Does OBU Make Students More Liberal? (Part 1)

For decades, pastors in Oklahoma Baptist churches large and small have warned high school seniors and their families, "Don't go to OBU.  It's liberal.  And if you go there, you'll lose your faith."  Please excuse me for a few moments while I laugh hysterically at the ridiculous, paranoid, and hopelessly incorrect assertion that Oklahoma Baptist University's doctrinal/ideological/theological/political ethos could accurately be described as liberal.

[I've actually been trying to write this post for two weeks, but the notion that OBU is liberal is so outrageous that it's difficult to even discuss this topic.]

Okay, I'm back.  As someone with a modest amount of theological training and some background in social science methodology, I find this question to be one of those maddening cases where the answer is obvious and intuitive, but the language we use to discuss the issue is imprecise and the complicated and important distinctions between correlation and causality make it difficult to say anything definitive.

So let's start with language.  First, there's the issue of the liberal-moderate conservative spectrum.  For our purposes, let's put politics aside.  We're not talking about whether OBU makes you more likely to vote Republican or Democratic.  Furthermore, the literature on political ideology and educational attainment is complicated and contradictory.  Race, parents' partisanship, income, and religiosity are among the variables that are better at predicting an individual's political ideology than what kind of college s/he attended.  Let's just skip the political element of the "spectrum" for now.

When good candidates for jobs steer clear of OBU because it's gone off-the-deep-end conservative and pastors preach against OBU as a liberal bastion, the spectrum is theological.  The language is imprecise because the spectrum is so relative.  We say the BGCO is run by fundamentalists.  They say anyone who defends academic freedom or opposes their agenda is a liberal.  Neither of those labels is entirely accurate in every case.  And what you see depends on where you stand.

If you're a fundamentalist pastor in Oklahoma, everyone looks like a liberal.  If you were at OBU in the 1970s-1990s as it was earning a reputation for excellence in Christian higher education and you see the professors who are being hired and the leaders who are calling the shots today, everyone looks like a fundamentalist.  The matter is even more complicated because the relative distance between both sides has increased as those who call themselves conservatives in this debate have moved so dramatically to the right as those who call themselves moderates have stayed the same.  Another complication is that this theological spectrum has different dimensions, such as where you stand on classical Baptist freedoms such as liberty of the conscience.  With their pastor-as-pope model, their creedalism, their authoritarianism, and their unqualified embrace of partisan politics, the modern-day SBC and BGCO have undeniably retreated from our cherished freedoms.  Thus, even if their literalist view of the Bible hasn't changed much, their rightward lurches on these other dimensions has a cumulative effect of moving them dramatically to the right on the spectrum.

Back to our original question: What happens when a student comes to OBU?  How does s/he move along this theological spectrum.  The only way to establish a causal link between an OBU education and students' placement on the liberal-conservative spectrum is to survey them before they matriculate and then after they graduate and using statistical techniques to control for students who transfer, drop out, etc.  To my knowledge, this has never been done at OBU or any other Christian college.  If you know about where we can find this kind of data, please let us know.

For now, the best I can do is point to a study done 20 years ago by a prominent sociologist (herself an alumna of Southwest Baptist College in Missouri).  She does a good job of taking politics out of the conservative-liberal spectrum and showing the association between "theological parties" and educational attainment:

But notice that she has not distinguished between different types of education.  Take a look at the chart below.  Here, we see membership in theological parties broken down by type of college attended:

According to these data, Southern Baptist laypeople who attended secular universities are more likely to be fundamentalists or conservatives (81%) than Baptist college graduates (67%).  Conversely, Baptist college grads are much more likely to be moderates or moderate conservatives (32%) than Baptist who went to secular universities (19%).

These results suggest that Baptist colleges have a substantial moderating influence on students' theological positions.  Over time, we can speculate as to why.  But I think that whenever students have access to the books, the intellectual tools, and the encouragement from faithful Christian scholars that OBU until recently prided itself on providing, the inevitable result is that few will remain fundamentalists for long.

Findings such as these poke huge holes in the increasingly fundamentalist BGCO's entire rationale for operating a college in the first place.  It turns out that those demonic secular universities that people worship on autumn Saturdays but rail against every other day of the week actually do a better job of keeping Christian young people in the fold.  This is no surprise when you consider the masterful job Baptist and parachurch organizations have done at creating fundamentalist enclaves within state universities.  And the fruits of this trend (theologically conservative state school grads and theologically moderate Baptist college grads) is evident throughout the BGCO today.  I have not been able to find even one BCM campus minister (besides OBU's own) that came from OBU.  In any event, it's a certainty that no more than a handful of the people the BGCO pays to minister to Oklahoma college students are actually OBU grads.  Then there is the matter of how, for all the BGCO's desire to only hire pastors from the SBC's fundamentalist seminaries, a shockingly high proportion of OBU ministry grads would never dream of attending today's SBC seminaries and the ones that do tend to be quite a bit more moderate than the BGCO would prefer.  That's why the pipeline into BGCO pulpits usually runs from state schools and Southwestern Seminary, and not nearly as much as you would expect from OBU.  Anecdotally, it seems that the OBU brain drain results in a stunning proportion of graduates ministering and working outside Oklahoma.  I'm sure the BGCO would never allow OBU to publish a report on its ministry grads because it would be such a colossal embarrassment to the convention and would undermine a huge part of OBU's reason for existing.

Despite the BGCO's fervent wishes and best efforts, it seems undeniable that, in the aggregate, OBU has a moderating influence on students' theological views.  Given the stunning lack of OBU graduates in the BGCO hierarchy and the surprisingly low numbers of OBU grads in BGCO pulpits, it's clear that the pastors who have been OBU's detractors were onto something.  Their paranoid fears that OBU is liberal are, of course, ridiculous.  But their sense that OBU's mission and the BGCO's goals are contradictory if not outright hostile to one another is right on target.

What can you do about it?

• Let Oklahoma Baptist clergy and laypeople know about Save OBU.  They will want to protect their hard-earned offering plate dollars from being used as a subsidy to an institution with an $80 million endowment.  Their interests are best advanced through BCM, evangelism, and Falls Creek.  OBU devours Cooperative Program resources that could be used in these vital ministry areas.  Instead, $2.5 million per year is being funneled into OBU, and Oklahoma Baptists have shockingly little to show for it.
• Speaking of spreading the word about Save OBU, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.  This will help dramatically expand our social reach.
• If you are an Oklahoma Baptist, start a conversation in your church about whether OBU is really the kind of investment the BGCO should be making.  A number of very fine Baptist schools have parted company with their state conventions.  Years after they split, the colleges and the conventions are much better off.
• We'll be ramping up our activism in the weeks and months to come.  But for now, we need help getting our message out and letting the BGCO know that there are actually two camps that see the convention's ownership of OBU as disastrous.  The protectors of academic freedom and the Christian liberal arts heritage, obviously, will not abide OBU administrators' recent policy changes.  But, equally as significantly, there are plenty of Oklahoma Baptist clergy and laypeople who have known for decades that this partnership is mutually draining and not very fruitful given its huge cost and the battles it has fomented through the years.
• If the BGCO is so desperate to run a fundamentalist Bible academy, maybe it can throw its millions behind struggling dumps like this or this.  I know of a couple administrators who might fit right in.
• Just for fun, take the poll at the top-right part of our home page.

We'll take up this topic again from time to time as new evidence and arguments arise.

Student Saturday: Journalism at OBU

Our many new readers won't know that a few weeks ago, we talked about the pathetic state of journalism in the post-Takeover SBC.  Since the fundamentalists turned Baptist Press into a propaganda machine in the 1990s, the state Baptist papers have also lost editorial independence and become little more than the P.R. arm of their fundamentalist state conventions.

I planned to extend the analysis to OBU, where there have been problems with a free press in the past.  Given how rapidly the BGCO's fundamentalist agenda for OBU has accelerated in other areas recently, I expected to write a post eviscerating OBU administrators for censoring The Bison and stifling student journalism on campus.

Today, I'm happy to report that I was wrong.  Student journalism is alive and well at OBU.  There have been a couple of dramatic side stories on this subject, but in general, OBU journalism is performing a vital community service.

Some Unhappy History
Without going to some rather unfortunate details, it is widely known that Mark Brister did not endear himself to student journalism advisors during his tenure.  I suppose it's water under the bridge at this point, though the consequences of Brister's struggles in this area were quite negative.

I seem to recall that an outstanding and very well-loved English professor/journalism advisor somehow ran afoul of President Brister, though I do not know the details of that story.

Sometime in the early/mid-2000s, Brister wanted to set up a review committee, ostensibly to check the student newspaper for errors in grammar, mechanics, and fact.  Unsurprisingly, members of the publications board, a dean, a divisional head, and his own P.R. man convinced him this was a terrible idea.

But when a professional association called College Media Advisors got wind of the situation, it pressed the university for more information.  Dr. Brister chose to ignore that body, and OBU was subsequently censured.  Later, Interim President John Parrish came to understand the significance of this censure, particularly for journalism students' and graduates' professional prospects.  Thus, he successfully sought to have OBU's censure lifted, on the grounds that the administration had changed.

Recent Developments
As I said before,  I fully expected there to be some kind of active censorship regime in place.  But I have been assured that no such thing is currently happening.  So, credit where credit is due: Kudos to OBU administrators for allowing and supporting editorial autonomy on a campus whose state convention and national denomination quashed true journalism many years ago in favor of propaganda.

Rest assured, even many longtime faculty agree that The Bison has printed quite diverse articles and opinion over the past few years.  And, with all due respect to OBU journalism students through the ages, one faculty member even reports that The Bison "is about as healthy as it's ever been, and better edited than in years past."  The paper courageously covered last fall's alumni petition, which undoubtedly brought a great deal of attention to an issue the administration prefers people did not know about.  I was also quite impressed by a story in September about two longtime professors who announced their retirements.  The professors, whose anger about all the recent disastrous changes is typical, were given quite a lot of latitude to express their frustration in the article.  If you follow the student newspaper's Facebook page, you can view many recent issues online.  So don't take my word for it, see for yourself.

This is not to say The Bison couldn't do a better job covering vital campus news.  To my knowledge, there was nothing about last summer's forced faculty dismissal or about the Faculty Council's protests to the administration (or the faculty's unprecedented low morale under the current administration).  I can only speculate about the reasons for these omissions.  Anyone who has been on such an authoritarian and conformist campus for very long knows that self-constraint becomes almost second nature.  Perhaps the student editor(s) and faculty advisor assumed they should leave these issues alone.

The Customers Always Write?
One thing a casual observer will immediately notice about The Bison is how few students and faculty write letters to the editor or guest op-eds about controversial topics.  I assume this is due to the afore-mentioned restraint that typically overwhelms people on campuses like OBU.  But there have been (at least) two fairly distressing happenings related to student opinions.  Neither episode reflects negatively on the very fine work OBU student journalists and their advisor are doing.

In one case, a student submitted a satirical advertisement making fun of the fact that OBU made a self-conscious decision to fire a very fine, moderate Christian philosopher and hire a down-the-line conservative with a specialty in "Christian apologetics."  (The ad can be seen at the bottom of this post.)  Evidently, after the papers were printed and distributed around campus, they were quickly confiscated.  After a social media firestorm ensued, the papers were returned to their distribution points. To be honest, I do not know who ordered the papers to be pulled and my sources give conflicting accounts.  I also don't know if the author of the satirical ad was harassed for expressing his/her opinion.

In another episode, a student penned a thoughtful, passionate op-ed about the recent disastrous changes recently enacted at OBU and asked the student paper to investigate them more fully.  The papers were printed and distributed before Fall Free Days.  The following week, an administrator called the writer into his office and caused quite a scene.  Maybe we'll tell more of that story another time.  But any time an experienced university administrator, after having 3 or 4 days to "sleep on it," loses his composure and abandons his professionalism in trying to intimidate and silence a college student, it begs serious questions about his judgment.

Conclusion
OBU student journalists are doing an admirable job.  There is no formal censorship regime.  A commendable diversity of articles and opinion fill the pages of The Bison.

Many OBU insiders (students, faculty, etc.) agree with this assessment.  But I must call it a tentative conclusion because enough people have expressed doubt that I cannot honestly say that my account represents a unanimous consensus.  I realize that some of you will be disappointed that I have praised the administration for simply not standing in the way of students' rights (under the Green Book and the First Amendment).  If more facts emerge, I will be happy to adjust this conclusion as necessary.

Disclaimer
In preparing this commentary on student journalism, I consulted faculty as well as Bison staffers (current and former).  I did not reach out to any Bison editors or advisors, current or former.  I truly do not want to cause trouble for any of you.  I know some of our critics will be surprised to hear this, but I actually do take care to choose my words carefully.  I have tried to be especially careful here.  If I have missed the mark in any way, I invite any of you (friend or foe) to be in touch via email.  SaveOBU@gmail.com is group's email account.  My personal email account is visible at the bottom of this page, I believe.

Student Saturday: Prospective Student Edition

Today was OBU's Winter Preview Day.  In the spirit of that event, Save OBU is pleased to offer some information and perspectives for prospective students and their families to consider.

We have had a lot of internal discussions about how best to approach this topic.  One the one hand, many of us are so angry about the recent disastrous changes at OBU that we are hesitant to recommend it to anyone.  On the other hand, some of us fear that if we actively drive the best and brightest students away from OBU, the dumbing down will move from the bookstore into the classrooms, and OBU's transformation into a fundamentalist Bible academy will only accelerate.

After consulting with many Save OBU supporters and OBU stakeholders, I am releasing our open letter to prospective students and their families.  While a full-scale boycott might be more dramatic and effective, there is enough disagreement in our ranks that we are instead going to provide some information and trust prospective students and their parents consider to it in their prayers, discussions, and deliberations about the once-in-a-lifetime, $100,000 investment they are considering.

Dear Prospective OBU Students and Families,

As a diverse coalition of OBU students, staff, and alumni, we are grateful for your interest in Oklahoma Baptist University.  We're biased, of course, but over the years we have found OBU to be a great place to work, study, and live.  Our wellspring of affection for OBU is so deep, in fact, that we are grieving over recent changes -- some subtle, some dramatic -- that have deteriorated the quality and integrity of OBU's academic program.

This website lays our objections to some of the policy and personnel changes that are leading OBU away from its proud liberal arts tradition.  We invite you to explore the site and email us with any questions you may have.  Specifically, we are concerned about the following:

• Dismissing well-loved and highly effective faculty members without just cause, but rather for ideological reasons
• Remaking the faculty by replacing aging moderates almost exclusively with younger conservatives and fundamentalists who adhere to the ever-more extreme Southern Baptist party line
• Disregarding faculty norms, ignoring faculty search committee recommendations, and creating an unsustainably contentious and hostile dynamic between faculty and administrators
• Gutting curriculum areas like philosophy, a core discipline in the liberal arts which is being replaced by "Christian apologetics," a Sunday school-like field that spoon-feeds answers rather than engages tough questions
• Censoring academic materials by contracting with a fundamentalist bookstore, thus denying the OBU community access to mainstream boks in the natural and social sciences, history, literature, the arts, philosophy, and non-fundamentalist theology

The effects of these changes are inescapable, and they have had a deleterious effect on academic quality and campus morale.  A group of students produced a newsletter to protest these actions, but were essentially ignored.  One student who expressed his opinion in the student newspaper was actually brought into the president's office and verbally assaulted!  Last fall, hundreds of alumni signed a petition protesting the negative changes.  The Faculty Council has passed resolutions expressing opposition to administrators' violations of Faculty Handbook policies, but so far have been ignored.

With the weight of all these problems heavy on our hearts, we can offer only a qualified endorsement of OBU to prospective students at this time.  We wish this were not the case, as there are so many redeeming qualities about OBU, not least of which is a still-outstanding faculty compared to many peer institutions.  Even as OBU boasts expanding graduate programs, strong enrollment and even a new football team, it is struggling to maintain a robust commitment to what has long been its bread-and-butter: a rigorous, balanced, and moderate Christian liberal arts education.  OBU's reputation is suffering, too.  In only two years, it has dropped from #109 to #299 in the Forbes college rankings.  Other Baptist colleges that have been taken over by fundamentalists have experienced dramatic faculty morale problems and have even struggled to maintain accreditation.  OBU is still a long way from mass firings or being stripped of accreditation, but the sad truth is that all these recent changes have hurt our reputation.  Until we see a change in administrative leadership (at this point, we're seeking a change in direction more than a change in personnel), we believe OBU is on the wrong path.

Given the high cost of the investment you are considering, we feel an obligation to alert you to these issues.  The most academically talented students seeking a distinctively Christian higher education should also consider Wheaton, Calvin, William Jewell, and Whitworth.  Colleges operated by the Baptist General Convention of Texas are easy to get into (except Baylor) and have been generally free of the fundamentalist influences that have recently deteriorated OBU's academic program.  Oklahoma City University is, of course, more urban.  It is also not nearly as conservative.

Please continue to keep OBU under consideration.  In spite of the problems noted above, Bison Hill remains a truly special place.  Yes, it's true that it has a policy of forced chapel attendance and forbids men and women from socializing in each other's dormitories.  It is a very authoritarian institution and prizes conformity.  But you will find professors who genuinely care about your intellectual and spiritual growth.  You will find a community that truly nurtures your development as a person.  And, though Shawnee is a small city compared to some of your hometowns, you will be surprised how much fun you will have there with your new friends.  Should you decide to pursue medical, law, divinity, or other graduate degrees, you will find that OBU prepares you well.  Professors have a demonstrated commitment to individual students' success.  Even though two great professors were forced out and treated shamefully, literally dozens of amazing professors remain at OBU.

We suspect that OBU's admissions office will not bring any of these issues to your attention.  However, we do urge you to let the university know that you, too, are concerned about the issues raised here and that they weigh heavily on your decision.  In addition to alumni, Save OBU counts many, many current students and OBU parents among its strongest supporters.  Should you decide on OBU (and we hope you will), we are especially eager to welcome you into our movement.

Our Very Best Wishes,
Save OBU

Student Saturday: Bookstore Scavenger Hunt

It is well known that OBU recently fired Barnes and Noble after many years of efficient and capable management of the bookstore.  In its place, OBU contracted with Tree of Life, a company committed to censoring mainstream books and stocking books from (almost exclusively) fundamentalist publishing houses.

I'm not trying to suggest that I should be the final arbiter of what books Christian college students should have available to them.  Rather, I have consulted with alumni and friends and compiled a list of books that you should expect to find in any college bookstore.  The list includes some classics, some new volumes that should be of interest to people who are serious about the Bible, and titles that frequently appear on lists of "books that college students should read."  Since OBU is still supposedly about diversity of thought and administrators claim not to be turning OBU into a fundamentalist Bible academy, we can assume these books and others like them should be readily available in the university bookstore.  Right?

For each of the following 10 books that Tree of Life stocks, I will donate $10 to OBU.  In addition, I will give $10 to the first student who posts a picture of the book to our Facebook page.

A Tale of Two Cities
Charles Dickens (1859)
The bestselling novel in the history of the world.

Confessions
Saint Augustine (AD 398)
The dominant thinker in Christian antiquity gives his personal narrative, which became a bedrock of Western literature.

The Pilgrim's Progress
John Bunyan (1678)
A foundational Protestant text, this was Charles Spurgeon's favorite book after the Bible.

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
Jared Diamond (New York: Norton, 2005)
An argument about how science and technology, not moral or genetic superiority, account for why some societies win and others lose.

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Steven D. Lovett and Stephen J. Dubner (paperback ed. is from 2009)
Widely read and hugely influential book about some of life's unusual connections and causal relationships.

The Lost History of Christianity
Philip Jenkins (New York: HarperOne, 2009)
This prominent historian is speaking at OBU next month.  Does Tree of Life carry his book?  I'll also accept either of the other two volumes in his History of Christianity Trilogy.

Jerusalem: The Biography
Simon Sebag Montefiore (New York: Knopf, 2011)
Clever and carefully researched story of Jerusalem's historical, spiritual, and contemporary importance.

The Meaning of the Bible: What the Jewish Scriptures and Christian Old Testament Can Teach Us
Douglas A. Knight and Amy-Jill Levine (New York: HarperOne, 2011)
Very well-reviewed new book from two of the top Old Testament scholars in the world.

NRSV Study Bible
The best ones are the New Oxford Annotated Bible (Oxford University Press, 2010), the HarperCollins Study Bible (HarperOne, 2006), and the New Interpreter's Bible (Abingdon, 2003).  But I've got $10 for any NRSV study Bible at Tree of Life.  The New Revised Standard Version's mantra is "as literal as possible" but "as free as necessary."  Unlike the better-selling NIV, the NRSV translation committee was not dominated by fundamentalists.  The NRSV features a number of distinctives that fundamentalists love to hate, most notably inclusive language, brothers and sisters.  Every decent college bookstore in America sells NRSV study Bibles.  Does Tree of Life?

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7)
J.K. Rowling (New York: Arthur A. Levine, 2009)
I'm mostly curious to see if, like most "Christian" bookstores, Tree of Life believes Harry Potter is satanic.

Dollar Bonus Round!
A buck to you and a buck to OBU for every book by

• Archbishop Desmond Tutu
• Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong
• Oklahoma City pastor Robin Meyers
• Astronomer Carl Sagan
• Paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould
• Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson

I'm sure these people get bashed mercilessly in "Apologetics" and "Worldview" classes, but I'm sure you are encouraged to read them before you dismiss their arguments:

• Christopher Hitchens
• Richard Dawkins
• Daniel Dennett

And Just for Fun...
Take pictures of the most ridiculous books you see in Tree of Life, "Christian" or otherwise.  Post them to our Facebook page, too.

I'm betting I keep all my money today.  But trust me, I would love more than anything in all the world to write a $100 check to OBU, give $100 to the students who found the books, and even pay out extra for the Dollar Bonus Round.  So get out there, Bison, and prove me wrong!

Student Saturday: My OBU Story

One of the things I want this blog to become is a forum for students and alumni to tell their OBU stories.  Many people have indicated interest, but say they don't know exactly what to say.  Some are hesitant to speak publicly for fear of recrimination or harassment.  Others are unsure whether to emphasize the positive aspects, or the ways in which encroaching fundamentalism detracted from their experience.

I'm hoping some of you have dramatic stories of run-ins with fundamentalism -- being silenced by administrators, being threatened or harassed, being forced into reparative therapy for being gay, etc.  I don't have any stories like that.  My story is actually pretty ordinary.  But it is my own, and I'm happy to share it with you in gratitude for your kindness in taking the time to hear all I've had to say these past six weeks.

Name: Jacob Lupfer
Years: 1999-2002
Major(s): Religion (Bible emphasis)
Hometown: Kissimmee, Florida
Church Affiliation Then: First United Methodist Church, Kissimmee, Florida
How/Why I Chose OBU: A girl
Good Times: Life felt pretty carefree!  I spent a lot of time with my girlfriend (we married in 2002 and divorced in 2008), but also enjoyed a small-ish circle of really good friends.  In 2001 and 2002, I completed the OKC Memorial Marathon -- that was 10 years and 50 pounds ago, but remains one of my proudest accomplishments.  I went hiking in several locations around Oklahoma and visited a number of friends' hometowns.  I don't have a lot of campus memories that stick out in my mind, but I enjoyed late-night study and BS sessions at Denny's, IHOP (which opened while I was there), a dumpy diner/truck stop the name of which escapes me now, and a bar called Dietrich's.  I absolutely loved Van's Pig Stand, and there were two other BBQ places -- one on S. Kickapoo and one just east of campus on MacArthur -- that we went to a lot.  I did some volunteer work at the Central Oklahoma Juvenile Center in Tecumseh, which was pretty eye-opening.  I jogged around the airport, downtown, and along the (then) dirt roads near St. Gregory's.  I tried racquetball, but never became very good.  I took voice lessons from a music major.  Attending oratorio concerts helped nurture a lifelong love of sacred choral music.  I loved all the professors in my department.  I wish I had taken more classes with Don Wester and Tom Dowdy.
Bad Times: J-Term and summer school were pretty boring -- and that's saying something because much of the time at OBU, there wasn't a lot going on.  It was hard to have a serious girlfriend, because you could never spend time alone together.  In retrospect, I found the authoritarian cultural/institutional dynamic about morals and sexuality to be extremely backwards, repressive, and ultimately pretty harmful to people's development.  I learned to think for myself at OBU, but I didn't learn to be my own person.  I enjoyed class lectures, but discussions could be pretty painful.  A lot of students had never thought for themselves and had no intention of ever doing so.  Chapel services were often quite bad (though I liked the pipe organ).  The fact that chapel was compulsory struck me as extremely odd, but I was so compliant and non-confrontational back then I never tested the policy to find out what the consequences were, if any.  I had a NatSci biology class that was 5% science and 95% indoctrination.  It was the only class I had at OBU that was just awful.  At the time, I was no Mark Brister fan.  I knew he had been part of the fundamentalist takeover and I was suspicious of his every move, especially when Professor Slayden Yarbrough retired under circumstances that weren't clear to me.  I had a few friends on the Bison staff, and it stinks how badly student journalism has been censored at OBU.
Best Thing(s) about OBU: The professors were great.  Almost from the beginning, I got the feeling that I wanted to become a professor one day (though I wouldn't last long at a place like OBU).  My teachers took the time to get to know me, to mentor me, and to take my questions seriously.  When I decided to go to graduate school, they were very encouraging and helpful.  Occasionally we brought scholars to OBU for conferences and lectures, and this helped me to see what academia outside the confines of fundamentalist-tending institutions could be like.  Meeting scholars like Jacob Neusner, William Scott Green, Phyllis Trible, and others turned out to be very consequential for my development.
Worst Thing(s) about OBU: The culture was extremely authoritarian and conformist.  I was always someone who pretty much did what I thought my parents/church/family wanted, but even I never got over how weird it was to be part of a community that was so conformist.  Maybe I just wasn't familiar with the Calvinist strand in Baptist life where you have to show people that you're "in."  But it was strange seeing Christians trying so hard to out-Christian one another.  Combine that with the bizarre mating ritual that involved getting very fashionably dressed for Tuesday night BCM services... it was just all very strange to me.  And as much as I hated chapel, I sometimes wished there was a Sunday service on campus because a lot of the Baptist churches in and around Shawnee were insufferable -- like parodies of themselves.  (To be fair, I never attended UBC or FBC.  Eventually, I attend the UMC church downtown, and finally ended up driving 40 miles each way to Mayflower United Church of Christ in Oklahoma City, which was absolutely wonderful).  Overall, there were things about OBU that seemed to retard peoples' personal development.  A lot of identity/personality/values issues tend not to get worked out in that kind of environment, because it's only "okay" to be one kind of person.  I think a lot of people ended up trying so hard to be that idealized OBU Christian that they resisted/fought/hated whatever they actually were.  Well, enough pop psychology.  I just feel like there were ways in which being at OBU was more harmful than helpful, and to the degree that's true, it's a shame.
Spiritual/Religious Reflections (if any): For many years, most OBU students who entered as church kids and left as moderate evangelicals can honestly say that OBU helped them to think for themselves, engage their religious tradition with a good balance of head and heart, and contributed to their development as thinking Christians.  That's great.  And really, I think that ideal is about the best we can hope for.  My journey was quite different.  At OBU, I realized I didn't believe most of what I was taught about the Bible, God and Jesus as a child.  The books I read and the critical thinking skills I learned helped me arrive at relatively unorthodox positions.  Most of all, I learned that it's better to take the Bible seriously than literally -- and that the two are mutually exclusive.  For several years, I would keep searching for a version of Protestantism I could believe honestly and with integrity.  In the end, all I could do was define my faith in terms of what I didn't believe, not what I did believe.  There turned out not to be much left.  So I know all the hymns, most of the scriptures and I love parts of the tradition, but I just don't feel it.  I'm eternally grateful that OBU afforded me the skills, knowledge, and encouragement to think through some of the most profound implications of our existence.  I hope others will continue to find that same opportunity, no matter where their journey takes them.
Life/Career: Master of Theological Studies at Boston University School of Theology; 2 years in parish ministry; 2 years in K-12 public education; Currently pursuing a Ph.D. in political science
Residence: Washington, D.C.
Church Affiliation Now: None
Reflections on OBU-BGCO Relationship: People's perceptions about OBU are relative.  I thought I was conservative, but when I came to OBU, I was liberal by comparison.  What amazed me was this prevalent idea among Oklahoma Baptists that OBU was liberal.  I always found that laughable, but compared to a lot of fundamentalist churches in Oklahoma, I guess it's true.  Even now, as fundamentalists are replacing moderates on Bison Hill and the BGCO is obviously calling a lot of the shots, there are still Baptist pastors warning their young congregants, "Don't go to OBU -- you'll lose your faith."  The only way we are ever going to win this fight is if we fight battles on two fronts.  We all know the idea that OBU is liberal is completely ridiculous -- and we need to push back against fundamentalism whenever it rears its ugly head.  But to the degree that Oklahoma Baptist clergy and laypeople actually do believe OBU is liberal, godless, and/or dangerous, we need to continue to stoke and affirm those fears.  In order for our long-awaited split to happen, it can't just be a coalition of relative moderates breaking the tie that binds us to fundamentalists.  It has to be a large number of fundamentalists saying "good riddance" to us.
Final Thoughts: I am happy to continue providing some informational and structural resources to Save OBU.  But I cannot be the only leader in this movement.  Not that the fundamentalists would like me any better if I was a United Methodist minister or a liberal Episcopal layman, but the fact that I turned out not to be very religious makes me even easier to dismiss.  While there are plenty of things I find admirable about the Baptist tradition before the fundamentalist takeover, it never was or will be my tradition.  But for many of you, it is yours.  That's why we need you to be leaders in this movement.  You have had something taken from you, and you are the ones who need to fight to take it back.

As always, if you would like to share your OBU story, perhaps you can follow some version of the format I used above.  Feel free to copy the text below and, in the words of Shakespeare, "Speak what you feel, not what you ought to say."

Name:
Years:
Major(s):
Hometown:
Church Affiliation Then:
How/Why I Chose OBU:
Good Times:
Bad Times:
Best Thing(s) about OBU:
Worst Thing(s) about OBU:
Spiritual/Religious Reflections (if any):
Life/Career:
Residence:
Church Affiliation Now:
Reflections on OBU-BGCO Relationship:
Final Thoughts:

Student Saturday: Job Search Edition

Now that Christmas break is over, many students turn their attention to one of life's necessities: getting a job.  Seniors are looking for openings in their fields.  Underclassmen are looking for internships.  Sure, we praise education for its intrinsic value.  But let's face it: we all count on our degrees to help us secure gainful employment.

OBU has a nice resource page on Resumes, References, Interviewing, and More.

But based on recent history, there are a few other things OBU didn't teach you.  Given its own dealings with personnel, you should definitely keep these points in mind.  After all, actions speak louder than words.  Of course, our fair alma mater would only abide by the highest ethical standards in its own personnel policies and procedures.  So you should expect other prospective employers to play by the same rules.

• You may have heard that it's unethical for interviewers to ask private, invasive questions about your religious or political opinions that have nothing to do with the conduct of your job.  Well, OBU now does this all the time.
• Do you have impeccable academic and personal credentials for teaching Bible and theology?  Great... if you're a man.  If you're a woman, don't bother.  God has other plans for you.
• You may have thought that employers can't fire you for your personal opinions and beliefs, especially if you are doing an exemplary job.  Well, maybe they shouldn't.  But if they answer to a fundamentalist religious organization, they can.  They have, and they will again.
• You may have thought that you have rights under contracts or institutional personnel policies that protect you from retaliation and baseless termination.  You do, but if your supervisors work for a fundamentalist-controlled religious institution, they can dismiss you anyway.  And can probably even convince themselves they are doing God's will by doing so.
• Want to be the dean of a Baptist university's religion school?  It helps to be an old buddy of the state convention's executive director.  "But the convention's executive director is not the boss of the university's president," you say.  You're right, he's not.  But he thinks he is.  Apparently, that's all that matters.

So, dear OBU students, remember all that you have learned about human resource laws and ethics.  And remember that with fundamentalist institutions, not only do the laws not apply -- the ethics don't either.

And as you move out into the world of work to start building your fortune repaying your student loans, you are counting on our alma mater to maintain and maybe build on its proud reputation.  When the opposite happens, it hurts you the most (and the loans have to be repaid regardless).  You wouldn't want to hand a prospective employer a resume that lists a degree from Bob Jones University, Liberty University, or Pensacola Christian College -- all of which have earned reputations for intolerance, ignorance, and dubious academic rigor.  But if OBU's slide into fundamentalism continues at the current pace, it may not be long before our degrees from OBU on our resumes will cost alumni/ae more jobs than they gets us.

Student Saturday: Don't Lose Hope

Just a few scattered thoughts today, but I do hope you'll forward this to as many current OBU students as possible...

Mid-October Q & A with the Administration
A typical page from any crisis management plan goes something like this: Decision makers do something controversial that pleases a powerful few and upsets the majority.  A few people raise their voice in protest.  Decision makers agree to meet with the disaffected constituents.  The meeting happens, a few people air their concerns, but the policy stays the same.  Finally, and most crucially, the decision makers hope that the protesters shut up, go home, and forget the whole thing ever happened.

OBU administrators have been using this tactic a lot lately -- not only with students, but also with current and retired faculty.  They only win if we actually do shut up and go home.

In response to a modest amount of publicly aired dissatisfaction with recent policy and personnel changes, the administration held a forum with students in mid-October.  It was more of a press conference than a conversation: the questions had to be submitted in advance, and certain topics (the unethical and groundless dismissal of two professors) were off the table altogether.

But students did get to hear the administration respond to concerns that no woman had been hired to teach biblical studies or theology in a half century and that soon, students will be required to purchase textbooks from a fundamentalist bookstore.

What's Next?
They only win if you remain quiet and compliant.  The bookstore situation (as I understand it) is so outrageous that you (and your parents) should simply insist that you will not abide by the new policy.  Frankly, too many OBU parents are in the dark about all the recent negative changes at OBU.  And the checks they send OBU every year make the BGCO's contribution seem like pocket change.  Maybe when they start getting bills from a fundamentalist bookstore, they will be more vocal.

Most students perceive administrators have been dismissive of their concerns.  If this is true, I understand it must feel frustrating.  But you have to be relentless.  You can bet that the fundamentalists at the BGCO have been relentless in their goal of devolving OBU into a fundamentalist Bible academy.    It's been their dream since literally before you were born.  We have to patient yet firm in our resolve to stand up for OBU's great liberal arts tradition.

As the weeks and months go on, we will be incorporating more and more students, parents, alumni, and faculty into our movement.  Some of you will be back on Bison Hill in a matter of days.  Others will not return until later in the month.  But don't wait another moment to make your voice heard and spread the word.

YOU are the ones with the greatest stake in OBU's success.  The consequences of OBU's ongoing fundamentalist transformation are unthinkable.  You are the ones who will suffer most if OBU loses its accreditation and your degree becomes worthless.  You are the ones whose graduate school options could be limited to the now-fundamentalist SBC seminaries and law schools like Liberty and Regent.  And you will be repaying student loans regardless of whether OBU returns to its former glory as a beacon of knowledge and inquiry or continues down the road to ruin.

Right now, there are people in the Baptist Building who are elated that moderate professors have been fired and that philosophy is being replaced with "apologetics."  Their decades-long dream of turning OBU into a fundamentalist Bible academy now seems within reach.  What are you going to do to fight back?