Sorry for the response on an old post. I’ve been reading your blog for a while, but am just now catching up after being in Iraq for most of the last year. This post is especially near to my heart as both a BJU grad, and an RPA minor.

My wife and I have moved further and further outside of the BJU orbit as God has led us into a more grace based orbit, and I think that the further removed we are from it, the more our eyes are opened to just how prevalent the racist attitudes are/were. Although I took small stands while there, I wish I could have seen sooner just how damaging those attitudes were, and unfortunately how much I had even “bought into” in subtle ways some of their arguments defending their beliefs.

Interestingly (at least to me anyway), it was classes with Dr. DeWitt Jones where we had to read, watch, listen to and analyze speeches by Martin Luther King Jr., Jesse Jackson and others of all political and cultural stripes, that I first began to seriously question much of what I had been taught about racism and even my heritage after being raised in a Greenville SC/ BJU orbit from birth. I know that Dr. Jones probably doesn’t remember, but I had a couple of conversations with him during private lessons that changed my thinking in regards to ML King, and those conversations became one of the key turning points God used to lead me in a direction outside of fundamentalism and to where I am now as a Chaplain.

Thanks for all the honesty, openness and theological discernment that you put into your blogs.

Ben

1. Jones Sr. believed that segregation was biblical. He claimed that God had segregated the Jews, and therefore that “God Almighty himself is the author of segregation.” Anyone who claimed segregation was wrong was “slandering the God of our fathers.” Bob Jones Jr. also promoted segregation in a 1958 sermon, which he published in a right-wing magazine after NBC refused to air it. Although the reason for NBC’s rejection is unknown, the editors of this magazine asserted that it was rejected because the sermon was an attack upon NBC’s “darling,” integration.

2. Sometimes, extra-biblical reasons for the University’s racial policy were cited by school officials. For instance, Jones, Jr. also claimed that integration was a “social problem,” that “from the standpoint of a pure, hard common sense, it is unwise, and unfair to the children, and an unnatural thing.” Jones Jr. also claimed that integration would prevent black students from developing leadership skills because they would “rarely have an opportunity to rise to the top on the basis of personality, intelligence, leadership, etc.” Jones Sr. argued that most Christian blacks were uninterested in integration, and that if blacks were taught by white teachers, they might lose the simple faith passed down from one generation to another.

My conclusion:

Old southern values and religious beliefs, which BJU had embraced, came into conflict with changing times. BJU was torn between following the faith of their fathers and staying culturally relevant. Despite the school’s attempt to stand for its beliefs, the University changed. Slowly and stubbornly the school became friendlier in its race relations, but the stigma of racism plagued the school for many years after the 1983 ruling [and probably still does]. The alarmist cries of Jones III about the death of religious liberties in America have turned into little more than dusty notes forgotten about in the BJU archives. The cultural heritage that BJU embraced, struggled for, and slowly abandoned has become a reminder that even in Christian setting where truth is proclaimed, non-biblical values can get mixed up with biblical values and cause all sorts of confusion.

Tim

Thanks for the response! I have gone through a very similar dark valley and am all too familiar with the pain. And I would only offer you both a knowing hug. No condemnation, no censure, no ostracization or excommunication. Your pain was and is very real and will be something you will likely deal with for years to come. I still am.

I have no issues with the clarity of your warning cries. There is a lot of evil there and your exposure can be multiplied manyfold. Too many have chosen to be quiet for too long while graceless Christianity outfitted their show window with external trappings. You have seen past the facade and have felt the bite of the wolf. Their is warrant for you to cry loud and hard and long. I’m certainly not asking you to be quiet. I’m not, though I am blogless.

My minor divergence is that God has not been rendered impotent in any way by all the sin that goes on under their priestly garments. WHILE you sound the alarms, also cheer the coming triumph of One who conquered sin and death and hell and legalism. Maybe the nuance is too subtle. Likely, I’m just incapable of effectively communicating my thought. But out of that aura of hopelessness has come hope for me. Since leaving, I have found God to be so much bigger and BJU so much smaller and irrelevant than I could previously fathom. While III thinks that the status of Christianity in the world is attributable to this one institution (the real quote is even more disgusting), God has chosen to work in incredible ways through a lot of really ordinary people, only an incredibly small fraction of which have even heard of BJU.

I can empathize with your disgust. I also feel strongly for those who are still duped into thinking that one cultic city block is a piece of heaven. The awakening, though, is God’s work. I marvel to hear your story and that God has again, to the praise of the glory of His grace, rescued another from that system. But, honestly, this is happening a lot more than you or I realize because God is more passionate about justice and kingdom building and sanctification and restoring hope than you and I ever thought of being. There are even some subversive types over there that are sneaking grace and hope in right under the nose of the law – missionaries to self-professed missionaries. Focusing on Christ has the side benefit of taking the focus from that which is not Christlike.

I have travelled down the road you’re on and am maybe a few steps ahead. Hope is dawning and will for you. Freedom is here, but knowing the depth of it is still ahead. Healing takes time but is happening. Health will return and joy with it. Time will reveal the kind providence behind the pain.

Christ is all!

Camille and I have faced a lot in this last year — some things we’ve talked openly about, some things that are still so hurtful that we have not. We’re still healing.

One of the truths we’re still in the process of grasping is that our Sovereign God is good and that He does, in time, work all things together for good. Even in all of the wrong that occurs in our lives, He is the ultimate “maker of lemonade from lemons,” if you will. But that He graciously performs this miracle time and again does not excuse the un-Christlike behavior of the wolves around us, those who willingly participate in what is wrong, those whose actions detract from the Gospel message, those who, through their own selfishness, pride and greed, obscure Christ. The topic of racism is a perfect example of an evil attitude that has invaded our ranks and that victimizes innocent people. I know you agree.

Camille and I can both appreciate that the way we have chosen to speak runs contrary to what other people may choose if they were in our shoes. We’ve been told many times to tread with care, to speak softly, to tone it down, to keep our mouths shut, to be silent. That our consciences have compelled us to choose otherwise is what landed us outside of BJU and outside of Fundamentalism. That BJU and Fundamentalism have rejected our words and our manner only point up the fact that we are, time and again, focusing on the culture’s sore spots — boils that are painful to the touch and sensitive to scrutiny.

Not all people believe that stark, point-blank rhetoric falls within the scope of words that are “seasoned with grace.” Where “tough love” is exhibited, some see only vengefulness, harshness, and gracelessness. Though it’s very much human nature to wish for it, it’s just not realistic to expect that the Good Shepherd will guide us all in the same way, single-file along the same path, bleating our “baa” in perfect unison. When the wolves invade, there *should* be a great deal of alarm. There are moments for idyllic passivity; but there are also times when the right thing to do is to cry at the top of our lungs that something is very, very wrong.

I don’t want my children to be color blind. I want them to love colors, all of them, in petunias, personalities, and people. My son, who seems to have a hard time remembering names, always wants to play with the “brown” kids down the street. That’s the color he sees and that’s the way he describes them. There’s not a shred of prejudice in noticing their color. He loves them, prays for them, and plays nicely with them – just like he does with any and every other child that walks into our yard. I want him to see differences and glorify the Creator for making them. Being “color blind” may have some semblance of equality in it, but it’s boring!

I was born in Africa (I hate that term as it is a continent not a country, but I’m trying to be a little obtuse) and lived for the first 13 years of my life as the odd man out so to speak. I then moved to rural upstate New York where there was little racial variety. What little there was, though, seemed irrelevant – honestly. I then moved to BJU and the South and finally learned what it was to be racially prejudiced. Wow, I still get stunned once in awhile. Every spend any time in Mississippi??? I worked their for a month once. Wheww!!

I was at BJU during the first court case (early 80s?). Every Bible teacher was mandated to explain to the students why BJU was taking that stand. I had 3 Bible classes that semester and… you guessed it, I got 3 disparate reasons. I came away from those classes feeling sorry for the teachers who were put in such an indefensible spot. Maybe they were complicit and maybe they thought there was a greater good somewhere in towing the line. I know I felt sorry for them at the time. The whole thing was so phoney, especially when it came time to make application. And yet every BJU Review and publication came out with all the colors of the rainbow as if those pictures accurately represented the student body makeup. I really believe the elitism goes well beyond just color though…..

For me, the most disgusting aspect of their theologically based (yeah right!!) racism was the way in which it marginalized the Gospel. It is so disgusting to me that someone should have to become American (culturally) or white (ethnically) or higher class (socially) in order to enjoy and participate in the Gospel. What nonsense!! The true Gospel transcends all of those barriers – James 3&4.

I was turned on to your site by a mutual friend whose eyes were recently opened a bit more by VanVonderan & Johnson in The Subtle Power. I spent too much of my life thinking I was covertly operating in the bubble without having the bubble mentality. Now that I have a few year’s distance, I confess that while I might have been closer to the edge of the bubble than some, I was still in it. Praise God for Phil 1:6!! He’s still a-workin’!

While I appreciate the subject and your candor in handling it, there is an edge that concerns me. I’d love to see you define yourself more by what you love than by what you hate. The worst part about “fundamentalism” as a movement is that it is so intent on stuffing down people’s throats that which it also finds unpalatable. If you’ve been struck by grace (and I know you have), then ooze grace yourself. Contrast the prejudice with profoundly expressed joy in the diversity of your great God. Show how our differences magnify His grace in creation and re-creation. I hope I don’t sound like I’m coming down hard because I certainly don’t mean to be. I’m a newbie on your site and have read little enough to legitimize any criticism I might levy. I just have an idea of the phases you go through in your recovery from elder-brotherism and I’d like to bump you through this phase a little quicker than I went through it.

Christ is all!