When he was 38 years old, Ernie Willis (allegedly) raped 15 year old Tina Anderson, his family’s babysitter. I say “allegedly” to cross all my legal Ts and dot my technical Is. She was already at risk — her stepdad was in prison at that time for sexually molesting Tina. And she found herself pregnant, (allegedly) carrying Ernie’s child.

When she and her single mother told her pastor — Bob Jones University Board Member, Chuck Phelps — his response was to put her in front of the church for “discipline,” shuttle her out of state to Colorado away from the investigation where she birthed her child and put her up for adoption. Willis admitted his own paternity of the child on the adoption papers, but the courts will sort through the rest of the details in good time. You can read the linked articles to catch up on the specifics. Phelps gives his version of the events here and here.

While we wait for justice, we who are close to fundamentalism are reeling. One friend of mine had to speak. She cannot use her name (yet). She is a working-outside-the-home mom who sees the effects of fundamentalism’s “hard patriarchy” first hand.

As a recovering fundamentalist, the Tina Anderson/Trinity Baptist Church case has had a particularly profound impact on me. It has taken me some time to figure out just what I found so compelling, however. It isn’t as though I haven’t dealt with poorly-handled sexual abuse situations in Independent Fundamental Baptist (IFB) circles before; in my current line of work I stumble upon them more often than I care to think about. While I cannot adequately express my sadness at what happened to her, her ordeal has finally opened my eyes to a deeper issue.

There is much teaching on the submission of wives to their husbands in fundamentalist circles. In extreme cases, submission is taught as complete floormat-hood for every woman to every man; in less extreme circles, it’s taught in a manner that does not appear to go beyond the biblical teaching – or at least not very far beyond it. Yet sermons on the topic have always bothered me, no matter how progressive the take on the concept. I struggled to uncover the problem, and I honestly couldn’t identify it. All I knew is that my heart would scream over and over that Something. Is. Not. Right.

The Tina Anderson case has finally revealed the reason for the struggle. Despite their assurances that what they were teaching did not mean that women were inferior in any way just because they were required to submit, in reality, the vast majority of IFB leaders do not truly believe that men and women are “equal but with different roles”. They say they do. Many probably even believe they do. Yet their actions consistently prove otherwise.

Again and again, when a case of sexual abuse or rape occurs in IFB circles, it is minimized, covered over, or in some other way hushed up. The woman involved is told to forgive, forget, and move on – or, shamefully, even to confess “her role” in the crime. The man is rarely disciplined or brought to justice – and if he is, the woman is also punished. If the woman struggles with PTSD flashbacks from her attacks, she is told she is indulging in pornographic thoughts. If she struggles with anger over the injustice of what happened to her, she is bitter; if she wishes to pursue justice via legal means, she is unforgiving.

Why?

Because the woman is not truly seen as equal. It’s the only explanation that accounts for the consistently bad response in these circumstances – a response that is then justified by misapplication of scripture. If you still don’t belive me, I invite you to consider your reaction to the concept brilliantly illustrated at Stuff Fundies Like. It was a revelation for me as well.

The reason the Tina Anderson case was and continues to be handled in an appalling way? Tina is a woman, and the rapist and authority figures in the case are men. It’s that simple. And now that I’ve figured it out, I will never feel guilty for my heart’s cry again.

We’ve got trouble, folks. In Fundy City and beyond. Trouble with a Capital T.

Write. Let no one hold you back. Let nothing stop you: not man; not the imbecilic capitalist machinery, in which the publishing houses are the crafty, obsequious relayers of imperatives handed down by an economy that works against us and off our backs; not yourself. Smug-faced readers, managing editors, and big bosses don’t like the true texts of women — female-sexed texts. That kind scares them.

Helene Cixous, “The Laugh of the Medusa”

I’ve rediscovered Hélène Cixous this week — that Jewish French feminist who encourages women to “write the body.” Since men have been writing their body into the logocentric language for millennia, the most assertive and powerful thing we women can do is write our own selves. The most assertive and powerful thing I can do is write my own self.

I read Cixous for the first time at IU and laughed out loud along with the rest of my female classmates. While the men just looked confused.

It’s nothing personal, gentlemen. While we adore you individually, we agree that as a group . . . well, there are some issues.

I always said that I would teach Cixous at BJU someday. With a class of all women — no men allowed. They have Preacher Boys class, right? Surely they’d let us do that, right?

Well, I never got that far, of course. Teaching Malcolm X as an exemplar rhetor at BJU still does give me some street cred, yes?

To write. An act which will not only “realize” the decensored relation of woman to her sexuality, to her womanly being, giving her access to her native strength; it will give her back her goods, her pleasures, her organs, her immense bodily territories which have been kept under seal; it will tear her away from the superegoized structure in which she has always occupied the place reserved for the guilty (guilty of everything, guilty at every turn: for having desires, for not having any; for being frigid, for being “too hot”; for not being both at once; for being too motherly and not enough; for having children and for not having any; for nursing and for not nursing . . . ) — tear her away by means of this research, this job of analysis and illumination, this emancipation of the marvelous text of her self that she must urgently learn to speak. A woman without a body, dumb, blind, can’t possibly be a good fighter. She is reduced to being the servant of the militant male, his shadow. We must kill the false woman who is preventing the live one from breathing. Inscribe the breath of the whole woman.

It’s taken me this long to read the entirety of the documents leading to and following our forced resignations from our former employer. The three-year-old emails and letters from our pastor especially. I just read them for the first time.

And now I get it. The best explanation for my boot from our church comes from Cixous.

An act that will also be marked by woman’s seizing the occasion to speak, hence her shattering entry into history, which has always been based on her suppression. To write and thus to forge for herself the antilogos weapon. To become at will the taker and initiator, for her own right, in every symbolic system, in every political process. It is time for women to start scoring their feats in written and oral language.

Every woman has known the torment of getting up to speak. Her heart racing, at times entirely lost for words, ground and language slipping away — that’s how daring a feat, how great a transgression it is for a woman to speak — even just open her mouth — in public. A double distress, for even if she transgresses, her words fall almost always upon the deaf male ear, which hears in language only that which speaks in the masculine.

I’ll never forget that final meeting with our pastor. I insisted that I join them. Grant, of course, didn’t mind. He’s a thorough egalitarian. He respects me. Like my dad and brother too. And here lies one of my blindspots. Because I’ve been surrounded by strong, intelligent, respectful men my whole life, I assume the same about other men. But my men are rare. Very rare. I know that now.

We were in Starbucks, and during the discussion, Grant sat on his car’s key fob and his trunk popped open. So he went to fix it, and Danny and I sat there waiting.

And there it was. That face. That same face that the glad-handing politician had at my front door. That same face that the man had who stole my parking place when he saw my belly swollen with life. He was scared. Terrified. Of me.

That look has haunted me for three years. I took it personally. No more. Now I understand what he was afraid of and why he tried so desperately and so illogically to get me to stop writing. Cixous explained it.

She must write her self, because this is the invention of a new insurgent writing which, when the moment of her liberation has come will allow her to carry out the indispensable ruptures and transformations in her history, first two levels that cannot be separated.

Healing from intense and pervasive trauma — whether from cancer or rape or earthquake or war — comes as you learn to call yourself a “survivor.” It’s a rhetorical move away from “victim.” When a victim can describe herself as a “survivor,” she:

no longer feels possessed by her traumatic past; she is in possession of herself. She has some understanding of the person she used to be and of the damage done to that person by the traumatic event. Her task now is to become the person she used to be and of the damage done to that person she wants to be. In the process she draws upon those aspects of herself that she most values from the time before the trauma, from the experience of the trauma itself, and from the period of recovery. Integrating all of those elements, she creates a new self, both ideally and in actuality (202).

Judith Herman

“Survivor” identifies autonomy. Personhood. It fully acknowledges the past trauma as trauma. It highlights strength. Rather than things happening to you (scene/victim), you are an agent. You act. You have power. You do stuff.

And fundamentalists hate it. They would say that using “survivor” is a petulant, ungrateful response to the lousy things God has done to/for you. They would say that you shouldn’t just “survive” but “rejoice.” Which means, as usual, “shut up and get back to work.” In fundamentalism, you should only “move” in deference to the whole. You can only “be” in the group. That’s how the ideology becomes god.

Fundamentalists don’t like autonomy. When they say we must “deny the self,” they mean it. But not like Jesus meant it. They mean that we must erase the individual in lieu of the whole. There are no boundaries between persons, just recalcitrant boundaries between sects. We must deny that the self even exists. We can never put ourselves as the agent. “I” should never be the subject of the sentence.

Don’t get mixed up and think that’s the appropriate “grammar” of all Calvinism. I think that’s where this new breed of “Young, Restless, and Reformed” are just finding new duds for an old, mean fundamentalism. A hipster Kesiedispiecostalism. Even Jonathan Edwards in his “Resolutions” talks about what he does. How he acts. How we join God’s ongoing work. We work because He works.

I work because He works.

How does Steve Brown put it? “I’m a Calvinist, so I know it’s all about God. But it’s about me too.”

That’s salvation. God doesn’t save us to be nothing. We weren’t once alive and now we’re dead. We were dead in our trespasses and sins, and He lifted us up and made us His children. The Church Universal isn’t a Borg ship. It’s a city! A Kingdom. A bustling, colorful, dappled, productive, noisy community.

And for now, until the Bridegroom arrives, we persevere. We “keep on keeping on.” It’s a race. We’re running!

I’m running. So let me try this. . . . I have earned a Ph.D. from a Research 1 university with two unaccredited degrees putting a permanent black smudge on my record. I have buried four children — one I carried past term — and have birthed two screamers. I have breastfed those two children — one until he was nearly four and one until he was well past two — and yes, that means I did tandem-nursing. I co-slept, nursed, and wore my babies right through their toddlerhood. Despite ongoing disciplinary action from my employer, I chose gentle discipline for my sons. I am a published author and scholar. I have endured shunning, betrayal, threats, job loss, and emotional, mental, and spiritual abuse from people I considered my dearest friends. And I persevered. God has begun this work in me, and He will perform it until He calls me home. And I join Him.

And if you want to take out your cyber-red-pen and correct the “grammar” on the above paragraph, you’re probably a fundamentalist.

I bought myself that necklace several months ago — right around the time I took my blog “sabbath.” I am wearing it until I believe it. Until I believe that I’m a survivor.

Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.

John Milton

I have recently published on Scribd many of the official documents that led to our exodus from fundamentalism, including our resignation and other correspondence from the aftermath. If I mentioned them in my Ebenezer account, I linked to them there. I haven’t even had the guts to read one of them in its entirely yet — that’s just how painful this all is.

Be sure to read my valiant knight‘s theological tomes: specifically here to Stephen Jones and here to Gary Weier. It will do you good — for your heart, mind, and soul. John Milton would be very proud!

Today Kevin and Elizabeth Schatz will appear in court for beating to death their 7-year-old adopted daughter Lydia. Autopsy reports indicate that she died of rhabdomylosis — a rapid breakdown of skeletal muscle due to injury to muscle tissue. All of this is consistent with the parenting practices the Schatzes followed from Amish-ish fundamentalist preacher and author, Michael Pearl.

Quite simply, Michael Pearl is not just a nut or a monster or a narcissist. He is a heretic. When in 2006 his advice pushed 4-year-old Sean Paddock’s foster parents to smother him to death, I vowed to God that I would not keep silent any longer. In a small way, I thought, I would speak out in my own little slice of the world. Not about Pearl’s parenting advice per se, but about his theology. Because, as I said then, “If there’s anyone in Christendom who’s good at sniffing out heresy, it’s the fundamentalist.”

I was incorrect about that. Not about the heresy, but about the fundamentalist. But that’s another discussion.

I spoke out on an attention-getting fundamentalist forum, Sharper Iron, in 2006. I tell more of the story here, but that, too, is another discussion.

Today, however, I want to highlight what I said back then because in viewing it this morning — especially in light of Lydia’s death — I realize how right I was about the dangers of Pearl’s heresy.

I strategically attempted to soften my argumentative blow by settling for “soft heresy” or “semi-Pelagianism.” But Pearl’s ideas are full-blown Pelagianism. He’s worse than Charles Finney. Way, way worse.

My former fellow fundamentalists concluded I was cherry-picking. They worked hard to discredit me. “Appeal to motive” is the fallacy. C.S. Lewis would call it Bulverism. But I can admit it to myself now that I’m proud of what I said. And I’ll say it again. Only louder now.

Semi-Pelagianism is often the problem we fundies have with Charles Finney. Our criticism of him runs pretty deep and has always surprised me until I studied it further. And Pearl doesn’t get a pass, I would contend, ’cause he’s quaint.

It means, among many things, that we are good enough to achieve salvation alone. And it denies Original Sin. And it makes Augustine spin in his grave.

As for Pearl, I’ll quote him.

From his statement of faith:

In the eating of the tree, the willful and direct disobedience to God resulted in legal estrangement from God and precipitated the curse of death on Adam and all his descendants. All men are born under the curse and totally estranged from God. When a descendant of Adam reaches a level of moral understanding (sometime in his youth) he becomes fully, personally accountable to God and has sin imputed to him, resulting in the peril of eternal damnation. No man is capable of rectifying this state of estrangement from God. Apart from the free gift of God through the substitutionary work of Christ there is no hope of salvation.
SALVATION
When man reaches his state of moral accountability, and, by virtue of his personal transgression, becomes blameworthy, his only hope is a work of grace by God alone.

Sounds like Original Sin. But one of his recordings on Romans 1 and again on Romans 5, he expands on that and claims that the “death” that Adam gave to all of us was physical death alone. “Death passed upon all men, and that’s talking about one thing and one thing only – physical death. It says nothing about sinfulness passing upon all men.”

Okay. That’s kinda vague. Let’s move on. . . .

To Pearl, we are born like blank slates — neither good nor bad, neither with God or against Him:

When a baby comes into the world the baby is separated from God, without the presence of God, without the Spirit of God, without the divine life of God inside the baby. It is disadvantaged in that it does not have the resources of spirit that comes from God to overcome these bodily drives.

Need more? Okay. . . . From Pearl again:

When a descendant of Adam reaches a level of moral understanding (sometime in his youth) he becomes fully, personally accountable to God and has sin imputed to him, resulting in the peril of eternal damnation. No man is capable of rectifying this state of estrangement from God. Apart from the free gift of God through the substitutionary work of Christ there is no hope of salvation.

On Romans 7, Pearl explains Paul’s would-not-could-not passage:

In his experience historically, at one point he was alive, he was not dead in trespasses and sins. He was probably 3 years old, maybe 4.

Putting it all together, he believes that we aren’t born dead in sin, but that we’re in a neutral state. And that sometime in our “youth” we become sinful. From the statement of faith, he states that sin doesn’t come to an unbeliever until a certain age and, thus, he needs no justification until that age.

Still too arcane? Okay — try this on for size. From his article “Living Parallel Lives in the Same Space” (No Greater Joy, Jan-Feb 2005) he says:

These messages are not motivational teachings or principles for you to apply. They are the wonderful good news that Christ has done everything to free you from all sin, all the time, from this day forward, to sin no more.
… We should and can sin no more!
… I have been preaching and living this gospel of sanctification for many years. It is not a theory.”[emphasis mine]

That’s exactly what raises our fur about Finney — and it should! This is classic Semi-Pelagianism or so-called “soft” heresy.

Michael Pearl will appear on CBS’s The Early Show on Friday, March 19. Watch and pray.

UPDATE at 7:47pm, Thursday, March 18, 2010 — According to Michael’s Pearl’s Facebook group, “the interview is canceled.” The saga continues.

Last November, I presented a paper at the annual National Communication Association convention analyzing Bob Jones University’s recent statement on race based on my theory of romantic separation. I argued that rather than a standard apologia, theirs was more a code duello. My paper begins to round-out the dramatistic theory of romance. In fact, all the papers in that panel were a rounding-out of my theory of Burkean romance.

BJU’s rhetoric is more Lost Cause than we (especially Northern) 21st-century listeners might readily perceive. In their drama, God is not an active participant. He’s not even a goal that we might wish to reach someday. No, He’s he’s simply our pit bull — our vicious, Old-Testament force which will scare people back into shape for the sake of preserving that old patrician hierarchy. In sum, God god is not an actor, not an ultimate idealistic purpose, but simply the frightening and preservationist means for the socially successful.

And just this week, a new text plops into my inbox proving the same drama.

The BJU buzz this week swirled around two stories. One, Jim Berg is making a lateral move from the admin building to the seminary come July with Eric Newton taking his place as Dean of Students. Secondly, Bob Jones University finally sanctions its students to use Facebook — even on campus. The new liberty, however, comes with a set of regulations which I’ve cited below. Do you see the romantic drama that I see? Who’s the Actor in the text? What’s the Act? Where or under what conditions is s/he acting? And why? And how?

Another way of asking that is — where’s God in this? Notice that the reason for all the rules is to benefit Bob Jones University, not Christ or the Church. It all centers around BJU’s reputation and preserving that hierarchy.

Social Media Guidelines

Guidelines for Participating in Social Media

A Christian’s use of social media, like any other form of communication, can reflect positively or negatively on his Christian testimony. The guidelines below are common sense principles that will help a Christian maintain a consistent testimony when communicating with others.

• Social media are public forums; there are no private social media sites. Post only information that you are comfortable having many people, including potential future employers, read about you.
• Avoid posting personal information such as your address, phone number, etc., that could make you a target for identity theft.
• Post worthwhile information that adds value; avoid self-promotion and information of limited interest.
• Assume personal responsibility for what you post. Make sure it is accurate. Secure permission before citing another person. Respect copyright laws. Do not post proprietary information, including course syllabi, lecture notes or material on course pages. Cite references, and when you do so, acknowledge the source. Keep in mind that you are legally liable for what you post.
• Identify yourself by your real name and write in the first person. If you identify yourself as a student or faculty/staff member of BJU, be clear that you speak for yourself, not BJU. Keep in mind that what you post will reflect on BJU. As appropriate, add a disclaimer that indicates the content of your site represents your views and does not represent the opinions or positions of BJU.
• Respect your audience. Avoid abusive, slanderous, complaining, profane, irreligious, blasphemous or tale-bearing speech.
• Follow biblical principles when posting on your personal site: communications should be edifying.
• Do not post photos of children or students under 18 without prior parental permission in writing.
• Take the high ground and avoid picking fights. Do not respond to posts critical of you or the University if posting will prolong discussion. If you post information in error, be the first to correct your mistakes.
• Delay posting if you are angry or upset about an issue as this is the time when you are most likely to post information you later regret.
• If you alter a previous post, indicate that you made a modification.

Guidelines for Establishing/Maintaining a BJU Social Media Site

• BJU departments and pre-college schools wanting a social media site are to provide Internet Marketing with the goal(s) for the site, a brief three to six-month plan for how the site will be used and who will post and monitor information. Internet Marketing will launch the site, secure the handle and turn over the site to the existing department. This procedure will ensure there is a record of all “official” sites and that site names are appropriate and consistent. BJU Press departments should direct requests to Interactive Marketing.
• Official sites require time and people resources. In conjunction with setting goals, establish metrics for your site to continually measure its effectiveness. Keep in mind that effectiveness is not always measured by number of followers.
• Student groups such as the Collegian, UBA, etc., are free to establish sites as long as the faculty advisor monitors the site.
• Understand that a department site will bring negative and positive feedback; value the negative feedback and use it to improve as appropriate.
• Provide timely responses.
• In speaking on behalf of the University, be familiar with FERPA regulations and avoid disclosing personal information about a student.
• Avoid articulating positions contrary to the public position of BJU.
• Avoid using an official BJU site to endorse a cause, product or political candidate.
• Keep in mind that you may see student posts that reveal questionable activity or activity contrary to BJU student policies. Use this as an opportunity for dirtyhanded discipleship.
• Faculty and staff should limit access to personal sites during work hours to interactions with students.
• When posting photos, ensure people in the photos meet the dress code for the activity involved. Do not post photos of children or students under 18 without prior parental approval in writing.
• If a question arises you cannot answer, do not try to answer it. Find the appropriate person who can answer.
• Follow the University’s general guidelines for participating in social media.

If you’re wondering how this Greenville Syndrome works, here’s proof from a recent article, “Discipline for Discipleship,” by Greenville pastor Tony Miller from the Bob Jones University’s publication Today’s Christian Preacher, Winter 2010.

When the word discipline enters your mind, do you also think of the word disciple? These two English words come from the same Latin word: discipulus. Discipline is the process and a disciple is the intended product. Years ago in a church history class, Dr. Edward Panosian explained the threefold purpose of local church discipline. He told the seminarians that the purpose was first to remove leaven from the lump (I Corinthians 5:6-8); second, to restore the sinning brother to fellowship with God first and then to fellowship with the local church (2 Corinthians 2:5-11); and third, to teach other to fear or reverence scriptural standards (I Timothy 5:19-20). The goal of church discipline should be to bring about these three biblical objectives and produce disciples.

Our motives normally determine the manner and method in which we deal with people. In the book of Ephesians, Paul said to keep “speaking the truth in love.” Speaking truth should be done out of a motive of love and in a loving manner. Discipline requires speaking the truth. As a parent may have to discipline his or her child out of love, so the church may have to discipline a member out of love with the goal of helping that member put God first.

Undisciplined individuals are self-indulgent. The list of the fruit of the Spirit ends with ‘temperance’ or self-control. For the believer, the purpose of self-denial (by putting God first) is to become a proper disciple (Matthew 16:24).

Too many Bible-preaching churches are unwilling to obey the Lord in the steps of church discipline. However, church discipline has been ordered by the Lord for our benefit. What are these steps?

1. Private confrontation of person sin–go alone and, if necessary, repeatedly (Matthew 18:15).
2. Public confrontation of established sins, especially of church leaders (I Timothy 5:19-20). The sin, if not admitted, must be established by two or three eyewitnesses.
3. Plural collaboration–two or three witnesses (Matthew 18:16; I Timothy 5:19; 2 Corinthians 13:1).
4. Public disclosure (within the church) of personal sin if not repented. “Tell it to the church” (Matthew 18:17a).
5. Public correction (by the church) of personal or public sin if not repented. “Let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican” (Matthew 18:17).
6. Treatment of the unrepentant former church member as unsaved (Matthew 18:17b).
7. Private association forbidden with unrepentant former church members (I Corinthians 5:9-12).
8. Personal reconciliation with the disciplined brother if he repents at any stage of the process (Luke 17:1-3; Matthew 18:15; 2 Corinthians 2:5-11).
9. Public restoration of a publicly repentant former member (2 Corinthians 2).
10. Progressive restoration of the repentant church member to certain biblical ministries.

The ten steps listed above need some clarification. If the sinner repents at any stage, he should be forgiven. The church should distinguish between fellowship, membership and leadership in restoring one who is forgiven. Forgiveness should be given instantaneously because God restores fellowship with the individual who asks forgiveness. He forgives for Christ’s sake, not because the sinning brother deserves it (Ephesians 4:32; Colossians 3:13).

When a church has removed an unrepentant brother from membership, it usually is better to withhold membership until he cures his wrongdoing (making restitution, telling the truth to those to whom he has lied, reconciling his marriage, gaining victory over drugs, etc.). Leadership positions might never be restored. For example, a Sunday school teacher might return to teaching God’s Word after a sufficient time has lapsed for a credible testimony to be reestablished; but a pastor who becomes sexually involved with a woman other than his wife would always be doubted in biblical preaching and counseling on the family. The majority of a pastor’s counseling time deals with family needs. Therefore, the life of a pastor or a deacon must be blameless in moral issues (“the husband of one wife”) so that family counseling and preaching can be authoritative.

If the sin is private, keep it private if the person is repentant. If the sin is public, then public confession and restoration is necessary. The sin of the incestuous man of I Corinthians 5 was public and not repented; therefore, Paul publicly rebuked and asked for removal of the leaven of this unrepentant brother (v. 7).

When a Christian sins privately against another Christian, the one sinned against is told to “go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone.” The Greek for go implies continuing confrontation if necessary. Ken Sande in his book The Peacemaker says go several times alone to repent. If private confrontation does not work, two or three other church members should go with the offended brother as witnesses.

Public correction is the next step for an unrepentant church member. After repeated confrontations, unrepentant members should be removed from membership. In I Corinthians 6:1-5, Paul points out the importance of having Christians urge matters among themselves.

If the unrepentant member withdraws his membership before the church votes, a church cannot legally proceed with an official vote. However, if a second church requests from the first church a letter of release from membership for the unrepentant one, the leadership of the first church can tell the second church that the individual is not in good standing.

Paul makes it clear that we should not “keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner” (I Corinthians 5:11). Jesus said to treat an unrepentant brother who has trespassed against another Christian as a heathen man and a publican (Matthew 18:17). Obviously, though, a mate or a blood relative should relate naturally to the one who has been disciplined.

Early in one of my church pastorates, a teenage church member who admitted to immorality refused to listen to appeals calling for repentance. With brokenness we voted to remove this one from membership.

It is essential that a church have a clear constitution and that it publish clear information regarding what is required of members. Often, pastors are concerned that they will scare people away if they spell out on the front end what is expected of church members. In fact, the opposite may be true. One Sunday our church leadership asked a person in public sin to ask for forgiveness. That person stood before the church and asked for forgiveness and asserted repentance A visiting Bible student who witnessed the event came and said, “I want to become a member of this church. I have never seen this done where I come from.”

Scriptural church discipline has been ordered by the Lord for our benefit. We cannot please Him by ignoring His instruction. The steps should be followed in order and carried out in love. The desire and prayer of the church must be that the offending brother will respond positively and be restored. “If he shall hear thee, thou has gained they brother” (Matthew 18:15).

Anybody care to discern where the Bible ends and Greenville Syndrome begins? My favorite is paragraph #6.

If the 20th-century culture wars were as real as we were taught — and how many times did I leave Whirlybirds convinced that the world would collapse before I woke in the morning? — and if Bob Jones University really is the West Point of Christian Fundamentalism, then I think I finally understand this song. A little.

I was so gung-ho to lay down my whole life for a constructed fight for a pristine good and against a clear evil. . . . we all were. And when you’re fighting — especially when that fight is more about resurrecting a “good war” than anything else — it doesn’t even matter who is wrong and who is right. The fight is everything. That’s how complete the training is.

And we lost in Vietnam too.

I am presenting this paper at the annual National Communication Association Convention today. Check it out!

2009 NCA Standing Without And Within Apologia

My paper presents BJU’s apologia on race before and after November 2008 as well as the Please-Reconcile’s plea for BJU’s racial reconciliation. BJU’s statements are strange. To be quite blunt, they make no sense to a Yankee. But I’ve discovered that within the Old South ethic of the Lost Cause, the so-called apology makes perfect sense.

The best resource for understanding the Lost Cause rhetoric is an old friend to rhetoricians and a particularly familiar annoyance to Burkeans—Richard Weaver. In his 1943 LSU dissertation renamed Southern Tradition at Bay, Weaver surveys and appreciates Lost Cause literature post-Appomattox and includes a long discussion of Southern apologia.

Bob Jones University’s statements on race parallel Weaver’s Lost Cause apologia. The drama that Weaver both records and continues is a romance caught at a potentially tragic crisis point. The old rules of chivalry drive the action or rather reaction. Weaver’s hero, the southern Cavalier, moves more than acts. He is a man of leisure and good birth who simply is, until a moment of deadly crisis. When he is challenged, as if in a duel, his duty is to “serve the eternal verities” of the established order. Destruction, ruin, bankruptcy, injury are all irrelevant to preserving truth and maintaining “good form.” Guiding him is an unspoken code duello.

Even nearly one hundred and fifty years after the Civil War, the rhetorical drama of the Old South still persists in tiny provincial cultural pockets like Bob Jones University. Within the enduring rhetorical romance of sectarian religion, the code duello informs and contains conflict.  Intersecting Richard Weaver’s Old South drama with my previous description of rhetorical romance is a productive critical project. Each analysis rounds out the other and might provide a more organic explanation for the persisting romance in a micro-culture like southern fundamentalism.

Such an intersection also broadens BJU’s connection with the “segregationist ethos” of its founding family. Agrarianism, provincialism, populism, commerce, societal hierarchy, religion, nativism, and racism all goaded the Confederacy in their Romance-turned-tragedy. In our critical sweep, we, too, must avoid containing our cultural sin of racism in the South, in fundamentalism, or in Bob Jones University. The arcane mask these romantics don to distract their Other’s gaze from their own ugliness tempts us to our own form of tragedy. The Please-Reconcile effort was a comic attempt at removing their mask and correcting that sin without killing off the humanity underneath.

Further study intersecting southern fundamentalism with the Lost Cause drama would expose the salience and endurance possible (or not) in newer Lost Cause movements like Doug Wilson’s Federal Vision, southern secessionism, and identity Christianity. At the root of the problem within Southern romantic apologia is a juggling of the usual mystical purpose with the pragmatic agency. That is, by relegating the divine to the means of propping up a societal hierarchy, participants in the rhetorical drama are distracted from the essentially preservationist motive in their micro-culture. Further contrasting southern with northern fundamentalism, tracing how Weaver’s agrarianism found resonance in mid-century northern conservatism, and mapping the dramatistic similarities between the Civil War and current culture wars would productively assist scholars in deconstructing tragedy and creating a comic corrective.

A revealing moment in this interaction was the P-R’s admittance that they were shocked at their alma mater’s pervasively racist reputation. They offer one explanation that BJU is really not as racist as it seems, giving their alma mater a face-saving “out.” Another possible explanation is that the legal confrontation of BJU’s interracial dating prohibition sent the “segregationist ethos” far underground. The presumed inequality of the races remained in behind-closed-doors meetings. The students from both the North and the South who attended and graduated after 1983 Supreme Court case—which includes every member of the Please-Reconcile team—were witless about the racist foundation. They had been raised in the prevailing notion of “color-blindness” which made them deaf to the coded racism. They were literal-minded, morally earnest, personally outspoken, and driven to “do right.” Perhaps, by shedding the Old South rhetoric that was so prominent in BJU’s pre-1964 days and by generalizing for a larger audience, BJU was forging the tools for its own first homegrown public confrontation.

This intersection of the North with the Old South, of integrationist with separatist, of post-1983 students with pre-1964 administrators, of a second-generation Pollack with an Old South morality play — by putting together these two disparate “terms” we have our last place of freedom, Burke would say. In the end, such perspective by incongruity is our best source of comic correction keeping us from being too hopelessly ourselves.