The Master’s University and Seminary are on academic probation.
- 4 views
Not important to you, but how many comments have you made, Tyler? :^)
Seriously, one thing I learned in a town not much bigger than Olympia—Boulder, CO, population about 100,000—is that there are a limited number of actual vagrants, and the police are often acquainted with them. When I volunteered one night at the homeless shelter, I was surprised over the next week how many of them (there were about 100 people at the shelter) I recognized.
And if one should happen to, say, give the video to the police, explaining that the behavior took place in a public place and that there were certain precautions you were taking against neato creepy-crawlies he might be leaving behind, you might get some action on the part of the police.
We might find that if we moderate our radical congregational assumptions, we might be able to work together and solve some issues that we didn’t even know we had. My churches in Boulder also had issues with vagrants.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
The police have the video. The homeless problem is an epidemic in the Olympia area, as it is in many liberal cities on the West Coast. You can’t imagine what these cities tolerate.
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
I just visited San Francisco, and lived in Boulder for a decade. Shockingly, San Francisco was worse than Boulder, which is saying something. But seriously, what high class neighborhood these days doesn’t have used IV needles and human waste on the streets? We just need to be more compassionate and “enlightened.”
Feel your pain, bro, and I’m guessing the po-lees ain’t doing squat. It’s like the time I approached a Boulder liquor store owner and suggested he might do well to not sell forties and bum wines, because he just might not want mentally ill addicts in his store. He was more “enlightened” than I, to put it mildly, and a church I attended there (now the mosque in town) had a consistent problem with bums coming by asking for money for “bus tickets.”
Side note: JD Hall does not disappoint with his total misreading of the cover letter (and failure to read the report), seeing no problem whatsoever with a board of directors that relies on John MacArthur for their pay. Certainly no one who needs to make his next mortgage payment would have that in the back of his mind when controversial issues are being discussed. Nobody would ever keep quiet because he didn’t want to lose his house or get bad credit or anything.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
It…doesn’t surprise me in the least…that someone would respond to these allegations by attacking the integrity of the accreditation agency.
As for this:
Is it simply unfeasible for a college’s president to also be a pastor where the majority of employees and students attend?
Pretty much. That’s called “conflict of interest” in the real world. You can’t hire, manage, and terminate employees AND also make them dependent on you for spiritual guidance. Personally, I figured that MacArthur was more of a figurehead than the actual president because of his pastoral responsibilities. It doesn’t sound like that is the case.
I also have to admit being impressed at the P&P’s backhanded dismissal of the rape. Clearly, the son in law’s potential to make money off of GCC is more important and more worthy of coverage than the fact that a student was raped. That being said, we did tithe mint, anise and cumin on Sunday so it’s all good.
Some people need to reassess their priorities.
"Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is...no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty." - David Wells
Tyler, come up to Seattle sometime. The homeless call it “Freeattle”. I imagine Olympia being the state capital it must be pretty similar though.
Rape and sexual assault charges are complicated. People want to pretend they are easy, i.e. believe the accuser. The problem is, if after going to the police there are no charges, what is a school supposed to do? Secular schools often do nothing. Why? There is nothing that can be proven. If it is a Christian school they can expel the accused for a conduct violation, but they also have to expel the accuser. See, from that perspective, what we have is extramarital sex, which violates the conduct code. Tricky huh…
On the other hand, the administrative elements are in the school’s control. Changing a student’s grades after the fact is simply unethical. Period. If a student earns an A in history, then commits gets thrown out of school, so what. They still earned an A in that class. Also, dealing with employees that are also members of your church violates the “clean” standards that accreditation organizations want and demand. That is the problem with accreditation… it seeks a uniform system in a diverse world. But things are what they are.
Mark, agreed that these things are not easy, and of course when you get allegations, you know that the basic outcomes will be conviction of the accused, insufficient evidence to convict, or perjury on the part of the accuser. Unfortunately, as you probably know, 60-80% of accusations fall into that middle bin.
But in that case, why not just assume that accuser’s story may be true and encourage her (him) to go to the police, help the accuser to get counseling, and if desirable, help the accuser transfer somewhere else? And for the accused, about the same, except one might expel him (her) if there is clear evidence of fornication? Really, through this process, the truth will often end up coming out.
I can’t say for sure here, but a lot of times, it seems as if Christian colleges are coming down with a hammer assuming guilt on the part of the accuser when the reality on the ground is that the evidence is in dispute.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
Discussion