Winding Down for the Summer

The past month was busier than I had hoped, precluding me from following up on all the Baptist higher ed goings-on I mentioned in late April.  Still, we commented on a few stories of interest:

• Most alarmingly, we shared the news that an OBU student was asked not to return to his/her campus job and was bullied by senior administrators for questioning the new Fine Arts dean's re-direction of the department.
• We had two posts on the apparent lack of editorial independence (or judgment) at The Bison, OBU's student newspaper.
• We commented on OBU's selection of U.S. Representative James Lankford as 2013 commencement speaker.  In the end, Lankford's congressional duties precluded him from being available to address the graduates.
• In Kentucky, state Baptists revolted against KBC-affiliated Campbellsville University as news spread that a biblical literalist who taught religion there initially had his contract non-renewed.  We assessed the situation and commended KBC Executive Director Paul Chitwood for his masterful handling of the situation.
• I came clean about my love for the Gaither Vocal Band. Really!
• We congratulated the OBU Class of 2013 and reminded them that, even though the positives strongly outweigh the negatives, OBU's reputation suffered needlessly during their 4 years.  They were done a disservice and their investment was devalued.

I may post a few more stories in June relevant to OBU in particular and post-Takeover Baptist life in general.  But things will be winding down.  Over the summer, I'll offer occasional commentary on news relevant to Baptist higher education.  And I certainly invite others to submit book reviews, offer perspectives, or share their stories.  We can use the summer as a time for community building.

Many of you disagree, but I perceive that things have stabilized significantly at OBU over the past 18 months (coincidentally, the same span of time this blog has existed).  Sure, things have happened that made moderates roll their eyes (OBU administrators cozying up to SBC elites, the surprising number of right-wing hard-liners preaching in Raley Chapel this spring, etc).  And it was extremely distressing to learn that in the Hobbs College of Theology and Ministry, all usual and customary practices for faculty searches have been discarded.

But every indication is that plans to re-make the OBU faculty in the image of the post-Takeover SBC have been thwarted.  We remain concerned about the situation in the College of Fine Arts.  We will be watching the leadership transition in the College of Nursing as closely as possible.  But the administration seems less inclined to be as openly hostile toward the faculty as it was a couple years ago.

Time can heal.  Understanding can grow.  People can learn from their mistakes.  I assume that OBU and BGCO leaders want the best for OBU.  We've seen so many other schools that fundamentalists have virtually destroyed.  I hope no one wants that for our beloved OBU.  It's true that OBU suffered a significant setback early in the Whitlock presidency.  But we are still in a lot better shape than almost all Baptist state convention-affiliated colleges.

Finally, I need to take a break.  Fundamentalism drags me down.  This effort has not been conducive to my own spiritual formation -- an evolution I have long neglected but one that I intend to pursue.  I trust you will all understand.

Our Facebook and Twitter communities will remain active, but blog updates will be few.

If anything comes up or you want to discuss any issues relevant to OBU, Baptist life, or anything else, feel free to email me.

-Jacob

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.

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

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.