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.

OBU's 2012 Commencement: Beneath the Surface

Congratulations to the OBU Class of 2012!  The Green Book lists 23 regulations pertaining to "College Citizenship," and I hope the graduates went out and broke 1 or 2 of them last night.  God loves a joyful celebration!

I understand it was cloudy yesterday -- perhaps an apt metaphor for the storm clouds of conflict looming over the campus.  I saw part of the ceremony, which was streamed on Shawnee Live and is also available "on demand" through OBU's website.  It was hard to believe a decade has passed since I walked across that stage!  But I was so happy and proud for all the students and their families.  I have to credit last fall's alumni petition for providing the impetus to start Save OBU.  And I credit Contributing Editor Veronica Pistone for helping make sure the movement survived its infancy.  But the truth is, we wouldn't be this far without the hundreds of OBU students who have expressed interest in our movement, read our blog, and kept the issues salient on campus.  I'm especially grateful to the several dozen students -- mostly seniors -- who actively helped out by providing information, context, and nuance on a number of fronts.  We invite you to even more active participation in Save OBU now that you are alumni!  And we trust that the torch of student leadership is passing to students who may not remember OBU under Brister or Parrish, but who nonetheless revere academic freedom, Baptist freedom, and OBU's great liberal arts heritage.

While it was entirely appropriate for the university to pull itself together to honor the 246 graduating seniors, there are a handful of relevant tidbits that curiously didn't make it into the official press release.

Speakers

Commencement Address/Honorary Degree
OBU conferred an honorary doctorate on the Rev. Dr. Tom Elliff, a former missionary, Oklahoma Baptist minister, and current president of the SBC's International Mission Board.  Of course, no opportunity is wasted to remind everyone that OBU sends more missionaries to the IMB than any other college.  And we will not waste an opportunity to a) courteously remind everyone that correlation does not imply causality and b) reiterate our view that Oklahoma's contribution to the mission field owes as much to Falls Creek as to OBU, and that as with all BGCO ministry and mission priorities, funding for Falls Creek suffers because of the BGGO's $2.5 million annual subsidy to OBU.

After hearing Dr. Elliff's rather innocuous homily, I almost felt bad for highlighting his role in the Fundamentalist Takeover (and aftermath) of the SBC.  It's amazing how downright likable fundamentalists can be when they're not waging ideological warfare and destroying our treasured institutions.  The bondservant/slave and kamikaze illustrations seemed a little strange at first, but do indeed point to important servant/surrender aspects of the Christian life.  But given his open disdain for moderates in the SBC and the fact that OBU gave him an award less than a year ago, I continue to feel that honoring him in this way was insulting, particularly to faculty.  Still, they politely applauded the man who likened moderates in Southern Baptist life to "barnacles and parasites" that he himself proudly "removed from the Ship of Zion."

Awards/Acknowledgments

Retiring Faculty
We certainly join OBU in commending the service of six very fine retirees.  At least two of them have been courageously and openly opposed to some of the bad policy and personnel changes we've seen in recent years.  One of the retirees, interviewed in The Bison last fall, said she doubts she would be hired by OBU today.  What a tragedy.  Still, we must thank these very fine folks for their service and leadership over the years.  We wish them all the best as they begin exciting new chapters in their lives.

Faculty Awards
There is widespread suspicion among the faculty that politics played a role in the Promising Teacher Award this year.  Many faculty had assumed the award would go to an effective and well-loved professor who just finished his sixth year -- his last year of eligibility for the award.  Of course, being an Episcopalian may have been the kiss of death, given a certain administrator's recent obsession with church affiliation politics.  OBU may be saying to young professors, "We may not be able to fire you or deny you tenure 'in a winsome way,' but don't think you're getting any extra awards unless you a down-the-line fundamentalist Baptist."  Many were surprised that the promising teacher honor went to a relatively newer hire who is demonstrably more in line with the fundamentalist party line.  As one insider explains:

It's clear that the administration chose him for the award to make a statement, especially in light of Veronica's Save OBU blog post.

This awkward situation underscores the problems created when faculty search committee recommendations are ignored and when politics and ideology figure so prominently in OBU administrators' decisions about who to hire, honor, and reward.  Many faculty suspect this move is administrators' way to try to justify their decision to overrule the faculty search committee, which unanimously preferred another candidate.  Anyone want to take bets that the Christian apologetics professor wins the award next year?

Student Awards
Last year, when our own Veronica Pistone won the Outstanding Religion student award, the OBU website featured a nice writeup and a picture of Dean Mark McClellan giving her the award.  We're told that Dean McClellan was not too happy that one of last year's most decorated graduates (a woman now studying for the ministry at a non-SBC seminary) has become a prominent figure in the growing opposition to the BGCO's mutually draining stranglehold on OBU.  This year, another woman won the Outstanding Religion award.  But Dean McClellan told the religion professors that "we need to be careful who we choose for this award because we don't want someone getting the award and then using it as platform against OBU."  Thankfully, the faculty convinced the dean that their choice would not "turn" on OBU after she graduated and she won the award she so richly deserved.  However, just to be safe, there is no photograph or press release this year.  (EDIT: Yes, there is: here.)

Oh, and just for the record, perhaps Dean McClellan should consider that maybe his bosses in Thurman and friends in the Baptist Building are the ones who are using their positions as platforms against OBU.  And maybe rather than thinking that some of these "gals" (his term for female religion and ministry students) turned on OBU, he might consider that it is OBU that has turned on women, particularly strong, bright women who reject the fundamentalist vision of "biblical womanhood."

We will continue to monitor the distribution of student and faculty awards in the months and years to come.

Music
Just a quick shout-out to the organist, whoever s/he was.  "How Firm a Foundation" is a wonderfully appropriate graduation prelude and I enjoyed the rendition immensely, as well as the rest of the medley.  Speaking of music, we wish the University Chorale a safe and successful tour this week!  And in the coming weeks, we'll be blogging about changes in the College of Fine Arts under the new regime.

--

So there you have it.  OBU may not be in the throes of a full-on faculty rebellion or a dramatic fundamentalist takeover (yet).  But this week's celebrations definitely papered over a number of important conflicts that exist as a result of OBU's relationship with the BGCO.  We'll continue to keep you informed of progress and changes.

Again, our very best wishes to the OBU Class of 2012!  "May thy spirit guide thy sons, keep thy daughters true!"

The SBC's Decline

By now, many of you will have seen the data reported in advance of next week's SBC Annual Meeting: the downward trend in membership continues.  For the first time since 2000, the nation's largest Protestant denomination dipped below 16 million members.  When you look at the decline in relative terms (as a percentage of the U.S. population), the trendlines look even worse, as Baptist historian and blogger Aaron Weaver pointed out in a blog post this time last year.  Weaver shows that from the 1950s to 1980, the SBC saw a 30% increase in its share of the U.S. population.  During and since the Takeover years, SBC membership as a share of total U.S. population has declined 15%:

Image credit: Aaron Weaver at thebigdaddyweave.com.

You are probably thinking that I'm going to blame the continuing decline on the resurgence of authoritarianism and doctrinal absolutism in the SBC.  But there's definitely much more going on.  When you look at the broader context of American denominationalism in particular and voluntary associations in general, there is a clear sea change that has taken place.  A lot of this story is summarized in Robert D. Putnam's 2000 book, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community.  (Incidentally, I first learned about this book when OBU President Mark Brister referenced it in a guest presentation he gave to my senior ministry seminar in 2002.)

The SBC is not unique in its membership challenges.  Other religious groups have suffered the same fate -- many far worse.  Demographic shifts go a long way toward accounting for these trends. Another key difference is that people are increasingly comfortable with having "none" as their religious affiliation.  Years ago, even if someone had not been to church in years, Americans felt a strong pressure to give some answer when pollsters asked about their religious affiliation.  Today it's much more socially acceptable to be unaffiliated, even in the Bible-Belt South.

The lack of brand/institutional/denominational loyalty among the younger age cohorts is also striking.  Given increased competition from nondenominational churches in places where likely SBC constituents live (e.g., white suburbs), it's no surprise that the SBC has lost ground.

I would love to blame this all on fundamentalism, but I think it's more important to be intellectually honest.  To that end, I think it's vital to point out that there is a growing body of survey data and scholarly research that points to a big reason for why young people are abandoning conservative Protestantism in droves.  Hout and Fischer (2002) suggest that politics is a likely culprit.  While the proportion of Americans who expressed no religious preferences was unchanged from 1974-1991, it doubled in the decade after 1991 (from 7% to 14%, and continues to skyrocket).  Though Americans maintained roughly stable levels of conventional religious beliefs, the increasing politicization (i.e., Republicanization) of evangelicalism has undoubtedly turned many young people away.  More recent studies point to the increasing identification of evangelicalism with anti-gay politics as absolutely toxic for retaining younger cohorts in the church.  A great deal of recent research bears this out, including Putnam's most recent book American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us (coauthored with fellow political scientist David Campbell).

A few evangelical leaders who are slightly less reflexively pro-Republican have spoken out about the need to liberate the church from partisan politics (Jonathan Merritt and Rachel Held Evans come to mind, and both have taken intense criticism from older evangelical leaders who made their careers, reputations, and fortunes off the culture wars.)

When I put on my Save OBU hat, it's tempting to use the data above to slam the Takeover as driving the SBC's decline.  We can blame the Takeover for a lot of problems, but probably not for this one.  Since I wear my social scientist hat the other 23 hours every day, I have to refrain from the temptation to let correlation imply causality.

Spring Break Reading

We've gained so many new readers and supporters over the past few weeks that I want to take a moment and point our new Save OBU audience to some blog posts of interest.  As you're finding out, the consequences of OBU's new fundamentalist takeover are wide ranging.  The posts below are organized by category.  Hopefully reading them together will give a better sense of the complicated issues we face, the stealth nature of OBU's opponents and their dramatic and unprecedented new policies, and the web of OBU constituents who are being affected.

If you agree that ending the BGCO's legal and political stranglehold of OBU is the only surefire defense against fundamentalist encroachment, please like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

Students and faculty, you may want to bookmark this page and use Spring Break to get caught up on everything that's been going on here at the Save OBU blog.

Student Experiences Under the Norman-Whitlock Regime
Contributing Editor Veronica Pistone looks at how dismissive (and frankly inappropriate) administrators stonewalled students who asked honest questions about the unprecedented new policy changes during the 2010-11 academic year.
The New OBU Student Experience
We Will Not Be Silenced (Part 1)
We Will Not Be Silenced (Part 2)
Why Not Sit Down to a Little Fireside Chat?
Week Recap

What Makes a Good Administrator?
Veronica's first series looked broadly at the issue of administration at OBU.
My OBU Story: Veronica Pistone
Some Historical Background
What Makes a Good Administrator (Part 1)

What Makes a Good Administrator (Part 2)

What Makes a Good Administrator (Part 3)



Guest Blog Posts
The [Forgotten] Rights of Conscience Inalienable, Caitlin Dacus ('11)
My OBU Story: Clayton Mauritzen ('06)
My OBU Story (Part II): Travelers on a Journey, Clayton Mauritzen ('06)

The Administration's Ongoing War on Faculty Norms and Autonomy
Faculty Friday: Why Turnover Matters
Faculty Friday: Firing Professors a Favored Tactic Among SBC Fundamentalists
Faculty Friday: Open Hostility on Bison Hill
Faculty Friday: Games Administrators Play
Faculty Friday: The Long War
Faculty Friday: Church Affiliation Politics (Part 1)
Faculty Friday: OBU An Indoctrination Station?

Other Baptist Schools' Experiences
Sunday School: William Jewell College
Sunday School: Stetson University
Sunday School: Furman University
Sunday School: Things Can Get Worse
Sunday School: Yellowstone Baptist College
Sunday School: Reassessing Institutional Parallels

Money and Power: The Mutually Draining Side of the OBU-BGCO Relationship
Money Monday
Money Monday: Falls Creek a Better Bet for OK Baptists
Money Monday: OBU Subsidy Dwarfs BGCO's Evangelism Budget
Money Monday: Capital Campaign Looking Good -- On the Surface
Money Monday: The Cooperative Program and the Great Recession
Money Monday: BGCO Evangelism Conference
Money Monday: BGCO's OBU Subsidy Drops as Its Influence Skyrockets
Money Monday: The Truth Behind the Faculty/Staff Phase of the Capital Campaign
Money Monday: OBU -- The Baptist Building's Newest Tenant
Money Monday: OBU and the BGCO Since the 1980s

Looking Ahead
While students, faculty, and staff enjoy a well-deserved break, Save OBU will spotlight other constituencies we need to bring on board.  While students, faculty, and alumni personally have the most at stake in OBU administrators' recent decisions to run the college more like a fundamentalist Bible academy and conform to the BGCO elites' dream of purging moderates from Bison Hill, a cheapened and diminished OBU has consequences for other people and groups as well.  This week, we'll look at some of the other constituencies we hope to welcome into our growing coalition.

Happy Spring Break, everyone!

The Worst are Filled with Passionate Intensity

Cedarville University Series
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


In my last post, I explained that a fundamentalist faction of Cedarville’s support base objected to the university’s decision to welcome GLBT activists onto campus as evidence of its turn toward liberalism. Their objections may have been overruled, but they did not fade into obscurity. Instead, they continued to organize themselves around the belief that Dr. Carl Ruby and certain faculty members posed an active threat to Cedarville’s historical identity as a conservative Baptist institution. Their campaign received a boost when the General Association of Regular Baptists (GARBC) decided to end its affiliation with Cedarville in 2006, due to the university’s alleged failure to adhere to its doctrinal standards. According to GARBC, Cedarville had become too liberal, and for fundamentalist alumni, this was evidence enough to begin a more aggressive campaign to ‘reclaim’ the university.

As a student, I had little awareness of the machinations behind the events I witnessed on campus. My parents, former Plymouth Brethren who attended Baptist churches when no local Brethren congregation could be found, had little regard for denominational politics, and so did I. But at Cedarville, the internal political conflicts that plague American Christianity proved inescapable. They disrupted my studies and threatened the careers of my favorite professors. Even the existence of my church, a small urban congregation founded by the same faculty members targeted by the fundamentalists, seemed to be at risk.

The fight, which endures in my memory as one of the most vicious episodes of social conflict that I’ve ever witnessed, focused on Dr. David Mills and Dr. Tim Gombis. By my sophomore year, Dr. David Hoffeditz emerged as one of the most prominent fundamentalist voices on campus. Hoffeditz, a Bible professor, used class time to accuse Dr. Gombis and Dr. Mills (professors of Biblical studies and philosophy respectively) of heresy. The worst sort of heresy, by fundamentalist standards: he accused them of being post-modernists.

I write this article as a recent graduate of Goldsmiths, University of London. My graduate career is focused on political theory, and if I must be called anything at all, I prefer to be called a post-structuralist because I believe the label of ‘post-modernist’ is so commonly misused that it’s now practically meaningless. But according to popular fundamentalist discourse, post-modernism is the philosophical nemesis of orthodox Christianity. According to these fundamentalists, post-modernism denies the possibility of absolute truth and certainty of belief and it is therefore incompatible with Christian faith.

Even by this dubious standard, Dr. Mills and Dr. Gombis are not post-modernists. They were not post-modernists in 2006, when fundamentalist professors incited a group of students to write a letter of concern to the administration. And they were not post-modernists in 2007, when the university finally fired David Hoffeditz and another fundamentalist professor. The accusation seemed absurd to me in my undergraduate days and it’s even more absurd to me now. Both professors certainly questioned traditional conservative positions on economic policy and to an extent, gender roles. But there is nothing reflected in their academic work that supports the claim that either encourages spiritual doubts.

a 2004 paper written by Dr. Mills in response to a lecture on the Emerging Church Movement became a primary point of contention. The Emerging Church has long been a cause of concern for fundamentalists, who view it as a departure from orthodoxy. Though Mills never claimed to belong to the movement, he did not issue a blanket condemnation of it and its adherents, and corrected, briefly, popular misconceptions about post-modernism.

At any other academic institution, this paper would have passed without controversy. At Cedarville, it helped instigate a campaign against Dr. Mills and his colleague, Dr. Gombis, who had also been accused of deviations from orthodoxy. Led by David Hoffeditz, and other fundamentalist faculty members, students, and alumni, the ‘Coalition of the Concerned’ deliberately attacked these ‘liberal’ professors, and cited their employment as evidence of the university’s drift toward theological liberalism.

I was already something of a spiritual exile when I entered Cedarville. Dissatisfied by conservative Christianity’s rigid gender roles and the politicization of the faith, I’d hoped for a different environment at Cedarville. The tactics employed by David Hoffeditz and the students who supported him ravaged that hope. I felt like I no longer had a safe haven. Dr. Mills and Dr. Gombis modelled a faith defined by compassion and intellectual rigor. For many of us, that model had been missing from our experience with Christianity, but we aspired to emulate it once we witnessed it.

Amidst this chaos, the university fired David Hoffeditz and David Mappes, also a fundamentalist, though one less vocal than Hoffeditz. Their supporters claimed that the terminations were ideologically motivated; according to the university, the terminations were merited by Hoffeditz’s personal attacks on other professors. To date, neither side has convinced the other of the rightness of their position. Hoffeditz sued the university for wrongful termination and settled out of court. The American Association of University Professors officially censured the university for failing to adhere to professional standards expected for the severance of a tenured professor.

The current controversies at the university are directly related to this series of events. The university’s reaction to the Coalition of the Concerned and their passionate defense of fundamentalist Christianity seemed, to many, to be proof positive of its liberal drift. Over the next several years, additional controversies over the political views of proposed campus speakers like Shane Claiborne and the perceived liberalism of the student newspaper created a chaotic politically charged campus atmosphere that effectively divided the Cedarville community into liberal and conservative camps.

In the interest of transparency: I wrote for the student newspaper. I’m quite proud of this. I’m equally proud of the fact that my article criticizing a campus event on female modesty goaded the Board of Trustees into demanding that the paper never publish such an opinion again. The fatal criticism? I dared to suggest that a panel of male students, faculty and staff did not have the right to comment on female dress. Perhaps that was a bit too post-modern.

By the time my opinion piece attracted the attention of the Board of Trustees, I was a junior, and the appointments of two fundamentalists to the positions of  provost and academic vice president meant that the university’s administration had become dominated by the fundamentalist faction that controls it now. The Soulforce visit and Hoffeditz’s termination created significant animosity toward Dr. Carl Ruby, Dr. David Mills, and other moderate voices. That animosity, plus  and set the stage for the university’s current farce.

Editor's Note: While the specifics differ, OBU students/faculty/alumni and constituents of other Baptist colleges will no doubt recognize common themes in Sarah's telling of Cedarville's story: Exposure to legal and financial damages for wrongful separation of tenured faculty; exposure to censure from professional organizations and even accrediting bodies; fear (if not outright suppression) of legitimate student journalism; a general and pervasive threat that fundamentalist elements within a Christian university pose to academic freedom and ethical trustee and administrative leadership. Save OBU is committed to building solidarity among people courageously standing against fundamentalist encroachment in Baptist and evangelical higher education.  Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.  Sarah's Cedarville series continues Friday. -j-

OBU's Peers: Texas Baptist Schools?

OBU's Peers Series:
Intro: Who's In the Same Boat?
OBU's Peers: Nondenominational Colleges?
OBU's Peers: Nearby Baptist Colleges (Ouachita and Southwest Baptist)?
OBU's Peers: Texas Baptist Colleges?
OBU's Peers: Union University?


**Please circulate widely among faculty/students at BGCT schools, OBU alumni in TX, and TX Baptist friends in general.**

This week, we're looking at how OBU's peer institutions are faring with respect to academic freedom.  To review, we already know that formerly Baptist schools like Stetson and Furman, to say nothing of Wake Forest and Baylor, broke free of convention control before the fundamentalists could undermine them.  A more relevant ex-Baptist peer institution is William Jewell College, which continues to raise its profile as a leader in Christian liberal arts education without having to kowtow to the Missouri Baptist Convention.  On the other hand, OBU is in no serious danger of becoming as thoroughly fundamentalist as Brewton-Parker or Truett-McConnell, two Georgia Baptist colleges that do not even pretend to be legitimate academic institutions anymore.

We've been looking a little closer home in our search for schools in the same boat we're in: trying to preserve academic freedom, rigor, and integrity while having to satisfy an increasingly fundamentalist state convention.  Nondenominational Christian colleges (and seminaries) have flourished since the Fundamentalist Takeover of the SBC ushered in the slow, painful degradation of Baptist higher education.  And these institutions have maintained their Christian character, something fundamentalist sympathizers claim Baptist schools would lose without being "doctrinally accountable" to state conventions.  Nearby SBC schools such as Ouachita Baptist Univ. and Southwest Baptist Univ. have held their own, with "the other" OBU doing a better job protecting academic freedom and SBU surviving with a more conservative ethos, but no Georgia Baptist Convention-style assault on the institution.

Today we look south to Texas.  As with the past couple days, my aim here is not really to provide in-depth reporting about the state of academic freedom at other Baptist schools.  Rather, I want to invite constituents of those schools into our conversation so that we can learn more about how they protect academic freedom, the degree to which it has been preserved or undermined, and how these schools relate to their state conventions.  As our readers have done the past few days, forwarding this page to friends at Wheaton, Gordon, Biola, Ouachita, SBU, etc., I encourage you to help get the word out to the BGCT schools.

The Baptist General Convention of Texas
One of the few holdouts in Southern Baptist life, the BGCT resisted repeated and determined attempts by fundamentalist to take control of the state convention as they did everywhere else (Virginia being the notable exception).  Thankfully, Texas Baptists did not have the appetite for fundamentalist politics or tactics.  Many of our friends at Texas Baptists Committed were actively involved in the effort to preserve historic Baptist freedoms from fundamentalist encroachment.

In 1998, hard-liners formed their own state convention, the Southern Baptists of Texas, as a fundamentalist alternative to the still-conservative BGCT.  Most major players in SBC life from Texas are from fundamentalist SBTC churches (including, for those keeping score at home, OBU's favorite token black chapel preacher, Rev. Dr. Voddie Baucham).  Even as fundamentalists continue to try to destroy the BGCT using deceptive tactics such as infiltrating churches, the BGCT continues to coordinate the collective ministry of Texas Baptists. Though not without problems of its own, the BGCO embodies missional engagement and ecumenical spirit.

Baptist Colleges in Texas

The SBC website lists a dozen Baptist colleges in Texas.  Let's divide them into categories based on affiliation:

The College at Southwestern
This one doesn't really count, since it's not affiliated with a state convention.  But after the Takeover, all six SBC seminaries decided to start undergraduate programs, supposedly to make a boatload of cash to subsidize the seminaries provide a sufficiently fundamentalist education because convention-controlled colleges could no longer be trusted to do so.  Apparently, degrading graduate education wasn't enough for them, so they opened fire on undergraduate education as well.   Operating under the auspices of the seminaries made accreditation -- which certain seminaries almost lost and these undergraduate programs surely could not attain on their own -- a non-issue.  The College at Southwestern has a distinguished professor of homemaking (I swear I am not making this up), along with 11 other (male) professors.

Southern Baptists of Texas Convention Schools
The SBTC controls Criswell College and Jacksonville College.  Criswell College, as I understand it, started off under the auspices of the First Baptist Church of Dallas.  After several problems with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, Criswell barely managed to get its accreditation renewed.  Its trustees include SBC celebrities such as Paul Pressler and Richard Land.  Criswell's president, who left the school in 2008 but returned in 2010 after it separated from FBC Dallas, is a past trustee of Southern Seminary where he was an accomplice in young President Al Mohler's "reforms."  So clearly this place really doesn't care about academic freedom.

The SBTC's other institution is Jacksonville College, a two-year school.

Baptist General Convention of Texas Schools
The BGCT is affiliated with Baptist University of the Americas, Baylor, Dallas Baptist, East Texas Baptist, Hardin-Simmons, Howard Payne, the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, and Wayland Baptist.

Houston Baptist, which is considering a name change, is a BGCT affiliate but is also "fraternally related" to the SBTC.  I'm not sure exactly what that means, but hopefully someone will clarify.

All but BUA and Wayland are CCCU members.  (Notably, Criswell and Jacksonville are not.  Maybe the CCCU is too liberal for them.)

Now, most OBU people will recognize some of these schools as our competitors in NAIA athletics.  But since a number of OBU students and alumni are from Texas, my hunch is that some of you will have considerable knowledge about each of these BGCT institutions.  I regret that I don't have time to investigate these schools as rigorously as I researched the Georgia schools for our Downward Spiral Series a few weeks ago.  But if it becomes relevant, we will dig as deeply as we need to in order to learn what we can from these schools' experiences.  My hunch is that they have not had problems recently, but please chime in to set the record straight where I am missing important nuances or even facts.

Academic freedom should be well protected at BGCT schools, because the schools do not have a fundamentalist state convention to appease.  The Baylor situation is a bit more complicated, as it is now a world-class research university.  The liberal arts colleges, however, may indeed be relevant peers to OBU because of their Christian character and relationship to a Baptist state convention, even though none appear in the Forbes rankings of 600+ colleges.  While I'm sure that, like OBU, each of these universities has a conservative ethos and a proven commitment to Christianity, I would not assume they have had problems with academic freedom in the past 10 or 15 years.

It's interesting to imagine what problems OBU might have avoided if it were affiliated with a convention like the BGCT.  For one thing, our current provost never would have set foot on campus, on the basis of convention affiliation alone.  SBC climbers and power brokers absolutely detest the BGCT (but they can't live without the BGCT's sizable contribution to the SBC's coffers in Nashville).  OBU wouldn't have to pander to SBC fundamentalists out of a desire for self-preservation (or to appease the BGCO).  The Class of 1959's statue of James Ralph Scales, a true champion of pre-Takeover Baptist higher education, wouldn't seem like such an ironically cruel joke.  Heck, you might even be able to buy a non-fundamentalist classic book on campus!

In closing, I want to thank our BGCT-affiliated friends for taking the time to read this post and learn about our movement.  You are invited to join us on Facebook and Twitter.  We welcome your support in our fight to preserve academic freedom, integrity, rigor, and relevance -- just as we would gladly stand in solidarity with you if you ever face fundamentalist encroachment.  Our readers have kept this page alive in Wheaton, Arkadelphia, and Bolivar this week.  Let's light up the state of Texas and let the world know that authentically Baptist Christian liberal arts education is our heritage and one we will fight to protect!

SaveOBU@gmail.com