Who Is the Master at Master’s University and Seminary?

Apparently no one is immune to the all-knowing opinions and advice regularly offered by individuals in forums such as SI.

And this includes yourself, of course? #askingforafriend

Strange how one week a Christian is lauded and praised and the next week that same Christian is thoroughly condemned.

Well, if they run an educational institution that is under scrutiny for not doing a good job, then yes. There’s a long list of believers that made massive mistakes in their life and ministry, starting with Noah, Abram and Moses. Should I list some more?

All I know is that if you are trying to convince me to entrust my kids’ souls to you for education along with six figures worth of tuition, room, board, etc, you’d better believe that I want to know everything is legitimate and clean.

[WallyMorris]

Apparently no one is immune to the all-knowing opinions and advice regularly offered by individuals in forums such as SI. Strange how one week a Christian is lauded and praised and the next week that same Christian is thoroughly condemned.

Wally, you remind me of a joke that former Penn State and NFL lineman (and current math PhD candidate) John Urschel once told. There are two kinds of people; those who can extrapolate from incomplete data.

Point being that given that you can never have “all the facts”, we are stuck in the water if we wait for all of them to come in. News flash; they won’t. And in this case, the known facts are pretty straightforward. Either Masters’ had a quorum on the board that relied on John MacArthur for their mortgage payment, or they didn’t. Now that this recording has come out, there is another set of straightforward questions. Did he say these things, or not? Do they indicate Masters’ is taking their accreditation probation seriously, or not? Do the students have cause to be concerned that the degrees they’re hoping to earn will be worth less because of these issues?

You could theoretically deal with the situation by having MacArthur step down (then the board isn’t relying on the President for their mortgage payments), but a smart accrediting agency is going to see that an influential guy like MacArthur is going to cast a long shadow even though he’s not in the big office anymore. It’s a mess that, unless those listening to the recording and the accrediting agency are feeding us a line, is going to take some real repentance to deal with properly.

And since, unlike Joel, I have no immediate anticipation of the fracas at Masters’ becoming immediately significant to me (though my daughter did tell me last night she’d love to have some seminary level education), the question that comes to my mind is simple; What can I learn about the institutions I cherish from this fracas?

My answer is simple, and it’s basically Jim’s. If I value the institutions of which I am a part, I’m going to work to make sure that their governance is healthy, and that in key areas, like finances, they’re reasonably open. Put gently, bad things (like the Masters’ allegations) happen when nobody thinks anyone is watching.

Bert, it is Tyler’s kid that will probably go to Masters not mine. But besides that small minor detail, I agree with everything you said.

….when he gets to grad school, right, Joel? :^)

Seriously, thank you for the correction.

More or less dealing with the handling of student loans, and the federal regulations that accompany acceptance of federal student aid. What it means is that there are certain things they need to do to adhere to best practices in education, and Joe is correct that they need to have John MacArthur cede a great deal of authority to some folks who really, really understand these things. (contrary to Joe, though, I’d have a steep learning curve, as I simply understand an analogous accreditation or two)

First, second.