The Center Cannot Hold

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

On Saturday, the Board of Trustees ruled in favor of Carl Ruby’s forced resignation and the elimination of the philosophy major. Trustees Chris Williamson and Bill Rudd have resigned from the Board in protest of this ruling. At the moment, Michael Loftis remains on the Board, but Provost John Gredy has announced that the university is conducting an internal review about his failure to investigate sexual abuse allegations at ABWE, and an official statement will be released when the review is complete. Donn Ketcham, the pedophiliac missionary doctor responsible for the abuse, still held an honorary doctorate from the University as of last week; that doctorate has been officially revoked. 

As far as we know, there is also no investigation into the sexual abuse of male students by retired professors Ed Spencer and David Robey.

The Board of Trustees and the Cedarvilly faculty also voted unanimously to approve the following doctrinal statement:

“We believe in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as verbally inspired by God and inerrant in the original writings, embracing all matters which the biblical authors address, and believe that they are of supreme and final authority in faith and life. This unwavering commitment to the Word of God and testimony of Jesus Christ binds together our past and present and must shape our future so that we might be a beacon for, and not a pale reflection of, the world around us.”

These decisions are the result of a fraught weekend that witnessed frantic final appeals for justice and transparency by concerned alumni and students. With few exceptions, these appeals were not well received. Dr. Robert Sumner, trustee emeritus, authored a long-winded reply to my own email to the Board. In it, he bragged of his fundamentalist credentials and his continued influence on the board, and accused me of not understanding what ‘fundamentalism’ really means.

When I explained that I did in fact understand what fundamentalism means, and that I had chosen to reject it specifically because I understood it, Dr. Sumner told me that he hoped my parents died before they found out about my decision.

If Sumner’s email to me is any indication of Cedarville’s future trajectory, then it is likely that Cedarville University will continue to sacrifice academic freedom in favor of Biblical literalism. The faction steering this shift do not see this as a substantive change in the university’s character. According to Robert Sumner, Cedarville has always been a fundamentalist institution; he wrote of its former presidents in heroic terms and expected that heroism to be shared by students and recent alumni. Here, the generation gap is most glaring. I, and the majority of my class, did not choose Cedarville for its fundamentalist reputation. Mentions of Cedarville’s former presidents largely met with apathy, when these mentions were made at all.

The well-organized opposition to the administration’s decisions ought to demonstrate how little support exists for a fundamentalist university. We organized to defend the robustly evangelical university we actually encountered, not the politicized, reductionist vision of men like Robert Sumner.

Last week, thousands of Christians flocked to the annual Justice Conference, held in Philadelphia this year. The Justice Conference is true to its name: its emphasis is social justice, particularly economic and racial justice. This year, speakers included Shane Claiborne, once decried by fundamentalists as being ‘too liberal’ to speak on the campus of Cedarville University. Despite this history a delegation of Cedarville students attended the conference. A Cedarville professor who accompanied them reported the average age of all conference attendees to be no more than 27. Robert Sumner, Lorne Scharnberg and their fellow ideologues have already lost the war. They have lost my generation.

Dr. Carl Ruby cared deeply about social justice. Dr. David Mills and his colleague Dr. Shawn Graves combined their own concern for social justice with serious philosophical enquiry. That’s why petitions to reinstate them received over 2000 signatures combined. And as long as fundamentalists associate that same passion for justice with doctrinal heresy, they doom themselves to failure. This controversy at Cedarville is America’s culture war in microcosm. It’s a one-sided affair, waged by fundamentalists against the rest of the world. Academic freedom, transparency and even simple compassion are collateral damage in their crusade to control the definition of Christian identity in the 21^st century.

But today, I informed the Board of Trustees that alumni would not surrender. We will continue to speak out against fundamentalism. We still wait for answers about Michael Loftis, Dave Robey and Ed Spencer. And I wait, too, for answers about the assault that irrevocably changed my life.

In the meantime, I recall the Cedarville Admissions team’s promise to all freshmen: that at Cedarville University, you become part of a family. You gain ‘friends for life.’ And that is not a lie. My Cedarville family is motley: intelligent and impassioned, compassionate and curious. Its members are truly my friends for life. For this much I give thanks, and I keep the faith, in humanity if not in God.


Editor's Note: Thanks to our guest blogger, Cedarville University alumna Sarah Jones.  Sarah had complete editorial control over the series and we thank her for her thoughtful, passionate writing.  Article titles are derived from ‘TheSecond Coming’ by William Butler Yeats. On behalf of the entire Save OBU community, I warmly welcome to you our little corner of the web. Check out other parts of the site and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.  See especially our recent post asking, in light of problems at many member institutions: Where is the CCCU?!  Over the past 15 months as we've documented fundamentalist encroachment at Oklahoma Baptist University, we've learned that some of our peer institutions have it far worse. Our thoughts and prayers are with each of you. Please join us in standing for academic freedom and ethical administration in evangelical higher education.

Things Fall Apart

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

After the Cedars controversy, I spent a semester overseas. By the time I returned to campus, I’d started dating the son of a high-ranking staff member. Though not a student, he had free access to campus, and eventually got a short-term job at the university due to his father’s connections. That relationship should have been a mere footnote to my Cedarville story, but like so many college relationships, it became abusive. My ex, a recovering drug and alcohol addict, started drinking again, and I became the target for his anger.

Abusive dating relationships aren’t unique to Cedarville. What sets Cedarville apart is its campus culture, defined by events like the one I criticized in my Cedars article. Women are sexualized, but restricted from sexual behavior. They are the gatekeepers of sexual purity, charged with dressing modestly in order to prevent male lust.

So it’s probably no surprise, then, that when my ex’s abuse escalated to attempted rape, one of my first thoughts (after the humiliation and fear) involved the modesty panel I’d criticized. Specifically, I remembered a male classmate’s assertion that women should not wear pajama pants in public, because that made men think about bed, which made them think about sex.

My boyfriend tried to rape me while I was wearing pajamas. And at the time, I couldn’t shake the deep-seated conviction that I’d brought it upon myself.

This isn’t easy to write. I write it because I believe it’s necessary. I write it because I want you to understand why I, and so many others, have spoken so extensively about Carl Ruby’s compassion. It is because his compassion stands in stark contrast to the treatment many of us received at Cedarville. We speak about the philosophy professors, Dr. Mills and his colleague, Dr. Shawn Graves, because they encouraged students to think critically about ethics and faith. Cedarville needs that, too.

In the days that followed the assault, I became severely depressed, but I told no one about the attack. I feared retribution, and for several months, I found the event too traumatic to revisit. I did go to Dr. Ruby and others about different aspects of the abuse. And though my abuser faced no consequences for his actions, he, Dr. Mills and other faculty members who have since moved on from Cedarville deserve credit for showing me the emotional support that helped me move on and begin to heal.

Cedarville’s refusal to punish my abuser alerted me to the depths of the corruption in Cedarville’s administration. When I received word this past fall that a Bible professor had been fired for his interpretation of Genesis, that the philosophy major could be cut, and that Dr. Ruby could lose his job, I credited these decisions to these same deeply rooted failures in leadership. These failures became evident to many when the university officially announced its plans.

The backlash stumbled to life when the university fired Dr. Michael Pahl. The reason: Pahl, a literalist, proved not quite literalist enough to suit Dr. Tom Cornman, the fundamentalist academic vice president. Dr. Cornman had recently authored a then-secret series of white papers that codified the university’s doctrinal position, beyond the statement publicly available on the university’s website.

Dr. Cornman and the provost, Dr. John Gredy, also a fundamentalist, later led the charge to eliminate Cedarville’s philosophy major. Neither publicly stated an ideological motivation behind their decision, but behind the scenes, bias tainted every administrative move.

Last month, Cedars thoroughly documented the flaws in the review and appeal processes as applied to the philosophy program. The rushed review process and the obscured rationale behind it fuelled student and alumni concerns that this signalled an imminent fundamentalist takeover of the university. When Carl Ruby announced his unexpected resignation on January 10th, those fears seemed to be confirmed. The resignation seemed especially suspicious after Christianity Today revealed that Dr. Ruby had already undergone a hearing in the fall, and that Lorne Scharneberg, chairman of the Board of Trustees, denied the hearing ever occurred. After twenty-five years of service to the university, Dr. Ruby was forced to leave campus five days after his public resignation. Conveniently, a non-disclosure agreement forbade him from revealing the true reasons for his departure. The conditions of Dr. Ruby’s resignation have prompted one trustee, Chris Williamson, to publicly call for his reinstatement.

During a topical Town Hall chaired by Dr. Gredy, he and Dr. Cornman misrepresented the true number of students enrolled in philosophy courses at the university, and generally avoided specific student concerns about the philosophy major and Dr. Ruby’s resignation. In the wake of the university’s decisions, petitions to reinstate Dr. Ruby and revive the philosophy program received 1071 and 1170 signatures respectively. Either petition by itself dwarfs an older petition about Hoffeditz’s termination. Combined, they represent a thriving opposition to fundamentalist encroachment at Cedarville University.

That opposition has been bolstered by the revelation that trustee Michael Loftis had been forced to abandon the presidency of the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism (ABWE) for failures in leadership. The failure? Although victims first informed Loftis about the activities of a pedophile missionary doctor in 2002, Loftis did not launch any sort of investigation into the crimes until 2011. Loftis remains a trustee and the pedophile, though now dead, still posthumously holds an honorary doctorate from Cedarville.

Loftis is not the only trustee charged with covering up child molestation. Trustee Bill Williams resigned from his position as the superintendent of Worthington Christian Schools in 2008 after it was revealed that he had a hired a known child molester to teach at the school.

To our further dismay, an open letter by Dr. David Olsen, Cedarville graduate and co-founder of Cedarville Out, described the sexual harassment of male students by now retired Professor Ed Spencer, and the sexual harassment and abuse of other male students by former professor, Dr. David Robey. The incidents span decades.

The male victims of Dr. Spencer and Dr. Robey encountered the same cultural obstacles that I did, complicated by the school’s strident homophobia. We had few allies, and reporting the full scale of the abuse seemed impossible. We each found ourselves marginalized by the university’s culture of silence. That culture of silence protects Michael Loftis and Bill Williams. It is responsible for the tactics used to remove Carl Ruby, Michael Pahl, David Mills and Shawn Graves from their positions. It benefits only the fundamentalists who enforce it in order to protect their vision of Cedarville University. Their vision leaves no space for debate or for compassion shown to the marginalized. It does not include justice for gay and lesbian students, or, it seems, for feminist student journalists.

I am 25 years old. I hold a master’s degree from Goldsmiths, University of London, and last month I went public about my assault. My abuser, who also attacked another female student, is currently under investigation by the university. At the moment, there are no investigations into the claims regarding Dr. Spencer and Dr. Robey.

On Thursday evening, we received word that Lorne Scharneberg has confirmed to an alumnus that he intends to return Cedarville to its fundamentalist roots. According to Scharneberg, Carl Ruby and others wanted Cedarville to “become like Wheaton (College)” and that he does not care if this return to fundamentalism results in a drop in enrolment. It is clear that the financial arguments employed by the university to defend its decision to eliminate the philosophy major are entirely facetious, that Carl Ruby’s resignation was forced, and that this fundamentalist faction remains bent on destroying any remaining semblance of academic freedom at the university.

Tomorrow, the board will meet to discuss the elimination of the philosophy major and Carl Ruby’s resignation for the final time. If Scharneberg and his allies succeed, Cedarville University will go the way of Bob Jones University and each of us can forget about our individual campaigns for justice. Please keep the entire Cedarville community in your thoughts and prayers this weekend. On Monday, I’ll report here on the board’s decisions.

Editor's Note: Increasingly, groups from the evangelical and fundamentalist communities are raising awareness about how fundamentalist culture protects abusers and mistreats victims.  I have elsewhere asked where the CCCU is on fundamentalist encroachment at member institutions.  Given the pervasive sexual scandals (and cover-ups), that question seems even more pertinent.  I also want to acknowledge the unkind anonymous comments on Sarah's previous posts.  For obvious reasons, I am disabling comments.

Cedarville University: A Very Brief Introduction

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

If you read the NewYork Times on Saturday, then you might be aware, superficially at least, that there is a Christian college called Cedarville University in the state of Ohio, and that there are suspicious goings on at this college, orchestrated by a faction of Christian fundamentalists.

Perhaps you ignored the story. Perhaps you skimmed it, and thought: this is to be expected, this is why Christian colleges shouldn’t exist.

Perhaps you paid it some attention, and decided to Google the situation. If you did, you’re probably confused. Is Cedarville becoming more conservative, or is it becoming liberal? Did its administrators really fire Carl Ruby, Michael Pahl, and eliminate the philosophy major out of ideological spite? Or is the backlash evidence of a liberal campaign to erode Cedarville’s conservative identity? And how do the firings of two fundamentalist professors in 2008 factor into all of this?

But these questions are the barest introduction to the chaos that threatens to topple the administration of one of the most prominent Christian universities in the US. Recent alumni revelations portray an institution so crippled and corrupted by its on-going identity crisis that it has knowingly sheltered, at last count, five members of faculty and staff guilty of either committing sexual abuse, or of covering it up. These cover ups span decades. The victims are male and female, gay and straight. They are missionary kids, schoolchildren, and Cedarville alumni. Some suffer in public, some in silence. And I am one of them.

In so many ways, Cedarville’s story is my story too. I entered Cedarville in 2006, a scholarship student from the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. Like most members of my freshman class, I came from an Evangelical family, and had spent my upbringing immersed in Evangelicalism’s infamously insular subculture. I dressed modestly, abstained from alcohol and from sex, and anticipated a university experience that would help me combine deep faith and intellectual enquiry. Unlike most of my classmates, I possessed a political perspective firmly located left of center, and I publicly identified as a feminist. If you are familiar with the political environment at America’s Christian colleges and universities, then you can likely imagine the student body’s reaction.

Even if I’d attended Cedarville during a season of calm, my ‘Cedarville experience’ (to borrow the Admissions teams’ language) would have been marked by ideologically motivated harassment from students, faculty and alumni. That’s not a particularly unusual story, by itself. The same story could be repeated by anyone who’s ever found themselves marginalized by a conservative religious community. Instead, my Cedarville experience is made truly unique by a series of controversies that began during my first semester on campus, and now threaten the integrity of the university’s national reputation.

In fall 2006, I had barely settled into my dorm room when the student body received word that Soulforce, a group of GLBT activists and their straight allies, would arrive in Cedarville to protest the university’s anti-gay admissions policies. Soulforce activists, called Equality Riders, made a national tour of the country’s Christian colleges and universities, and most denied riders access to their campuses. Cedarville, however, welcomed riders onto campus. Along with a group of other students, I acted as a campus guide for Equality riders. I also met a group of openly gay Cedarville alumni. The same alumni founded Cedarville Out, for GLBT and allied alumni, shortly after the Soulforce visit.

As an institution, Cedarville maintained its conservative identity throughout the Soulforce visit. The decision to welcome activists on campus lay primarily with Carl Ruby, the former Vice President for Student Life. If you did read that New York Times article, you’ll recognize that name. After 25 years of service to Cedarville University, Carl Ruby was forced to resign last month. Though Dr. Ruby has consistently adhered to a conservative position on sexual orientation and gay marriage, his compassion for gay students and alumni has been equally consistent. That compassion was first evident to me in his decision to permit Soulforce activists on campus. But it also invited accusations of liberalism. For many alumni, students, and parents, Ruby’s decision constituted capitulation to a radical leftist fringe, and threatened Cedarville’s historical identity as a Baptist institution.

The Soulforce visit marked the beginning of a troublesome season for Cedarville University. In my next posts, I’ll explain Cedarville’s decision to end its historic affiliation with the General Association of Baptists, the firing of two fundamentalist professors, its history of covering up sexual abuse, and the current controversy. 

Finding Parallels In Cedarville's Story

I've mentioned lately that one of our tasks moving forward is to build solidarity with constituents of Baptist and other evangelical colleges that are experiencing fundamentalist incursions.  OBU is not alone.  Some schools are in much worse shape, in fact.  Once-proud institutions have been taken over and are being remade from the inside out in ways that threaten their reputations, their academic freedom and rigor, and even their accreditation.

If you are an OBU alum saddened by recent changes, a faculty member who knows that academic freedom and respectability were more secure before the current administration arrived, or a student who perceives that things at OBU are not as they should be, I hope you know you are not alone.  In 2011, "The Norm" and the alumni petition showed how widespread the concern is.  In 2012, Save OBU explored many of the problems.  We examined the histories of a few Baptist colleges that managed to leave their state conventions rather than succumb to fundamentalism.  We watched Georgia Baptist fundamentalists ruin Shorter University.  But we're just beginning to make common cause with the students, faculty, and alumni of the dozens of other Baptist and evangelical colleges that are facing different versions of the same fight.

Next week, we'll closely analyze the case of Cedarville University in Ohio.  Cedarville's plight has been widely discussed in the evangelical blogosphere.  Today, the New York Times has a story on the school's recent changes:

Even by evangelical standards, nearly everyone at Cedarville is theologically conservative. But some conservatives have a greater willingness to hear dissident views. The departures of William Brown, the president, whose resignation is effective June 30, and of Dr. [Carl] Ruby, who left suddenly last month, are widely viewed as strengthening the hands of the most conservative trustees, fearful of a more open Cedarville.

Cedarville alumna Sarah Jones, a freelance journalists who recently completed a graduate degree in the U.K., accepted my invitation to write a series of blog posts.  Cedarville has a different history than OBU and a different relationship with Baptists.  As we hear of the administrative blunders, trustee politics, and attacks on academic freedom, we can hopefully learn from our friends' experience.

In the coming months, we'll examine the goings-on at Louisiana College, Union University, and other institutions.  But for now, please join me in welcoming Sarah Jones to Save OBU!