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.

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.

Spring Trustee Meeting Report Looks Promising

In case you missed OBU's press release from Graduation Day, it looks like the Spring trustee meeting went very well:

During their spring meeting on the Shawnee campus May 17, the OBU Board of Trustees approved the expansion of the OBU Graduate School, a change in OBU’s fiscal year and faculty promotions and contracts.

According to the report, the board took up a number of routine business items.  Particularly noteworthy is the effort to expand OBU's graduate programs.  In addition to enhancing a school's profile and providing needed training for the professions, master's degree programs can be real cash cows for universities.

Of course we would be concerned if OBU lost focus on its bread-and-butter, which is its rigorous liberal arts curriculum for undergraduates.  At this point, we find little evidence for that.  We will be monitoring the use of adjuncts, which, if it increases, would be a sign that resources are being diverted away from OBU's core programs.

We also see little evidence of unusually high faculty turnover, one concern raised in the 2011 alumni petition.  From what we can tell, OBU continues to attract promising candidates.  With an over-supply of wannabe professors and a shortage nationwide of tenure-track faculty positions, OBU should have the cream of the crop.  So far, we've heard no complaints of bizarre interventions by you-know-who in the selection of the four new faculty contracts the trustees approved.

As late as last fall, some faculty had feared that the administration would use the tenure process as a weapon against insufficiently fundamentalist professors.  That fear proved unfounded in the winter.  Once again, we celebrate that a small but deserving crop of professors was granted Senior Faculty Status in spite of not being fundamentalists.  Any large-scale effort to remake the faculty in the image of the post-Takeover SBC remains a distant dream in the Provost's Office and not something we have to worry about (except in the College of Theology and Ministry, obviously).

Though I have learned a lot of sad things as I've delved into the world of Baptist higher education over the past 18 months, OBU's 32-member board has been one of the bright spots.  Unlike some Baptist-affiliated institutions where the trustees do the bidding of a few powerful fundamentalists, OBU's board has proven itself to be a surprisingly independent voice.  Quite the progressive group, they even ended the antiquated ban on dancing!  OBU's trustees -- or at least a majority of them -- have the university's best interests at heart.

I still maintain that the ideal situation would be an independent, self-perpetuating board like almost all private colleges (Christian or otherwise) have.  But that is simply not going to happen any time soon.  Given the legal and institutional framework that exists, I'd say things couldn't be much better.  All of that could change in a matter of about 2 years, though, if the BGCO ever decided it wanted to foment a fundamentalist takeover at OBU.  It's happened elsewhere, and it could happen here.

But I have come a long way in my views on this subject.  In spite of the fact that the board is ultimately controlled by the BGCO, I trust our trustees.  I trust that they do not want to see OBU's reputation suffer.  I trust that some of them intervened when faculty anger peaked in the fall of 2011 and when Provost Stan Norman needed to be reined in.  I trust that they are not happy that OBU has fallen from #109 to #390 in the Forbes rankings.

Being a trustee of a Christian college is an act of service.  It does not have many perks like, say, serving on certain corporate boards of directors.  These are clergy and lay volunteers who have full-time jobs and families.  They sacrifice some of their evenings and weekends to read reports, consult with administrative leaders and with one another, and to do their best to make a solid future for OBU.

Eighteen months ago, I assumed that a lot of them were fundamentalist yes-men.  A year later, I speculated that the BGCO could be a partner in saving OBU from a fundamentalist future.  I assumed the worst.  I'm happy to say that I was wrong.

Thanks, trustees, for your service. God bless OBU!

SBC President Speaks at OBU --- Significant or Not?

We've often noted the spectacular lack of theological diversity among OBU chapel speakers, especially in recent years.  In Save OBU's realm of concerns, however, chapel has always been a secondary problem.  There are unfortunately much bigger issues at OBU.  Plus, "to the victors go the spoils" --- it's the leadership's prerogative to bring in who they want.  The fundamentalists have their men on Bison Hill now, and there's nothing we can do about it.  Complaining about the exclusion of moderates will do nothing.  This problem will persist until students vote with their feet and simply boycott chapel until some balance is restored.

OBU's all-white, all-male (would God have it any other way?) post-Takeover religion administrators probably congratulate themselves, thinking that having one lady and two black men per semester is going above and beyond in terms of diversity.  They hope no one notices that the dozen so so speakers all represent almost the exact same point on the theological spectrum.  At the fundamentalist end.  Well guess what?  People notice.  And some people expect that a well-rounded Christian education demands more rigor, more diversity of thought, and a faith unafraid of new perspectives because it can withstand the most stringent intellectual scrutiny.

Given the parade of far-right speakers we've heard this spring, I really don't have anything to say about SBC President Fred Luter's sermon yesterday.  What could be more appropriate than a Southern Baptist college hosting the SBC President?  Interestingly, however, I don't think it's happened before at OBU, at least not since before the Takeover.  (Please correct me if I'm wrong.)  We've had past SBC presidents (Bobby Welch in 2007; Tom Elliff in 2010), as well as many famous mega-pastors and the intellectual leaders of the convention (Al Mohler in 2007; David Dockery in 2009).  I don't have the entire chapel archive handy, but you can see all the chapels since 2005 here.

Having the SBC president is symbolic, of course.  But it's worth noting that the president of the SBC's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission is much more the public face of the SBC than the convention presidents who come and go every two years.  It was a much bigger deal when Richard Land spoke at OBU in the early 2000s than it would have been if then-SBC President James Merritt had spoken.

We've commented elsewhere about OBU's over-the-top attempt to curry favor with Luter, as well as what it must be like to be the president of the SBC.  Last summer, OBU awarded Luter an honorary doctorate in spite of a complete lack of connections to OBU.  There seems to be an unprecedented effort among top OBU administrators to cozy up to this SBC president.  Judging from the opening part of the chapel sermon, it seems that OBU's Dean of Spiritual Life, the Reverend Dale Griffin, has been the administrator working to secure Luter's appearance.

I just think it's worth remembering that there was a time when OBU made an effort to keep the often-ugly politics of the Southern Baptist Convention as far away from Bison Hill as possible.  In the 1980s, for instance, students were as likely to hear a sermon by someone who opposed the Fundamentalist Takeover as by someone who supported it.

Those days are over.  Today's OBU leadership, though too young to have participated in the Takeover directly, hail it as the best thing that ever happened to the SBC.  By their actions --- and by their silence --- they celebrate people like the Reverend Dr. Tom Elliff, who boasted that he had scraped all the "barnacles and parasites" (referring to moderates) off the Ship of Zion.

Congratulations, Drs. Jordan, Whitlock, Norman, McClellan, and Griffin.  You can now definitively say that you have scraped all the barnacles and parasites off the Raley Chapel pulpit, too.

With no exceptions that I have seen, moderates (let alone liberals --- if you can actually find any in Baptist life) are unwelcome to preach under the new regime.

Given that Luter avoided controversy and preached a well-received sermon, I see no need to be critical.  There have been plenty of questionable chapels this spring --- a Tea Party politician, a Calvinist celebrity preacher on a book tour, and a "pray the gay away" evangelist.

Please take note of a recent Bison story on the process by which chapel speakers are selected.  We'll analyze that article soon enough.  We may even editorialize about it, since editorial content has all but disappeared from The Bison's pages in recent years.  But that's another topic for another day.

Rather than keeping SBC fundamentalism at a distance, as OBU did under President Bob Agee and, to a lesser extent (though it hardly felt like it at the time), under President Mark Brister, the new OBU makes no mistake about where its true loyalties lie.  Hosting the SBC president is icing on the cake.

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.

Fine Arts Fiasco: Getting What We Didn't Ask For

Fine Arts Fiasco Series
Part 1 -- Intro
Part 2 -- Getting What We Didn't Ask For

Previously, I introduced the series and offered an explanation for why Save OBU didn't sound an alarm about concerns in OBU's Warren M. Angell College of Fine Arts when those concerns first arose.  I  sincerely hope some of the wounds from recent conflicts have healed.  The aim here is simple: to add to the large body of evidence that there is a new authoritarian streak at OBU and an agenda promulgated from the top down to re-orient the mission and purpose of OBU.

The new guard, of course, denies there's any agenda at all.  "We are a Baptist college.  We are just bringing our programs, personnel, and values in line with Southern Baptist principles and priorities."  This isn't an exact quote, of course, but it's obviously the message the new administrators convey when they are asked about their departure from long-established norms and commitments.

The not-so-subtle implication behind their incredulous denial of any new direction is clear: Even at the height of its recognition for rigor and excellence, OBU's programs, personnel, and values were somehow not in sync with Southern Baptist principles and priorities.  Of course, that idea is offensive, untrue, and hurtful to many OBU students, faculty, staff, and alumni.

In the fine arts area, the crux of the situation is this: There exists a wide perception that the Angell College has a mandate -- from the president and provost, from the BGCO, or from somewhere else -- to tailor its programs to what the BGCO's churches are doing, even if this means backing away from what made the fine arts programs at OBU great in the first place.  One widespread fear is that the theater major -- the least wholesome fine art? -- will eventually be reduced to training for church-based "drama ministry."  Students in art and music fear that the studio/conservatory-like atmosphere of their departments could be watered down.  These days, apparently few (if any) Oklahoma Baptist churches have a real demand for the kinds of skills OBU's amazing music department has developed in thousands of students over the decades: organ, piano, voice, composition, choral conducting, etc.  Sorry, but it doesn't take a college degree in sacred music to run a volunteer praise band.

Maybe the BGCO is upset that so many OBU music graduates seek sacred music training in mainline Protestant seminaries instead of what remains of the once-outstanding church music programs at the SBC seminaries.  Or that many of our graduates end up using their outstanding talents in the music ministries of mainline Protestant churches.  Maybe there is a sense that too many fine arts students end up going into "secular" vocations.  (Though I would note that almost every issue of the alumni magazine trumpets the accomplishments of a non-fundamentalist Fine Arts graduate who has found success in the secular world.)

Many people view the new(ish) Fine Arts dean, Dr. Ken Gabrielse, as the personification of this change in orientation.  He came from a lengthy tenure as a graduate student and faculty member in sacred music at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.  Before coming to OBU, Dr. Gabrielse was the Music and Worship Specialist for the BGCO for several years until the Angell College's longtime dean, Dr. Hammond, retired.  Many candidates applied for the fine arts deanship, of course.  But this was a case where the administration intervened to raise up someone over the search committee's preferred candidate -- in this case, someone in the mold of Dr. Hammond who had significant administrative experience.

Given his close ties to the SBC seminary world and to the BGCO, it's obvious why the administration preferred Gabrielse while some other stakeholders preferred someone else.  As with too many faculty positions at David Whitlock's OBU, here we have another case where the new administration in its wisdom circumvented the usual process to get their man -- this time at the decanal level.

Aside from the disservice of bringing in someone who was not the search committee's first choice, top administration (and/or the BGCO) burdened the new dean with having to implement a change in vision that no one asked for.  After some bumps in the road that we'll discuss in subsequent posts, I truly hope that things are going better for the dean.  By now, Dean Gabrielse should have enough institutional knowledge and understanding to know that OBU's outstanding fine arts programs were actually doing fine before he got there and that a change in orientation is simply not needed and certainly not wanted.

The sooner he realizes it, the better off OBU will be.

OBU Doubles Down on Far-Right Ideology in Spring 2013 Chapel Lineup

Thankfully, things have been quieter on the fundamentalist encroachment front at OBU than at any time in the past 4 or 5 years.  It's hard to undo the harm that has already been done, but perhaps the administration has scaled back its ambitions -- or at least its timetable -- in this regard.

Chapel: An Important Symbol of Where OBU Stands
Unfortunately, one area of campus life that remains as controversial and polarizing as ever is the roster of speakers invited to Raley Chapel.  The Wednesday chapel hour is an important representation, in symbol and in fact, of where OBU stands.

For many years, great care was taken to make chapel a unifying experience.  Administrators invited speakers who would not tack strongly to the far left or far right.  During the SBC's Fundamentalist Takeover years, President Bob Agee avoided embroiling OBU in the controversy.  Yet both fundamentalists and moderates regularly gave invited lectures and sermons at OBU.  On the rare occasions when politicians were invited to campus, OBU welcomed both Democrats and Republicans.

Those days are over.  More than ever before, OBU's religion administrators are dividing the campus community, offending students and faculty, and pushing down a fundamentalist and political agenda with their choice of chapel speakers.

At least some of the time, there has been a student committee to suggest chapel invitees.  I don't know if that's still the case, but even if it is, it is completely devoid of moderate representation and/or vetoed altogether.

Given the wide availability of moderate preachers, theologians, historians, evangelists, and other speakers in Baptist life, OBU's wholesale exclusion of them is inexcusable.  The BGCO's outsized control over what OBU does is scarcely as evident as in the chapel lineup.  Can you imagine the flack President Whitlock would get if OBU had a chapel speaker Anthony Jordan didn't like?

To further prove this point, we may examine past semesters' chapel preachers in the weeks to come.  But since a controversial "ex gay" evangelist is speaking in Raley Chapel today, let's take a moment to look at this spring's lineup.

Jackson Dunn
Earlier this spring, Focus on the Family staffer Jackson Dunn came and promoted the idea that Christian college students should get married very young.  While there is currently an encouraging public debate about the economic, social, and relational advantages and supposed costs of later marriage, OBU does not need someone pushing early marriage so explicitly.  Can't we agree that this idea is already prevalent enough in OBU culture?!

T.W. Shannon
On the political extremism front, OBU welcomed Tea Party politician T.W. Shannon, Speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives.  While a number of staunchly conservative politicians have spoken at OBU in recent years, I cannot even think of the last time a politician with moderate or liberal political views -- Democrat or Republican, fundamentalist or moderate -- spoke at OBU.  Gov. Brad Henry, a moderate Democrat, spoke in chapel in 2006.

Tulian Tchividjian
In March, the Rev. Tulian Tchividjian, grandson of Billy Graham, brought his book tour to OBU. Tchividjian is a noted Calvinist affiliated with a fundamentalist Presbyterian split-off denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America.  He followed the Rev. Dr. D. James Kennedy in the pulpit of the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Florida.  While somewhat less overtly political than his predecessor, Kennedy and Coral Ridge were long influenced by the most extreme form of Christian theocratic politics, dominionism.  Tchividian's sermon was, I'm sure, well received.  But it does seem curious that OBU so actively promotes Calvinists' book projects.

Christopher Yuan
Today, an "ex gay" evangelist named Christopher Yuan is speaking.  Yuan holds a M.A. in biblical exegesis from Wheaton, an identical credential to many 23 year-old OBU alumni/ae.  Yet Yuan is on faculty of the Moody Bible Institute.  He has a compelling personal story about how God saved him from his unwanted same-sex attraction.  Promoting the "ex gay" movement is now extremely controversial, even among evangelicals.  Yuan's invitation is perhaps most alarming off all, given how angry many students, faculty, and alumni will be.  While Dunn, Shannon, and Tchividian may come from the far right fringes of evangelical culture and Republican politics, at least their sermons could do no harm.  The same may not be true for Yuan, given how many OBU students are gay and struggle mightily with how to come to terms with it, given their church, family, and community background.

Fred Luter
Later this month, SBC President Rev. Fred Luter will speak.  In retrospect, OBU might rather have invited the Rev. Dr. Russell Moore, president-elect of the SBC's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.  Moore, as with Richard Land before him, will be the public face of the SBC even more prominently than the convention presidents who come and go every two years.

Summary
Ideally, the Wednesday chapel hour would be a uniting experience for OBU students and faculty.  But the current lineup, as with recent ones, indicates a conscious decision to double down on far-right ideology in terms of theology, culture, and politics.  It would be one thing if there was some balance.  But there is very little.  (Tom Terry's address this winter is a notable exception to the complaints registered above.)  Instead, chapel is an ever-more divisive and disappointing experience for a large plurality, if not an outright majority, of OBU students and professors.

Tim Tebow, FBC Dallas, and Evangelical Extremism

As longtime readers know (and hopefully appreciate), Save OBU is completely uninterested in secular politics and "culture wars."  This is a bit of a challenge for me personally because I essentially work in the culture war and politics business.  I'm writing a doctoral dissertation on evangelicals' contraception attitudes. Though at Save OBU my interest in Southern Baptist institutional life is primarily centered on higher education, I am constantly exposed to SBC/evangelical elites and other thought leaders who appear at least as interested in worldly politics as in the Kingdom God sent Jesus to proclaim.  It's true that most Save OBU supporters are culturally and theologically conservative, but I've learned that we have a lot of moderates and maybe even a few liberals in our ranks.  For the sake of unity, I've tried to steer clear of politics and culture wars.

Given all that, it would seem that New York Jets backup quarterback Tim Tebow's announcement Thursday that he will not speak as scheduled at First Baptist Church of Dallas in April is irrelevant to our cause.  But on reflection, I do think the episode is indicative of something we talk about here all the time: SBC elites' ever-increasing fundamentalism and extremism.

As the story unfolded Thursday, three things struck me.  First, FBC's response to Tebow's cancellation was tacky, passive-aggressive, and reflected poorly on the church.  Second, the whole affair says a lot more about FBC's pastor, the Rev. Dr. Robert Jeffress, than it does about Tim Tebow.  Jeffress has a long history of controversial statements.  Tebow, on the other hand, has a long history of living his faith joyfully and publicly under intense scrutiny.  But what struck me most was seeing not one but several news headlines proclaiming that Tebow had cancelled an appearance at the "controversial First Baptist Church of Dallas."

For those who missed the story, you can find Tebow's announcement here, the church's press release here, and a partial compendium of Dr. Jeffress's statements here.

Given his record of provocative public statements, most notably about both major party presidential candidates in 2012 but apparently also about Catholicism, it's unsurprising and unremarkable that Dr. Jeffress would be labeled controversial. But FBC Dallas itself?  Isn't that a little unfair?  It got me thinking.

First of all, I thought Tebow was very classy to phone Dr. Jeffress in advance of announcing his decision publicly and to acknowledge "the faithful members of the historic First Baptist Church of Dallas."  Culturally, institutionally, and politically, it's undeniable that the congregation has moved somewhat to the right along with its pastors, the alternative Baptist state convention in Texas, and the entire Southern Baptist Convention's leadership.  Of course, the disappearance of moderates and others who rejected having their religion conflated with a political party has also pushed the median member further to the right.

But let's face the facts.  The people of FBC have always been conservative.  Before and after the Takeover, FBC Dallas was a (if not the) flagship church of the SBC.  Its longtime pastor, the Rev. Dr. W. A. Criswell, was a typical fundamentalist who preached inerrancy and premillennial dispensationalism.  (He was also lukewarm at best toward racial integration until it was no longer socially palatable to be racist.)  But just as no one could have called FBC controversial, few would have considered Dr. Criswell to be a controversial preacher.

So what has changed?

The legion of SBC elites who unleashed a storm of criticism on Tebow would have you believe that the media are at fault --- that they have forced Christians out of the public square, intimidated Tebow into bowing out, and labeled every conservative "controversial" or worse.  Even the Rev. Rick Warren, who should know better, joined the whine-fest.  But this is total and complete nonsense.  I remain utterly baffled that the majority religion in the freest nation on earth can sustain an imaginary persecution complex.

The First Baptist Church of Dallas wasn't controversial 50 years ago because its pastor wasn't controversial.  Southern Baptists weren't controversial because their seminary presidents and agency heads didn't double as political party operatives.  Baptists pretty much abided by the centuries-old consensus on what it meant to be Baptist.  And the evangelical impulse to engage the culture (contrasted with fundamentalists' separatism and obnoxiousness) was generally in line with that historic consensus.

If FBC Dallas is controversial today, it's because Dr. Jeffress is controversial -- not because the congregation or the media or anything else has changed.

You see, Dr. Criswell may not have supported George Romney for the 1968 Republican presidential nomination, but he didn't publicly call him an unchristian, Hell-bound cult member, as Jeffress did when speaking about Mitt Romney.  And Criswell certainly didn't suggest that George Romney's religion disqualified him from public office.  Criswell did not like LBJ or Jimmy Carter, but he didn't say that they were paving the way for the antichrist, as Jeffress said about President Obama.  Like so many of today's SBC leaders, Dr. Jeffress wants to retain evangelicals' cultural engagement but has embraced the worst aspects of fundamentalism: anti-intellectualism, a completely delusional persecution complex, and a tone that seems to be deliberately as offensive and obnoxious as possible.

Even more obnoxious than FBC's angry and rude press release was Jeffress's pathetic attempt to force Tebow into his crazy camp:

"There doesn't seem to be any daylight between what we believe," Jeffress said, noting that Tebow is a member of First Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Fla.  "He simply attributed it to needing to stay away from controversy."

Tell you what, Dr. Jeffress.  Let's let Tebow speak for himself regarding whether he believes, like you, that homosexuality leads to pedophilia or that the president is paving the way for the reign of the antichrist.

Personally, I'm ambivalent about Tim Tebow.  It occurs to me that people who flaunt their religiosity "have received their reward in full" (Matthew 6).  But I can't possibly know Tebow's heart and whether or not his motivation is "to be seen of men."  Either way, I admire his faithfulness, work ethic, and apparent humility of spirit.  One of my first dates with my bride, Cara, was a Florida Gators game in 2008, Tebow's junior season.  My brother and sister-in-law saw some of Tebow's (or God's, depending on how you look at it) spectacular performances in Denver late in the 2011 season.

After being hastily and harshly criticized by evangelicals who had for years been his strongest supporters, Tebow now knows how today's evangelical extremists operate.  When you're useful to them, they praise and respect you.  But when you exercise some independent thought that does not follow their theology or politics to the letter, they throw you out like yesterday's trash.

These are not the people we need running our conventions, our churches, or our universities.  For now, we're stuck with too many of them.  But in the truest Baptist spirit, let's remind the world that they do not speak for us as they wreck the reputations of our once-proud institutions.

2012 Convocation: Raley, Jr. Receives Honorary Doctorate

I really enjoyed the video of Wednesday's convocation service.  The hymns, the prayers, and the words spoken were all very beautiful and inspiring.  It was wonderful to see John Wesley Raley, Jr. receive an honorary degree from the institution his parents devoted their lives to building.

Some people think I've been too hard on OBU in my writing here.  Others think I've been too soft.  At the moment, I just want to say that yesterday's convocation reminded me of all that is great, even exceptional (to borrow Mr. Raley's term), about OBU.

This time last year, many people legitimately feared that OBU was on the verge of an all-out assault by fundamentalists.  The faculty seriously considered taking a no-confidence vote in the president.  Yet today, many of us feel at least somewhat reassured that the worst of our fears have not been realized.  Sure, OBU administrators continue their troubling pattern of cozying up to fundamentalist SBC elites.  Sure, it will take time for the faculty's wounds to heal to the point that they can begin to trust President Whitlock and Provost Norman again.  Sure, the religion department bypassed the usual, ethical hiring process and installed a fundamentalist Bible teacher who is also an avowed flat-earther young earther.  OBU continues to be without a legitimate university bookstore that sells mainstream books in history, literature, the arts, and the natural and social sciences.

But given the severity of our fears and the path taken by some other state convention-run Baptist colleges, I think it's safe to say that things are not nearly as bad as they could be.

What has happened to keep OBU from going over the cliff?  What good fortune and grace has come our way to enable even OBU's loving critics to find this week's service not only palatable, but also inspiring?  Let's review a few facts:

• This honoree is actually deserving.  Whitlock wisely chose to honor someone who actually has a deep and meaningful connection to the university, and who might actually be inclined to support it financially.  Raley, a semi-retired partner in a Ponca City law firm and former mayor of that town, served as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Oklahoma in the 1990s, having been appointed by President George H. W. Bush.  Contrast Mr. Raley to SBC President Rev. Fred Luter (the last honoree), who has absolutely no connection to OBU and would never give OBU a dime.  The Luter move, done off-site and in the summer, was nothing more than an ill-advised power play.
• OBU has brought in a number of very promising new faculty members, rather than reflexively replacing retiring moderates with fundamentalists.
• Unlike a growing number of other Baptist schools, OBU does not force its faculty to sign creedal statements.  Doing so would be the end of academic freedom.  OBU's convocation explicitly asked students to open their minds, not to close them (as is the case at the fundamentalist SBC seminaries and colleges like Truett-McConnell and Brewton-Parker in Georgia).
• Provost Stan Norman, the force behind all the recent problems at OBU, appears to have been completely reigned in.  When he came to OBU, he saw faculty vacancies as his best chance to remake OBU in the mold of SBC fundamentalism.  Either he's had a change of heart, or has been directed to lay low.  Hopefully installing a young earth creationist in the Hobbs College of Theology and Ministry will keep him happy for a while and he won't try to wreck any other departments.

In spite of a few pretty serious disappointments, we're looking forward to OBU having a better year than it's had lately.

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.

Welcome Week 2012: Move-In Day

Dear New OBU Students and Parents,

It's hard to believe move-in day has finally come!  Congratulations to each of you on your decision to commit significant time, effort, and money to Oklahoma Baptist University.  The OBU experience can be life-changing, and we're hopeful that it will be wonderful for you.  We are a diverse coalition of students, alumni, and other OBU stakeholders whose own lives have been greatly enriched by OBU's tradition of distinctively Christian liberal arts education.

Some of you won't have heard of Save OBU before, so we'd like to introduce ourselves.  In the past two years, two extremely dedicated and well-loved professors were forced to resign from OBU though they had done nothing wrong.  Because they were not accorded rights guaranteed by the Faculty Handbook, their colleagues, students, and a host of OBU alumni and friends became concerned about the administration's unprecedented actions.  Students' protests were largely ignored, and they remained very confused about what this turn of events meant for OBU.  Faculty morale sunk to an all-time low and last fall, the president barely dodged a no-confidence vote in the Faculty Council.  Concerned alumni circulated a petition.  A group of retired faculty and staff (who had collectively committed many hundreds of years of service to OBU) demanded an explanation, but none was forthcoming.

Last December, the Save OBU blog emerged.  We've reached tens of thousands of people with our concerns about OBU.  Some things have improved.  For example, the provost (chief academic officer) was finally forced to undergo a performance evaluation that included faculty input (which was no doubt scathing).  Most departments have been allowed to fill faculty vacancies without undue administrative meddling, which had become a huge problem.  And a lot of other things on campus are going well. OBU's athletic programs are stronger than ever.  Enrollment continues to be strong.  An ambitious capital campaign is underway.

But many concerns remain.  Faculty morale continues to be low, and this will not change until there is change in the Provost's Office.  While the president is trying to mend fences with the faculty, there is obviously a huge amount of distrust.  The bookstore, though visually appealing, is inadequate for a university.  It does not sell any books from mainstream publishers in the areas of history, literature, social science, natural science, etc.  OBU administrators have spent unprecedented time and effort cozying up to elites within the Southern Baptist Convention, many of whom prefer indoctrination over education and have been extremely hostile toward Baptists who happen to be moderate rather than fundamentalist.

Though hugely unpopular in the executive suite, Save OBU will continue to cast a shadow over Bison Hill until our concerns are acknowledged and resolved.  Many current students (as well as hundreds of alumni) are part of our coalition.  But faculty are not.  They could be fired for publicly supporting Save OBU.

We believe many of the problems are the natural result of broader changes in Baptist politics at the national and state levels over the past 30 years.  But when it comes to OBU specifically, we believe Provost Stan Norman is primarily at fault and President David Whitlock is primarily responsible for the unethical dismissals and chipping away at academic freedom.  Under their tenure, OBU has dropped from #109 to #390 in the Forbes college rankings.  Whether your six-figure OBU tuition bill is being paid by cash or credit, you should be concerned about the downward trajectory that could devalue the degree you will earn.  Other Baptist schools with extreme administrators are already flirting with loss of accreditation.

Fortunately, OBU still has wonderful and caring professors and a great student body.  We want you to be aware of the problems detailed above.  But above all -- today and every day -- we are so grateful that you are now a part of the OBU family.

-Save OBU

Can OBU Avoid SBC Seminaries' Influence?

As most of you know, the SBC's six seminaries have changed dramatically over the past 25 years.  Fundamentalists typically believe that the seminaries had been adrift, promoting liberal theology and even secularism, steering Baptists away from a plain, literal reading of Scripture.  The "Conservative Resurgence" helped return the institutions to their sound Biblical roots.  They are now among the best seminaries in the world.  Moderates typically believe that the seminaries were among the best, until the "Fundamentalist Takeover" used political tactics to oust all moderates, end academic freedom, institutionalize creedalism, authoritarianism, and fundamentalism, and turn the seminaries into indoctrination camps for aspiring preacher boys.

We're not going to settle that debate today.  Although I do hope to find guest writers who can do a series of posts describing how each seminary went through the change.  Who knows, there may be important parallels to the Baptist colleges' experiences with fundamentalist takeovers.

The point for today is this: When it comes to circling the wagons, deciding who's in and who's out, excluding moderates, insisting that being on the "right" side of once-secondary disagreements is now primary, exercising power, wielding influence, engaging with the media and the public, and eroding historic Baptist distinctives, the SBC seminaries have been absolutely central.  What's worse, I'm afraid that as the victorious SBC fundamentalists flexed their muscles in the 1990s and 2000s, they looked to the state conventions and Baptist colleges and said to themselves, "We've taken over the largest Protestant denomination in America.  I wonder what else we can conquer."

There's plenty of evidence that some of today's leaders in Baptist higher education actually see the post-Takeover seminaries as models.  In Georgia, college presidents Don Dowless, Emir Caner, and Mike Simoneaux have all instituted policies requiring all faculty (and in some cases, staff) to sign various faith statements.  This practice has long been a hallmark of post-Takeover SBC seminary administration.  I recently found out that Southern Seminary actually has a solemn ceremony every time a new professor signs its Abstract of Principles.  Everyone sits around and watches the guy sign a piece of paper and applauds when he's done.

A new SBTS professor signing the school's

"Abstract of Principles" in a public ceremony

Fortunately, very little of the Georgia Baptist craziness has taken root at OBU.  And even though OBU's academic reputation is presently in decline, we are far ahead of the GBC schools, which aren't really even pretending to be legitimate liberal arts colleges where professors are free to teach and students are free to learn.  They've all been bought and paid for and are now just feathers in the fundamentalists' cap -- a resume line for college presidents aspiring to a higher rung on the ladder of SBC politics.

Still, it's relevant to note where SBC seminary influences are present at OBU -- and where they are absent.

President
I've already commented that it's a tremendous blessing that we have a president who did not attend a SBC seminary.  Given the alternative -- someone who spent close to a decade (M.Div. + Ph.D.) being formed in a post-Takeover SBC seminary -- this is one case where nothing is definitely better than something.  Now, you can't necessarily tell a lot about a person by where they went to school -- neither Dowless or Caner hold SBC seminary Ph.D.'s -- but I'd say we definitely dodged a bullet here.  Things could be so much worse.  We could have a true-believer, cultural warrior, lifelong SBC climber in the executive suite.

Religion Department
Well, it's not really correct to refer to OBU's "religion department."  For good or ill (or perhaps some of both), the religion and philosophy faculty have been together with the ministerial preparation faculty for two decades.  Some of OBU's newer religion professors have come from SBC seminaries and some have not.  Fortunately, there does not seem to be excessive fondness for the SBC seminaries in the department.  I don't want to put words into anyone's mouth, but it seems that most people realize a vastly superior graduate theological education can be had elsewhere.

In the case of the Hobbs College of Theology and Ministry, I'm actually less interested in where the faculty earned their degrees than where OBU graduates go on to earn theirs.  For aspiring pastors, missionaries, and youth ministry directors, there's a pretty strong pipeline to the SBC seminaries, particularly Southwestern in Fort Worth.  This makes sense and is to be expected.  In terms of OBU graduates who want to do graduate work in theology or biblical studies, however, I'm not sure that any of them go to SBC seminaries.  Why would they?

OBU actually produces a number of graduates who do well at a variety of very fine seminaries and divinity schools.  When I was there, we were sending several top students to Princeton Theological Seminary.  I went to Boston University School of Theology, having been rejected from Harvard Divinity School.  But I know we sent students to Harvard, Duke, Notre Dame and Wheaton in those years.  In the past couple years, I know of students who have gone to these schools and others, including some in the U.K.  I also know that students -- including some of the very best students -- preparing for parish ministry have eschewed the SBC seminaries, choosing instead places like Fuller, Gordon-Conwell, and Brite (TCU).

I would absolutely love to see data on where OBU religion, ministry, and philosophy (or "apologetics")  students go for grad school.  But OBU could never release the data because it would make the BGCO's head explode.  Even in its new incarnation where moderates are an endangered species, the Hobbs College faculty is not exactly a SBC Seminary Fan Club.

Elsewhere
The new library dean came to OBU after working at Southern Seminary.  So far, we've heard only good things about him, but it's a little early to tell.  Just remember, that statue of James Ralph Scales has eyes in the back of his head, and he's watching!

Back in the day, when churches had organs and choirs and the like, I'm told the SBC seminaries had great sacred music programs.  I know the current and former fine arts deans had experience with SBC seminary sacred music programs.  Though I'm told they're as different as night and day when it comes to how to run a Christian college fine arts program.  Another story for another day...

Which Direction Does the Pipeline Run?
While it seems generally fair to say that the SBC seminaries influence OBU less than they probably influence a lot of other Baptist colleges, things could be changing.  The normal pattern used to be that Baptist college professors in certain areas (religion, sacred music) would have earned their degrees at SBC seminaries, but would teach their whole careers at the college level.  A few would return to the seminaries to teach later in their careers.

At OBU, we're seeing an influx of recent hires who, whether they attended SBC seminaries or not (most did), they are coming to Bison Hill after having worked at the seminaries.  This is true of the fine arts and library deans, Provost Norman, and the newest religion professor.  As we get more of these kinds of people, we need to watch out.  Whereas most of us think academic freedom is normal and forcing university professors to sign creeds is not normal, these people have been in the ever-more insular world of SBC seminaries.  In that world, it's perfectly normal to force people to sign faith statements.  Academic freedom is not just a novel idea, it's a dangerous one.  Everyone agrees on almost everything.  They think the same, believe the same, and vote the same.  Now, I hope each of these people has something positive to bring to Bison Hill.  My concern is that the more people we get from the SBC seminaries, the less resistance we will muster when administrators decide that a Shorter-style purge is what God wants for OBU.

Resurrecting Excellence

With the 2012 Olympic Games now in the history books, I'd like to share a few thoughts on the games and what meaning and aspirations they provide for me.  I'll also apply these reflections to my concerns about OBU and our work going forward.

I'm not a huge Olympics junkie.  I spend a lot more time every four years following the presidential election campaign than the Olympic games.  In fact, the only sport I regularly follow, baseball, has been dropped from the Olympics.  I do love the pageantry of the Opening Ceremony, but to be honest I like the idea of it more than actually sitting down for several hours and watching it on television.  The one thing I absolutely love about the Olympics is the music.  The Boston Pops released a CD in advance of the 1996 Atlanta games (which I attended with my dad).  I remember listening to that compilation of Olympic-themed music on my portable Walkman CD player (remember these?).  I've enjoyed those recordings many times over the years.

To me, the Olympics exemplify the pursuit of excellence.  The athletes' feats of skill and athleticism are absolutely inspirational.  But what we don't see are the years and years of daily preparation -- practice, nutrition, strength training, etc.  Out of the world's 7 billion people, these few thousand athletes best demonstrate what the human body is capable of.  Maybe some of it is genetic.  But I believe most of their success is due to preparation, rigorous intentionality, and a near-obsessive commitment to excellence.

Too often in too many other areas of human work and achievement, too many of us settle for less than our best.  I have to admit that I'm the worst about this!  Sometimes I catch myself essentially sleepwalking through life, unwilling to give my best effort for fear of failure or disappointment.  Then, when things don't go my way, I can say, "Well, it's because I didn't try that hard."  Christian people can sometimes be pretty bad about this.  After all, if I'm going to heaven to live with Jesus any day now (or, in any event, as soon as I die), why strive for earthly excellence at all?  In the end, I guess most thoughtful Christians will resolve this dilemma by believing that striving for excellence somehow brings glory to God.  The title for this post comes from a book I read in 2007 that lays forth a "theology of excellence" for clergy and lay ministry leaders alike.  Maybe its lessons and insights extend to other areas.

By now, you'll see where I'm going with this.  My underlying concern in starting this blog is my belief that OBU has, in vitally important ways, strayed from its pursuit of excellence in Christian liberal arts education.  Obviously, I believe it is a symptom of a much larger disease: the Fundamentalist Takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention.  I think fundamentalism is intellectually dishonest and lazy -- the absolute antithesis of excellence.  To the degree that we succumb to fundamentalism, we abdicate our pursuit of excellence.

I'm concerned that some of the people making policy and personnel decisions at OBU in the past few years have taken us down a bad path.  For eight months, we've been presenting qualitative and quantitative evidence that excellence is missing in parts of OBU's life and administration.  Our hope and prayer is that if you believe God calls us to excellence, you will be shocked and offended by what has happened at our beloved OBU, and that you will join our effort and encourage others to do likewise.

Just as Olympians need an elaborate support system of family, school, friends, and coaches to encourage their pursuit of excellence, so do college students.  They need a university committed to bringing the absolute best and brightest faculty -- to every department.  They need to be free to learn from professors who are free to teach.  They need to know it's okay to ask questions and explore tensions between faith and knowledge.  They shouldn't be encouraged or enabled to settle for pat, spoon-fed answers to questions that have vexed philosophers and theologians throughout the ages.

If we want them to be excellent, or at least have a chance at excellence, we have to be excellent, too.  But in important ways, we've put ideology ahead of competence, conformity ahead of questioning, and created confusion by speaking the language of liberal arts while enacting the policies of a fundamentalist Bible academy.

Let's return to excellence!

Jacob's Interview with Mainstream Oklahoma Baptists (w/Video)

Yesterday's post discussed how the group Mainstream Oklahoma Baptists was formed largely over concern for OBU's future.  In 1997.  They didn't make much headway on OBU issues, unfortunately.  But I am pleased to say that the group, under the leadership of Executive Director Rev. Dr. Bruce Prescott, has been a powerful, prophetic witness for social justice, historic Baptist distinctives, and the separation of church and state for nearly 15 years.

Bruce has followed the Save OBU movement with some interest and provided key insights and analysis for us along the way.  I had the pleasure to meet Bruce and spend some time with him when he was in Washington for a conference in June.  He generously offered to interview me for his blog, which will hopefully get our message out to a broader Baptist audience.  The interview is broken into four parts.

Part 1: Who is Jacob Lupfer?
This is mostly biographical.  You can view it here if you're interested.

Part 2: What's Going On at OBU?
I explain why I started the Save OBU blog and offer my opinion about the effect of recent changes on the Christian witness of OBU.

What is Going On at OBU? from Bruce Prescott on Vimeo.

[UPDATE Monday, July 30, 2012: I said in the video that SWBTS doesn't have any women faculty.  This is not true.  They have a few professors of homemaking, submitting to your husband, and stuff like that.  Also, one of Professor Dorothy Patterson's past research assistants is now on faculty as "Assistant Professor of Theology in Women's Studies."  Sorry for the technical inaccuracy.  But really, my point doesn't really change until SWBTS and the other SBC seminaries have some female deans or professors in homiletics or branches of theology that aren't explicitly gender-focused and committed to a sexist position on women in church, family, and public life.  Who knows, maybe they have black professors of Confederate studies.]

Part 3: How Does the BGCO Influence OBU?
I discuss the repercussions of the Fundamentalist Takeover of the SBC and the BGCO on OBU.  I also describe how the percentage of OBU's budget being contributed by the BGCO has declined as the convention's influence over OBU's affairs has increased.

On OBU's Relation to BGCO from Bruce Prescott on Vimeo.

Part 4: Were is OBU Headed?
I comment on the change in the kind of books offered by the OBU bookstore, describe the turn away from classical instruction in philosophy, and talk about parallels between OBU and Shorter University in Georgia.

Where is OBU Headed? from Bruce Prescott on Vimeo.

Thanks for being on this journey with me.  We may fail in the end.  The people men aligned against us are very powerful.  Win or lose, though, I obviously believe it's important that we fight this battle.  Hopefully these videos will help you get to know me a little better and provide some context for our struggle.  Barely more than twenty years ago, Southern Baptists proudly ran many of the finest universities in the South.  I shudder to think about the state of Baptist higher education twenty years from now if current trends continue.  It's absolutely vital that we spread the word, raise our voices, and fight to protect the distinctively Baptist liberal arts tradition that meant so much to us.  The prospects for future generations of students to experience anything even comparable to the education we received are grim... unless something changes.

Headline: "Future of OBU Prompts Baptist Group to Form"

The Daily Oklahoman did a nice write-up (text below) that will alert tens of thousands of readers to our struggle!  Here are some quotes from the article:

• "Saying they fear 'fundamentalists' will take control of Oklahoma Baptist University, some state Baptists who are unhappy with their denomination's leadership are trying a new tactic."
• "Said two alumni, 'Our concern for the future of OBU has been triggered by the controversial takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention by a few powerful fundamentalist leaders.'"
• "A proponent added that the group is being formed 'to protect academic freedom at OBU, to uphold historic Baptist principles, to promote full inclusion of Baptists in state convention activities and to promote a free, responsible and fair Baptist press in the state.'"
• "When asked if he was frustrated, BGCO Executive Director-Treasurer Rev. Anthony Jordan said, 'I don't get too frustrated, simply because I care about these people.  I have a desire to do all I can to help them to come along with the rest of Oklahoma Baptists.'"

Not bad, eh?

Well, don't get too excited.

The article "Future of OBU Prompts Baptist Group to Form" ran in 1997.

That's right.  The quotations above and text below are from an article about the formation of a group called Mainstream Oklahoma Baptists.  You may know of the group through the work of its executive director, Rev. Dr. Bruce Prescott.  Bruce has been a leader on theological, social justice, and church/state issues in Oklahoma for almost 15 years.  He's also a prolific blogger who you should follow on Twitter.

But a lot of people may have forgotten that Mainstream Oklahoma Baptists was formed largely over concern for OBU.  Though broadly a response to the Takeover that had, by then, engulfed most state conventions including the BGCO, one major event provided the impetus to get Mainstream Oklahoma Baptists off the ground: In July 1997, Rev. Dr. Bob Agee announced his retirement from the OBU presidency.  Agee, as we have said before, did a masterful job of shielding OBU from the nasty politics of the Takeover.  During his tenure, OBU dramatically increased its reputation for excellence in Christian liberal arts education.  Agee had the trust of the faculty and, equally important for the job, he knew how to play nice with the fundamentalists.  He was a tireless advocate for and vociferous defender of academic freedom, open inquiry, and all the things about liberal arts universities that might make fundamentalist Oklahoma Baptist pastors nervous.  Agee was more than the right person for the job.  To many, it seemed he might be the only person for the job.  Who else could protect OBU from outside interference while still navigating the folkways of Oklahoma churches and the institutional politics of post-Takeover SBC and BGCO life?

Against the backdrop of Agee's retirement was the fact that a prominent fundamentalist from Oklahoma, Rev. Dr. Tom Elliff, had just been elected to his second one-year term as SBC president.  Would the SBC try to meddle in the presidential search?  Could the same BGCO that censured the legendary Joe Ingram be trusted to elect trustees that would find a qualified leader -- rather than a fundamentalist ideologue -- to fill Agee's post?  There was a lot of fear on Bison Hill about these issues, and the fear resonated with Baptists throughout Oklahoma who opposed the Takeover crowd and their tactics.

Mainstream Oklahoma Baptists did, in fact, form in 1997, as the Oklahoman article states.  But while the group has gone on to do absolutely wonderful work on a number of fronts, it has not been active in advocating on behalf of OBU in many years.  Bruce quickly became persona non grata among the BGCO elites, and even a lot of OBU people were pretty tight-lipped around him.  I feared I might have the same problem -- no one at OBU would tell me what's really going on -- but luckily I have earned my sources' confidence by prodigiously guarding their anonymity.  Years ago, Bruce tried to place an ad in a facebook OBU produced for incoming students.  Apparently that went over about as well as if I tried to place an ad for Save OBU in The Bison.  Correctly sensing that his considerable knowledge and talents could be better utilized in important work elsewhere, Bruce has helped make Mainstream Oklahoma Baptists a significant, prophetic advocate for historic Baptist principles.

Sorry to disappoint those of you who thought maybe there was a significant news story about Save OBU.  To this point, we have not sought media attention.  While I want people to know about our struggle, I don't want the world to know what has happened at OBU in recent years.  It's embarrassing. So I'm torn about whether media coverage would help or hurt our cause.

But please do read the 1997 article.  Some of you will recognize many of the names.  Fifteen years later, the challenge is even greater.  But we remain committed.  For now, we are still trying to raise awareness among current students, alumni, and people who may have written off OBU years ago but would be surprised to learn that things were actually going pretty well until Provost Norman got there.  (OBU was ranked #109 in the U.S. by Forbes that year.)  Save OBU has no staff, no budget, and no media consultants.  We are completely dependent on concerned constituents to spread the word to classmates and friends.  If you're new to the site, please take some time to check out the other posts and links.  And please share our blog as widely as possible.

Future of OBU Prompts Baptist Group to Form

The Daily Oklahoman - Monday, November 10, 1997

Author: Pat Gilliland, Religion Editor

Saying they fear "fundamentalists" will take control of Oklahoma Baptist University, some state Baptists who are unhappy with their denomination's leadership are trying a new tactic.

Bob Stephenson, a member of First Baptist Church in Norman, said a new group, Mainstream Oklahoma Baptists , will hold its first official meeting Tuesday in Oklahoma City.

Stephenson said that although a steering committee was formed in January to study creation of such a group, OBU President Bob Agee's announcement in July that he will retire next year makes the work of Mainstream Oklahoma Baptists more crucial.

In a letter on Mainstream Oklahoma Baptists stationery, OBU graduates Charles Montgomery and Lisa Todd expressed their concern that academic freedom would be stifled at the Shawnee college after Agee retires.

"Our concern for the future of OBU has been triggered by the controversial takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention by a few powerful fundamentalist leaders," they wrote in a letter to OBU alumni.

The letter included an invitation to Mainstream Oklahoma Baptists ' organizational meeting at noon Tuesday at First Baptist Church, 1201 N Robinson, Oklahoma City.

But the Rev. Anthony Jordan, executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma, said he sees the "new" group as nothing more than a different - and questionable - name for the same people who have been fussing about changes in the denomination for more than 15 years.

Stephenson, Dan Hobbs, Rick McClatchy and other steering committee members also are involved with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, formed earlier this decade by Southern Baptists upset with what they considered the fundamentalist takeover of the denomination.

Jordan also scoffed at concerns about selecting a replacement for Agee.

The committee, which was selected by OBU's board of trustees to search for a new president, is from the mainstream of Oklahoma Baptists, Jordan said.

The new president may have different leadership skills, "but it is unlikely he will be different in his theological commitments," he said.

Jordan said he thinks real "mainstream" Oklahoma Baptists support the traditional avenues of the denomination's leadership, including the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma (BGCO) and the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).

The annual meeting of the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma will begin tonight and continue through Tuesday at Council Road Baptist Church, 2900 N Council Road in Bethany.

In past years, state Baptist leaders have maintained an image of cooperation and harmony during their annual meeting, even when controversy emerged in other states or on the national level.

Stephenson said the Mainstream Oklahoma Baptists organization would like to challenge the status quo and "hopefully pull the Oklahoma convention back to what we consider its basic Baptist roots."

Stephenson, a member of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship's national coordinating council, said the experiences of Baptists in other states indicate the need for two organizations to counter the denomination's fundamentalist leadership.

One group is needed for people who don't want to look at the past, he said.

"And then there are those of us who want, not really to retake the Southern Baptist Convention - as far as we're concerned it's gone - but we feel we have a duty: The Baptists of Oklahoma do have a right to know what has happened."

Rick McClatchy, coordinator of the Cooperating Baptist Fellowship of Oklahoma (CBFO), agreed.

"Some people will be involved in both organizations, because they like the missions and ministry of the CBFO but are still actively involved BGCO and want (it) to practice Baptist polity and principles," McClatchy said.

"Other people will belong only to the CBFO because they have no desire to be involved any longer in the work or politics of the BGCO."

In their letter to OBU alumni, Montgomery and Todd contend the leadership change in the past 18 years transformed the Southern Baptist Convention from a nonpolitical religious denomination that defended academic freedom and local church autonomy into a "right-wing political organization with little tolerance for dissent."

They said Mainstream Oklahoma Baptists is being formed to protect academic freedom at OBU, to uphold historic Baptist principles, to promote full inclusion of Baptists in state convention activities and to promote a free, responsible and fair Baptist press in the state.

The Rev. Ted Kersh, president of the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma, said he, like Jordan, thinks most Oklahoma Baptists would disagree with the new group's position about what is mainstream.

"I think the rest of Oklahoma Baptists are saying, `We don't have time for this; we want to get on with the work,' " Kersh said.

"We're going to stay strongly committed to the word of God. That will never be questioned."

Southern Baptists make up the largest religious denomination in Oklahoma, with about 700,000 members in 1,600 churches.

Stephenson said he thinks Oklahomans who generally don't get care or get involved with denominational politics will regret it if a fundamentalist becomes OBU president.

Stephenson tied some of his concern about OBU to the election of the Rev. Tom Elliff, pastor of Del City First Southern Baptist Church, as president of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1996 and 1997.

Underlying Stephenson's concern about Elliff's influence is the firing of a Southern Baptist Theological Seminary reference librarian who wrote a personal letter to Elliff questioning the accuracy of statements Elliff made in a speech.

Elliff has said he routinely forwards to the appropriate agencies, including the seminaries, copies of correspondence he receives involving them.

He said he did that with the librarian's letter but did not register any criticism, complaint or offense against the librarian.

Regarding OBU, Stephenson said he thinks the search committee would come up with an acceptable president .

"My concern is that the Southern Baptist Convention leadership will get involved," Stephenson said. "All over the SBC, anytime the fundamentalists have partial control, they find a way to get total control. That's our concern."

Jordan said he thinks the likelihood of a fundamentalist becoming president of OBU is the same as the chance of a liberal.

"Oklahoma Baptists are not fundamentalists. We are conservative."

Jordan said he's not frustrated by the detractors as much as he is saddened.

"I don't get too frustrated, simply because I care about these people. I have a desire to do all I can to help them to come along with the rest of Oklahoma Baptists," Jordan said.