's time to get serious about fundamentalist encroachment and oppose this inquisition.  It recently hit close to home for Dr. Phipps (incidentally one of the handful of female CCCU college presidents), as one of Messiah's professors is under fire for a blog post that challenged unthinking, literal interpretations of Scripture.  The CCCU requires its members to "be supportive of other Christian colleges."  Well, we at OBU, Cedarville, Shorter, Louisiana College and a host of other member institutions need to feel that support.

We need it now more than ever.

P.S. I live in Washington, so I am willing to meet with senior CCCU staff to strategize about how we can all work together to protect academic freedom and ensure ethical administration at our beloved Christian colleges.

P.P.S. The hymn "Forward Through the Ages" was sung at Mr. Blews's inauguration service.  It's one of his favorites and it's one of mine, too.  I hope it calls to mind the unity and determination we need to protect and preserve the traditions and values we hold dear.

1. Forward through the ages, in unbroken line, 
 move the faithful spirits at the call divine; 
 gifts in differing measure, hearts of one accord, 
 manifold the service, one the sure reward. 

Refrain:
 Forward through the ages, in unbroken line, 
 move the faithful spirits at the call divine. 

2. Wider grows the kingdom, reign of love and light; 
 for it we must labor, till our faith is sight. 
 Prophets have proclaimed it, martyrs testified, 
 poets sung its glory, heroes for it died.
 (Refrain) 

3. Not alone we conquer, not alone we fall; 
 in each loss or triumph lose or triumph all. 
 Bound by God's far purpose in one living whole,
 move we on together to the shining goal. 
 (Refrain) 

Cedarville University: A Very Brief Introduction

Cedarville University Series
Part 1 - Cedarville: A Very Brief Introduction
Part 2 - The Worst are Filled with Passionate Intensity
Part 3 - Things Fall Apart
Part 4 - The Center Cannot Hold

If you read the NewYork Times on Saturday, then you might be aware, superficially at least, that there is a Christian college called Cedarville University in the state of Ohio, and that there are suspicious goings on at this college, orchestrated by a faction of Christian fundamentalists.

Perhaps you ignored the story. Perhaps you skimmed it, and thought: this is to be expected, this is why Christian colleges shouldn’t exist.

Perhaps you paid it some attention, and decided to Google the situation. If you did, you’re probably confused. Is Cedarville becoming more conservative, or is it becoming liberal? Did its administrators really fire Carl Ruby, Michael Pahl, and eliminate the philosophy major out of ideological spite? Or is the backlash evidence of a liberal campaign to erode Cedarville’s conservative identity? And how do the firings of two fundamentalist professors in 2008 factor into all of this?

But these questions are the barest introduction to the chaos that threatens to topple the administration of one of the most prominent Christian universities in the US. Recent alumni revelations portray an institution so crippled and corrupted by its on-going identity crisis that it has knowingly sheltered, at last count, five members of faculty and staff guilty of either committing sexual abuse, or of covering it up. These cover ups span decades. The victims are male and female, gay and straight. They are missionary kids, schoolchildren, and Cedarville alumni. Some suffer in public, some in silence. And I am one of them.

In so many ways, Cedarville’s story is my story too. I entered Cedarville in 2006, a scholarship student from the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. Like most members of my freshman class, I came from an Evangelical family, and had spent my upbringing immersed in Evangelicalism’s infamously insular subculture. I dressed modestly, abstained from alcohol and from sex, and anticipated a university experience that would help me combine deep faith and intellectual enquiry. Unlike most of my classmates, I possessed a political perspective firmly located left of center, and I publicly identified as a feminist. If you are familiar with the political environment at America’s Christian colleges and universities, then you can likely imagine the student body’s reaction.

Even if I’d attended Cedarville during a season of calm, my ‘Cedarville experience’ (to borrow the Admissions teams’ language) would have been marked by ideologically motivated harassment from students, faculty and alumni. That’s not a particularly unusual story, by itself. The same story could be repeated by anyone who’s ever found themselves marginalized by a conservative religious community. Instead, my Cedarville experience is made truly unique by a series of controversies that began during my first semester on campus, and now threaten the integrity of the university’s national reputation.

In fall 2006, I had barely settled into my dorm room when the student body received word that Soulforce, a group of GLBT activists and their straight allies, would arrive in Cedarville to protest the university’s anti-gay admissions policies. Soulforce activists, called Equality Riders, made a national tour of the country’s Christian colleges and universities, and most denied riders access to their campuses. Cedarville, however, welcomed riders onto campus. Along with a group of other students, I acted as a campus guide for Equality riders. I also met a group of openly gay Cedarville alumni. The same alumni founded Cedarville Out, for GLBT and allied alumni, shortly after the Soulforce visit.

As an institution, Cedarville maintained its conservative identity throughout the Soulforce visit. The decision to welcome activists on campus lay primarily with Carl Ruby, the former Vice President for Student Life. If you did read that New York Times article, you’ll recognize that name. After 25 years of service to Cedarville University, Carl Ruby was forced to resign last month. Though Dr. Ruby has consistently adhered to a conservative position on sexual orientation and gay marriage, his compassion for gay students and alumni has been equally consistent. That compassion was first evident to me in his decision to permit Soulforce activists on campus. But it also invited accusations of liberalism. For many alumni, students, and parents, Ruby’s decision constituted capitulation to a radical leftist fringe, and threatened Cedarville’s historical identity as a Baptist institution.

The Soulforce visit marked the beginning of a troublesome season for Cedarville University. In my next posts, I’ll explain Cedarville’s decision to end its historic affiliation with the General Association of Baptists, the firing of two fundamentalist professors, its history of covering up sexual abuse, and the current controversy. 

National Higher Ed Press Covers Shorter Degradation

I've been in touch with Shorter University (GA) alumni for almost a year.  Their situation, as we've repeated, is significantly worse than ours.  They had a hostile state convention pack the trustee board with fundamentalists, and then a new president disregarded academic freedom and institutional norms to purge the college of dozens of faculty and staff.  We've always considered Shorter to be a worst-case scenario for OBU.  But there are a lot of reasons to be hopeful.  While OBU has a president who has to play nice with the fundamentalists and at least two (maybe more) administrators who clearly have no qualms about dramatic policy shifts, we still have some great trustees, as well as higher-ups in the state convention who do not want to see OBU turned into a national joke.

Shorter has not been so lucky.  Their disaffected constituents began mobilizing as soon as the dramatic changes were announced last fall.  They took quite an interest in what we has done, and I believe our blog pre-dates theirs by about three months.  They have also, understandably, pursued a more aggressive media strategy, which we will likewise do if things get worse.

You should definitely follow Shorter constituents' attempts to recover from the wreckage on Facebook and Twitter.  If you follow these issues closely, chances are you've already read some of the news reports.  This week, Inside Higher Education has a lengthy piece on the Shorter situation by noted religious college reporter Libby Nelson.  Last October, after faculty met with trustees for what was billed as a routine meeting,

The trustees told everyone that there would be some additions to contracts for the next academic year -- changes intended to amplify the liberal arts college's Christian mission.  Then the faculty and staff filed out, past the large painting of the Prodigal Son in the hallway.  Within the hour, they received two documents by e-mail.  One was a statement of faith; the other, a list of "lifestyle" expectations. 

Those who wanted to keep their jobs would have to sign both.

One young alum said of Shorter the same thing I have thought of saying about OBU when asked by my friends and colleagues about my alma mater:

He went to a small liberal arts college in the South, the former student now says.  But that college doesn't exist anymore.

You truly should read and consider the entire piece.  And say a prayer of thanksgiving that we have the ability to protect academic freedom and insist on ethical administration at OBU -- before it's too late.

New Trustee Leadership at OBU Seems Promising

As we mentioned earlier in the week, OBU's Board of Trustees had its fall meeting last Friday.  Among other vital business, the board elected officers for the year:

Board officers for the 2012-13 year were elected at the close of the meeting. They are David Lawrence, Weatherford, Okla., chair; Jarrod Frie, Tulsa, Okla., vice chair; Todd Fisher, Shawnee, Okla. secretary, and Nadine McPherson, Oklahoma City, Okla., treasurer.

We will definitely miss the very fine leadership of Dr. Reagan Bradford, who rotates off the board this year.  He served two years as chair.  During his tenure, longtime Edmond pastor and board vice chair Rev. Dr. Alan Day tragically died.  Bradford also had to contend with the uproar caused by the administration's botched dismissals of two well-respected professors in the College of Theology and Ministry.  With vociferous faculty protests, last fall's alumni petition, and the emergence and growth of Save OBU, Dr. Bradford has certainly contended with many challenges as he guided the trustees.

I frankly don't know a lot about OBU trustee politics.  When I began the Save OBU project, I thought the first order of business would be finding out how the BGCO uses the board to control OBU.  But much to my pleasant surprise, that isn't how things work at all.  In fact, OBU has great trustees who care about the university's growth, success, independence, and continued flourishing.  Unlike the seminaries, whose boards reek of insider SBC politics, and many state convention-run colleges, whose trustees actively abet fundamentalist takeovers of once-proud institutions, OBU's trustees are quite outstanding.

But make no mistake.  The trustee board is the linchpin.  As the architects of the original SBC Takeover well knew, if you control the trustees, you control the institution.  Fortunately, that hasn't happened at OBU yet.

We welcome to the chair Rev. Dr. David Lawrence, pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Weatherford.  The vice chair, Jarrod Frie, is a layperson.  I don't know if this means Frie will acede to the chair.  But while we definitely have some great non-fundamentalist clergy, I tend to think we're definitely safer with a layperson.  For one thing, laypeople don't have as much to lose from not engaging in BGCO politics.

We dodged a bullet in that Rev. Dr. Todd Fisher will not chair the board (unless the BGCO elects him to another 4-year term sometime in the future).  The main reason I say this is that he is an officer on the board of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY.  Southern is thoroughly fundamentalist, and it is likely that Fisher sees many of the things SBTS does as normal.  For instance, the seminary tolerates no moderates (let alone liberals), and has a fundamentalist ethos on everything from the Bible to politics to gender roles.  The last thing we need is someone who might be tempted to think it's God's will to make OBU more like a monolithic, extremely homogeneous post-Takeover SBC seminary.  Dr. Fisher, pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church in Shawnee, states on his blog that you can't be a Christian if you don't believe in a literal Adam and Eve.  Nothing against the man personally, but I'm glad he's too busy with SBTS's board to be an officer on OBU's.

We're lucky to have people who actually believe in God and science chair OBU's board.  Dr. Bradford, a M.D. research physician and Dr. Lawrence is a Ph.D. mathematician who entered the ministry as  a second career.  I can't imagine that either of them are happy about Provost Norman's and Dean McClellen's antics.  In fact, last winter some faculty were hopeful that a group of trustees might try to help President Whitlock realize that Provost Norman should move on.  Our sources never found out whether such a meeting took place.

Let's hope and pray that OBU's trustees stand strong against any further fundamentalist encroachment!

Georgetown College (KY) President to Retire

Over the weekend, Associated Baptist Press reported that Georgetown College President Bill Crouch is retiring after 21 years.  Among Dr. Crouch's many accomplishments at Georgetown are the fact that he never wavered in standing strong for academic freedom and he avoided a painful, fruitless war with the Kentucky Baptist Convention.

We've blogged extensively about Stetson, Furman, William Jewell, Louisiana College, Shorter, Truett-McConnell, Brewton-Parker, Yellowstone, among other evangelical colleges.  But we haven't talked about Georgetown at Save OBU, and it's a shame.  In fact, Georgetown has a lot more in common with OBU than some of the schools we ordinarily consider peers due to geographic proximity.  Like OBU, Georgetown has exemplified the best of the moderate Baptist liberal arts tradition even as it existed in the shadow of a large SBC seminary that has become avowedly fundamentalist since the early 1990s.  Also, Georgetown's path to independence, sustainability, and a bright future as a legitimate institution of Baptist higher education is one we would do well to follow.  Like many evangelical colleges, Georgetown has maintained excellence while upholding its Christian identity even as OBU has fallen in the national rankings.

Tell me if this sounds familiar:

For decades, the state convention trusted and proudly supported the college, a beacon of intellectually honest and academically rigorous Christian higher education.  The nearby SBC seminary served as a natural pipeline for religion faculty and administrators.  Though many state churches were fundamentalist, moderates had a place at the table when it came to college, state convention, and SBC life.  After the Fundamentalist Takeover of the SBC, the college kept on excelling even as the nearby seminary and the state convention moved sharply in the direction of fundamentalism and authoritarianism.  The tenuous partnership continued until the state convention began demanding changes at the college that its faculty, students, and alumni could not in good conscience abide.

Yeah, I've heard that one before.  We've all lived it.  The people at Georgetown lived it, too.  But they fought back in ways we've been yet unwilling to do.

Wisely, Georgetown and the KBC negotiated an exit strategy.  Georgetown would be allowed to elect its own trustees, and the KBC would phase out its annual subsidy to the college.  Rather than downplay its Baptist heritage, Georgetown has continued in its tradition of unashamedly Baptist Christian higher education.  For the KBC's part, it has been able to allocate funds to a variety of critical mission and ministry priorities rather than add a drop in the bucket to an institution that raises almost all its money on its own.  Students who want a fundamentalist Bible college experience can attend any of the KBC's five colleges, including Boyce College, the undergraduate arm of Louisville's Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.  Students flock to Georgetown if they want a serious, rigorous Christian liberal arts education with professors who are free to teach and do not seek to indoctrinate their students.  For a while, the KBC listed Georgetown as a "ministry partner," but today's Baptists don't like to be affiliated with anything they can't control, so even that relationship is about to end, though neither entity really cares anymore.  Both realize they are infinitely better off without the other, just as OBU and the BGCO will immediately realize once they, mercifully, finally sever ties.

If it weren't for the very unfortunate fact that the BGCO literally owns OBU's buildings and grounds, the path of Georgetown's exit from KBC control would be the most ideal path for us to follow.  President Whitlock would cement his place in OBU history as one of our greatest presidents and would have the unending gratitude of generations of faculty, students, and alumni.

Instead, we will continue our awkward little dance with the BGCO, which next month will elect another slate of 8 Anthony Jordan-approved trustees.  Eventually, more professors will be fired, more fundamentalists will be hired, and the quality of our academic programs will gradually erode.  This is not just speculation.  It's exactly what will happen if nothing changes, just as it happened to literally dozens of other state convention-controlled colleges.  Maybe if we boost enrollment, build athletic teams, and add master's programs, few people will notice.  Instead of fully funding ministry, missions, and evangelism, the BGCO will chip in a pittance toward our annual budget, in exchange for controlling the trustee board, dominating presidential selection, and the presumption of control of the institution's direction, mission, and ethos.

Georgetown offers a path forward for us, and Dr. William Crouch deserves credit for leading the college toward a future not only of prosperity and excellence, but also integrity and the very best of the Baptist tradition.  We wish him and his wife, Jan, all the best in their retirement.

Fall Update and Plans

Greetings, everyone.  Sorry things have been quiet on the blog lately.  I've been quite busy with my own personal and professional duties (which include a collaboration with Rev. Jim Wallis of Sojourners on a course for Georgetown undergraduates).  It's actually a good thing: If we're not loudly protesting, then hopefully things are going about as well as can be expected.

In early November, I'll release the results of our BGCO pastor/church staff survey (taken in April).  There is very little appetite among the rank-and-file for a fundamentalist takeover of OBU, and large majorities of people want OBU to have autonomy over its own affairs, without external BGCO or SBC influence.

We should also start talking about Homecoming (Nov. 9-10) and the BGCO Annual Meeting (Nov. 12-13).  My sense is that a combative protest or aggressive media strategy would not be the most fruitful way forward at the moment.  But I know many of us are angry and devastated at the recent changes and I'm open to the consensus of the group.  In any case, it would be smart to coordinate some kind of collective effort, activity, and/or information sharing.

I had hoped for Save OBU to be further along organizationally in advance of the BGCO meeting.  We need to convene an Advisory Board to share the workload and confer legitimacy on the group.  (Right now, Save OBU is easily dismissed --- and mocked --- as a few peoples' online rantings.)  But we're on a long time horizon.  The fundamentalists have mobilized for a long, long battle over the future of OBU.  There's plenty of time to stave off the level of destruction that the Georgia Baptist Convention-controlled colleges have recently experienced.

We saw a huge spike in blog traffic in late August and early September when students and faculty returned to campus.  I haven't been able to keep up with daily postings.  But I'll be ramping up blog activity over the next few weeks.

I'm reading a couple books that I'm sure many of you know well.  One is The Future of Baptist Higher Education, which arose out of a conference on the subject at Baylor in the mid-2000s.  The other is The Future of Christian Higher Education, an edited volume from the late 1990s by Mercer ethicist David Gushee and Union University President David Dockery.

As always, if you have comments, ideas, inside information, or would like to contribute, please let me know!

2012 Forbes Data (Part 2): OBU's Decline in Context

Earlier this week, I reported that OBU had fallen to #390 in the Forbes college rankings.  While Forbes (methodology here) has improved on U.S. News & World Report (which dominated the college rankings game for many years), I would be the first to admit that these rankings are imperfect and it is impossible to perfectly quantify the experience/quality/outcome these magazines are trying to rank.

Still, these rankings are enough to reveal all kinds of problems with the current direction of OBU and in Baptist higher education across the board.

First, the ugly picture:

The defenders of OBU's new fundamentalist regime really can't argue with this.  The best they can do is say, "Hey, the rankings go from 1 to 650!  By only showing 100 to 400 on the y axis, Jacob is making the slope of the line look worse than it actually is."

Fair enough.  But is this really any better?

When you consider that the 400s and 500s are populated by schools like Oral Roberts and Liberty, this shouldn't make you feel any better.  This is a stunning decline.

How are other Baptist schools faring?  I wondered the same thing.  The chart below shows OBU's decline in bold along with the rankings of several other state convention-affiliated schools.  Some of these peers are relatively fundamentalist, while others are relatively moderate.  But it's clear that OBU's decline is unique, even among Baptist peers:

Samford dipped but is doing alright and Baylor is on a clear upward trajectory.  Ouachita and Union are holding their own.  Southwest Baptist University has never been ranked.  (For what it's worth, Southwest Baptist is also the school from which David Whitlock came to OBU.  Coming to OBU was a huge professional leap and the opportunity of a lifetime for Whitlock, as I'm sure he would be the first to acknowledge.)

The picture above presents a different narrative about what was going on in 2008 and 2009 than what we usually hear.  We were in an enrollment crisis!  We had to make tough financial decisions!  Maybe so.  But for all the hand wringing, it turns out that OBU was actually in much better shape at the end of the Brister presidency and during the Parrish interim than it is today.  Remember, as opposed to U.S. News, Forbes is trying to measure quality and outcomes, not just reputation.  One can only wonder how much better off we'd be if Whitlock, Norman, and McClellan had never come to Bison Hill.  Or if President Whitlock had made it clear from the beginning that he would not abide a fundamentalist takeover instead of letting it happen with his blessing.

I don't know exactly how Whitlock can undo the damage his hatchet men have already done.  But I'm afraid it will take more than a capital campaign, a football team, and a few new degree programs.  He could start by apologizing for past missteps (why is that so hard for people to do?), urging his friend the provost (who long ago lost the faculty's confidence, if he ever actually had it) to find another job, and doing more to address faculty concerns about past and present problems than having an occasional lunch with a few faculty leaders.  Some search committees have been able to bring top-rate junior professors to OBU.  But in other departments (Theology and Ministry being the most egregious but perhaps not the only example), the process is a joke and the administrators bring in whoever they want without even consulting relevant faculty colleagues.  Speaking of jokes, the bookstore restricts access to all books not produced by Tree of Life's approved list of fundamentalist publishing houses.  The list of books you can't find in OBU's bookstore is mind-boggling.

Anyway, back to the rankings.

Later in the week, I'll speak specifically to how OBU is faring with respect to other evangelical colleges, as well as institutions that were formerly affiliated with Baptist state conventions.  Also, if I have time, I might build a data set that includes the Forbes rankings of every CCCU institution.  I have a feeling that doing so might provide a compelling visualization of the fact that maintaining a Christian identity does not have to mean sacrificing quality.  It might also help reveal the fact that Christian institutions that are controlled by fundamentalists are destined for mediocrity (if not outright ruin), while those run by moderates (or at least people who are sensitive to the importance of rigor, quality, and ethical/professional standards) can continue to achieve excellence.

More on all that later in the week.  Please keep your friends, classmates, and interested colleagues informed about the work we are doing here at Save OBU.