What's in a Name (Change)?

It's come close to happening a few times over the years, but we may have reached a tipping point.  Last year, messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention gave denominational leaders approval to begin considering a name change for the convention.  Emotions on both sides run high, but a lot of people are open to the idea.  The issue is certain to come up at the SBC's Executive Committee meetings this week:

On Monday (Feb. 20), Southern Baptist Convention President Bryant Wright is expected to give his recommendation on a possible name change to the denomination's top leaders. That recommendation is likely to be debated at the Southern Baptists' annual convention in June in New Orleans.

Like many issues that are peripheral or unrelated to academic freedom at OBU, Save OBU has no compelling reason to take a position on this matter.  But it is worth pausing for a moment to consider what an institution's name means and what associations it carries.

Southern Baptist Convention
There are apparently two main arguments for changing the name of the SBC.  The first has to do with the role of slavery in the convention's formation in 1845 and the notion that "Southern" somehow brings to mind an association with a racist past.  Along these lines, proponents of a name change point to statistics showing that 44% of people have a negative view of Southern Baptists (according to a LifeWay study quoted in the linked article above).  The second reason for a change has less to do with public relations and more to do with the reality that Southern Baptists are increasing their presence in areas outside the Old Confederacy.  If you are planting churches in the West and Northeast, the reasoning goes, why call them "Southern" Baptist?  (Though Baptists' foothold in the South is obviously the only region where they are dominant, as the figure shows.)

Another story, though one less talked about in the media and discourse I've read, is the decline of denominationalism overall and particularly the decline of denominational loyalties among the young.  Overwhelmingly, people are not nearly as likely to identify with a denomination than their parents were.  Anecdotally, when you see churches being built in the middle class white exurbs, they are almost never have denominational identifiers on their signs and buildings, even if they are affiliated with a denomination.  Instead, you see "The Rock Church," "Living Vine Church," "River of Life Community," etc.

If I had to bet, I think I'd bet on a name change.  To what, though?  From my perspective, I wish they would choose a name that helps distinguish who the convention is now that it has taken over every institution, board, and agency and purged/marginalized all moderates and what few liberals there ever were.  Probably the "Conservative Baptist Convention" would be the most accurate.  Such a name would help imply their victory in the Fundamentalist Takeover as well as their new place as the religious wing of the Republican Party.  If you read what Baptist leaders taught and believed about the separation of church and state 30 or 40 years ago, you would not believe that today's leaders are in the same denomination.

I'm just sad that, whatever the SBC does, the Nashville boys will get to claim the name "Baptist" -- a label they have dragged through the mud of fundamentalism and secular politics for a generation to the point that nearly a majority of Americans have an unfavorable view of a word that used to be synonymous with soul freedom, liberty of the conscience, and separation of church and state.


Oklahoma Baptist University
One of the tricky things about the Save OBU effort is that our mission is a little more difficult because OBU has "Oklahoma" and "Baptist" in its name.  For one thing, unlike Furman, Stetson, and Jewell, we can't start with a discussion about academic freedom or whether the school and the convention can even be partners in the same mission.  Before we even get to that point, we have to deal with the objection, "It's Oklahoma Baptist University," by which our critics mean to imply that the BGCO should be able to do whatever it wants, no matter how perilously its vision for OBU encroaches on academic freedom.

So, for better or worse, before we can even have a substantive debate about the merits of disaffiliation, we have to have a debate about what it means to be Baptist.  When you are eager to argue for disaffiliation, that discussion can feel like a distraction.  But the truth is, we welcome that debate.  We welcome the opportunity to discuss all the Baptist distinctives we stand for.  Because whenever we have that discussion, it becomes easier, not harder, for us to show that it is the SBC and the BGCO that moved away from those distinctives.  We have remained true to them all along.

While they are glad to have OBU in their portfolio because it represents and reinforces that they own us, we are proud to be OBU because we have been living by and fighting for the best of the Baptist tradition all along.  We are the descendants of a great generation of OBU administrators, teachers, and students who built a proud name in Christian higher education.  They are the descendants of a Takeover faction that booed Herschel Hobbs at the SBC, purged and marginalized anyone who dared to disagree with them, sold out for a pittance to the religious right, ran our agencies and institutions into the ground, and created a P.R. emergency for a denomination that nearly half of Americans view unfavorably.

The BGCO may own the buildings and grounds.  But it absolutely does not own what it means to be Baptist.  It turned away from that legacy years ago.  And that is why we will win.

Faculty Friday: Church Affiliation Politics, Part I

Given how far the SBC has drifted from its moorings since the Fundamentalist Takeover, it should come as no surprise that many of the people who work in Baptist higher education do not worship in Southern Baptist churches.  But in OBU's recent slide toward fundamentalism, it appears that administrators are intent on turning the OBU faculty into an insular, exclusive club that keeps moderates out whenever possible and marginalized in any case.


OBU used to hire professors from across the various Protestant denominational families.  Though the SBC has always claimed the largest slice of OBU professors' church affiliations, many of us have had OBU professors who were Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Lutherans, and United Methodists.  They participated actively in their congregations in Shawnee and elsewhere.  They added valuable diversity and expertise, especially in courses like Western Civ where figures like John Calvin, Martin Luther, and John Wesley loomed large.  To the extent that mainline Protestants are still allowed to teach in OBU classrooms, they are undoubtedly adding immeasurably to students' learning and providing wonderful examples of how to maintain a fearless, intellectually honest faith that can withstand even the most rigorous intellectual scrutiny.


OBU administrators are intent on bringing those days to an end.  In the September 28, 2011 edition of The Bison, one retiring professor lamented that she would never even be hired today.  When I first read her statement, I found it absolutely tragic given her decades of distinguished service to OBU.  But only after consulting with other current faculty did I realize that denominational politics might be the reason why longtime professors believe they would not be hired under the present administration.


After consulting with current faculty, it's clear that the retiring professor was likely referring to the provost's declaration last year that OBU would no longer hire professors who are members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), and the Episcopal Church, ostensibly because these denominations recognize a difference of opinion on gays' and lesbians' rights in society and their place in the life and ministry of the church.  Evidently, this new standard was used to eliminate a member of a local church of one of these traditions from consideration for an adjunct position at OBU.


One faculty member explains,

 Later, under questioning, the provost backtracked, saying he didn't know how that rumor (of a new standard) got started, and that OBU would continue to consider good candidates who happened to be of one of those denominations, although he might well ask them why they "stayed" in the denomination.  We will reserve judgement until we see how he recommends concerning current candidates for faculty positions.

Incidentally, an administrator was quoted in the 9/28/11 Bison article trying to spin the new exclusionary preferences, but basically affirming that prospective hires will be evaluated through these new doctrinal and ideological frameworks.


To my knowledge, religion faculty has always been exclusively Southern Baptist.  This made sense back when Southern Baptist academics were uniformly supportive of academic freedom.  Hiring Southern Baptist pastor-theologians as religion professors meant bringing aboard thoughtful moderates who had received first-rate theological educations.  If we are still hiring only Southern Baptists even after the Fundamentalist Takeover, we are tragically limiting our options to a narrow subset of men who received subpar theological educations at the SBC seminaries.


In the weeks and months to come, we will explore OBU's long and complicated relationship with some of the Baptist churches in Shawnee, two of which are significantly affiliated with the Cooperating Baptist Fellowship of Oklahoma.


For now, I simply must respond to this outrageous idea that non-Southern Baptists should have to justify to Stan Norman why they stayed in their denomination.  He truly seems to enjoy being the enforcer, arbiter, and judge.  Frankly, given how far they have fallen from what they used to stand for, I think it's the Southern Baptists who should have to justify why they've "stayed."  Until OBU has a chief academic officer who understands this, OBU's descent into fundamentalism will continue apace.

Friday, February 17: Be a Bison Day

Like many of us did a few years (or a few decades...) ago, hundreds of prospective OBU students will convene on Bison Hill tomorrow for the university's most significant event for high school students considering OBU.  Some will be seniors who are 100% sure they are going to OBU.  Others are testing the waters.  All will get to attend a class, eat in the cafeteria, tour the dorms, and get a feel for OBU's compulsory chapel.

But, whether you first set foot on Bison Hill in 2009 or 1959, you went to a very different Oklahoma Baptist University than the students who will enroll in 2012.  Since 2009, we know that

• Two professors were unethically forced out of their positions and denied rights guaranteed under the Faculty Handbook.  OBU's reputation has suffered, and the university is extremely lucky it avoided a lawsuit.
• A normal bookstore has been replaced by a fundamentalist one, constituting a de facto censorship of mainstream books.  (There are also plans afoot to use a textbook fee to force students to patronize this new bookstore rather than price-shopping and buying books online or elsewhere.  All students and parents need to raise holy hell if this insane policy is enacted.)
• Administrators have intervened in curriculum matters.
• The philosophy department has been gutted to accomodate Christian apologetics
• Faculty morale has sunk to an all-time low.
• When interviews are conducted to fill faculty vacancies, the administration has ignored search committee recommendations and hired people who the committees simply did not want, further exacerbating tensions.
• Protests from students, faculty, alumni, and retired faculty have not resulted in a single apology or policy reversal, signaling a dangerous deafness to stakeholders whose disillusionment is at an all-time high.  Even more alarming, these significant protests have been apparently viewed more as P.R. crises than as serious concerns from people whose affection for OBU will long outlast the tenure of any one president or administrator.

Here at Save OBU, we have not yet called for our supporters to advise prospective students against attending or withdraw their financial support (though untold hundreds if not thousands of alumni are already doing these things).  Instead, we settled on being a source of information for prospective students and their families.  They don't need us to urge a boycott.  But they do need to know the facts about what has been happening -- facts that OBU is keen to hide.  Our open letter to prospective students reviews the pros and cons of attending OBU at a time like this.

It is in all our interests that the brightest and most capable students continue to enroll at OBU.  But the OBU that earned a solid reputation for excellence in Christian higher education over the decades is increasingly not the OBU of today.  Administrators and backers laud OBU's great heritage even as they have sometimes worked to undermine it.

Sadly, OBU's owner/operator, the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma, has drifted far from the ideals of OBU's liberal arts tradition.  The BGCO is frankly no longer an honest partner in the task of higher education -- a task that requires academic freedom, open inquiry, and Baptist hallmarks like the priesthood of the believer, soul competency, and the liberty of the conscience.  Unfortunately, the Christian intellectual's conscience is no longer free in Southern Baptist life today.

Rather than set OBU free to continue the mission the BGCO abandoned as it became anti-intellectual and fundamentalist over the past 30 years, the BGCO is clinging ever more tightly to OBU.  Even as its annual subsidy continues to cover less and less of OBU's annual budget, the BGCO's influence in OBU personnel and policy decisions is stronger than ever, and that influence is taking a toll.

Quietly, there is a war brewing between the OBU that has always existed and the OBU the BGCO desires to create.  It's a battle that some OBU administrators would rather you not see, because they themselves are waging it.  It happens in small increments and over a long period of time.  It's often covert, under the radar, and off the front pages.  But prospective students should be warned: At the current rate, the quality of the faculty and the rigor of your academic program is certain to decline (along with OBU's reputation) during your college years unless we can reverse many of the negative changes described above.

If you decide to attend OBU, we urge you to join with the faculty, students, and alumni who are pressing hard to oppose administrative actions that are taking OBU in the wrong direction.  We are here for you, and we welcome your support.  Should you have any questions, you can contact us at SaveOBU@gmail.com

OBU Welcomes Guest Lecturers It Would Never Hire

When I was a student at OBU from 1999 to 2002, the guest speakers who occasionally visited our campus greatly enhanced my intellectual horizons.  Phyllis Trible of Wake Forest Divinity School headlined a particularly memorable academic conference in 2000 or 2001.  The annual Schusterman Lecture in Jewish History and Culture was inaugurated my freshman year.  I got to participate in discussions with noted scholars such as Jacob Neusner, William Scott Green, and Judith Baskin.  On a personal note, I had breakfast one morning at the (then new) Cracker Barrel with Professor Green.  With great interest and patience, he helped introduce me to the world of non-fundamentalist academia -- a world that has given me many years of challenges, joy, and a true sense of vocation.  I have always been grateful that OBU afforded students such opportunities.

Especially contrasted with how little we got out of the unending stream of fundamentalist ministers that OBU trotted into Raley Chapel week after week, it was always a joy to experience guest speakers who nurtured and honored the life of the mind as opposed to fearing and denigrating it.

Given the recent obvious and extreme crackdown on academic freedom at OBU, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that some of these events still take place.  Considering the administration's unprecedented lurch toward fundamentalism, it takes more courage than ever for faculty to sponsor and endorse these valuable events.

Just last week, OBU welcomed two notable guests -- historian Philip Jenkins and journalist David Shipler.  Credit where credit is due: I salute OBU administrators for not cracking down on these vital learning opportunities that so richly elevate and bolster the university's intellectual community.

I do not know definitively, but I assume these two particular guests are godless liberals who will soon burn in the fiery pits of Hell for all eternity.  I find it interesting that while OBU values their distinctive scholarly and professional accomplishments enough to welcome them onto our campus, neither of these speakers -- in spite of their impeccable credentials -- could ever get hired to teach at today's OBU.

It makes me wonder what point there is in bringing them to campus at all.  It seems to send a very mixed message to students and the broader Oklahoma Baptist constituency.  Are students supposed to admire them?  Witness to them?  Pity them for being hell-bound?  I also wonder if most Oklahoma Baptists know or care that OBU continues to privilege worldly knowledge and experience by exposing students to experts and scholars "outside the fold."  It seems strange that the university says to students, "We want you to listen to these people -- they are some of the best experts in their fields, but we would never allow them to be your professors.  We care less about expertise than we do about total agreement with a narrow set of doctrinal beliefs."

For now, I suppose it is enough to be grateful that these exciting and valuable learning opportunities still exist, even as learning is slowly but deliberately stifled in OBU classrooms through losing mostly moderate professors and gaining mostly fundamentalist ones, not to mention administrative meddling in curriculum decisions.  Still, the broader disconnect that these kinds of events represent is worth considering.

Trustees Force Administrative Change (But Not at OBU , Sorry to Say)

Hope that headline didn't get your hopes up too much.

But it is worth noting that trustees of another Baptist institution, in this case Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, assertively intervened and forced the president's resignation last week.  The Rev. Dr. Phil Roberts resigned last Friday ahead of a specially-called trustee meeting to deal with questions about his leadership.  Every indication is that this guy was simply not a competent administrator.  He went through 11 financial officers in his 11 years at the helm of MBTS.  He was evidently a notorious micromanager, used funds for ostensibly personal uses, and got the seminary involved in an expensive building program.

The last two presidential tenures have been disastrous, and MBTS is surely an attractive target for the SBC's badly-needed seminary contraction effort.  I don't know enough to know whether MBTS differs in any substantial way from the other seminaries.  Therefore it's safe to assume that it is a thoroughly fundamentalist institution.  Unlike Southern and Southwestern, which used to actually be decent seminaries before the fundamentalists came in and absolutely destroyed them, I don't know if MBTS ever had pre-Takeover any "glory days," since it was only founded in 1957.  It might have been a fledgling institution all along.  They force faculty to sign the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message, and every indication is that MBTS, like the other SBC seminaries, turned their backs on academic freedom, open inquiry, soul competency, and the liberty of the conscience long ago.  Creedalism and fundamentalism seem to be the order of the day.

MBTS is not really any concern of ours.  But it is heartening to know that even a SBC-elected fundamentalist board of trustees was willing to force some changes when they were truly necessary.  Too often, cults of personality form around these leaders and the trustees are nothing more than a rubber stamp.  Fortunately, that is NOT true in our case.  Not all of our trustees are fundamentalists, and many of them surely have a loyalty to OBU's heritage and future that exceeds their loyalty to any one president (or convention leader who might influence their standing in BGCO circles).

Now we desperately need to engage OBU's trustees and demonstrate the urgent need for them to direct administrators to restore academic freedom, professors' right to teach, and students' right to learn.  Like other Southern Baptist institution boards, OBU's trustees frequently cast unanimous votes to do whatever the administration wants.  But eventually, we need some trustees to stand up and advocate for the heritage, reputation, and tradition that recent administrative actions have badly tarnished.  We need them to know it's okay to oppose Baptist Building elites.  Like the MBTS trustess who refused to allow the status quo to drag their institution down, we need OBU trustees to act by whatever means necessary to protect academic freedom at OBU and reverse the fundamentalist tide that is so dramatically deteriorating the quality of OBU's academic program.

Money Monday: The Truth Behind the Faculty/Staff Phase of the Capital Campaign

A few weeks ago, we took a broad look at the Vision for a New Century campaign, OBU's ambitious $67 million capital campaign currently underway.  Thanks to a very solid effort from the fundraisers and, of course, the generous donors, the campaign seems to be off to a good start.

Last Friday, in fact, OBU hosted a reception for the faculty in celebration of its "goal-topping success" in the faculty/staff phase of the campaign.  The employee phase of any campaign is critical.  In fact, it's a key metric that prospective donors monitor to assess institutional unity, buy-in, and cohesion.

If you look at the wide gulf the OBU administration has placed between itself and the faculty through its unwise and unethical actions, "cohesion" is probably the last word that comes to mind.  Yet the capital campaign will continue apace, claiming (correctly) that the faculty/staff phase exceeded its goal.

There's only one problem.

The truth is that very little of that amount actually came from faculty.  This is why, to my knowledge, none of the campaign's literature distinguishes between contributions from professors and contributions from administrators.  The fact is that nearly 75% of the faculty/staff goal was pledged by administrators before the faculty was even approached.  Now, I'm don't which administrators are independently wealthy or exceedingly generous.  But someone dug deep because they knew that many professors could not support this campaign in good conscience, given their many grievances.

Celebrating the faculty/staff phase's "goal-topping success" badly obscures the fact that one or a handful of administrators contributed an outsized proportion relative to what faculty/staff pledged.

It's not technically dishonest, but it does cover over the fact that the administration had to dig very deep to avoid a disappointing end to a phase of the campaign where OBU's greatest asset -- its faculty -- largely declined to participate due to its lack of confidence in the administration and the increasingly fundamentalist direction of the university.  Administrators and fundraisers will say to prospective donors in subsequent phases, "We exceeded our goal in the faculty/staff phase of the campaign."  And that is true.  It's also true that there is a serious difference between campaigns that receive modest but broad support from everyone and campaigns that depend almost exclusively on one or a handful of huge donors (think Ron Paul vs. Newt Gingrich).  The differences in enthusiasm, commitment, etc. are unmistakable.

The question prospective donors should be asking administrators is, "Why do OBU professors, by and large, have so little confidence in the current administration?"  Of course, no administrator wants to answer that question, and certainly not in the context of soliciting major donors.  But it is a question that we here at Save OBU will be happy to answer until OBU is forever free of fundamentalist encroachment.

Sunday School - Reassessing Institutional Parallels

As many of our readers know, we began with the intention of blogging on Sundays about other Baptist schools that parted company with their increasingly fundamentalist and anti-intellectual state conventions. So far, we've profiled William Jewell College (MO), Stetson University (FL), and Furman University (SC).

Sunday School Blogging - Not as Helpful or Relevant
Last week, we looked at the planned takeover of a struggling, unaccredited college in Montana.  It's too soon to say whether this is a good idea or not.  And while Save OBU is committed to not taking positions on every minute matter in OBU governance and administration, we are at least open to the possibility that this could be a smart, effective partnership.  Our concern, as ever, is that we need to take care to maintain the quality and integrity of OBU's liberal arts education on Bison Hill.  In recent years, that heritage has been deliberately eroded and administrators seem deaf and frankly indifferent to the concerns of students, faculty, retired faculty, alumni, and friends.  So it occurs to us that new graduate programs, athletic teams, and far-flung satellite campuses may be a distraction from the very urgent business of protecting academic freedom, a rigorous curriculum, and maintaining the best possible faculty.  To the hardworking professors and tuition-paying students who see OBU's great liberal arts tradition being threatened by fundamentalist encroachment, focusing so much attention on peripheral matters seems not only offensive, but unwise.  It's like building a new room onto the side of your house while the kitchen is on fire.

Anyway, there are many other schools whose stories we need to hear.  But at the moment, it's not really worth 1/7 of this blog's space.  The amount of research required is substantial, and I frankly don't think it's the best use of my time.  Furthermore, since we usually talk about faculty on Friday, students on Saturday, and money on Monday, it would be better if we could have a day in the midst of those regular features to talk about any pressing issues that arise.

Baptist Hospital: The Key to OBU's Path to Freedom from the BGCO?
Furthermore, OBU's legal entanglement with the BGCO is different from other Baptist schools'.  It will not be nearly as easy for us to escape the BGCO's stranglehold.  We can't just vote the fundamentalists out.  They own us.  They literally own the buildings and grounds.  They can legally do whatever they want.  Whoever controls the BGCO controls OBU -- it's as simple as that.  When Mark Brister complained, "Anthony think he's my boss," he hit on the biggest problem OBU faces.  While it is not technically true, it is practically true.  When we had BGCO leaders like Joe Ingram who believed in academic freedom, the legal arrangement was not problematic.  Revs. Ingram and Tanner and Presidents Hall and Agee wisely kept OBU off the battlefield as fundamentalists waged war on the SBC in the 1980s.  Now, the fundamentalists are having their moment, and it's reflected in every hiring decision, every forced dismissal, and every curricular intervention.

So the uniqueness of our relationship to the state convention makes comparison to other schools mostly irrelevant.  What we need, truly, are experts on institutional disaffiliation.  The best parallel I can think of is the old Baptist hospital system.  My plea is this: if you know anyone who was involved in BGCO politics when it separated from the Baptist hospital system (I think this was in the early or mid 1980s but I truly don't know), please have them contact me.  Our path to freedom will be more like the hospital's and less like Wake Forest's, Stetson's, or Mercer's.  We need to know every little detail of that separation.

Moving Forward
Moving forward, we need to distinguish between short-term and long-term aims.  Our immediate concern is to repair the utterly broken relationship between the OBU faculty (particularly senior faculty) and the administration.  We absolutely must see some evidence -- and soon -- that student protests, Faculty Council resolutions, alumni petitions, and widespread dissatisfaction have any effect whatsoever on administrators, or if they are truly just doing the fundamentalists' bidding.  Fortunately, our persistence and collective pressure finally seem to be paying off.  Now that students, faculty, retired faculty, and alumni are all well aware of each other's positions, experiences, and expectations, it seems a near certainty that OBU will have to, at a minimum, apologize to the faculty and students for its shameful treatment of two excellent professors and find the provost a position elsewhere in fundamentalist higher education for which he is better suited.  Then, the fireworks over who gets to choose his successor can begin in earnest.

This issue will have to be settled soon, because with the president scheduled to be out of the country for six weeks this spring when interviews and decisions regarding new faculty take place, faculty and students are horrified at the prospect that Dr. Norman will get to oversee that process, ignore search committee recommendations again, and bring in a handful of eager young fundamentalist professors to further erode OBU's academic rigor and quality, even over the strident objections of students and faculty.  Such a scenario is unthinkable.

Longer term, we will seek changes to the trustee selection process, on OBU's end and on the BGCO's end as well.  In order to accomplish this, we may have to start a widespread conversation in Oklahoma Baptist life about what OBU and the convention actually offer each other (hint: not much).  BGCO power brokers are happiest when OK Baptists don't think much about the fact that OBU has a strong moderating effect on students' views and that we send a relatively large number of ministry graduates to moderate seminaries and a relatively small number of them to OK Baptist pulpits.  But we'll probably have to have an extended public debate about these and related issues in the months and years to come. So be it, it's long overdue.