A Failure to Stay the Course [Handbook changes at BJU]

My dear mother always wondered why skirts were considered more modest than pants on ladies.

(Everybody turn to your neighbor and say, “Hmmmmm….”)

Coming from a confessional Lutheran background (which was every bit as theologically conservative and separatistic as IFB, if not more so) into fundamentalism, the whole clothes thing (especially the whole no-pants-on-women thing) was kind of a head-scratcher—if not a stumbling block—at first.

Over the years, I would have to say that I have been stretched by my experiences with dress codes in the IFB, and have grown as a result. I am amazed, for instance, when I see fully grown men (some of whom make their living on television) who cannot tie a tie or do not polish their shoes.

Looking back, however, it is hard not to see some of these emphases on clothing as being the result of outright legalism and pride.

I believe I heard a missionary say that in some countries (Cambodia?) dresses are considered immodest attire for women.

I’m old enough to remember when the ban on pants on women was based on Deuteronomy 22:5.

As a BJU alumnus, I am interested in this thread, but have just now read it, as my internet was wiped out by lightening for several days. Three of our four daughters graduated from BJU. One was unwilling to attend BJU, spent one year at Cedarville, and graduated from the University of NC. She is a committed Christian, home school mom, and in some ways, the most conservative of her sisters. She has the strictest rules for her children, who give every appearance of shriving in their educational and spiritual environment. How does one predict these things? How does one even explain these things?

BJU was good for me. I needed the strict rules and high academic standards. I thank God for placing me there in the 60’s and early 70’s. My daughters also benefited from their training at BJU. However, they have mixed opinions about their BJU training. Overall, they are positive, but they express some regret for the weakness of Bible-based Christianity as opposed to Fundamentalist cultural tradition. I am glad for their discernment in these areas.

For my part, I am happy to see the changes at BJU. I believe they are overdue. I think they represent a desire to be more Biblical than traditional. I realize they could be evidences of spiritual decline, but I’m not seeing anything yet which causes me concern. I will maintain a prayerful heart, supportive spirit, and watchful eye.

I also agree with all of these changes, and am actually quite glad to see that BJU is making them. I have long stated that some of the standards at BJU were far more counterproductive than helpful, as so many of the ‘fundamentalist’ (whatever that is) standards are.

I’ve watched the children of alumni absolutely rise up in incredible rebellion at attempts by their parents and pastors to force them to go there — these weren’t bad kids — one is now a missionary — but they weren’t going to go to a school with BJ’s rules and reputation. They had other choices and were determined to exercise them. I watched one family kick their daughter out of their house for refusing to go to BJU and she slept in her car for a week before finding someone to take her in. Today, she is a wonderful wife and mother who is active in our church. She didn’t want to be affiliated with BJ’s racism and had grown up enjoying freedoms (not of a sinful kind) that she wasn’t about to give up now that she was a young adult.

I have watched parents lock their children into going to BJU from a very early age. They said that they would support the kids if they wanted to go elsewhere, but in practicality the choice was made long before they even got to high school. I wonder, now that their kids have kids, if the grandchildren will go the same way as well and what factor that has had on BJU’s recent drop in attendance.

As someone who watched my alma mater close, and for some of the same reasons, I’d just like to note two things:

1. It would be a terrible tragedy for BJU to close. It would be far worse for BJU to remain open and maintain the extra-biblical standards that Br. Smith expects as “Biblical”.
   
2. It is the height of…arrogance? hypocrisy? Both? for Br. Smith to engage in this type of behavior and then try to dismiss/brush off his behavior because he has “the heart of a shepherd”. A shepherd would deal with this much differently than making a recurring theme out of the topic as has clearly been doing (there’s a slew of other posts on this theme at the bottom of original blogposts’ page).

I wrote this regarding some of our erstwhile ‘brethren’ who were blogging about / reporting on the changes at NIU several years ago, and I stand by what I said then:

I’m specifically going after people who are crying over the fact that the school closed, but who had absolutely no problem with ‘reporting’ the latest changes, with gossiping and slandering, with forwarding tidbits of information that put the school in a bad light without contacting NIU. First, a pertinent section from Proverbs 26:

18 Like a madman who throws firebrands, arrows, and death
19 is the man who deceives his neighbor and says, “I am only joking!”
20 For lack of wood the fire goes out, and where there is no whisperer, quarreling ceases.
21 As charcoal to hot embers and wood to fire, so is a quarrelsome man for kindling strife.
22 The words of a whisperer are like delicious morsels; they go down into the inner parts of the body.
23 Like the glaze covering an earthen vessel are fervent lips with an evil heart.
24 Whoever hates disguises himself with his lips and harbors deceit in his heart;
25 when he speaks graciously, believe him not, for there are seven abominations in his heart;
26 though his hatred be covered with deception, his wickedness will be exposed in the assembly.

It has been my experience that gossip for ‘good intentions’ - “you need to know that BJU is compromising on their standards” - is far more destructive and insidious than gossip for ‘bad intentions’. Christians, I think, generally understand evil and malicious gossip of that kind. But when it comes with a good purpose, especially from those who lead churches and other organizations, it’s very hard to recognize for the poison that it is or the ruin that it causes.

From 2013, regarding the attitudes driving some of the discussions then, and what looks like it’s driving the discussion on the OP’s blog:

My fascination - and maybe this is my own personal issue - was always the very vocal, very adamant few who want Northland to fail now because of changes to the music, dress, and demerit policies (which was by far the things that were discussed the most on SI). I just don’t understand the vitriol and vehemence of writing off a school wholesale because they made changes, especially after we had all the discussions on music and it still seems like no one can articulate a good, Biblical defense of ‘conservative music’ (and I’m not interested in reviving any of those threads). It just seems…fleshly. Evil. Wrong. We can disagree better than this (and I do speak to myself as well).

I never understood the spirit of division and even (yes) hatred that comes from some Christians to other Christians over these things. I just don’t get that at all. The fruit that comes from above is first pure, then peaceable (Jas 3:17). God is the God of peace, not confusion (I Corinthians 14:33). We are called to live in peace (2 Cor. 13:11). The fruit of the Spirit is peace (Gal. 5:22)…you get the idea. If we’re of the Spirit and walking in the Spirit, why the gloating over the financial stuff? Why the rejoicing that NIU is down in the student enrollment? Are we so wrapped up in ‘the standards’ (whatever that is) that we’d really kill our own school for deviating from them?

As Todd Wood might say - I’m thinking of heart issues.

Within the stream of fundamentalism that BJU has traditionally catered to, the phrase “two inches above the knee” has specifically been seen as a red flag that an institution (school, camp, etc.) no longer wants to enforce its “to the knee” or “below the knee” standard. Since rulers are not typically brought out when a piece of clothing is three or four inches above the knee, it usually negates the standard totally.

This is the type of cautious discernment that BJU students were once taught at BJU. Granted, most students probably never embraced this way of thinking, but the “loyal alumni” did. Hence, with each change that once would have been seen as major (accreditation, intercollegiate sports, “two inches above the knee,” etc.), a few more “loyal alumni” become become disillusioned with their alma mater. Meanwhile, those who never supported BJU’s strict standards still send their kids elsewhere because of the school’s legalistic stigma.

Do I blame BJU? Not entirely. BJU is simply reflecting the changes occurring within its constituent churches. However, I think using the term “two inches above the knee” was unwise since it is seen by many as the “canary in the coal mine” when it comes to lowering dress standards.

We’ll see if the volleyball girls are wearing spandex shorts in 10 years. I hope I’m not posting an “I told you so” on Sharper Iron in 2028!

If the original rules had been made a few years earlier, they might have prohibited skirts higher than two inches above the ankle. By that standard, still enforced in some communities such as Amish, BJU’s standards have been pretty loose for years. When will Christians learn to separate doctrinal Fundamentalism from cultural Fundamentalism? For too many, the cultural perceptions and misconceptions are much stronger than Bible truth.

My wife recalls moving from Appalachian Bible College to BJU in the 70’s and having to get a new wardrobe because ABC’s standard for skirt length was top of the knee and BJU’s was bottom of the knee.

This entire discussion about length of skirts is extraordinarily depressing and fiendishly stupid. When I go to work on Monday, and interact with my unsaved, homosexual co-worker, I’ll try to remember how important “below” or “2 inches above the knee” skirt lengths are. I really will. It’ll be foremost in my mind.

Off to preach about things that matter, now!

[C. D. Cauthorne Jr.]

Within the stream of fundamentalism that BJU has traditionally catered to, the phrase “two inches above the knee” has specifically been seen as a red flag that an institution (school, camp, etc.) no longer wants to enforce its “to the knee” or “below the knee” standard. Since rulers are not typically brought out when a piece of clothing is three or four inches above the knee, it usually negates the standard totally.

We’ll see if the volleyball girls are wearing spandex shorts in 10 years. I hope I’m not posting an “I told you so” on Sharper Iron in 2028!

No argument that it’s harder to measure “2 inches above the knee” than it is to measure “at the knee”, but is this a Biblical argument at all? And should we be using slippery slope fallacies in our arguments? Granted, the world is forgetting logic as well, but even so, I doubt this kind of argument does anything to win a lost world for Christ.

(really, what the argument is is rehashed Victorian mores…..which is many things, but “Biblical” is not one of them)

As a result, you are tilting at your straw men again.

It is possible that Travis wasn’t as clear as he could have been in his article, but it seems to me that the complaints are about direction rather than these specific changes. Try reading the article with that point of view in mind and I think you will see it reads differently.

As to specific skirt length or any similar dress standard, if you are going to have an institutional standard at all, you will have to have some kind of objective standard, otherwise it becomes the subjectivity of the Grand Skirt Inspector (or whatever) that the institution authorizes. When I was at BJU, there was a standard for sideburn length. There were guys who checked us all according to the standard. If they thought we missed the standard, we were given a call slip and had to go to the dean’s office for a second check. (I don’t think I ever got one of these.) You may ridicule the standard or the procedure, but if you are going to have a standard, you have to have some kind of objectivity about it and some way of enforcing the standard. Otherwise the standard is useless, becomes a matter of mockery, and brings the rule system into contempt.

I am not keen on some of the changes at BJU as I have stated before. I think in general I would share Travis’ concerns. But what I see here is a typical exercise in missing the point and calling standards of all kinds into ridicule. You don’t actually live that way, but you seem to love ridiculing either past or current BJU and especially ridiculing those who prefer the past BJU. It all seems rather unedifying.

You aren’t making arguments. You are just reinforcing your own prejudices.

Once again, I invite all fundamentalists who have been burnt by the legalism, stupidity and bull-headed arrogance that characterizes so much of IFB fundamentalism (and which seems to underlie the concerns of this unfortunate article) to seek sanity in the arms of a fellowship like the GARBC. Seek out a Regular Baptist church, and you’ll likely find doctrinal balance, good exposition of Scripture, and a focus on heart and motivation, rather than simply outward externalism.

Flee from IFB cultism, my friends. Be free, and fly away. And, ladies, feel free to wear pants to church, too …

[Don Johnson] It is possible that Travis wasn’t as clear as he could have been in his article, but it seems to me that the complaints are about direction rather than these specific changes. Try reading the article with that point of view in mind and I think you will see it reads differently.

I actually understood that point while I was reading the article, but that point was one of the reasons why the article was confusing to me. He talked about some rules from his era that were “irritants” that are “gone now.” So he is okay with those specific changes. They don’t represent a shift in direction. However, the changes now DO somehow represent that shift in direction, or he wouldn’t be mentioning them. So it must be something inherent in the current changes that represent a shift that was not present in the previous changes. Yet the point of the article is about the direction rather than the changes, but how he gets to that point if specific changes are not the issue is confusing to me.

And why does he make the statement that Jim quoted in the post previous to yours if specific changes were not a big part of the problem. The quote was “Why the accommodation of changes we know are not welcome in our own ministries, but are being thrust upon us and our children …” Doesn’t that quote show that the shift in direction is being represented by specific changes that are not welcome in certain ministries?

[Don Johnson]

As a result, you are tilting at your straw men again.

It is possible that Travis wasn’t as clear as he could have been in his article, but it seems to me that the complaints are about direction rather than these specific changes. Try reading the article with that point of view in mind and I think you will see it reads differently.

As to specific skirt length or any similar dress standard, if you are going to have an institutional standard at all, you will have to have some kind of objective standard, otherwise it becomes the subjectivity of the Grand Skirt Inspector (or whatever) that the institution authorizes.

No argument that if you’re going to have an institutional standard, you ipso facto must have some sort of objective standard. But that said, the question still stands of whether that standard is Biblical to begin with, or whether it is or not, whether the argument made for that standard is indeed Biblical. And in that light, we’ve got to consider the question of “direction” that Don mentions above in light of the fact that “if girls are allowed to wear skirts and shorts 2” above the knee, they will soon be wearing volleyball tights or track tights” is a great example of the slippery slope fallacy. If you do not know why you are covering yourself at all—which is really where I am left with most endorsements of “modesty” in our circles—by what logic would we believe that a modification of the rule is going to inexorably lead to bikini bottoms and outright nudity?

As I believe I noted above, this is a great opportunity for us to move beyond Deuteronomy 22:5 and 1 Timothy 2:9 and do an actual Biblical approach to the question of why we cover up, and to what extent we ought to. With the exception of nudists, and even including most likely a great number of them, people do have some level of attire that they’re not comfortable wearing in public. The question is why we feel that way, and what principles we would apply to make that decision.

In my view, as pale skin (indicating prosperity/not working in the fields) was valued in Bible times, we’re going to find that the Bible writers didn’t have to say “cover up” because people did that as a matter of their culture. We are left, then, with implicit arguments about what kind of “exposing nakedness” (Leviticus 18, etc..) the Bible describes as inviting fornication or otherwise shameful (Deuteronomy curse passages, prophets) , ask what body parts are being covered, and then presumably leave people to make their own decisions with a few very basic limitations. All in all, I would guess the general rule would be that the exposure of the upper chest and pelvic regions is objectionable for both sexes, and that we ought to take some precautions to make sure that those regions—or perhaps even the approaches to those regions—are covered in a discreet way.

And that leaves, really, a lot of room for athletic shorts 2-4” above the knee and pants on women, IMO. No slippery slope argument needed.