Ergun Caner is Brewton-Parker College's New President

The big news in Baptist higher education (such as it is) this week comes from rural South Georgia, where trustees of the fledgling Brewton-Parker College unanimously elected a new fundamentalist president. If B-PC rings a bell to our Oklahoma friends who may not know much about Georgia Baptist life, it may be because we've written about Brewton-Parker here before.

As usual, Associated Baptist Press has a solid write-up:

Caner, 48, comes to the post in Mount Vernon, GA from Arlington Baptist College in Texas, where he served as provost and academic dean since 2011.  Before that, Caner was the dean of the Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary in Lynchburg, VA, named by the school's founder, Jerry Falwell, in 2004. 

Controversy arose in 2010, when bloggers questioned written descriptions of Caner's academic credentials and apparent embellishments in recorded versions of his "Jihad to Jesus" testimony popular with evangelical audiences in the aftermath of 9/11.

That rustling of paper you hear is the faculty of Brewton-Parker dusting off and updating their CVs.

Caner's election signals that B-PC and the Georgia Baptist Convention continue to believe that unassuming moderate, competent administrators are not the way forward.  Instead, their strategy is to double down on fundamentalism and controversy in a naive hope that somehow there will be enough GBC cash and new revenues from fundamentalists willing to send their children to nominally accredited Bible colleges.

As many people know, the Reverend Dr. Ergun Caner may be the most controversial intellectual in the Southern Baptist Convention -- and that's saying something!  His bizarre statements are well known and have been widely reported elsewhere.  Far from being a liability to future employment, it seems that Caner's lies and delusions actually make him a more competitive applicant for a leadership position in Southern Baptist institutional life.

I do know that a veteran college administrator who has extensive experience within and outside Baptist higher education never had an opportunity to be considered for the position because, although this person is a principled conservative with a high view of Scripture, he is just not conservative enough for today's fundamentalist Georgia Baptist Convention.

It looks like the GBC's executive director, the Reverend Dr. Robert White, did not have to personally intervene to get his man.  The fundamentalist majority on the B-PC Board of Trustees could be trusted to deliver a yes-man no matter who it chose.

Caner's brother, the Reverend Dr. Emir Caner, is president of Truett-McConnell College, which is also affiliated with the Georgia Baptist Convention.  Unfortunately for all you other Baptist colleges out there, it looks like there are no more formerly jihadist Caner brothers to lead you into the future.

From an OBU perspective, I must say that Caner makes OBU's president, provost, and religion dean look fantastic!  Hopefully, fundamentalist encroachment at OBU is all in the past.  But in the fraternity of Southern Baptist-affiliated college presidents, I fear there is always pressure on members to one-up each other and prove his fundamentalist bona fides.  Therefore, please pray that OBU leaders never perceive that God is calling them to out-Caner Caner.

Should OBU Be OBU? Or Try to Out-Union Union?

In our last post, we noted that OBU recently honored Union University (TN) President David Dockery with the Herschel Hobbs Denominational Service Award.  We can't help but notice that Union has become the darling of the post-Takeover SBC.  Many SBC elites send their own children to Union.  In contrast, OBU fails to attract the children of the SBC's leading men.

As far as I'm concerned, this is great news.

All indications are that Union is a solid Baptist liberal arts university that has absolutely thrived under David Dockery's leadership.  It has more than doubled in size, scope, enrollment, and budget.  My perception is that Union may be somewhat more intentionally conservative than OBU.  Even so, we haven't heard rumblings about unethical firings or unilateral redirection of entire academic divisions based on fundamentalist ideology, as we have seen at OBU and other Baptist universities.  So maybe Union already went through that change.  Or maybe it's just more uniformly conservative and no one protests very loudly.  I don't know enough about Union's history to know whether it was always a happier home for fundamentalists, or whether Dockery has deliberately ushered it in that direction.  Folks who know him praise him and tell me that, while not as extremely right wing as today's SBC, Dockery is a traditional conservative who saw which way the wind was blowing.  Hopefully, for his sake, he didn't have to compromise too many of his own beliefs and principles to win the adulation of post-Takeover SBC leaders.

Somehow, Union has managed to communicate two things.  First, it is a growing, thriving, nationally recognized Christian liberal arts university with a good academic reputation, good professors, and good students.  (Unlike OBU, Union didn't need to add a football program to boost male enrollment.)  And second, Union enjoys a reputation for being a safe place for fundamentalists to send their children to college.

Union's success with this delicate dance must be vexing to OBU's new leadership.  For some reason, the dance has been more difficult at OBU.  When David Whitlock and Stan Norman arrived on Bison Hill, each pointed to Union as a model.  OBU, though smaller, had at least as good a reputation.  But OBU is not as widely considered to be a safe place for fundy kids.  Of course, OBU produces tons of graduates who are fundamentalist, home-schooling culture warriors.  But not as many as certain other Baptist colleges.  At OBU, the chances seem higher that students will end up taking the Bible seriously, not literally.  It has been much more likely that OBU religion and ministry graduates will attend non-SBC seminaries.  As Whitlock and Norman discovered, OBU's relatively moderate reputation has been hard to kill.  At this moment, I do not know of a single SBC seminary professor or high-level agency staffer who has a son or daughter enrolled in OBU.

That's unlikely to change. And frankly, we don't need more once-reputable Baptist colleges descending into fundamentalism.  The SBC elites with children inclined toward religious colleges will continue to send their kids to Union, or, if they don't care at all about academic respectability, to an undergraduate program at one of the seminaries.

It's fine that OBU honored David Dockery.  I intend no offense toward Union.  As I said yesterday, Dockery has done the impossible: kept hardliners happy while also maintaining some mainstream legitimacy.  It's not an easy feat.  Usually you squander much of your institution's legitimacy when you pander to the hardliners.  Just ask Emir Caner (Truett-McConnell), Joe Aguillard (Louisiana College), Don Dowless (Shorter), and Thomas White (Cedarville).  Thankfully, David Whitlock seems less eager to take OBU over that cliff.  I have always believed that Whitlock has it in him to be a great university president, but I doubt any Baptist college president can do what Dockery has done: Pleased the SBC without turning his institution into a joke.

So you have to choose.

While past OBU presidents courageously risked alienating the increasingly fundamentalist SBC as they were building OBU into a top-rated Christian liberal arts university, today's leaders seem too eager to advertise that the Fundamentalist Takeover is, at long last, coming to Bison Hill.  This seems to be the intent of the Hobbs Award.

But the field of schools trying to out-Union Union is already very crowded.  And it's not going well for any of them.  So we will say what we've said all along. OBU should be what it has been for decades: A hospitable home for moderate and conservative faculty and students characterized by academic rigor, academic freedom, and academic integrity.

Dr. Whitlock Blocks @SaveOBU_Blog on Twitter

Funny how things change.

Previously, our Twitter account had been blocked by Truett-McConnell College President Emir Caner after we criticized him for shepherding the fundamentalist takeover of a troubled Georgia Baptist Convention-affiliated school.  (Last fall, they had a big ceremony headlined by Paige Patterson in which all faculty signed the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message.)  Yet recently, Rev. Dr. Caner unblocked us!

Closer to home, however, we now find ourselves blocked from following OBU President David Whitlock on Twitter.  Off the top of my head, I can only think of two things I learned by following Rev. Dr. Whitlock.  First, OBU's board of trustees has (had?) two M.D./Ph.D. medical researchers.  I thought this was great news -- the fewer people affiliated with a university who believe in young earth creationism the better!  We may now take flat young earthers in the Hobbs College of Theology and Ministry, but hopefully we can still keep these people off the Board of Trustees.  The second thing I learned from Whitlock via Twitter is that he was "proud" that a junior religion prof "represented OBU" at the Baptist World Alliance gathering this summer.  I was, of course, shocked that Whitlock would publicly defy all the SBC leaders over the years who so openly loathe the BWA (for its alleged liberalism and, of course, the unpardonable sin of admitting the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship as a member).  But as far as I was concerned, it was just more proof that deep down, David Whitlock is not a post-Takeover Baptist culture warrior/crusader who is trying to cleanse the world of moderates.  Still, I guess I should say: Sorry, Dr. Whitlock, if you had to endure a talking to from your boss-who's-not-really-your-boss-but-kind-of-is-your-boss Anthony Jordan or any of the other SBC elites who may have decided to set you straight about the evils of the Baptist World Alliance.

Just for fun, I'd like to ask everyone to attempt to follow Dr. Whitlock on Twitter.  See if he deigns you worthy to read his updates.  I'm curious to find out who else is on the outs with him.  Did you ask a tough question at a "Fireside Chat" last year about why your favorite religion profs are disappearing?  Were you in last spring's production of Hairspray (which prompted a certain dean to end OBU's longstanding collaboration with Shawnee Little Theater)? Or does Whitlock just not handle criticism very well?  What does it take to be denied access to 140 characters of someone's thoughts?  I'd like to know.

For the uninitiated, Twitter is a lot of fun!  Until I founded Save OBU, I had never used it before.  Since last December, our account @SaveOBU_Blog has been an invaluable tool for communicating with friends and foes alike.  I even started a personal account (@jlupf) so I could end the awkwardness of having the culture wars fought on my Facebook page.  (Facebook was a lot more fun before everyone's parents and grandparents joined and, in any event, at my age it should only be used for sharing cute baby pictures.)

Dr. Whitlock, I thought you were unflappable.  I actually didn't know we'd made any kind of impact on you, let alone gotten under your skin.  Still, even though I don't know you, I believe in my heart you're the kind of guy I'd love to have a beer (or a Dr. Pepper) with.  And even though Save OBU can't follow you on Twitter, if you're ever in Washington, I've got a $250 donation (the real D.C. way...) if we can hang out and talk OBU's mission and direction sometime.

And the first round's on me.

Can OBU Avoid SBC Seminaries' Influence?

As most of you know, the SBC's six seminaries have changed dramatically over the past 25 years.  Fundamentalists typically believe that the seminaries had been adrift, promoting liberal theology and even secularism, steering Baptists away from a plain, literal reading of Scripture.  The "Conservative Resurgence" helped return the institutions to their sound Biblical roots.  They are now among the best seminaries in the world.  Moderates typically believe that the seminaries were among the best, until the "Fundamentalist Takeover" used political tactics to oust all moderates, end academic freedom, institutionalize creedalism, authoritarianism, and fundamentalism, and turn the seminaries into indoctrination camps for aspiring preacher boys.

We're not going to settle that debate today.  Although I do hope to find guest writers who can do a series of posts describing how each seminary went through the change.  Who knows, there may be important parallels to the Baptist colleges' experiences with fundamentalist takeovers.

The point for today is this: When it comes to circling the wagons, deciding who's in and who's out, excluding moderates, insisting that being on the "right" side of once-secondary disagreements is now primary, exercising power, wielding influence, engaging with the media and the public, and eroding historic Baptist distinctives, the SBC seminaries have been absolutely central.  What's worse, I'm afraid that as the victorious SBC fundamentalists flexed their muscles in the 1990s and 2000s, they looked to the state conventions and Baptist colleges and said to themselves, "We've taken over the largest Protestant denomination in America.  I wonder what else we can conquer."

There's plenty of evidence that some of today's leaders in Baptist higher education actually see the post-Takeover seminaries as models.  In Georgia, college presidents Don Dowless, Emir Caner, and Mike Simoneaux have all instituted policies requiring all faculty (and in some cases, staff) to sign various faith statements.  This practice has long been a hallmark of post-Takeover SBC seminary administration.  I recently found out that Southern Seminary actually has a solemn ceremony every time a new professor signs its Abstract of Principles.  Everyone sits around and watches the guy sign a piece of paper and applauds when he's done.

A new SBTS professor signing the school's

"Abstract of Principles" in a public ceremony

Fortunately, very little of the Georgia Baptist craziness has taken root at OBU.  And even though OBU's academic reputation is presently in decline, we are far ahead of the GBC schools, which aren't really even pretending to be legitimate liberal arts colleges where professors are free to teach and students are free to learn.  They've all been bought and paid for and are now just feathers in the fundamentalists' cap -- a resume line for college presidents aspiring to a higher rung on the ladder of SBC politics.

Still, it's relevant to note where SBC seminary influences are present at OBU -- and where they are absent.

President
I've already commented that it's a tremendous blessing that we have a president who did not attend a SBC seminary.  Given the alternative -- someone who spent close to a decade (M.Div. + Ph.D.) being formed in a post-Takeover SBC seminary -- this is one case where nothing is definitely better than something.  Now, you can't necessarily tell a lot about a person by where they went to school -- neither Dowless or Caner hold SBC seminary Ph.D.'s -- but I'd say we definitely dodged a bullet here.  Things could be so much worse.  We could have a true-believer, cultural warrior, lifelong SBC climber in the executive suite.

Religion Department
Well, it's not really correct to refer to OBU's "religion department."  For good or ill (or perhaps some of both), the religion and philosophy faculty have been together with the ministerial preparation faculty for two decades.  Some of OBU's newer religion professors have come from SBC seminaries and some have not.  Fortunately, there does not seem to be excessive fondness for the SBC seminaries in the department.  I don't want to put words into anyone's mouth, but it seems that most people realize a vastly superior graduate theological education can be had elsewhere.

In the case of the Hobbs College of Theology and Ministry, I'm actually less interested in where the faculty earned their degrees than where OBU graduates go on to earn theirs.  For aspiring pastors, missionaries, and youth ministry directors, there's a pretty strong pipeline to the SBC seminaries, particularly Southwestern in Fort Worth.  This makes sense and is to be expected.  In terms of OBU graduates who want to do graduate work in theology or biblical studies, however, I'm not sure that any of them go to SBC seminaries.  Why would they?

OBU actually produces a number of graduates who do well at a variety of very fine seminaries and divinity schools.  When I was there, we were sending several top students to Princeton Theological Seminary.  I went to Boston University School of Theology, having been rejected from Harvard Divinity School.  But I know we sent students to Harvard, Duke, Notre Dame and Wheaton in those years.  In the past couple years, I know of students who have gone to these schools and others, including some in the U.K.  I also know that students -- including some of the very best students -- preparing for parish ministry have eschewed the SBC seminaries, choosing instead places like Fuller, Gordon-Conwell, and Brite (TCU).

I would absolutely love to see data on where OBU religion, ministry, and philosophy (or "apologetics")  students go for grad school.  But OBU could never release the data because it would make the BGCO's head explode.  Even in its new incarnation where moderates are an endangered species, the Hobbs College faculty is not exactly a SBC Seminary Fan Club.

Elsewhere
The new library dean came to OBU after working at Southern Seminary.  So far, we've heard only good things about him, but it's a little early to tell.  Just remember, that statue of James Ralph Scales has eyes in the back of his head, and he's watching!

Back in the day, when churches had organs and choirs and the like, I'm told the SBC seminaries had great sacred music programs.  I know the current and former fine arts deans had experience with SBC seminary sacred music programs.  Though I'm told they're as different as night and day when it comes to how to run a Christian college fine arts program.  Another story for another day...

Which Direction Does the Pipeline Run?
While it seems generally fair to say that the SBC seminaries influence OBU less than they probably influence a lot of other Baptist colleges, things could be changing.  The normal pattern used to be that Baptist college professors in certain areas (religion, sacred music) would have earned their degrees at SBC seminaries, but would teach their whole careers at the college level.  A few would return to the seminaries to teach later in their careers.

At OBU, we're seeing an influx of recent hires who, whether they attended SBC seminaries or not (most did), they are coming to Bison Hill after having worked at the seminaries.  This is true of the fine arts and library deans, Provost Norman, and the newest religion professor.  As we get more of these kinds of people, we need to watch out.  Whereas most of us think academic freedom is normal and forcing university professors to sign creeds is not normal, these people have been in the ever-more insular world of SBC seminaries.  In that world, it's perfectly normal to force people to sign faith statements.  Academic freedom is not just a novel idea, it's a dangerous one.  Everyone agrees on almost everything.  They think the same, believe the same, and vote the same.  Now, I hope each of these people has something positive to bring to Bison Hill.  My concern is that the more people we get from the SBC seminaries, the less resistance we will muster when administrators decide that a Shorter-style purge is what God wants for OBU.

SACS Puts Brewton-Parker on Academic Probation

Happy Monday, everyone.  I hope everyone saw last week's series on fundamentalism and the SBC by 2006 OBU alumnus Clayton Mauritzen.  I appreciate his very fine contribution here, and was especially gratified to learn that people at other Baptist institutions picked up the series and circulated it among their concerned constituents.

We've said it all along: Fundamentalism eventually destroys educational institutions.  It diverts them from their missions, wrecks their reputations, and never fails to disrupt the careers of very capable, committed professors.

In Georgia, the fundamentalist race to the bottom continues apace.  We reported this spring that Brewton-Parker College, a Georgia Baptist Convention-controlled school in Mount Vernon, GA, was denied reaccreditation last summer by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.  By denying BPC's decennial application for reaccreditation, SACS placed the school on warning last June and gave it one year to improve in several critical areas, including institutional effectiveness, financial stability, and having professors insufficiently qualified in the subjects in which they are teaching.

For now, BPC is saying it's disappointed:

MOUNT VERNON — Brewton-Parker College President Mike Simoneaux says he is “extremely disappointed” that the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools has placed the institution on academic probation and has failed to recognize the progress the college has made in the past year.

(The above quotation is the opening graf of the GBC's newspaper PR publication, the Christian Index. It's password protected, but I can't wait to see the full version to see how the fundamentalists try to spin this.)  Notice how President Simoneaux is trying to say that SACS has failed, not his fundamentalist Bible college.  It's natural to feel disappointed when you realize that your capitulation to fundamentalist demands is the nail in your institution's coffin and it happened on your watch.  A lot of other schools managed to retain their accreditation, in spite of horrible abuses suffered at the hands of fundamentalist trustees and administrators (Exhibit A: the SBC seminaries).  So it's not as if the national accrediting bodies have an agenda against religious institutions.  So it's easy to understand why President Simoneaux is saying he is "Embarrassed" is actually the proper reaction, but fundamentalists have no shame about what they are doing.

Once the accreditation battle is lost, a lot of post-Takeover schools eventually adopt a different line, and it's one I predict Simoneaux and his GBC college president colleagues Emir Caner and Don Dowless will be using soon enough.  They will say that they were presented with a choice between secular elites' vision and God's vision for how their institution should operate.  Since losing your accreditation is horribly embarrassing, they will turn it around and try to wear it as a badge of honor.  Then they'll pursue "accreditation" through one of several joke associations of fundamentalist schools such as the Association for Biblical Higher Education.  It's sad, but BPC seems to be far enough down this road that I doubt they can turn things around.  And it seems quite obvious that the true power brokers (GBC elites) don't even care.

From the Archives: Downward Spiral Series

In mid-April, just days before my daughter was born, we did a series of posts on the Georgia Baptist Convention's successful effort at engaging its three colleges in a race toward Bible-academy status and academic irrelevance.  We began and ended with arguments for how Save OBU will have a vital role in preventing the same pathetic fate in Oklahoma Baptist life.

First, we examined the case of Truett-McConnell College in Cleveland, GA.  Though never as prominent as Mercer or even Shorter, TMC is newly invigorated with fundamentalist leadership.  Its new president, Emir Caner, was the founding dean of the College at Southwestern, an undergraduate program at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth.  Caner's book Unveiling Islam (coauthored with his brother) was the source of former SBC President and Pastor Emeritus of FBC Jacksonville, FL Jerry Vines's 2002 assertion that the Prophet Mohammed was a "demon-possessed pedophile."  Caner, an adult convert from Islam, is considered a rising star in what remains of Southern Baptist academia.  Caner happily obliged the GBC's desire to institutionalize fundamentalism at TMC, instituting a policy that all faculty sign the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message.  TMC even staged a huge celebration of their descent into creedalism during which Rev. Dr. Paige Patterson, architect of the Fundamentalist Takeover, was the keynote speaker.  Somehow we ran afoul of Caner, though, as evidenced by the fact that he blocked Save OBU from his Twitter feed.  Oh well.  I guess the truth hurts.

Next, we looked at Brewton-Parker College in Mount Vernon, GA.  If TMC was willing to accede to fundamentalist designs for the school, BPC has been willing to one-up TMC in every way.  Whereas TMC still has designs of being a legitimate, accredited college, BPC has pretty much given up and become a fundamentalist Bible academy.  There seems to be little evidence that anyone in the GBC or in BPC leadership even cares if the college loses its accreditation, which seems a near certainty at this point.

Our Downward Spiral post on Shorter University in Rome, GA was one of the most widely-read in the Save OBU blog's history.  We've discussed Shorter's situation at length elsewhere, but in this series we discussed the notion that the GBC's direction and the other two schools' willingness to abandon academic freedom and all semblances of legitimacy has made it even more difficult for Shorter.  In the fight for finite GBC funds, these colleges seem to be locked in a race to the bottom.

Moving on from Georgia, we have elsewhere suggested that the race-to-the-bottom dynamic is now at work in Tennessee.  Tennessee Temple University, an Independent Baptist college affiliated with Highland Park Baptist Church in Chattanooga now wants back into the Tennessee Baptist Convention. But the TBC already subsidizes two Baptist colleges, Union University in Jackson and Carson-Newman College in Jefferson City.  TTU's president, Rev. Dr. Steve Echols, has even suggested that by forcing all faculty to sign the Baptist Faith and Message, TTU is "theologically safe," implying that Tennessee's other Baptist schools are not.  We'll keep you posted as this situation develops.

The Downward Spiral: Brewton-Parker College - A Race to the Bottom in GA

When I conceived of this series, I planned to focus on three colleges that are spiraling downward as a result of fundamentalist takeovers: Truett-McConnell College (yesterday's post), Louisiana College (tomorrow's post), and Shorter University (forthcoming Tuesday).  But in examining the deteriorating state of Baptist "higher education" in Georgia, I came across yet another tale of woe: Brewton-Parker College.

I hesitate to even tell B-P's story because it's really not OBU's peer in any meaningful way.  But it sure helps to illustrate how grateful we should be that the BGCO only has one college, rather than three (like Georgia) that are constantly working out-crazy the others.

Brewton-Parker began as a Baptist institute in an under-served, rural part of the state.  It became a junior college and eventually was able to award bachelor's degrees.  For a combination of reasons, not least of which were the proliferation of public community colleges and the strength of other Baptist colleges in Georgia, Brewton-Parker has struggled over the years.

In the 1990s, a scandal involving the misappropriation of federal student aid caused serious damage to the school's reputation and financial standing.  After a series of less-than-competent administrators, Truett-McConnell loaned Brewton-Parker one of their own, Rev. Dr. Mike Simoneaux, who had been interim president of TMC before Emir Caner arrived.  Talk about a labor of love.  B-PC has had serious financial, management, enrollment, and academic problems for many years.  In 2009, citing a bad economy, the college restructured and dramatically scaled back its academic offerings.

Not content to struggle only with financial and organizational challenges, B-PC quickly joined the fundamentalist fray and joined its sister schools Truett-McConnell and Shorter in a race to the bottom.  And, as bad as things are at TMC and Shorter, it looks like B-PC is actually going to win and be the first of the three downward-spiraling GBC-affiliated colleges to close its doors for good.

It's unclear to me whether B-PC's jabs at TMC and Shorter are supposed to convince the GBC to dump even more money down this pit or whether they actually thought they could attract quality students and faculty by being avowedly fundamentalist, but as this April 2010 press clipping shows, B-PC's posture has been pretty bizarre:

The trustees responded to the challenge by voting unanimously on a number of significant issues including four action items that clearly define Brewton-Parker as a Baptist, Christian institution of higher education.

The first action item pertained to a resolution on the college’s Mission Centered Curriculum. Shep Johnson, BPC trustee and pastor of First Baptist Church in Douglas, presented the resolution and explained that the faculty has thoughtfully and strategically looked at each course taught at the school to see how it can be taught from a Christian worldview.

Gerald Harris/Index

Tony Romans, BPC trustee and pastor of North Peachtree Baptist Church in Atlanta, delivers a devotional message to the college’s Board of Trustees.

BPC President David Smith explained that the Christian worldview is to be infused into all of the courses taught at Brewton-Parker and that the purpose of the resolution is to tie each course to that same Christian worldview.

The second action item unanimously adopted by the trustees underscored a Statement of Faith and Learning. The central confession of the statement reads: “As a Georgia Baptist institution of higher learning, Brewton-Parker College is firmly and unequivocally rooted in the Christian faith, adopting the central confession for its statement of faith and learning from the New Testament – ‘Jesus Christ is Lord’ (Rom. 10:9).

“As a consequence, to say that ‘Jesus Christ is Lord’ is to nurture a learning environment in which academic challenge, authentic spirituality, and the practice of integrity can flourish.”

The third action item heartily approved by the trustees pertained to a statement of Doctrine and Theology including the following words: “Brewton-Parker College focuses its Christian mission on the twin concepts of providing an unapologetically Christian and proudly Baptist tradition of higher education. In matters of theology and doctrine, Brewton-Parker College’s administration and trustees endorse the tenets of faith generally accepted by Southern Baptists and specifically expressed in The Baptist Faith and Message, the denomination’s doctrinal statement approved by the Southern Baptist Convention in 1963 and revised in 2000.”

The fourth action item focused on a resolution of Support for the Cooperative Program. The resolution stated: “The trustees of Brewton-Parker College affirm their historic commitment to the Cooperative Program of the Southern Baptist Convention. They endorse the continuation of the Cooperative Program as the primary funding mechanism for mission ministries within the Georgia Baptist Convention. The Brewton-Parker College Board of Trustees appreciates the tireless efforts of GBC Executive Director Dr. J. Robert White in advocating for the Cooperative Program, and stand with him in affirming the Cooperative Program’s dynamic success in Georgia Baptist ministries.”

Gerald Harris/Index

Associate Professor of Religion and Philosophy Jerry Ray, left, presents the framed documents of the resolutions that define Brewton-Parker as a Baptist, Christian institution of higher education to board chairman Cliff Morris, pastor of First Baptist Dublin. Morris accepted the presentation on behalf of J. Robert White, Georgia Baptist Convention executive director.

When President Smith addressed the trustees later he stated, “Since 1998, the GBC has provided Brewton-Parker, through scholarships, grants, direct monthly stipends, and other subsidies a total of $18 million.”

The trustees enthusiastically adopted all four action items to boldly herald the college as being “unapologetically Christian and proudly Baptist.”

Smith stated, “Some years ago the vocalist of a country and western hit sang, ‘I was country before country was cool.’ Well, Brewton-Parker College was thoroughly Baptist before being Baptist was cool in GBC higher education.

“When our sister institution’s president in Macon was writing books proclaiming a Universalist theology, BPC was purging its Bible department of CBF influence.

“When our sister institution in Rome was building strategies to disassociate with the GBC, BPC stood steadfastly in the camp of Georgia Baptists.

“When our sister institution in Cleveland was unsure of its denominational affections in the early days of this century and experienced difficult financial times,” Smith continued, “BPC offered to bring some of its programs to Cleveland to assist that institution by allowing students to remain on that campus, paying room and board and remaining there until they could accredit similar programs to serve their students.”

Smith also stated, “Our two sister colleges in Rome and Cleveland have made great strides recently to become what the Georgia Baptist Convention expects them to be. I am grateful that they are now moving toward a place where Brewton-Parker College has traditionally posted itself.”

Smith concluded his remarks by declaring, “Our faculty has unanimously affirmed a statement of faith and learning that:

Gerald Harris/Index

Left to right, First Baptist Centerville pastor Allen Hughes, BPC provost Ron Melton, Macon architect Jimmy Michael, and board chairman Cliff Morris have a moment for fellowship during a break at the BPC trustee meeting.

Stands on an inerrant, infallible, and inspired Bible, knows God as triune and omnipotent;

Understands humankind as fallen sinners, but created in the likeness and image of God;

Accepts Christ as virgin born, with divine Sonship, who accepted crucifixion for sinners, rose from the grave for the salvation of sinners, and will return to accept into eternity redeemed sinners;

Understands salvation comes only through Jesus Christ, and that through faith, provided by His grace, resulting in good works;

Recognizes that there is no other way to God or eternal life except through Jesus Christ;

And realizes that all humans are eternal in ultimate form, either residing with Christ in heaven or apart from Him in hell, forever.

We believe these statements, synthesized and framed as reminders of our commitment to God’s Kingdom and our denomination, go far beyond a one-time assignation of allegiance. We offer them as a way of life, a philosophy of teaching and as evidence of a college so thoroughly integrated into the twin realities of educational enlightenment and Christian edification that we are indeed, unapologetically Christian and proudly Baptist.”

The GBC gives about $4 million to its colleges annually (160% of what the BGCO gives OBU).  Shorter gets about half, while the others get about $1M apiece.  While poor little B-PC was trying to keep up with its larger, stronger sister schools in the race to be the most outrageously fundamentalist (TMC requires all faculty to sign the Baptist Faith and Message and Shorter is requiring all staff to sign a "lifestyle statement,") it turns out that Brewton-Parker ran afoul of its accrediting body, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.  Uh-oh.

I don't want to confuse correlation with causality here, but Brewton-Parker is in perilous danger of becoming an unaccredited degree mill.  Far from bailing it out further, at that point the Georgia Baptist Convention will probably just walk away.

What a disaster.

Praise the Lord, there are no meaningful parallels between OBU and BP-C.  That's why I initially planned to limit the Downward Spiral series to relevant peer institutions.  But even though OBU will likely never suffer the fate of Brewton-Parker College, this should be a clear warning to fledgling schools that mistakenly believe that the race to the bottom is a journey they want to undertake.  If you want to be thoroughly fundamentalist, it makes no sense to masquerade as a legitimate academic institution.  There are no winners in a race to Crazy Town.