CCCU Selects a New President

The Council for Conservative Christian Colleges and Universities, a trade organization that includes many evangelical colleges and some that are inching toward fundamentalism, has selected a successor to retiring President Paul Corts.

The CCCU's Board of Directors announced this week that it has selected Dr. Ed Blews as the council's sixth president.  I don't know whether Blews insists on being called "doctor" (I doubt it), but most people I know with law degrees and honorary doctorates but no earned doctorate tend not to go by "doctor."  Yet the CCCU wants us to know that "Dr. Ed Blews" is its new leader.

We've written about the CCCU before.  Veronica did some impressive research showing that female professors and administrators fare much worse at CCCU institutions, which should come as no surprise given that many of the member schools are affiliated with sexist denominations or organizations.  The CCCU purports to represent "intentionally Christ-centered" institutions.  Of the more than 900 religiously affiliated colleges and universities in the U.S., the CCCU would have you believe that only its members are intentionally Christ-centered.  By implication, most of the rest are just nominally Christian or somehow lacking when it comes to Christian commitment.  I know of hundreds of Catholic and mainline Protestant schools that would beg to differ, but the CCCU continues in its arrogant role of being the arbiter of which schools are intentionally Christ-centered.

The CCCU publishes a newsletter, sponsors conferences, and coordinates its cash cow -- student programs.  Its more than five dozen full-time employees include a government affairs staffer (lobbyist?) who monitors federal legislation and regulations.  Though ostensibly nonpartisan, the CCCU has a decidedly pro-Republican bent (though not as blatant as, say, the Southern Baptist Convention).  Of course, this reflects the increasingly rightward shift of the religious and cultural elites who serve as presidents of the CCCU's member institutions.  Blews himself has donated over $5,500 to many Republican candidates and committees at the federal level over the years (and, in fairness, $200 to one Democrat 22 years ago).


The good news is that Dr. Blews does not appear to be a Baptist or have any background with Southern Baptist higher education.  He attended CCCU member institution Seattle Pacific University and the controversial Thomas Cooley Law School.  Since then, he has spent most of his career running the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Michigan.  So he probably doesn't see himself as having a dog in the fight over the fundamentalist takeover of the remaining Southern Baptist-affiliated institutions.


If anything, I would expect Blew and the CCCU to side with us and our friends at other Baptist schools.  There are two reasons why they should.  First and most obviously, the path the fundamentalists are on will eventually take all our schools down a road that leads to diminished standards, loss of accreditation, and ultimately financial problems -- all of which will disqualify them from CCCU membership.  CCCU dues are not overly expensive, averaging a little over $11,000 per institution per year (though dues probably vary depending on member schools' enrollments).  But the CCCU would not want to lose its Baptist schools -- or their money.  Second, the CCCU has a number of schools that are "intentionally Christ-centered" without being operated by pesky, meddling, and often amateurish state convention elites and convention-elected trustees who are wont to run these schools in the ground (see: Georgia Baptist Convention).  So there is nothing about state convention control that would make Baptist schools better bets for membership and active participation in the CCCU.  Frankly, I bet people in the CCCU's Washington, D.C. headquarters who know anything about the Baptist battles see state convention control as more of a liability than an asset for these schools.


Now, personally I'm no fan of the CCCU.  The claim to extra-special holiness (only its member schools are "intentionally Christ-centered") is offensive, blatantly anti-Catholic, judgmental, and factually untrue.  But the CCCU has a few member schools who have built stellar academic reputations and remained faithful to their mission (Christian liberal arts education) without trampling all over academic freedom.  We've discussed this issue before here and here.  So we actually are much better off following the lead of CCCU colleges like Gordon, Wheaton, and Whitworth than the post-Takeover SBC seminaries and state convention-related schools that are going down the fundamentalist path.


My personal misgivings about the entire CCCU enterprise aside, Ed Blews has an impressive record of service that prepares him well for this new venture.  We here at Save OBU hope that in the years to come, the Council will not be shy about supporting Baptist schools that need to break away from their state conventions in order to remain faithful to their missions and to norms like academic freedom and independent governance.  Certainly the calls for separation (represented now by groups like Save OBU and Save Our Shorter) will grow louder, stronger, and more unified in the years to come.  Hopefully, the CCCU will be a resource for intentionally Christ-centered Baptist institutions that need to alter their relationships with their state conventions in order to fully realize their missions and potential.


In any event, we wish Ed Blews all the best in his stewardship of the CCCU.

Save OBU Outreach: Good Non-denominational Colleges

This week, we've made efforts to reach out to people other than our core constituency of students, parents, faculty, and alumni.  We brought attention to how OBU's devolution into a fundamentalist Bible academy would hurt the Shawnee community.  And we looked beyond OBU to the tragic story of how the Fundamentalist Takeover of the SBC so dramatically degraded the quality and rigor of Baptist higher education.  Though every school's story is a little different, other Baptist colleges are going through different versions of the same problems that we've seen at our beloved OBU.

Seminaries

Today we want to speak to another group: non-denominational Christian colleges.  in a very real sense, these institutions have benefitted from the decline of Baptist higher education.  Take the seminaries, for example.  There was a time not to long ago when some of the SBC seminaries were recognized throughout American Protestantism as quite good.  Today, the SBC seminaries have been purged of what few liberals ever existed there, as well as all moderates.  Some of them are led by loud-mouthed fundamentalist culture warriors.  As mainline Protestant seminaries have continued to occupy the moderate-to-liberal end of the spectrum, the decline of SBC seminaries has left a huge gap in evangelical theological education.  Seminaries like Fuller, Gordon-Conwell, and Asbury have stepped into that gap and picked up where Southern Baptists abandoned ideologically diverse, intellectually rigorous graduate theological education.

Colleges

At the undergraduate level, the decline has been just as spectacular.  As I looked at the SBC's list of affiliated colleges yesterday, it occurred to me just how dramatically the Southern Baptists have fallen when it comes to colleges an universities.  Barely over 20 years ago, that list would have included many of the finest private universities in the South.  Today, it's actually pretty embarrassing.    Thankfully, OBU is one of the best Baptist schools by any objective measure.  But perhaps the most tragic consequence of the Fundamentalist Takeover has been the absolute degradation of Baptist academia.

As with the SBC seminaries' decline, independent colleges have stepped in to fill the massive vacuum in Baptist higher education left by the exodus of Furman, Wake Forest, Mercer, Stetson, etc. and the fundamentalists' attack on on the remaining educational institutions.  Schools like Wheaton, Biola, Whitworth, and Gordon have emerged as the standard bearers in evangelical higher education as more and more Baptist colleges have descended into outright fundamentalism.

A few weeks ago, we talked about a recent op-ed piece by two Gordon College professors about a "renaissance" in evangelical higher education.  Though they do not take up this distinction in their essay, the comparison between non-denominational colleges' renaissance and Baptist colleges' decline is stark.

Why has one subset of conservative Protestant schools flourished while another has floundered?  The answer is complicated.  But it's undeniable that the Fundamentalist Takeover of the SBC in the 1980s and the state conventions in the 1990s is a big part of the story.  The SBC seminaries fell quickly, and many of the better SBC colleges left their state conventions.  Those that remained, like OBU, endured varying degrees of Baptist battles in the 1990s and 2000s.  Fortunately, OBU Presidents Agee and Brister generally protected OBU from fundamentalism.  The current administration seems much more accommodating.

While Baptist universities have had to deal with fundamentalist convention-elected trustees (particularly in the seminaries) and appease fundamentalist convention leaders, the non-denominational colleges have been able to pursue excellence in Christian higher education without such distractions.

We applaud our brothers and sisters at these schools for the very fine work they've done.  Admittedly they have outpaced us, given the retrenchment toward fundamentalism in many Baptist colleges.  We envy their freedom and independence.  We hope they realize that our students, faculty, and alumni long for academic freedom and fearless inquiry.

Denominationalism is dying in American Christianity.  While some media and scholarly commentators believe this dynamic is limited to Mainline Protestantism, we see it in evangelicalism as well.  Southern Baptist leaders are well aware that their "brand" has become irrevocably associated with fundamentalist theology, partisan politics, and anti-intellectualism.  At the same time, evangelical institutions without denominational shackles have flourished, from local churches all the way to universities.

Rather than trying to shed its Baptist identity, we want OBU to embrace it -- but in a classical sense, not in the narrow way today's fundamentalist SBC and BGCO leaders have defined it.  But given the past 20-30 years in Baptist life, we can't help but envy evangelical institutions' progress in evangelical theological education and look forward to joining that top tier as soon as we are free from our burdensome imprisonment to the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma.

Progress Report on Save OBU Updates and Changes

So much has been happening at Save OBU, it's hard to keep track of it all.  About two weeks ago, I announced some changes to the blog designed to give voice to a new generation of OBU alumni.  Today I'll briefly report on some new initiatives and lay out a sketch of our vision going forward into the spring.

New Contributing Editor

After researching and writing 72 blog posts and generating more than 12,000 pageviews on the website, I invited Veronica Pistone ('11) to join me as a Contributing Editor.  Already, Veronica has impressed our readers with her knowledge, insight, and clarity.  She has not shied away from difficult topics, and her commitment to Baptist freedom and her love of OBU shines through in every post.

Veronica receiving an award for outstanding academic

achievement from SCS Dean Mark McClellan in 2011

Guest Bloggers

On Sunday, we ran our first in a series of occasional guest blog posts.  Caitlin Dacus ('11) shared an informative and passionately written essay on early Baptist hero John Leland.  Her connections to OBU's current situation show how far our alma mater has fallen.  Tomorrow and Friday, I am pleased to welcome Clayton Mauritzen ('06) as he shares his OBU story.  Look for more guest posts in the weeks and months to come.  If you have a perspective or story and would like to be considered for publication here, be sure to email us at SaveOBU@gmail.com.  Remember, our focus is on protecting academic freedom at OBU and advocating for independence from the BGCO.

Spotlight on Recent OBU Disasters

In giving voice to a younger generation of OBU alumni, we are hearing from people who had a front row seat for the Norman-Whitlock administration's authoritarianism, new fundamentalist-inspired direction, and assaults on Baptist freedom.  If you missed it last week, take a look at our three part series on administration at OBU.

A Broad View of Evangelical Academia

Initially, I invested a lot of time in learning about other Southern Baptist colleges that parted company with their state conventions.  As inspiring as those stories are, OBU's situation is unique in that the convention literally owns the university.  The BGCO has OBU in a legal straitjacket from which we cannot easily escape.  That's why they are able to advocate for a fundamentalist agenda with such impunity -- we really have no recourse (which is why our protests must be loud, passionate, and unyielding).  For now, we just have to hope and pray that current leaders will not do any more damage to OBU and its reputation than they already have.

But it occurs to me that while many Baptist schools were fighting battles from which Joe Ingram, Bill Tanner, and Bob Agee wisely and deftly shielded OBU during the Fundamentalist Takeover era, OBU quietly established itself as one of the premier evangelical colleges in the U.S.  Sadly, we are losing ground to other fine colleges like Wheaton, Gordon, Biola, and Whitworth -- institutions that do not have to kowtow to fundamentalists like OBU unfortunately does.  Some are suggesting that we are witnessing an "evangelical renaissance" in academia.  Not only is OBU not taking part, we are actually regressing.  In fact, we just received word that Wheaton hired an outstanding young New Testament professor that OBU passed over for a job in 2009 in spite of her being unanimously recommended by the search committee.

Next Steps

Now that I have help with the daily blogging duties, I am going to start assembling an advisory board for Save OBU.  I'm looking for a handful of people with ties to SBC churches (both BGCO and CBFO) in Oklahoma.

Then, we'll work on compiling a dossier of issues that we can submit to OBU trustees later this spring.

One idea that seems fun and might be effective is to hold a Save OBU rally in Shawnee sometime this year or next.

And we'll begin investigating the politics and processes involved in trustee selection.  With luck and extensive planning, we'll be able to influence trustee election at the BGCO meeting in November.  Given all the student, faculty, alumni, and retired faculty protests, Anthony Jordan is not going to let any non-fundamentalists on the Board from now on.  We need to make sure OBU continues to have good trustees who understand Baptist freedom, academic freedom, and the importance of not ruining an institution's hard-earned and well-deserved reputation for excellence just to satisfy a few Baptist power brokers in OKC and Nashville.

A Word of Thanks
We have received invaluable support and encouragement from Bill Jones ('73) of Texas Baptists Committed.  Bill featured Save OBU on the TBC blog yesterday and we really appreciate all he's done.

And, of course, thank to all of you for your kind words and assistance in spreading the word.

God bless OBU!

An Evangelical Renaissance in Academe?

Several of our readers pointed us to an essay that appeared last week on the Inside Higher Ed blog.  The essay pointed out the need for evangelical scholars to reclaim Christian thought from fundamentalism.  I commend the entire piece for your consideration, but want to comment on some of the relevant points in light of OBU's history and present problems.


The context of this essay is the opening of a new Center for Christian Thought at Biola University in California.  The authors, Gordon College Professors Thomas Albert Howard and Karl W. Giberson, explore some of the reasons why serious Christian engagement with philosophy and culture at a conservative evangelical institution might be problematic (or at least difficult) in light of the fundamentalist resurgence of the past 30 years.


Howard and Giberson tell a story that is familiar to those of us who have studied, lived, and worked in the 20th century's Christian war between modernists and fundamentalists.  But today's OBU students may not realize that there is a noble Christian academic tradition outside of fundamentalism.

Stung by ridicule after the Scopes trial, Fundamentalists retreated to the sidelines of American culture.  There they nurtured a parallel universe of publishing houses, magazines, journals, radio stations, and, not least, colleges and universities to combat the threat of secularism from without and the threat of theological modernism from within. 

Fundamentalists carried into exile many core tenets of Christian orthodoxy -- the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Atonement -- shared by Catholic and Orthodox Christians as well.  But they also carried dubious novelties, such as newfangled teachings on biblical inerrancy and speculations about the End Times.  What is more, they became pointedly hostile toward American culture and disengaged from serious intellectual pursuits, convinced that Christianity was almost exclusively about “the world to come,” with only negligible concern for the here-and-now.

For OBU, at least, we can see the fault lines forming.  Will we continue to be a locus for serious, honest, and searching Christian engagement with the scientific, economic, political, philosophical, artistic, and ethical concerns of the modern world?  Or are we we retreating into the "parallel universe" of fundamentalism to "combat the threat of secularism without and the threat of theological modernism from within?"


The administration's moves over the past two years seem to be a headlong descent into that parallel universe: turning our bookstore into a purveyor of fundamentalist pulp, firing conservative-to-moderate evangelicals who do not toe the party line, welcoming new faculty on the basis of doctrinal agreement rather than academic merit, and cozying up to the fundamentalists who run the BGCO and the SBC.  In the religion department alone, this fundamentalist "parallel universe" exists in the apologetics/"worldview" curriculum and the professional societies new faculty belong to.


This parallel universe attempts to imitate academic rigor and respectability, but the fundamentalist attachments are so bizarre and anti-intellectual as to make the whole enterprise suspect.  Back to the new Biola center:

But beyond the problem of Mr. Worldly Wiseman is the problem of Biola itself.  The problem of Biola, however, is not the problem of Biola alone; it is shared by a number of the more than 115 evangelical schools in the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU), the largest umbrella network of evangelical institutions of higher learning.  The problem is, quite simply, lingering attachment to some of the more dubious certainties and habits derived from Fundamentalism and hardened by the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversies of the 20th century. 

I'm glad Howard and Giberson pointed out the CCCU (Council for Conservative Christian College and Universities), of which OBU is a member.  As badly as the D.C.-based CCCU wants to seem like a uniquely faithful coalition of colleges, the evidence seems to suggest it is just another part of the parallel universe.  It's not a total joke/sham like the Association for Biblical Higher Education (ABHE), which "accredits" fundamentalist Bible academies that could never attain accreditation through an actual accrediting body.  But the CCCU just isn't as special as it thinks it is.  And frankly, I'm not sure why OBU (or any college) is a member.  The CCCU does provide one service you'll be pleased to learn about: Supposedly whenever Dr. Norman actually has to undergo a performance evaluation that includes input from faculty, Dr. Whitlock has proposed to use an instrument developed by the CCCU.  Isn't that reassuring?


We've entered a new world at OBU -- one in which you can't even find the classics of the Christian faith (or any decent new research, either) in the college bookstore, but you can find reassurance in apologetics and "worldview" classes.  While plenty of other conservative Christian colleges are also facing hostile takeovers, some are not.  Some are continuing ahead on the path of enlightened Christian liberal arts education -- the path we would still be on if not for the fact that our leaders have to appease the BGCO.  As schools like Gordon, Wheaton, Biola, Whitworth, and others forge on, OBU and other Southern Baptist schools have to fight against our fundamentalist overlords.  (True fact: Wheaton just hired an amazing professor OBU rejected in order to hire someone from Liberty University.  I'm sorry, but whoever made that decision has absolutely no business in Christian higher education.)

What is more, many old-guard defenders of the status quo, convinced that the residue of fundamentalism is simply “what the Bible plainly teaches,” are not in short supply among donors, board members and vocal alumni.  They would likely perceive some changes such as admitting Catholic faculty, constructively engaging evolution, or modifying statements of faith away from simplistic biblicism as greasing the slippery slope toward perdition.

As fundamentalism faded from view in the middle of the last century, OBU built a proud reputation for an academically rigorous, unapologetically Christian, and unashamedly Baptist brand of higher education.  Yet today, resurgent fundamentalists seem intent on destroying everything we built.  And unless we stand up and fight, they will win.