Would I Still Choose OBU?

Hello, my dear friends! I am so glad to be back with you.

As Jacob already said, I left you for a while because I was getting married! In some ways (marrying a Baptist at age 22) I suppose I am very much a typical OBU girl. :) For those of you interested in pictures, some of the teasers are here.

I write this post for fairness (Jacob got to brag about his beautiful new daughter) and also because, believe it or not, my wedding reminded me about some of the things I love about OBU.

It has been asserted that I hate OBU or that I have turned my back on OBU. That may be true in some ways. But on my wedding day, I could not help but notice how much OBU has given me. OBU will always be a special place in my heart-- it is the place I met my husband. And not only that, it is the place I met the majority of my bridal party. Actually, now that I think about it, there was only one person in the wedding party who was not either family or a friend from OBU.

OBU really was a great place for me. I received an excellent education and met some of the best friends that anyone could ask for. Together, all of us questioned, discussed, learned, and grew. As I have said before, I wouldn't trade it for anything. I think that sometimes I forget the huge hand that OBU has played in who I am today. And for that, I am extremely grateful.

But the more I think about it, the more I realize that students like me will not be going to OBU much longer. And the ones that do go are much less likely to have my same experience.

When I was a junior in high school, looking for a place to spend my college career, I was not the typical person who might generally be looking to OBU. I was not a Baptist and I was not an Oklahoman. But I was drawn to the school because I had a friend who loved it there and saw that it was recognized across the board for spectacular academics.

My parents, believe it or not, did not want me to go to a faith-based school. Outside of the "Bible Belt" it is not uncommon to hold the assumption that faith based schools do not have as good academics as their secular counterparts. When it came to choosing a college, my parents were far more concerned about academics. The point of paying for an education is to get an education-- not to become a better Christian.

I think that this is still a pretty fair argument. But I wanted to study religion, and my heart was set on OBU. In the end, my parents were convinced by OBU's excellent rankings and both of them really enjoyed the visit that the three of us made to campus. Believing that the educational investment would be worth the money, they happily sent me to Shawnee, where I believe none of us were disappointed in what I got.

Now, at OBU, I learned that perhaps getting an education and growing in your faith are more related than my parents were willing to believe during my college search. But, as I learned from Arthur Holmes during welcome week, a Christian college is not a church. The primary goal must still be education-- although one may be surprised to find that even in pursuit of that goal Christ is King. At OBU, I saw the beauty of joining a community honestly seeking both God and truth.

I am unsure that if I were looking for schools now if my parents would be convinced by OBU. If you haven't seen Jacob's post on OBU's falling rankings, the numbers are startling. When I chose OBU, my parents trusted that although they disagreed with the school ideologically, I would still get a fantastic education.

But is that still true today? Or has OBU lost sight of its vision? In an effort to protect its "Christian-ness," I fear that OBU has stopped being an excellent institution of higher learning. The problem is that its excellence is part of what made OBU Christian. Each of us was encouraged to study as a means of encountering God-- and to do so with excellence for that is the highest calling of Christ.

Now, I am afraid that OBU is trying to be safe. But encountering God has never been safe. And so instead of good, Christian education, OBU is offering pat answers and certainty.

My parents would never have been willing to pay for that-- and I'm sure I wouldn't have wanted it.

Those of us who are vested in OBU's future need to consider what kind of students we will be attracting with this new path the institution has taken. If we continue in this way, I fear that our story may be similar to the SBC seminaries-- which it seems many OBU grads are avoiding. We will no longer be able to attract the best students; they will find their education elsewhere.

Please continue to help us bring OBU back to the place that made me first fall in love with it. I know I am not the only one.

Welcome Week 2012: The Idea of a Christian College

Welcome Week continues for more than 500 incoming OBU students who moved in Saturday.  Our thoughts are with them, and with all the students, faculty, staff, and administrators preparing to begin a new academic year.

If you've been on Bison Hill during August the past 8 or 10 years, you probably know about a little book by Arthur F. Holmes called The Idea of a Christian College.  I know the faculty has held the book in high esteem for some time -- perhaps since its publication in 1975.  I don't know when it became required reading for Welcome Week.  But for some number of years, a small-group faculty-led discussion of the book has been a critical component of the Welcome Week experience.

Such is the case again this year.  Eleven faculty and staff from across the university are leading new students in a discussion of The Idea of a Christian College.  From every indication we have, these professors are all outstanding.  Given the composition of the list, I'd say there was absolutely no way Provost Norman or any of the new fundamentalist deans had anything to do with putting Welcome Week together -- and that can only be a good thing.  No need for the indoctrination to begin before the first day.  Let's at least wait til the freshmen get to "Apologetics" 101.

Actually, Holmes makes a compelling argument that the Christian college is not the church and thus does not have a role to play in "defending the faith."  The emphasis is on how to integrate faith with learning.  Holmes thus allows for not only empirical knowledge, but also revelatory knowledge.  Christian professors should model and strive to help form a faith that can withstand the most rigorous intellectual scrutiny.

Considering his thoroughly conservative outlook, Holmes offers a strong defense of academic freedom.  With freedom comes responsibility, of course, but it occurs to me that the new sheriffs at OBU would probably have preferred to use a book with a watered-down definition of academic freedom that the new SBC elites could approve to give the illusion of legitimacy to the SBC's "academic" functions and institutions.

Faculty are discussing Holmes's book this week and emphasizing three key concepts: the integration of faith and learning, academic freedom, and Christian worldview.  We've already pointed out how the concept of "Christian worldview" can be easily manipulated into a naive fundamentalism.  But given the extremely high quality and integrity of the people involved and the apparent fact that the faculty and student life staff are still steering the ship (at least as far as Welcome Week is concerned), we're encouraged.

As Welcome Week gives way to the first semester of college for the Class of 2016, our hope is that "all truth is God's truth" is more than a slogan at OBU.  We know that against vocal opposition, the new administration has imported trappings of the overly dogmatic post-Takeover faux-academic fundamentalism to Bison Hill.  But as long as OBU can remain the kind of college Art Holmes envisioned, that fundamentalism will not take root.  If we're lucky, those who propagate it will soon realize that they are unwelcome.  Let's help them realize it sooner rather than later so that the early Whitlock years will be remembered as a sad but short chapter rather than a decisive turn toward ignorance and irrelevance.

And let's hope that President Whitlock cares more about his legacy in the eyes of OBU students and faculty than SBC elites.  But make no mistake: he can't have it both ways.  The new fundamentalists have made that impossible.  Whitlock will have to choose.

A Review: The Creationist Worldview According to the Bible

This week, we're reviewing a series of essays in the Baptist Messenger by OBU's Whitlock-era religion hires.  You may find the original article for this review here.

Can I be honest for a minute? I'm not even really sure where to begin speaking on this article.

The last two articles were not that bad. Honestly, I disagree with a lot of the implications of what they say and I'm not sure that those implications bode well for a liberal arts university-- but I wasn't grinding my teeth or anything to read them. At least, I understand where they're coming from. And having grown up in a pretty conservative church, I probably would've agreed with them for a lot of my life.

Actually, the most ironic part of the whole story is that if I hadn't gone to OBU, I would probably still agree with them! But I did go to OBU and found a safe place where I could open my mind to new ideas and see that God had created a much bigger world than I had once thought. And that is the freedom that I am trying to protect for future students. Some will still come out on the side of worldview and that's fine. But some will come out like me, and that needs to be fine too.

But when I saw this article, I cringed. The truth is, if this one had never been written, I'm not sure if this series would even exist. The underlying logical assumptions of the article are so flawed, I'm not even sure how to summarize it fairly as I did with the other two.

You'll have to just go read it yourself.

Probably the best thing I can say about this article is that the author chooses to quote the NASB-- which is at least not the sexist ESV. Did you know, the ESV was specifically made as a reaction against the NRSV in order to counter their effort to use gender inclusive language? Now you know. But the author does not choose this favorite version of Reformed thinkers everywhere (granted, he's not going for the gender inclusive NRSV either) to borrow his quotes.

However, since in this article not only God is male but also all humans, I think the point is moot and negated anyway. I just wanted to find maybe something that could be said for the positive.

The article begins by setting up a straw man of "the evolutionists" and explaining that all of "the evolutionists" believe the world came together randomly about 4.5 billion years ago. They say it came from dust, etc. without a creator, but maybe some aliens. In this process, humans came from "'ape' men" and without a maker have "no code of ethics and have no need of eternal salvation."

The author then contrasts this view with the "biblical" view that God made the world from nothing in six days and man [sic] was made from the dust of the earth in order to glorify God.

WOW.

First of all, not only does the author set up a straw man of evolutionists as though they are all godless heathens or something like that, but it also creates a false dichotomy between Young Earth Creationism and atheism. We'll get more to that later. But first, I want to comment on the use of the term "the evolutionists."

Probably the majority of the OBU science department should be offended that this man is using the term "evolutionist" to imply atheist-- or at least all of the ones I've talked to. Also, probably a fair portion of the Bible professors I had should be offended that he's implying the only "biblical" way to see the world is Young Earth Creationism. But honestly, the part that gets me the most is this lie that people who are not Christians have no sense of ethics. Let's not be ridiculous. Everyone who is not a sociopath knows the difference between right and wrong and I know plenty of people who worship no God and are quite fine to be nice and even to treat their neighbors as they would want to be treated.

If he's basing his "worldview" on the idea that if you're not a Christian you're a terrible person, he's going to be very disappointed when he meets some very kind people who are just not interested in church. -- But I guess, in fairness, I'll give him the point that they most often are not interested in eternal salvation.

So now the options are godless heathen or young earth creationist. And if you don't read the Bible (which, by the way, never says anything anywhere about 4004 BC) and think you know more about the age of the earth than, I don't know, anyone who has ever dedicated their entire life to scientific research, then I guess you are doing it wrong. So, six literal days it is, that's the only way to read it.

But it's time for me to move on.

The rest of the article is not much more than some strings of bible verses taken out of context to "prove" whatever he is saying. It's pretty bland stuff: man [sic] is made to worship God, plants and animals can't, don't worship them either, man [sic] is supposed to be holy, man [sic] is accountable to God. (I hope you're all seeing the pattern. If anyone could let me know what women are supposed to be doing at this point, I'd be pretty grateful.)

God is forever, unchanging, made the world from nothing-- using words and in six days. Man [sic] is made to glorify God. We've all sinned, etc. Thanks to Adam and Eve we can all look forward to a lake of fire... But Jesus came to save us (now we are all called simply, sinners-- at least it's gender neutral?) if we believe in his death and resurrection.

The author then goes back to creation to mention again that all people are made in the image of God, which means reason enough to submit to God. Thus, there is right and wrong (interesting move, his prooftext for that is the 10 commandments. No thoughts, it's just interesting.). So man [sic] is not a "higher animal" and also genocide is wrong.

Finally, since all people are sinful and all people are in God's image (capacity to follow God), we should do missions and proclaim the way of salvation throughout the earth.

Mostly, I end the article confused, wondering how in this brief span of words-- most of which are quoted proof texts-- we managed to hit missions and genocide and also the sinfulness of all humanity. Also, I guess the implication is that everyone who believes in a literal six day creation believes all of this and anyone who doesn't, doesn't believe any of it.

Well, that sort of false dichotomy has no place at a university.

And if that's not enough, at the end of the page he suggests further reading material including a Young Earth Creationist apologetics book where "theologians" talk about "scientific evidence."

Oh, and answersingenesis.org -- which is the website run by the people who made the Creation museum.

I'm kind of surprised he didn't try to argue it like this. (Oh, it's real.)

Ok. I've been rude, and I'm sorry, but I'm just not sure if there is another appropriate way to respond to such an article.

But on a serious note, I am not saying that you shouldn't be a Young Earth Creationist. I'm saying you should be able to explore the options and decide for yourself which is the most convincing-- that's called learning. If you, like the author of this article, come out with 6 day creation in 4004 BC, then that's great.

But don't say that there's only one way to read that story. And don't think if people disagree with you that they are all godless. That's ridiculous-- and that attitude definitely has no place at a Christian university.