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.

Spring Break Reading 2013

Following last year's tradition, I probably won't post any new content during OBU's Spring Break.  But, as with last year, I do want to leave some links to recent stories you may have missed.

In January, we welcomed everyone to 2013 and explained our long break from blogging following November's Homecoming festivities.  We also laid out an agenda for the first part of 2013.

More recently, guest bloggers provided two widely-read series:

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

Feminism at OBU Series by 2002 OBU Alumna Cortney Stone
"Thy Daughters True": Feminism at OBU - Part 1
"Thy Daughters True": Feminism at OBU - Part 2

"Thy Daughters True": Feminism at OBU - Part 3
"Thy Daughters True": Feminism at OBU - Part 4

I also had fun writing a few miscellaneous posts in February.  One chronicled FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's 1938 commencement address at OBU.  In another post, I wrote of my visit to the U.S. Naval Academy Chapel in Annapolis, MD.  Also, in response to the brouhaha over Tim Tebow cancelling an appearance at FBC Dallas after learning of its pastor's incendiary remarks, I wrote a response that blamed the problem not on Tebow, but on certain evangelicals' extremism -- an extremism that earlier generations of evangelical leaders wisely avoided.

More relevant to our immediate purposes at Save OBU, I point you to two other important stories we covered in February.  First, see our write-up of former OBU administrator Tom Terry's address in Raley Chapel.  Second, I wrote a piece on the Winter trustee meeting.  We'll say more about the trustee meeting in weeks to come as we continue to ponder the BGCO's outsized influence at an institution where it provides an ever-shrinking share of the operating expenses.

Most importantly, please consider circulating this commentary to your friends and colleagues in evangelical higher education.  With new leadership and many of its member institutions prospering, the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU) is poised to exercise considerable leadership as it has for many years.  Yet, as a growing number of CCCU schools struggle against fundamentalist resurgence, the council has been silent.  Will the CCCU continue to sit idly while fundamentalists run some of its member schools into the ground?  Or can the council highlight what its successful members have done to stave off the threat of fundamentalist encroachment?  It's a vital question, and the answer remains unseen.

If you're an OBU student or staff member, we especially wish you a very restful spring break!  If you're affiliated with another college celebrating another week, our best wishes to you, too.  And if spring break is for you nothing more than a distant memory, well, I hope you remember it fondly.

Thanks to so many of you for your support.
-Jacob Lupfer

OBU Winter 2013 Trustee Meeting: Joys & Concerns

Welcome
Now that the spring semester is well underway on Bison Hill, Save OBU will be returning to a more active blogging schedule.  We hope you saw last week's post on Tom Terry's OBU history speech in Raley Chapel.  Also, check out our story about J. Edgar Hoover's visit to OBU in 1938!  We've had a lot of web traffic in recent days, particularly from other evangelical colleges that are contending with fundamentalist encroachment.  Thanks to the friends and supporters who have sent emails, including a member of the Raley family!  And thanks as well to our new Facebook and Twitter followers.

Winter Trustee Meeting
Last Friday, OBU's BGCO-elected Board of Trustees met on campus.  There were no bombshells, and in our case, no news is definitely good news.  The university's P.R. writeup reports a number of exciting happenings around campus, which we celebrate.
Joy
We are particularly heartened to learn of an OBU anthropology professor being granted Senior Faculty Status (OBU's version of tenure).  Several insiders had been concerned that some administrator(s) may use the tenure as a weapon again, either against this individual or against the anthropology department.  After all, it's not a huge leap from "Philosophy leads to critical thought which leads away from fundamentalism. so let's get rid of philosophy and replace it with Christian apologetics" to "Anthropology leads to cultural relativism and anyway and all we need to know about other cultures is how to convert them, so let's get rid of anthropology and hire another missionary." So, we celebrate.
Concern
A widely-loved and long-serving OBU scientist was granted leave for next academic year to work on research for NASA.  Of course, we celebrate this, too.  But given recent history, we fervently hope there is no effort afoot to purge this scientist.  After all, gravity is just a "theory," and certain other scientific theories have fallen out of favor with some of OBU's newest administrators and faculty...

Moving Forward
While the bleeding seems to have subsided at OBU, at least for the moment, there are more problems elsewhere in evangelical academia than I can keep up with.  (See a brilliantly-titled Patheos blog post, "No one expects and evangelical inquisition.")  I am currently in talks with constituents of several of these institutions to find guest writers who will provide reports for us.  Later this week, I'll introduce an alumna of Cedarville University (OH) who happens to be a freelance journalist.  She's working on an in-depth series on Cedarville's Takeover.  It will be instructive to learn from CU's story and hope we can avoid some of the traps.  And, of course, this will help fulfill our mission to join in solidarity with other evangelicals who value academic freedom and ethical administration.

J. Edgar Hoover, 1938 OBU Commencement Speaker

In yesterday's post on Tom Terry's recent chapel address, I mentioned that Terry once provided me with archival information on J. Edgar Hoover's visit to OBU in 1938.  I moved recently, and can't find the documents at this moment.  But a number of people have contacted me, curious about OBU's J. Edgar Hoover connection.  So I'll do my best to tell the story.

Unbeknownst to many, the list of OBU's honorary doctorate recipients includes a very famous (or infamous) name: J. Edgar Hoover.  By the time young John Wesley Raley became OBU's president in 1934, young John Edgar Hoover had made a name for himself as the FBI aggressively investigated dissidents and fought gangsters.  Raley had already twice invited Hoover to come to OBU by the time Hoover sent word in the fall of 1937 that he would be able to speak at the 1938 graduation.

With the expected crowds, no venue on OBU's campus would be suitable.  It was decided that the graduation would take place at the newly-completed Shawnee Municipal Auditorium on Bell Street downtown.  In the meantime, 1938 turned out to be a momentous year for OBU.  A new men's choir, called Sangerbund, was formed under the direction of a promising young music professor named Warren M. Angell.  It later became the Bison Glee Club.  The iconic Oval Fountain was a gift to OBU from the Class of 1938.

A native Washingtonian, J. Edgar Hoover took a position with the Justice Department's Alien Enemy Bureau immediately after completing his education.  Later, he worked in intelligence, monitoring suspected radicals (including future Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter).  In the early 1920s Hoover moved to the Bureau of Investigation.  In 1924, the Attorney General of the United States made Hoover acting director.  After President Warren Harding's death that year and amid charges that the prior director was involved in a political scandal, President Calvin Coolidge appointed Hoover Director.  The bureau suffered a few embarrassments as high-profile criminals evaded capture or escaped, but in general, the FBI prospered under Hoover.  It brought notorious gangsters to justice and Hoover was widely credited with making federal law enforcement more scientific and professionalized.

A May 12, 1938 Baptist Messenger made little mention of Hoover's planned visit, but several of the news clippings Tom Terry sent me indicated that this was a huge event for OBU -- and for the entire state.  (Though note several items of interest on the OBU page of this newspaper.  First, in an article about the OBU debate team, a student named James Ralph Scales is listed having won several debates. Scales followed John Wesley Raley as president of his alma mater and went on to become president of Wake Forest University.  A statue of Scales was unveiled between Shawnee Hall and the library 18 months ago.  Also, note the mention of Porter Routh returning from seminary in Louisville.  Routh was OBU's P.R. director, journalism instructor, faculty advisor for the Bison newspaper, and superintendent of the Bison Press.  This was, of course, long before Baptists stopped believing in objective journalism and Baptist college administrators intimidated and/or ran off talented journalism professors.)

Anyway, Hoover's trip to Oklahoma also included a visit to the FBI's Oklahoma City field office.  On the morning of May 23, 1938, he arrived at OBU to be greeted by President Raley.  To accommodate the crowd, the graduation was held off campus.  Hoover received an honorary LL.D. and gave what amounted to a typical God-and-country commencement address.  The May 26 Baptist Messenger mentioned that Hoover condemned the role of politics in law enforcement.  He also implored the graduates to "show the same pioneering spirit in their fight against crime that the early Oklahomans showed in the building of a great state."  Hoover admonished graduates to follow the Golden Rule and to remember that honesty was needed above all things in a world of doubt and suspicion.

Baptist Messenger (May 26, 1938)

Many newspapers published reports on Hoover's appearance, and the event was broadcast via radio all over Oklahoma.  One account described Hoover as "one of Washington's most eligible bachelors."  Separately, the press noted that Hoover's entourage included Deputy Director Clyde Tolson.  Of course, most people now believe that Hoover was gay and that Tolson (who received the flag draped over Hoover's coffin after it laid in state in the U.S. Capitol, inherited his estate, moved into his house, and was buried a few feet away in the Congressional Cemetery) was his partner.  Thus it may be the case that Hoover and Tolson were among the first gay people at OBU.  But they were certainly not the last, as everyone knows.  At least they were closeted, which is how, then as now, OBU and the BGCO prefer gay people to be.

This would not the the last OBU/Raley family/Justice Department connection.  John Wesley Raley, Jr., who graduated from OBU in the mid-1950s, was appointed by President George H. W. Bush to be United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Oklahoma.

Hoover went on to have a colorful, controversial, and incredibly long tenure as FBI director.  He served under Presidents Coolidge, (Herbert) Hoover, Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon.

Tom Terry Speaks in Raley Chapel

The Spring 2013 chapel lineup is about what you would expect: a conservative Republican politician, the president of the SBC, a former large church pastor and current denominational agency head's wife, a ministry professor, etc.  We're even going to hear from D. James Kennedy's replacement at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, FL to ensure that we get the requisite dose of Calvinism.

But the Founder's Day Chapel was rightly given to Tom Terry, a longtime OBU administrator and archivist.  Last year's Founder's Day preacher was the Rev. Dr. John Bisagno, a distinguished alum to be sure, but someone who looked the other way as fundamentalists took over the SBC. The year before that, Provost Stan Norman preached the Founder's Day sermon, a rather unfortunate irony.  Bob Agee, President Whitlock, and John Parrish spoke in 2010, 2009, and 2008, respectively.

The invitation to Terry came from David Whitlock directly, and kudos to the president for inviting someone to speak who would not be inclined to support the fundamentalists' vision for a new OBU.  The press release indicated that Terry named a number of key OBU figures over the years who were not there at the beginning, but who were, in a sense, founders in their own right.  Seeing a few names of people who are decidedly not fundamentalists and who oppose (or would have opposed) the fundamentalist encroachment we've seen in recent years, I decided to listen to the address.

Interestingly, Terry noted that before the BGCO accepted Shawnee's offer to donate land and funds for a building, the convention accepted an offer from Oklahoma City.  But the offer came with a condition from the chief benefactor, a Mr. Putnam, that he be allowed to appoint half the trustees.  Of course, the convention declined.

Along with legendary coach Bob Bass, Terry lifted up former athletic director and women's basketball coach David Sallee ('73) as having been instrumental in making OBU compliant with Title IX and expanding opportunities for women's athletics.  As many of you know, Sallee is now president of William Jewell College in Liberty, MO and was a strong advocate for academic freedom and respectability when the fundamentalist Missouri Baptist Convention tried to take over William Jewell.  Terry also told the stories of legendary professors and administrators, including Juanita Milsap, Donald G. Osborn, William E. Neptune, and Mary Kay (Higgenbotham) Parrish.  These dedicated educators helped build OBU into an academically rigorous institution with a reputation for excellence -- a reputation somewhat imperiled by sliding rankings, administrative blunders, and widespread public concern about encroaching fundamentalism in several departments.

I'm not trying to say that Terry gave a rousing defense of the moderate Baptists' accomplishments in Christian higher education or that he slammed the fundamentalists.  It wasn't that kind of speech.  But it does serve to remind us that anyone who tries to imagine OBU as a fundamentalist school DOES NOT have history on his side.  The people who made OBU great are people who were committed to academic rigor, academic freedom, and the integration of learning with a searching, honest faith that sincere Baptists, both fundamentalist and moderate, have held though the years.  There is no way anyone can support faculty purges, fundamentalist-inspired curricular interventions, or the watering down of key subject areas and still claim to be in accordance with the ideals of OBU's founding.

Also, I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth.  Maybe not all of the people mentioned want to go on the record against the problems Save OBU has highlighted.  I was just pleasantly surprised that Terry's address mentioned so many moderates!  It is refreshing to hear some of the true great "founders" praised on Founders' Day.

And it was a wonderful, appropriate way to honor Tom Terry, who in addition to a long administrative career served as interim president in 1982.  We probably won't see OBU historians like Slayden Yarbrough or Jerry Faught in the Raley Chapel pulpit any time soon (and that's a shame).  Tom Terry is and OBU historian of the highest order, and I certainly am thankful for his message.

Fundamentalists did not make OBU great.  They are a threat to OBU's greatness.  Let's not forget that.

P.S. A few years ago, I recalled that J. Edgar Hoover once spoke at OBU.  Curious, I emailed Terry and asked him about the event.  He sent me a large packet of information pertaining to every aspect of Hoover coming to OBU, from President Raley's invitation to local press accounts of the address.  (Maybe I'll write about it sometime, just for fun.)  I don't know Tom Terry personally and I'm sure he has no clue who I am.  But I certainly appreciate him and his service to OBU over many decades.