Provost Stan Norman Undergoes Evaluations

Finally.

We have some very good news to report-- perhaps our first tangible victory. We have had several small victories, don't get me wrong. But this is the first time that we are happy to report a concession from those who wish to pander to the fundamentalists to the side of the reasonable.

When we began this blog, one of the most important issues we kept highlighting was the borderline hostile nature of the current faculty/administration relationship. One of the major problems was that Provost Stan Norman, after taking a job created for him, a creation which involved demoting a longtime favored and loyal (female) administrator, did not have to undergo any sort of faculty evaluation.

But no longer.

David Whitlock finally agreed that Stan Norman would have to undergo evaluation through a process developed by the CCCU. And we are happy to report that the president has kept his word and those reviews have been recently completed.

If I were Stan Norman, I would be terrified.

Because it turns out that he picked the wrong school to come and enforce the fundamentalist agenda. And those opposed have not simply laid down and died. No. We have demanded that he be put through the same accountability as any other administrator-- and now the faculty have spoken.

A faculty member tells us that these reviews will be terrible, just as, I'm sure, we all suspected. As one source puts it,

 "The message on the provost should be loud and clear. If the president doesn't act, he will at least have a sobering set of evaluations to consider, and perhaps both he and his provost will continue to tread softly.  He should know, from the comment sections, that a number of [faculty] want the provost gone."

Very well, indeed. 


Before anything else, let me say I am proud of the faculty for their fearless honesty. It would be easy to cower in the face of the administration who has already fired two beloved colleagues. But honest evaluations are really an issue of justice. If they do not reflect the truth of the situation then there is no hope. So kudos to the brave who stand for all that we here at Save OBU hold dear. It cannot be easy and we cannot do what only you can.


However, I think it would be foolish for us to rejoice too much over this victory. It is indeed our first tangible sign of moving forward, but it does not guarantee any results. Do not think that President Whitlock is going to fire Provost Norman over one bad set of evaluations. First of all, they are best friends. Second, he's already managed to get a job he shouldn't have (as evidenced by his being sent to Union to learn how to be a provost) and stay through two botched dismissals and other needless meddling. What is a little codified unrest?


But as our source says, there is now record of how unhappy everyone is with Norman.


Mostly, this puts the president in a terrible spot. And as much as I have made clear my disdain for the man who does not respect students and has weird temper issues, I do think that perhaps without this particular provost by his side he would be a little more reasonable. 


So now he must choose. How will he navigate the open hostility between his provost and the faculty? We will watch and keep all of our readers informed.


EDIT: 5/21/12 5:55 p.m. Comments have been disabled for this post due to untrue anonymous rumors and accusations.

The Downward Spiral: Activism Thwarts Imminent Disaster at OBU

This weekend, we'll examine what the incremental devolution of a Christian liberal arts university looks like.  I like the way Veronica has organized her posts into brief, topical series (see posts on administration here, here, and here; students' experiences under the new regime here, here, here, here, and here; gender here, here, and here; and diversity here, here, here, and here).  I'm going to follow that pattern this weekend as we look at schools that have been taken over and are in various stages of destruction at the hands of state convention power brokers and their lakeys in university administration.

But before we turn to our attention to Baptist colleges that fundamentalists are presently wrecking, I think we've finally earned the right to brag a little.  In the midst of all the sinking ships and in the context of non-denominational colleges supplanting Baptist ones as leaders in Christian higher education, OBU refuses to lay down and die the death that all six SBC seminaries and many Baptist colleges suffered at the hands of the Takeover architects and their henchmen.

Activism On Many Fronts
Here's how it all started.  When a very accomplished, well-loved, and exceedingly devoted Christian philosopher was forced out of his position at OBU (the administration offered him a steaming pile of crap instead of the contract he deserved according to basic fairness and the Faculty Handbook), the faculty quickly realized something was badly amiss.  About a year ago, once it became clear that the administration wanted to scale back philosophy (a core discipline in the liberal arts) and replace it with "Christian apologetics," a group of concerned students started an underground newspaper to raise awareness of this unprecedented new direction and to protest the negative changes.  After another professor was unjustly forced out, faculty anger intensified.  An alumni petition circulated, further raising awareness about OBU's alarming and unprecedented new direction.  Retired faculty documented the administration's abuses and stood up for their friends and former colleagues.  Only after all that did Save OBU emerge.

Eight or nine months ago, OBU's path to becoming just another marginally accredited preacher boy camp and teacher/nurse vo-tech looked like a sure thing.  It would take time, of course, but the wheels were in motion.  Today, that march has slowed almost to a halt.  Sure, the provost might still be screening applicants with his theological, social, and political litmus tests.  Apparently the new policy is mainline Protestants need not apply.  He's still the chief academic officer, but now literally thousands of OBU stakeholders know how grossly he overestimated his mandate, such as it was.  His zeal for waging ideological warfare is most unwelcome at OBU, and  he has definitely backed down for now (faculty report that he barely spoke in a recent meeting for fear of being "misinterpreted" later).

Claiming a Victory in the Battle, but the War Rages On
There will be no ideologically-motivated firings this summer.  Too many people are paying attention now.  I seriously doubt they will override any faculty search committees this year, either.  Dr. Norman's wholesale disregard for faculty committees' expertise and judgment has created a huge embarrassment for the university and an impediment to maintaining an excellent faculty over the long term.  We will closely monitor the process this year.  Even amid the excitement (distraction?) of adding programs and conducting a capital campaign, administrators have had to focus more deliberately on their relationships with students and faculty -- relationships they took for granted and carelessly sacrificed in order to please people in the BGCO who have long had it out for the OBU religion department which, in spite of being thoroughly conservative by any objective standard, just isn't conservative enough for today's post-Takeover BGCO.  President Whitlock has endured a "brutal" trustees' executive session and has had to abandon other plans in order to demonstrate that he is on campus showing leadership and proving that he understands the difference between a liberal arts college and a Bible academy.  Just as President Brister once complained, "Anthony thinks he's my boss," we trust that President Whitlock now knows that there are a lot of people not named Rev. Dr. Anthony Jordan whose opinions also matter.

So yes, we're claiming a victory, albeit a tentative one.  As we'll see over the next few days, it's nothing short of remarkable that we've disrupted the fundamentalists' agenda for OBU.  But the way we've done it is just as remarkable.  We have no staff and no budget.  A few writers have shared their time and skills.  A few people have donated $30 for Facebook and Google ad campaigns.  And hundreds of stakeholders have shared information, expressed interest and support through Facebook and Twitter, and spread the word to classmates, colleagues, and friends.  Also, there are so many things we could have done but haven't.  We have not sought any media attention.  We have not encouraged the wrongfully dismissed professors to seek legal recourse or financial damages against OBU for their shameful treatment.  We have not contacted major donors or encouraged anyone to stop giving to OBU.  We remain hopeful that providing information, offering commentary/analysis, and slowly building a movement are superior to hardball tactics.

The Bad News: Things Will Get Worse
Just because we don't expect any firings this year does not mean we are out of the woods.  The provost's office still seems intent on incrementally remaking the faculty in the image of the post-Takeover SBC and BGCO.  We still face a dramatically limited faculty applicant pool and the constant threat that OBU will hire based on ideological purity rather than accomplishment or academic promise.  We will continue not to have a legitimate bookstore on campus.  Whether President Whitlock continues to give his blessing to Dr. Norman's war on OBU and his weapons for waging it remains to be seen.  But it will be impossible to drive a wedge between those two.

The only thing keeping OBU from going down the path of schools we'll discuss over the next few days is YOU.  Our network of concerned stakeholders is large and growing -- and we are ever on alert.  We're confident that the trustees would not abide another unethical dismissal by the administration.  But mainly we're confident that if administrators forced someone else out, they will awaken a sleeping giant.  The Bison Nation is not prepared to sit idly by while their beloved OBU is destroyed from the inside, its legacy of excellence in Christian liberal arts education dismantled piece by piece.

The moment we let up -- the moment we think we've won -- the agenda we're opposing will start moving again.  This will continue indefinitely as long as the BGCO is in charge.  As we'll see over the next few days, the pressure to make Baptist colleges fundamentalist always originates within the state convention.  After we see how badly some of these schools have suffered, we trust that our argument for independence from the BGCO will be more persuasive than ever.

But for now -- maybe for today only -- celebrate!  You have truly made a difference.  Tomorrow, we get back to work.

The Highest Holy Day

Alleluia Alleluia Alleluia!


The strife is o'er, the battle done
The victory of life is won
The song of of triumph hath begun: Alleluia!


The powers of death have done their worst
But Christ their legions hath dispersed
Let shouts of holy joy outburst: Alleluia!


The three sad days are quickly sped
He rises glorious from the dead
All glory to our risen Head: Alleluia!


He closed the yawning gates of Hell
The bars from heaven's high portals fell
Let hymns of praise his triumphs tell: Alleluia!


Lord, by the stripes which wounded thee
From death's dread sting thy servants free
That we may live and sing to thee: Alleluia!


Alleluia Alleluia Alleluia!

The hymn, translated from Latin by Francis Pott and set to the tune VICTORY by Giovanni de Palestrina, was performed in the video by the choir, organ, and congregation of the incomparable Washington National Cathedral, a true flagship cathedral of liturgical Christianity and of American Protestantism.

This is the fourth in a series on Holy Week.  See previous posts for Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday.

Easter is a wonderful day.  The idea behind it is so tempting, hopeful, and powerful: the triumph of life over death and light over darkness.  For many years when I was younger, I often felt sad and guilty celebrating Easter.  It was a glorious day, but there was one problem: I didn't believe in the literal, historical truth of the central miracle Easter proclaims: that God raised Jesus from the dead.  Don't blame my parents or Sunday school teachers.  I have no doubt that they dutifully taught me the Easter story.  They also taught me that a large white rabbit brought me (and every kid) a basket of candy and colored eggs.  If my belief in the historicity of the resurrection lasted longer than my belief in the Easter Bunny, it wasn't by much.  But I quickly and adeptly perceived which Easter miracle it was socially acceptable for a nice Methodist boy to admit his skepticism about.  From then on, I kept my mouth shut and tried to do what (in the words of Rev. Dr. Robin Meyers of Mayflower United Church of Christ in Oklahoma City) most Christians do: "Believe things they know aren't true in order to get rewards they doubt are even available."

To my great relief, I learned in college that there were, in fact, many strands of the Christian tradition that viewed the Bible's more unlikely stories through an interpretive lens that emphasized the meaning of the stories and the thrust of the entire biblical witness over the literal truth of a few supernatural phenomena.  Now, let me be clear: OBU was not one of those liberal-minded places.  Never has been, never will be, and that's fine.  But for me, just knowing that there might actually be some version of Protestantism that I could believe honestly and with integrity was a tremendous relief.  It provided some very thrilling intellectual and spiritual experiences for me that would propel me through college, graduate school, and a church vocation.

There are a lot of places you can go today to hear some guy's opinion about the meaning of Easter, so I'll spare you mine.  But I really do hope you will grapple with the hard issue that our eggs, baskets, bunnies, pastel clothes, and family dinners (my grandmother always made lamb) make it easy for us to dodge: most pastors and churches are asking you to believe something you may know in your heart is false.  And on that belief hangs plenty of other divine magic tricks of suspect historical validity, an entire theology based on the logic of scapegoating and the efficacy of slaughtered animal blood for situating people on the right side of God's wrath, and the implication that assent to all this is what ultimately defines whether you are "in" or "out" with respect to the church, God, and your own salvation and eternal destiny.

I would just like to submit for your consideration that Easter is about something more than what happened to Jesus' molecules.  Most of you will disagree, and that's fine.  I'm not trying to change your mind about whatever you believe.  But I do hope you will be fearlessly honest with yourself about what you actually believe and why.  (Surprising numbers of people, including born-again Christians, believe in ghosts, witches, UFOs, astrology, and reincarnation.)  Most people will concede that Jonah didn't really get eaten by a fish.  A smaller number will admit that Jesus' mother's pregnancy was started in the usual way.  But only a few will admit that, even though Jesus clearly was special/inspired/enlightened/divine, his molecules were not.  Once you come to terms with that realization, you will have crossed the Rubicon of faith.  It may be unpleasant to tell your pastor/mother/friends.  But on the other side awaits a life of faith that is more honest, searching, challenging, compelling, and meaningful.

A lot of people are concerned that there is a "slippery slope" between orthodoxy and atheism, as this 1922 cartoon depicts.  I would argue that the reverse is true.  If they can get you to believe one impossible, outlandish thing, they can get you to believe anything.  You'll have to stop caring what others think of your beliefs.  It's difficult at first but trust me, it gets easier.  During all those years I believed Easter was primarily about a divine magic trick, I never grasped the fullness of its true meaning.  I was so consumed by the obvious and overwhelming cognitive dissonance and distracted by the eggs, bunnies, pastel-colored ties, and lamb dinners.

Now, free from the burden of trying or pretending to believe in something I know isn't true, I have been able to approach Easter (and its truly glorious art, music, and liturgy) with an unmatched sense of wonder and excitement.  On Friday, I briefly discussed my reservations about the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement.  That idea necessarily restricts one's view of the resurrection, whereas other theologies of atonement such as Moral Influence or Christus Victor (which the hymn above so beautifully expresses) emphasize the Resurrection more prominently.  I happen to believe that resurrection is literally a metaphor.  We celebrate Easter in the Spring of the year when the whole earth is experiencing a resurrection.  The azaleas, lilies, hydrangeas -- insert your favorite spring foliage and flowers here -- emerge from the cold ground and remind us that life triumphs over death.  The lengthening days following the spring equinox (after which the day is literally longer than the night) remind us of the triumph of light over darkness.  Whatever you believe happened to Jesus' molecules, I hope the grandeur, glory, majesty, and mystery of Easter fills you with joy and wonder today and always.

This I wish for you with all my heart.

Jacob Lupfer
Easter 2012
jlupfer [at] gmail.com

Faculty Friday: The Long War

On Fridays, we usually look at the recent changes at OBU through the lens of faculty.  Perhaps since a number of faculty support us (quietly, from the sidelines) or perhaps since students and alumni have such great affection for OBU professors, these posts are among our most-read.  I have linked to some previous Faculty Friday posts below.

Today, I just want to make a small point, but it has big implications that outlast our present concerns.  Right now, the pace of negative changes seems to have slowed at OBU.  A lot of the bad changes still have lingering adverse effects, of course, but there seem not to be a lot more of these changes on the immediate horizon.  It was easy for the fundamentalist agenda to advance when protests were small and isolated.  The bookstore stunt was pretty easy for them - it didn't generate a lot of criticism at all.  Certain curriculum area decisions were small and localized enough that they only affected a small number of constituents, and so the protests were also localized.  The actions that generated the most sustained criticism were, of course, the two badly-botched forced dismissals.  But even then, the pushback was disparate enough and short-lived enough that administrators could go on with other parts of their agenda.

If they tried anything right now, however, the protest would be loud, widespread, and very public.  So they have to lay low.  And presumably wait for faculty, students, parents, and alumni to let their guard down.  And when we do, and life goes on, and months or years pass, they can continue acting on other parts of their agenda.  But if you really think that firing two professors and installing a crappy bookstore is the extent of the BGCO's design for OBU, you are badly mistaken.

Be warned: The moment they feel like they can get away with it, the agenda will advance.  Not from President Whitlock, I predict.  The near-unanimous consensus is that he is more interested in leading a great university than abetting the BGCO's wish to turn OBU into a fundamentalist preacher boy camp.  Unfortunately, he probably had to wink-and-nod when BGCO leaders expressed their expectations in that area as a condition of supporting his election to the OBU presidency.  Let's hope he uses his considerable administrative skill, business acumen, and personal warmth to advance OBU's mission.

Given how badly Dr. Norman's enforcer role has gone over and how painfully clear it is that he is just not a good match for OBU, it's obvious that the fundamentalists overreached.  When a university's chief academic officer is afraid to say much in a meeting with faculty for fear that he'll be quoted out of context later (as recently happened), clearly the relationship is so broken that he needs to think about moving on.  It's easier for one person to leave than 25 professors, though I wouldn't put it past some people to push for the latter.  Hopefully he'll realize this of his own volition to avoid undermining Dr. Whitlock's presidency and to preserve his chances at becoming a senior administrator at a Bible college or "seminary" that wants a hatchet man.  If he ever has to undergo any performance evaluation that involves faculty input (from which he has been thus far exempt), the results will be disastrous and might endanger his prospects at any reputable institution in the future.

But even if Dr. Whitlock acknowledges the mistakes that have been made (a little acknowledgement would go a long way) and even if Dr. Norman moves on (as seems increasingly likely because after all that's happened, his presence guarantees a poisonous relationship between the administration and the faculty), we won't be out of the woods -- not by a long shot.  The search for a new chief academic officer will be an epic battle between a newly-emboldened senior faculty and a handful of BGCO elites who still unfortunately wield considerable influence with the president and the trustees.

For all these years, regular attrition was the BGCO's only hope for a fundamentalist faculty at OBU, and that strategy did not work very well for them.  Now that the BGCO knows it can get administrators who are willing to use hiring, tenure, and dismissals as tools (one might say weapons) to create a fundamentalist faculty, they will not easily accept a competent, ethical chief academic officer.  On the other hand, now that the OBU faculty have seen firsthand what one fundamentalist administrator can accomplish, they are not going to accept another hatchet man (or woman).

Thankfully, we have some great trustees who, though they are relatively deferential to the convention leadership that paved the way for their election, can be truly trusted to put OBU's true interests ahead of Baptist Building politics.  This might result in some unpleasant Executive Committee meetings for a while while things get sorted out.

Yet even as Save OBU supporters will cheer if some of these bad changes are reversed, our victory will be small and short-lived.  The trustee selection process is about to become exceedingly doctrinal, political, and against the spirit of all that is good and right (not unlike the OBU faculty hiring process of late...)  After this epic battle and this tumultuous year, do you really think Anthony Jordan is going to allow moderates (or members of CBFO churches, or people wary of hardball tactics) to be elected to the Board of Trustees ever again?!?  Of course not.  We're likely to see Fundamentalist Takeover-style boards of trustees like the ones that destroyed the SBC seminaries in the early 1990s.  That's why we must also strategize in the months to come about how best to protect OBU's interests in the trustee selection process for the next several years as the thornier legal and financial issues of OBU-BGCO separation get worked out.  We need every thoughtful, ethical person of conscience we can get.

As we look past some important coming victories (acknowledgement of mistakes in handling the two dismissals, Dr. Norman's likely departure, etc.), we must also realize that the cards are stacked against us in the long run.  The reason?  Because the BGCO owns and controls OBU.  I hate to bring this up over and over again, but this bad relationship is truly the cause of our problems.  And ending that relationship is the only necessary and sufficient condition to ensure a bright future for OBU.

Those of us who champion academic freedom, open inquiry, and a rigorous liberal arts curriculum have suffered some painful defeats (though none of us has suffered as badly as our two dear professors/colleagues who were forced out of their positions in truly shameful ways).  But the fundamentalists overreached, and we're due a victory or two.

As long as the BGCO controls OBU, we may actually win a battle, but make no mistake: We will lose the war.

Past Faculty Friday Posts:
Why Turnover Matters
Firing Professors a Favored Tactic among SBC Fundamentalists
Open Hostility on Bison Hill
Games Administrators Play

The Downward Spiral: Louisiana College Forcibly Taken Over

This series began with a victory for academic freedom at OBU.  Though this should go without saying, we now project that OBU will not carry out any ideologically-motivated dismissals this summer.  In addition, we are hopeful that the faculty will be able to fill vacancies in the usual manner, rather than having a Stan Norman-led doctrinal inquisition designed to bring more fundamentalists to OBU.

As it turns out, this is no small feat.  We need only look at other SBC-related colleges where fundamentalists wield even more control to see how bad things can get.  On Saturday, we examined the case of Truett-McConnell College in Georgia, which recently purged all faculty who did not agree with every word of the Baptist Faith and Message (edited in 2000 to be explicitly sexist and to remove Christ as the lens through which the Bible should be interpreted).  The Georgia Baptist Convention now boasts on its website that TMC has eroded academic freedom (not to mention Baptist freedoms like liberty of the conscience and soul competency).

Not to be outdone, Brewton-Parker College (also in Georgia) no longer even pretends to be a legitimate academic institution.  Even in the face of devastating financial problems and likely loss of accreditation, BPC has elevated adherence to fundamentalist doctrines over responsibility to students and faculty.

We'll return to Georgia tomorrow.  But first let us consider the case of Louisiana College in Pineville, LA -- yet another state convention-run college whose descent into fundamentalism and irrelevance is much more advanced than OBU's.

Louisiana College
LC is a little closer to OBU geographically, with more OBU faculty and administrators having cycled through LC over the years than any of the Georgia Baptist institutions.  Like Oklahoma, Georgia, and every state except Texas and Virginia, fundamentalists have taken control of the Louisiana Baptist Convention over the past 20 years.  LC was doing quite well under the presidential leadership of former OBU Interim President Robert G. Lynn.  But things have deteriorated badly.  We've already profiled Louisiana College in a blog post about the specter of schools choosing adherence to fundamentalist policies even when it may eventually lead to loss of accreditation.

In spite of having its application for reaccreditation rejected and being placed on warning by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, LC has buried its head in the sand, waging bizarre political and cultural battles rather than making sure the school does not lose its accreditation.  LC has found time to cozy up to political activists within and beyond Baptist life, as well as sue the federal government over a requirement that certain religious schools offer contraceptive coverage in their employee health insurance plans.  Right now, LC is basking in the glow of a favorable court ruling that it can be as fundamentalist as it wants.  (Just because you can does not mean you should.)

In addition to massive physical plant and financial problems, LC has had a great deal of trouble attracting and retaining quality faculty and administrators.  Even one avowedly conservative professor has said that LC has gone off the reservation.

Yet, in spite of the specter of losing its accreditation, it is difficult to find any evidence at all that Louisiana College cares anything at all about academic freedom, integrity, or respectability.

Louisiana College clearly belongs in our Downward Spiral series.  As with the Georgia schools, OBU is in much better shape than LC.  But just as we are tempted to say "This could never happen here," there was a time when Southern Baptists in Louisiana and elsewhere never would have believed this coud happen at LC.  Yet here we are.  This is the byproduct of a runaway fundamentalist state convention, trustees who care more about convention politics than the school's interest, administrators who badly overstep their bounds (sadly, that part is familiar to OBU), and students, faculty, and alumni who wait just a little too long to unite and raise their voices in protest.  Let's learn from these disastrous situations and make sure we stand ready to defend academic freedom, integrity, and respectability against encroachment from the convention and administrators tempted to take our school over the cliff in order to stay in the convention's good graces.

The Downward Spiral: Truett-McConnell Faculty Succumbs to Creedalism

In this series, we are looking at what happens when once-strong Christian liberal arts universities are taken over by fundamentalists.  Invariably, state convention power brokers force administrators to degrade the academic quality and integrity of the institution, or else they nudge trustees into hiring administrators who will do the conventions' dirty work.  Yesterday, we celebrated that -- thanks to a large, diverse, and growing activist network -- OBU's devolution into a fundamentalist Bible academy appears to be slowing.

The Save OBU movement, as most of you know, comes on the heels of spirited protests by students, faculty, alumni, and retired faculty against the new and unprecedented direction OBU administrators seem to want to take our beloved University.  Acknowledging our debt to those thoughtful students, courageous faculty, concerned alumni, and angry retirees, we claimed a victory yesterday after 4+ months and 100+ blog posts:

OBU will not carry out any ideologically-motivated dismissals this summer.

We coud be wrong, of course.  But at this point, we just don't believe the political will exists for them to go through with it again.  I hate to dare them to try it.  But we are confident that, at this point, the costs outweigh the benefits.  Let's make sure it stays that way.  If we let up our guard for an instant, their agenda will continue apace...

Which brings me to the aim of our Downward Spiral series.  Over the next three days, we'll examine three Southern Baptist colleges whose fundamentalist transformations are much more advanced than OBU's.  The point is to demonstrate how these efforts get started, how the state conventions are always involved, and what to look out for to prevent these kinds of things from happening at our beloved OBU.

Truett-McConnell College (Cleveland, Georgia)
Named for longtime (and, ironically, relatively moderate) pastors in Dallas and Atlanta, TMC has been working hard to beef up and brandish its super-Baptist credentials since the Georgia Baptist Convention parted ways with Mercer University in 2007.  No matter how far to the fundamentalist side the GBC goes, TMC is ready to follow its lead.  The watershed year was 2009.  That year, TMC elected 37 year-old Emir Caner president.  Despite his relative youth, Caner had been a darling of the fundamentalists for some time.  A convert from Islam, Caner and his brother penned the book that former SBC President Jerry Vines cited when he claimed in 2002 that the Prophet Mohammed was a "demon-possessed pedophile."  Caner was the founding dean of the College at Southwestern, an undergraduate program at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth, TX.  Though they won't come right out and say it, the College was formed by fundamentalists stung by the loss they suffered in trying to take over the Baptist General Convention of Texas and its affiliated colleges.

Later in 2009, TMC trustees announced that they would require faculty assent to the Baptist Faith and Message, a creed confession of faith altered in 2000 to reflect more clearly today's Baptists' obsession with female subordination.  (Rev. Dr. Anthony Jordan, the top BGCO executive, chaired the committee that wrote the "Submissive Women" article (Article XXVIII) in the BFM.)  In order to give some broad context, I will quote liberally from Bob Allen's December 28, 2009 article in Associated Baptist Press:

CLEVELAND, Ga. (ABP) -- Truett-McConnell College in northeast Georgia plans to become the first Baptist college to require its faculty to affirm the Baptist Faith and Message as revised by the Southern Baptist Convention in 2000. 

[...] 

"The Georgia Baptist Convention and our churches deserve nothing less than a faculty that will abide by nothing less than the essentials of the faith," said Truett-McConnell President Emir Caner, according to the Georgia Baptist Christian Index. 

"Institutions that do not faithfully support the theology of Southern Baptists do not deserve the faithful support of Southern Baptists," Caner said. 

The policy runs counter to other historically Baptist colleges and universities that in recent decades have loosened or severed ties with sponsoring state conventions. Most have done so to prevent pressure to force their professors to move from moderate theology to the more conservative ideology imposed upon SBC seminaries in the 1980s and 1990s. 

[...] 

"The 20th century saw the degradation of sound, biblical theology," Caner said. "But thankfully on a national level our seminaries, mission agencies, the [SBC] Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, and our other agencies are now faithful to the Word of God, but we can't say the same about all our state Baptist colleges. I will stand on the Baptist Faith and Message."

It's unclear to me whether the trustees, the GBC, or Camer himself came up with this idea.  If anyone knows more about the particulars of this situation, please let us know: SaveOBU@gmail.com.  But it's certainly alarming when you have a president who is clearly in lockstep with the politically powerful SBC elites who long ago abandoned any commitment to academic freedom, academic integrity, or academic respectability.  Even worse is when you have a board of trustees that is willing to not only accede to this brazen fundamentalist demand, but did so unanimously.  Not only that, but TMC's religion department chair enthusiastically greeted the change, saying that not only would all religion faculty gladly sign the BFM.  And it's not that TMC hadn't gone down this road before.  TMC faculty -- regardless of department or field -- have long been required to sign a statement on biblical inerrancy. 

TMC Celebrates Its Descent into Creedalism
Because Dr. Camer wanted to handle this situation "pastorally," he gave a full 18 months before he fired everyone who didn't a) assent to every word of the divinely inspired politically conceived BFM and/or b) thought being forced to sign a creed was an inappropriate or unconscionable intrusion upon what used to be cherished Baptist freedoms.  I don't know how many people resigned in protest.  I would suspect not many because TMC has apparently been a fundamentalist institution for some time.  Neither US News nor Forbes even bother ranking Truett-McConnell, a death knell that these fundamentalists probably consider a badge of honor.  It maintains SACS accreditation for now, but TMC's accreditation renewal could get ugly -- and that's saying something given how much latitude mainstream accreditation bodies give religious schools.

On October 27, 2011, faculty signed the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message.  The date was rescheduled from August in order to accomodate Rev. Dr. Paige Patterson, who delivered the keynote address at the signing.  Patterson, you probably know, is president of SWBTS, was an original architect of the Fundamentalist Takeover, and was president of the SBC when the 2000 revision was adopted.

Could this Happen at OBU?
Read and consider the following hypothetical press release:

Shawnee, Okla. -- The college that leads the nation in providing missionaries for the International Mission Board has strengthened its commitment to Southern Baptist principles, announcing today that all of its 85 faculty have signed the Baptist Faith and Message. 

"The Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma and our churches deserve nothing less than a faculty that will abide by nothing less than the essentials of faith," said President David Whitlock.  "Institutions that do not faithfully support the theology of Southern Baptists do not deserve the faithful support of Southern Baptists." 

College of Theology and Ministry Dean Mark McClellan said that he has long been comfortable with the idea, saying that he would question why any believing Southern Baptist wouldn't sign the statement. 

Likely impossible only a few years ago, a more activist and unified Board of Trustees unanimously affirmed the change.  Though OBU lost some longtime professors over the issue, the university gave them ample time to secure new employment elsewhere.  The BGCO now proudly boasts on its website that OBU joins a growing number of Baptist colleges that ensures faculty faithfulness to consensus Southern Baptist beliefs.

Does that sound even remotely far-fetched to you?  Substitue TMC for OBU, the GBC for the BGCO, Camer for Whitlock, and TMC Dean Sam Pelletier for McClellan and you have exactly what was said about the recent policy at Truett-McConnell.

So yes, this could indeed happen at OBU.  But it's not inevitable.  Important differences remain.  First among them is the trustee situation.  At present, it seems very unlikely that OBU's trustees would go along with something so radical and unprecedented.  Though there does seem to be a tendency to act by consensus that limits the clout of more moderate trustees (how many of them spoke up about the forced dismissals?), there is just no way OBU trustees would approve of this change unanimously.

Second, David Whitlock is no Emir Camer.  Camer is a theologically sophisticated ideologue.  While Whitlock may have good political instincts, no one thinks he is very interested in fighting these kinds of battles.  Several faculty have even described him as theologically naive and unsophisticated -- which is probably an asset if being like Emir Camer is the alternative.

Third, the TMC faculty was already much, much more doctrinaire and conservative before Camer came along than OBU's faculty.  Whereas TMC may have lost a few professors, OBU would likely lose dozens.  But make no mistake -- as we'll see in a few days, some Baptist college administrators and state convention officials see losing dozens of faculty as a good thing.

Fourth, the financial relationships may be completely different.  For all we know, after the Mercer vote in 2007, the three GBC colleges may have been going after this new pot of unallocated Mercer money. The BGCO's contribution to OBU is now so minimal as to be insignificant.  Though it would require some careful planning, OBU could rather easily survive without the BGCO's little subsidy.  Even if the BGCO tried some kind of sticks-and-carrots approach, well, the carrot is pretty tiny.  OBU could tell the BGCO to go jump in a lake.  In fact, we hope that day comes speedily and soon!

The only thing that makes this nightmare scenario more plausible is the difference between GBC Executive J. Robert White and our own Anthony Jordan.  Based on his published writings and the press clippings on the BFM issue at TMC, White seems to be much less of an ideologue, culture warrior, and SBC climber than Jordan.  In any case, White was wise not to leave his fingerprints all over TMC's change, for which President Camer and the trustees claimed responsibility.  If this happened in Oklahoma, it would almost certainly originate in Jordan's office, since neither Whitlock nor the trustees presently have the inclination to abandon historic Baptist freedoms, reverse precedent, and degrade OBU in such a dramatic way.

But make no mistake.  If we remain silent, this is precisely the kind of change we can expect to see at OBU.  Maybe not next year, maybe not even in 5 years.  But eventually.  Now that Whitlock and Norman have put the entire OBU constituency on alert, the BGCO will work harder than ever to make sure the "right" kind of trustees are elected this November and subsequently.  As it stands, Whitlock and the trustees know there is pressure from both sides.  If we remain vigilant, I'm confident we will prevail and disaster will be averted at OBU.  But if we back down and Norman, Jordan, and the BGCO have their way, OBU could be on its way to being just another barely accredited, academically irrelevant, has-been fundamentalist Bible academy like Truett-McConnell College in Georgia.

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.

OBU Shows True Colors in Commencement Speaker Choice

The current leadership of OBU knows it's stuck in the middle of two constituencies whose interests are irreconcilable.  One the one side are almost all faculty, most students and many alumni -- people who cherish historic Baptist freedoms, liberty of the conscience, and academic freedom in particular.  On the other, you have fundamentalist pastors, BGCO power brokers, some students, and many alumni -- people who support the SBC's headlong descent into fundamentalism and authoritarianism, and who would like to see those trends accelerate at OBU.

Invariably, these two camps are going to be in perpetual conflict over the governance and administration of our beloved university.  Administrators have to appease both sides.  Our side has gotten steamrolled the past two years, sustaining blow after blow.  But recently, we realized that the various protests have had a collective impact, and we claimed a minor victory.

But one recent high-profile decision illustrates very clearly who's side OBU's power players are really on. We didn't hear until two days ago, but obviously it's been in the works for some time for the Rev. Dr. Tom Elliff to give the commencement address on Friday and receive an honorary degree from OBU.

As a former missionary, retired large church pastor, past SBC president, and current International Mission Board president, Dr. Elliff is without question a distinguished and significant figure in Baptist life -- particularly Oklahoma Baptist life -- and the school has every right to honor his achievements.

Still, Elliff's presence will upset many, and we feel he was a very controversial choice.  If the president truly values and honors his faculty and is serious about his commitment to do right by them in the future, I do not know how he could have made this insulting choice.  Dr. Elliff's career spanned the entirety of the Fundamentalist Takeover and its aftermath, and Elliff has been relentless in his faithfulness to the fundamentalists' agenda in SBC life.  Like SBC presidents before and after him, Elliff used his two terms in office (1996-1998) to ensure that only fundamentalists were appointed to SBC boards and agencies, gleefully making moderate Baptists exiles and outcasts in their own denomination.

I truly do not understand the current administration's obsession with praising Elliff.  Less than a year ago, they gave him the first annual "Herschel H. Hobbs Award for Distinguished Denominational Service" at last year's Southern Baptist Convention.  This new award, besides demeaning Hobbs's distinguished legacy (many of today's SBC leaders booed Hobbs at the 1980 Southern Baptist Convention), seems like it was designed to ingratiate SBC fundamentalist power brokers to OBU.

Now, a packed Raley Chapel commencement audience will have to abide OBU conferring an honorary degree on someone who believes moderates in the SBC are "barnacles" and "parasites."  That's right.  In his final address as president of the SBC in 1998, Elliff boasted to incoming President Paige Patterson that "all barnacles and parasites had been removed from the Ship of Zion."  The reference was to the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and other moderate Baptist groups.  How awkward it will be as Elliff is speaking to know that he holds such vehement disdain for the overwhelming majority of the hooded and robed professors sitting behind him.

He may as well turn around and call them parasites to their faces.  Which unfortunately is the nice version of what the BGCO thinks of some of these very fine people, who at least for the moment are safe because President Whitlock has learned that it's hard to dismiss faculty "in a winsome way."  Without question, Elliff was instrumental in the saving of many souls and the maintenance of many institutions.  But a lot of Baptists -- good, faithful Baptists -- have suffered because of him.  In addition to the 35 year veteran of the Southern Seminary library who lost his job because he dared correct inaccuracies in one of Elliff's speeches, a lot of clergy and lay investors were screwed out of their savings when Elliff, as pastor of First Baptist Church of Del City, asked bondholers to forgive the church's debts.

Having Dr. Elliff speak wouldn't be so offensive if OBU invited one of the "parasites" once in a while, too.  But the fact that they have chosen to honor Elliff with not only the insultingly named Hobbs Award, but also with an honorary degree, unfortunately shows their true colors.  At the graduation, few students and hardly any parents will have any idea just what a controversial figure Elliff is.  But most OBU professors will be disappointed and feel dishonored.  And you can bet that Anthony Jordan will be sitting the platform with a huge smile on his face.  As long as the BGCO calls the shots at OBU, this dynamic will always be the same.  Administration will always ultimately side with them over us.

As for President Whitlock, he may as well stand up and give the middle finger to the assembled faculty he's supposedly been trying to win over this academic year after a disastrous start to his tenure.  Very few of them will be impressed that he wanted to honor such an vociferous advocate of fundamentalism's advance in BGCO and SBC life.

If I was graduating Friday, I would write "Parasite" in bold on the top of my graduation cap and encourage all my friends to do likewise.  But even if students wanted to protest having to hear from such a hater of moderates on their big day, I'm sure OBU is still conformist and authoritarian enough to find or create a rule against such protests.

I'm especially sad for faculty, many of whom are either moderate Baptists or stand in solidarity with moderate Baptists.  It's unfortunate that they have to hear from someone who so openly loathes them and all they hold dear.

The [Forgotten] Rights of Conscience Inalienable

Early Baptist leader Reverend John Leland (1754-1841) was a key figure in laying the foundation of the four distinctively Baptist freedoms which Veronica recounted in the February 27 blog post. In many of Leland’s writings, especially his 1791 work, The Rights of Conscience Inalienable, he labored to establish specifically the 3rd and 4th freedoms listed: Church Freedom (freedom of local churches to govern themselves) and Religious Freedom (belief in the separation of church and state).

Leland and other Baptist ministers of this time worked tirelessly with founding fathers such as James Madison to ensure the inclusion of the Bill of Rights in the Constitution and were not satisfied with weak provisions early its construction for the separation of church and state because they feared, justifiably, that government would eventually enact laws in preference to a certain faith, regardless of whether or not that faith was Baptist. Leland was not content unless it was guaranteed that, as Leland stated, “Pagan, Turk, Jew or Christian” would be eligible for any office or government position. (The Rights of Conscience Inalienable)

Rev. Leland is a valuable figure for all of us to remember. His attitude toward the rights of individual conscience was nothing short of magnanimous.  He was the sort of man who courageously wrote: “So when one creed or church prevails over another, being armed with (a coat of mail) law and sword, truth gets no honor by the victory. Whereas if all stand upon one footing, being equally protected by law as citizens (not as saints) and one prevails over another by cool investigation and fair argument, then truth gains honor, and men more firmly believe it than if it was made an essential article of salvation by law.” (Rights)

 He embodied such a spirit and principle of freedom throughout his life, extending this attitude to religious freedoms as well as civic freedoms. The principles Rev. Leland held are based in confidence that truth will win out – therefore in the early Baptist’s convictions, there is no room for fear of intellectual freedom and no room for the exercise of authoritarianism to affect ideological or theological homogeneity. This principle of trust in freedom defines the ideal for a Christian academic institution such as OBU. John Leland was a minister who was confident in the truth of the gospel, as much as he was confident that this gospel required of civil and religious institutions not merely the respect of individual conscience, but the seamless protection thereof.

Leland writes in The Rights of Conscience Inalienable: “It would be sinful for a man to surrender that to man which is to be kept sacred for God. A man’s mind should be always open to conviction, and an honest man will receive that doctrine which appears the best demonstrated.”

Such principles have been forgotten by powerbrokers who are now manhandling OBU and who have affected the fundamentalist takeover of many an academic and religious institution. This forgotten spirit of freedom honors and protects the rights of individual conscience – a beautiful principle by which to construct and operate any Christian university.

During the years of my life and studies at OBU since the arrival of President Whitlock, the phrase “unashamedly Baptist” was used frequently by himself and Provost Norman when addressing the student body and during various occasions of import. No phrase struck me as more ironically used than at this particular time for OBU. These past three years in particular for my alma mater have been devastating. OBU has lost more than two outstanding, passionate, caring professors due to the ideological culling this administration has executed. The shame that comes from these decisions – along with others which Save OBU has begun to recount – burns deeply in my heart and in the hearts of many in the OBU community.

Just like the forgetful servant of Jesus’ parable in Matthew 18, many fundamentalist power-holders forgot the grace shown Baptist tradition when founders such as Leland took a stand for individual liberty. Instead of honoring freedom of conscience, they have taken their liberties and, finding power, have turned around and denied those very freedoms to other Baptists, extending this denial now to the faculty and institution of OBU. The allure of power for some elites has co-opted the very core of the Baptist distinctive of freedom of conscience.

Each era presents its unique temptations and difficulties. We can look back to Leland for an example of principled devotion to individual freedom because of the gospel. It is this principle which we must remember today and apply in our struggle to preserve the honest, conscientious pursuit of truth through educational excellence at OBU.

Honest pursuit of knowledge, especially at a distinctively Christian university, comes from the right to pursue a free conscience. Without this right, genuine and healthy Integration of Faith and Learning cannot occur.

We can look backward to remember figures such as John Leland as both inspiration and validation for our cause to save OBU. And when we do, Lord willing, save OBU, one more step will be taken to preserve Baptist life from authoritarianism that fears freedom and denies the rights of individual conscience – an attitude debilitating not only for OBU, but for the cause of the Kingdom of God in today’s world. May OBU continue to yield educated individuals who remember the rights of individual conscience and who are critically engaged and relevant members of their faith, civic, and academic communities.

Leland’s Self-Written Epitaph:

“Here lies the body of John Leland, who labored 67 years to promote piety and vindicate the civil and religious rights of all men.” (Scarberry 733)

  

Works Consulted:

“Baptist Patriots.” http://www.mainstreambaptists.org/mbn/Patriots.htm

Leland, John. “The Rights of Conscience Inalienable.” 1791. http://classicliberal.tripod.com/misc/conscience.html

Scarberry, Mark S. (April 2009). "John Leland and James Madison: Religious Influence on the Ratification of the Constitution and on the Proposal of the Bill of Rights." Penn State Law Review 113 (3): 733-800

“The Writings of John Leland,” ed. L.F. Greene. New York:  Arno Press, 1969.

About Caitlin: I graduated from OBU in May, 2011. I lived on campus all four years and loved my time OBU. I remember Bison Hill affectionately, though still with a taste of bitterness left by the destructive decisions made in my years there. Anthropology was my major and my minor was in religion.

Jacob's Homecoming Adventure

What a day!  I saw some old friends, made some new ones, and got to meet (ever so briefly) Provost Stan Norman and Hobbs College of Theology and Ministry Dean Mark McClellan.  Here's a rundown of the day's events.  There were so many things going on, I couldn't attend them all.  And I forgot to take pictures at the basketball doubleheader, but the women's and men's teams were both victorious in dominating fashion).

I tweeted a couple dozen observations, which you can see here.

I made some awesome Save OBU brochures, but I just didn't have the heart to leaflet the parking lot like the Christian Coalition on the Sunday before Election Day.  A lot of people think any attention is good attention, but I thought it best not to detract from people's affectionate feelings toward OBU.  So now I have a bunch of flyers if anyone wants them!

I attended my frist-ever non-compulsory chapel service.  That's right, I went of my own free will (though OBU's religion department is getting so Calvinist, I don't know if we still believe in free will...)  The alumni chapel service was inspiring!  The music was absolutely sublime, as it always was during my student days.  President Whitlock gave a warm welcome and highlighted the many exciting, wonderful things going on at OBU.  Eight outstanding alumni/ae were honored and three esteemed professors were inaugurated into the OBU Faculty Hall of Fame.  The Rev. Dr. Hance Dilbeck brought a testimony/reflection based on John 15 ("Abide in me and I in you..."), a chapter he was challenged to memorize as a freshman at OBU.  Did I mention that the music was beautiful?!

At a reception honoring the award recipients, a former professor of mine briefly introduced me to the provost.  I just said, "I know I'm not your favorite person in the world, but my best wishes to you."  I said the same thing to Dean McClellan, and we had a brief, honest, and respectful exchange.

My home for 3 years: Agee Residence Center (formerly Brotherhood Dormitory).

On my way to lunch, I paid homage to the late Dr. James Ralph Scales, OBU's ninth president and one of the several that the BGCO has managed to get rid of over the years.  The fundamentalists in the BGCO are frankly more powerful than the OBU faculty.  So there's a natural tendency for OBU presidents to appease the former at the expense of the latter.  But President Scales stook for principle over politics, and I think he is a wonderful example for Baptist college administrators to follow.  President Whitlock doesn't need to look to Jackson, TN (or God forbid Ft. Worth or Louisville) for role models.  He should just look across the Oval at someone a little closer to home:

I actually went to the wrong room for my Class of 2002 luncheon.  I got there and though, "Wow, these people look good."  Then I realized I was at the Class of 2007's luncheon.  My class luncheon was a lot of fun.  My thanks to the organizers, banquet servers, and other staff who made it run smoothly.

It was a pleasure to sit with Save OBU Contributing Editor Veronica Pistone and her husband, Scott, as the Bison basketball teams cruised to victory over Manhattan (NY KS) Christian.  I had worked up quite an appetite, so I naturally drove to Van's Pig Stand.

Now I'm enjoying the hospitality of my new friend, Parker.  And a view of the spectacular new Devon Tower.  To the east are the Bank of America Center (tallest building in OKC from 1931-1971) and the Chase Tower (tallest building in OKC from 1971-2011).

I went to see the good guys at Tobacco Express at NW 63rd and May in Oklahoma City, where I bought a new pipe to commemorate my inspiring and hopefully fruitful trip to Oklahoma!

So that was my day in a nutshell.  I've been critical of certain policy and personnel changes in my writing here.  But let me be clear: 99.5% of what is going on at OBU is absolutely wonderful!  We just believe that the problem areas are actually quite consequential for the mission and character of the institution.

If you're in the area, please meet with Veronica in the lower level GC tomorrow (Sunday, November 11, 2012) to learn more about Save OBU.  And plan on attending our strategy session at 4:00.  We'll meet in front of the library and then proceed to the meeting.

God bless OBU!

[EDIT]: See my posts on Sunday's activities (worship and strategy meetings). Veronica will add her perspective on the meeting by midweek.

The Downward Spiral: Fundamentalists Go Nuclear at Shorter University

In this Downward Spiral series, we're looking closely at other state convention-controlled Baptist colleges that are abandoning their historic legacies as liberal arts colleges and bowing to fundamentalist demands that they prize rigid doctrinal purity above academic freedom, integrity, and respectability.

We began by claiming a victory of sorts, noting that OBU's recent slide may have abated somewhat due to the widespread concern students, faculty, alumni, retired faculty, and the Save OBU movement have expressed over the past 10-12 months.  Then, we looked at Truett-McConnell and Brewton-Parker, both in Georgia, which seem to be in a race to the bottom and a competition to see who can convince the fundamentalists who control the Georgia Baptist Convention that their school has the most ridiculous obsession with total doctrinal conformity and the greatest disdain for actually providing a decent, let alone rigorous, education.  A little closer to home, Louisiana College provides a clear warning about what can happen when Baptist schools unsuccessfully resist fundamentalist takeovers.  Having suffered from financial disasters, divisive battles, horrible leadership, LC is in perilous danger of losing its accreditation. Any OBU constituent who thinks "it could never happen here" needs to take a close look at how convention power brokers interfered in LC trusteeship and administration and ran a once-fine institution into the ground.  LC is not an extreme case.  Rather, it's an ugly picture of what would almost certainly happen to OBU if Provost Norman and Dr Jordan continue to get their way in OBU's governance and affairs.

But let us now turn our attention to a top Baptist college whose supporters have been most gracious and sympathetic to Save OBU -- a favor I would now like for us to return.

Shorter University (Rome, GA)

Whereas Brewton-Parker and Truett-McConnell were never among the top Southern Baptist-affiliated colleges, Shorter University has been a shining example of Christian higher education in the evangelical tradition.  Once the GBC and Mercer University parted ways (a huge boon to both entities and a brilliant idea that I hope will continue to spread throughout post-Takeover Baptist life), Shorter became the GBC's flagship institution.  Like OBU, Shorter specialized in the liberal arts experience.  Graduates went on to success in business, ministry, and other fields.  The school had excellent placement in law, medicine, and other graduate degree programs.  Shorter had first-rate nursing and teacher education programs.  The fine arts department improved not only worship arts in the churches, but also the cultural life of Northwest Georgia.  Of the schools we've studied in this series, Shorter has the most obvious parallels to OBU.  For what its worth, Shorter receives about $2 million per year from the GBC.

What Happened?

We've reported on goings-on at Shorter before.  In fact, I wrote about Shorter in the very first week of Save OBU's existence.  Like some of the other schools we've profiled, Shorter's president started on the authoritarian/fundamentalist warpath almost from the first moment of his election.  I can't speak to the GBC's meddling in Shorter's affairs over the years, though I'm absolutely certain that the fundamentalist takeover of Shorter University has been brewing for years at the GBC and trustee levels.  We'll fill in some of those gaps over time.  President Donald V. Dowless announced soon after taking office that all employees (not just faculty) would have to sign a "lifestyle statement" or be fired.

Whereas such tactics are not really news at already-fundamentalist institutions like Brewton-Parker and Truett-McConnell, this dramatic and unprecedented affront against Baptist freedoms was a big deal at Shorter, which, though thoroughly conservative by any objective measure, has generally respected basic norms of academic and administrative responsibility.

Our friends at Save Our Shorter have kindly answered some questions we asked about the situation:

a) Did this directive from from the GBC or Dowless himself? 

We're not clear on that. We suspect that he had been in contact with Nelson Price, then-chair of the Board of Trustees, who is taking his marching orders from Bob White at the GBC. Bob White’s seeming silence on the current issues stems from the fact that he had written and discussed with pro-GBC trustees, directing them on their responses to the GBC/Shorter lawsuit in 2002. That was brought out in court, however White denied it, and when trustees were questioned, they also denied it.  That incident seems to have shaken White enough to teach him to be more surreptitious in his manipulations. 

b) What has the opposition been like? 

Great outcry in the community. Faculty are incensed but scared. Alumni have tried to have a discussion with Dowless, but he first took an intransigent position, then refused to talk to alumni or community clergy. Of course, there is also the creation of SOS (Save Our Shorter) and the building support of that group. 

c) How many professors are leaving? 

[SOS has what it believes is an accurate count, but asked us not to publish the exact number.]  Suffice it to say that no area of the university is unscathed by this disaster: professors, administrators, IT staff, library staff, coaches... Nursing department is gone, with the exception of one professor who agreed to stay and teach out those students whom the department had recruited. 

d) How does this radical policy affect Shorter today and in the future? 

This is not just an issue about faculty. The lifestyle statement affects virtually every department on campus. Short term, Shorter is facing two challenges, administratively – re-staffing and finding faculty.  They have also had to extend open registration to the end of semester because so many students have not enrolled for classes next fall. Alumni are advising family members and friends not to send their children to Shorter. The Fine Arts department has been decimated. The Shorter Chorale has always been one of the crown jewels of Shorter. Only a handful of students and faculty are remaining. The theatre department, too, has lost the vast majority of its faculty and students.  One of the cultural centers for Rome will have virtually disappeared.

Clearly, Shorter has an unmitigated disaster on its hands.  To make matters worse, Shorter is hosting a visit from SACS (accrediting body) this week.  It's going to be very difficult to convince the SACS delegation that all is well at Shorter.  Thankfully, pro-Shorter advocates are planning a massive demonstration tomorrow morning.  The pro-GBC faction will have to answer tough questions about their bizarre new vision for the college.

IF ANY OF OUR SAVE OBU SUPPORTERS LIVE IN NORTHWEST GEORGIA, ATLANTA, OR CHATTANOOGA, PLEASE JOIN THE PRO-SHORTER PROTESTERS ON BEHALF OF SAVE OBU!

What Can We Learn?

The Shorter debacle is obviously a worst-case, nightmare scenario.  But let's not forget that there are very influential people in OBU life who would love to see this disaster visited upon OBU.  Why fire moderates once every year or two when you can induce a few dozen of them to quit all at once?!

The convention's involvement is crucial, yet deliberately kept out of the public eye.  We don't know for sure if Bob White at the GBC is pushing this issue (though he is obviously cheerleading it from the sidelines).  In the same way, we don't yet know definitively what marching orders the BGCO has given  President Whitlock.  Like all Baptist college presidents trapped in the impossible, irreconcilable gap between an increasingly fundamentalist state convention (with its dwindling financial subsidy) and a university community that depends on academic freedom, liberty of the conscience, and open inquiry as core principles.

One difference between OBU and Shorter is that our current Board of Trustees would never go along with forcing OBU staff to choose between their jobs and their consciences.  (I say this with confidence,  but please correct me if my confidence is misplaced.)  That's why we will be formally reaching out to OBU trustees in the coming months.  They have been asked to believe blatant falsehoods about the forced dismissals (that they were merely "contractual disputes") and have not been provided with adequate context for the series of missteps that amount to an unprecedented change in direction on Bison Hill.  But even if, as we suspect, a year's worth of protests have temporarily slowed OBU's slow yet deliberate transformation away from a relatively moderate liberal arts college in the best of the Baptist tradition, it will only be a matter of time until the Takeover proceeds apace.  For now, we have a number of pro-OBU trustees.  But the convention will be much more careful about who it lets onto the Board in the future.  In a matter of a few years, all but a handful could be handpicked pro-BGCO Anthony Jordan loyalists.  At that point, they could wreak untold havoc.

As we've stated all along, the ultimate resolution is for the colleges and the conventions to go their separate ways.  Short of that, we are going to keep fighting these tired, old battles.  At Shorter, the fundamentalists have gone nuclear.  No collateral damage -- including dozens of employees' careers and hundreds of students' college experiences -- is too great for these people.  They have no place in the field of higher education, Christian or otherwise.  But they hold all the power.  For us little people who do not control the flow of funds and the election of trustees, it will take all the unity, solidarity, effort, and protest we can muster just to keep our hallowed traditions and values alive.

God help us all.

Happy Founders' Day!

Happy Founders' Day, everyone.

Today we celebrate the visionary Oklahoma Baptists who bequeathed our beloved OBU, as well as the men and women who have sustained it over all these years.  This year, we find ourselves in the midst of an ongoing -- but unusually active -- debate about who the true bearers and keepers of that age-old vision really are.  Maybe a brief reflection on OBU's Founders' Day Chapel and what it represents can shed some light.

In OBU's chapel service this morning, students forced to gather for worship heard from a distinguished alumnus and legendary Southern Baptist pastor, the Rev. John Bisagno.  He was most famously the pastor of FBC Houston, which grew to 25,000 under his leadership.  Less known is the fact that he was the first in a string of pastors from First Southern Del City who become prominent post-Takeover SBC figures.  Rev. Bisagno was by all accounts a creative and adaptive pastor, and has remained active in retirement.  OBU is right to give such a distinguished alumnus a platform from which to speak, and to hire him for its summer Pastors School.

What's less-known and mostly forgotten about Rev. Bisagno, though, is that he ended up playing a pivotal role in cementing the Fundamentalist Takeover of the SBC.  Takeover architects Paul Pressler and Paige Patterson knew it would only take 10 years of electing fundamentalist presidents to fully remake the SBC in their image.  By 1990, the transformation was all but complete.  As messengers prepared to assemble in New Orleans, moderates and traditional Baptists needed a miracle.  Unfortunately, it was not to come.  Rev. John Bisagno, who by most accounts had remained relatively neutral in the controversy that was tearing the SBC apart, announced his support for fundamentalist pastor Rev. Morris Chapman for the SBC presidency.  Chapman was elected with 57% of the vote, and the fundamentalists' decade old dream was cemented.  The victorious fundamentalists arrived by limousine to celebrate:

Following their massive and rather final defeat of the moderates, Paige Patterson and others went to the Café Du Monde in the French Quarter to celebrate their victory. Patterson and Pressler were given framed certificates honoring their achievements. The Convention parliamentarian, supposedly neutral and from another denomination, was present for the celebration, and even called it to order! When his presence at this meeting was challenged as inappropriate, he first explained that he was “just passing by, picking up an order of doughnuts.” When the challengers pointed out that the parliamentarian had actually been seen arriving at Café Du Monde in a limousine with the Convention president, he amended his story to say that he was on “24 hour call” and therefore obliged to accompany the President wherever he went. When one messenger tried to tell the story of what he had seen at Café Du Monde to the Convention the following day, he was deterred. Twice the President refused to recognize him and twice his microphone was turned off.^[122] Such abuse of the chair was common all during the Takeover.

I wonder if John Bisagno was present for the celebration.  Within a few years, the SBC seminaries, boards, and agencies became fundamentalist and millions of faithful Baptists were left in a denomination they no longer recognized.  Of course, no one can argue that Rev. Bisagno caused the Takeover.  But when he had an opportunity to slow its progress, he cast his lot with the fundamentalists.

Somehow I doubt he told that story in his talk (well he's male so I guess we can call it a sermon) today. But to the victors go the spoils, I guess, and OBU has done a marvelous job of using the Raley Chapel pulpit to give a platform to fundamentalist leaders and sympathizers.  We are not suggesting that fundamentalists not be invited to speak, but it would be nice to get some acknowledgement that their views are hardly representative of the student body and represent only a tiny fraction of the faculty.

The fundamentalists' march continued from the national level to the state conventions.  In Oklahoma, they marginalized moderates in every possible way.  OBU, however, remained an elusive takeover target.  Even after electing Rev. Dr. Mark Brister to the OBU presidency in 1998, fundamentalists knew they had their work cut out for them.  Brister, who had been an up-and-coming leader in the SBC's conservative resurgence, turned out to be a bit harder to control than the BGCO elites had anticipated.

But make no mistake, the BGCO has been cheering loudly for the very same changes we have been protesting.  In President Whitlock, the BGCO thinks they finally have their man.  And, obviously, preliminary evidence suggests they may be right.  Dr. Whitlock knows what the BGCO expected of him, but he knew he had to do it in a "winsome" way.  So when the winsome Whitlock brought on Stan Norman to do most of his dirty work for him, it seemed like the perfect plan.

Unfortunately for them, the vast OBU community was not willing to lay down and die so easily.  Hopefully, the trustees will not lay down easily, either.  Post-Takeover, institution boards have mostly rubber-stamped what the fundamentalist administrators wanted all along.  Yet we have seen that some Baptist schools refused to let the fundamentalists destroy their institutions.  And even now, trustees at one Baptist seminary are flexing their muscle (over managerial incompetence rather than ideology, apparently).

I'm sure that many fundamentalists see a direct line from OBU's founders to the Fundamentalist Takeover to the present-day erosion of academic freedom and hostility toward faculty.  We see a different story.  OBU founders built an institution that two generations of capable and visionary leaders molded into a proud liberal arts university.  Academic freedom and open inquiry were cherished values.  Baptist distinctives like soul competency, liberty of the conscience, and priesthood of the believer ruled the day.

We did not stray from our moorings.  Rather, the ground was pulled out from under us by fundamentalists who feared anything they could not control.  They launched slanderous personal attacks against Baptist academics.  They ridiculed and questioned the deep and abiding faith of people they did not even know (as some commenters on our Facebook page have recently done to us).  And they used the politics of fear and division to make themselves powerful and wealthy.  That Takeover movement, from which OBU was largely insulated for 20 years because of capable and devoted professors, administrators, and trustees, has now arrived on Bison Hill.

If we do nothing, if we remain silent, the radical transformation of OBU will continue apace.  We may lose this battle even in spite of our protests.  But we need to raise our voices, claim our rightful places as stakeholders in OBU's future, and stand firmly for the values that are presently threatened.  Who knows which professor will be forced out next?  Who knows what book will be tossed out of the curriculum?  Who knows what student or staff member will face retaliation for protesting?

Our little movement has grown quickly, and already we are having an impact.  The principals now now that the opposition is larger, better informed, and more vocal than they had anticipated.  Ideally, we will gain enough strength that administrators will realize they are better off siding with us than siding with the fundamentalists.  But in the meantime, it seems likely to me that we have them in a difficult position, probably facing pressure from both sides.  We can't offer them the same huge salaries, generous pensions, fancy retirement dinners, and plush post-retirement positions that the BGCO elites can offer them in return for their loyalty.  But fortunately we can offer them something more meaningful: being on the right side of history, standing for truth and justice over politics and power, championing the values that made OBU great, and holding fast to the vision and mission of OBU's founding.

God bless OBU!

P.S. If there is a recording of the OBU Chorale's performance today, I'd love to hear it!