- A Temporary Blip
We are stalled, but we are not stopped. - Civil War II: Manassas
BJU keeps its listeners and even outsiders feminized by hiding the lexicon for their code. - Civil War II: The Battle of Fort Sumter
The Battle of the Dueling Revivalists - “Is Segregation Scriptural?”
Come read the sermon Bob Jones University doesn’t want you to see! - Once Upon a Time: A Tale of Rags to Riches
Read Daisy Lee Archibald’s story about a little ol’ trucking company and the goodness of friends. - Just the facts, Ma’am
Watch BJU revise history before your eyes. - It’s not me! It’s her, isn’t it?
The slave culture is the rape culture.
Trying to recall. -what were the circumstances behind Dr Gus being asked to become Dean? He was really young/ not technically “qualifted”- was that when a bunch of faculty left- one guy went to another school..in TN maybe. The details escape me.
Yes, yes. You’re remembering correctly. It was after Mercer left and Karl Kieffer left with him. Big walk-out. Many of the documents are here:
http://www.drslewis.org/camille/conversations/ted-mercer-blogspot-com/
I ran across your articles browsing the web for articles on BJU abuse and was fascinated by the log of faculty that have left over the years due to squabbles with the administration. When I attended BJU 70-73, I was taught by a married couple, named Portfleet, who were professors in English (she) and Sociology (he). In Sociology class he taught that interracial marriage was not a biblical doctrine, but a sociological proglem for the couple due to prejudice and unacceptance by the communities they lived in, resulting in tremendous pressure on the relationship. They told them not to come back to the university at the end of the semester. Don’t know where they went, but this shows the hypocrisy again over not admitting that their policies were racist.
I grew up in California in the 50’s, and my first grade teacher was black, Ms. Scott, and wonderful teacher. I was the minority in the class, as the majority of my class mates were hispanic, black, or oriental. Then suddenly at 11 or 12 my family moved to Georgia in the early sixties due to a transfer my dad had to make with his job. Talk about a culture shock! I now live in Wisconsin, yet after all these years I still remember the memories of that era and the struggles of the 60’s during the civil rights movement. I know if I could do it all over again I would never have gone to BJU, but I did. My life has been fulfilling but I wonder often what it would have been like if I had not been subjected to such twisted theological practices.
Unlike the terror that Bob Jones Sr. felt about young people of his day losing faith, my children have all attended state colleges and have fine careers and families – they didn’t need a BJU to keep them in line!!
Wow, Roger! Just wow. I’ll have to look them up. I’ll let you know if I find any more data. Their story matches what many others have experienced.
God bless.
Camille
Thank you for posting Jones Sr.’s “Is Segregation Scriptural?”. I remember reading it when I was a freshman at BJU, and I even referenced it a few years ago in an account I wrote titled “A Journey from Authoritarianism to Libertarianism,” but I could only repeat what I could remember from reading it decades ago. This tract was not something I wanted to keep in my papers after graduating from Bob Jones U. and moving on with my life, but it is good to have now as a check on the accuracy of my memory. I remember that it made no sense to me at the time I read it and just assuming that I would understand it better after a few years of education (read “indoctrination”) at the fortress of closed minds. After reading it again I agree with my original conclusion. It doesn’t make sense. I know that Jones Sr. was a well-meaning man who was trying to save Christian students from being indoctrinated in an increasingly anti-Christian educational system, even in his day, but he was also only a product of his limited time and place of birth. The type of education fostered at BJU only encourages its graduates to adopt a siege mentality, digging in mentally and holding on to certain fundamentalist traditions without ever exploring the rich Scriptures in all their depth and using them to engage the false presuppositions of the world. Sadly neither Jones nor any of his successors ever learned to use the Bible for anything more than a source of proof texts. How rich an education at BJU might have been if sound principles of Biblical exegesis,as taught in many conservative seminaries, might have been used to interpret Acts 17:26 and the rest of the Bible. There is nothing in this text, or the rest of the Bible, which supports racial segregation.
I graduated from BJU in 1970, just as the person who left the comment above was beginning. I share many of his experiences and reactions, including the tragic firings of several of my favorite teachers.
One of my relatives received his doctorate from BJU about ten years ago, while I have been an atheist for almost twenty years. You can imagine how this would have resulted in many, many looooooong discussions between the two of us. He didn’t have a car for certain intervals of time during his masters and ph.d., and that meant I had to pick him up, and drive him home. Those 4 hours of travel were fraught with heated discussions.
One day I asked him, “Obviously BJU has a biblical basis for just about every rule it imposes. So, on what scriptural backing did it disallow interracial dating, when it did?”
I was shocked and disappointed to hear his reply, “I don’t want to tell you because you will use that as ammunition against me.”
Naturally, I’ve been curious to know the answer, and your post on whether segregation is scriptural shed immense light on the matter. Thank you very much. I have read a few more of your blogs after reading that article, and I felt terribly sorry to learn of the anguish you were subjected to at that so called educational institution.
With your kind of intelligence and penchant for truth, you should seriously consider checking out good works on atheism. If it is not my place to make such a suggestion, I beg your forgiveness.
May you, and your family have a marvelous future filled with peace and prosperity.
Nice to “meet” you! I’m glad the sermon illuminated some crazy stuff. 😉 That’s my main goal. I have documented a lot of my finds in my online archive: wutbju.org. You would be especially interested in the items tagged with #Klandamentalism:
http://wutbju.tumblr.com/tagged/Klandamentalism
I finally got around to writing up an addendum to an obit for a former BJU employee who critiqued BJU’s segregationist stance in 1971. They fired him for that:
http://wutbju.tumblr.com/post/154977865895/dr-jack-peters-of-greer-south-carolina-died
And just yesterday, this was posted from my queue:
http://wutbju.tumblr.com/post/154942069550/bob-jones-university-will-not-retain-any-student
which states:
“Bob Jones University will not retain any student who is directly or indirectly involved in ‘civil rights’ or other demonstrations, riots, or acts of violence.”
It’s nuts. Plainly nuts. That’s why I’ve labeled it “Klandamentalism.”
Thanks for stopping by and commenting. Have a very Happy New Year!
C