A Tale of Two Conferences
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Last winter some friends and I were talking about changes at our alma mater, Bob Jones University (BJU). One suggested that there was a “realignment” taking place within “Bob Jones Fundamentalism” … with Sermon Audio (www.sermonaudio.com) at the center of it.
I do not know if my friend had inside information, but while walking across BJU’s campus in June, I ran across Sermon Audio’s founder Steven Lee. He gave me a tour of the future, on-campus location of the Vault (the storage facility for Sermon Audio’s digital files). In light of my previous discussion, I was surprised to learn that the headquarters of Sermon Audio was moving onto BJU’s campus.
Lee invited me to attend Sermon Audio’s annual Foundations Conference (www.thefoundationsconference.com) at BJU on December 8-9, 2022. Scheduled speakers included Joel Beeke, Steve Lawson, and Paul Washer. All three of these men are in the G3, Master’s Seminary (John MacArthur), Ligonier Ministries (R. C. Sproul) orbit. They are thoroughly Calvinistic and speak in venues that BJU has traditionally separated itself from.
Therefore, it shocked me that Crown College’s President Clarence Sexton was also on the roster. If a “realignment” of this magnitude was happening, I wanted to be there!
My mind then went back to another conference at BJU over 30 years ago. On June 10-14, 1989, the Sword of the Lord National Conference on Revival and Soul Winning met at BJU.
BJU alumni such as Rod Bell, Tom Malone, and R. B. Ouellette joined other speakers at that conference, which included Sword of the Lord President Curtis Hutson, Tennessee Temple University President Lee Roberson, Trinity Baptist College Chancellor Bob Gray, and Hyles-Anderson College Chancellor Jack Hyles. BJU’s Chancellor Bob Jones, Jr. and President Bob Jones, III also spoke at the conference.
In its heyday, the Sword of the Lord served a similar purpose as Sermon Audio. It was a means by which fundamentalist media was disseminated. Its newspaper’s wide circulation shaped the Fundamentalist Movement. Someone said that at one time BJU’s “Preacher Boys” were required to subscribe to it.
However, the similarities end there. The “Sword of the Lord crowd” is definitely not the “Sermon Audio crowd.” In particular, the Sword crowd is not Reformed. In fact, Sword President Hutson wrote a book entitled Why I Disagree with All Five Points of Calvinism.
By the way, there was another speaker at that Sword of the Lord conference. His name was Clarence Sexton.
Like BJU, Sexton has had a falling out with the Sword of the Lord since the 1989 conference. Unlike the Sword, Sexton does not see Calvinism as a big threat. C. H. Spurgeon is his hero. He was friends with the late Presbyterian firebrand Ian Paisley, and he presently fellowships with reformed Baptists such as London’s Peter Masters. Would Clarence Sexton be the “missing link” between these two conferences?
Alas, it was not meant to be. Sexton dropped out of the Sermon Audio conference and a Free Presbyterian minister took his place. Perhaps 1989 and 2022 is a bridge too far.
Is Sermon Audio’s conference a new norm for BJU? Is a “realignment” taking place?
On January 4-7, 2023, BJU hosted the Advance the Gospel Conference (www.advancethegospel.org) featuring Conrad Mbewe, Brooks Buser and Paul Schlehlein. All of these men move in Reformed, evangelical circles.
In a historic change for a college founded by a fundamental Methodist evangelist, those who champion Calvinist theology within broader Evangelicalism are now being given a platform at BJU. Calvinists have always been tolerated at BJU, but now they are being celebrated.
This “tale of two conferences” both illustrates the realignment that is taking place and underscores the influence that Sermon Audio is having over theology and ecclesiastical separation within “BJU Fundamentalism.”
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C. D. Cauthorne Bio
C. D. Cauthorne Jr. earned his BA and MA at Bob Jones University during the 1990s. He and his wife Heather serve at Calvary Baptist Church near Clintwood, Virginia, where C. D. is pastor.
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Calvinists were more than “tolerated” at BJU when I attended in the late 80’s. Dr. Michael Barrett comes to mind. The term would be “highly valued,” not “tolerated,” though I’m sure not by all. It’s worth noting as well that SOTL used to regularly feature CH Spurgeon sermons. The contrasts are not as tidy as they seem to some.
There’s another axis to consider here. Comparing SOTL Conference to Foundations Conference, sure, you have more Calvinism represented on the calvinist vs. arminian axis, but you also have the revivalism vs. exposition axis. If there is a “realignment” toward more emphasis on exposition and less on revivalism, that may tend toward more “calvinist” respresentation, but that could easily be more byproduct than goal.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Yes, the SOTL has long featured sermons by Charles Spurgeon. However, they systematically edited out statements that were considered Calvinist, without any indication that the sermons had been edited. In my world, this type of misrepresentation is considered dishonest. Consequently, thousands of SOTL readers were given the impression that Spurgeon was not a Calvinist. Apparently the SOTL wished to laud his evangelism while hiding his Calvinsm. Were they trying to extend the false mantra that Calvinism is incompatible with evangelism?
G. N. Barkman
The problem is not the growing promotion of Calvinistic/Reformed theology at BJU. The problem is the deterioration in convictions about separation and the resulting changes/acceptance in other theological issues, such as Redaction Criticism. These changes are happening as a strategic move to broaden the “base” of BJU and help insure the survival of the school in contrast to the several schools which have closed. One reason some other schools started over the last 20 years is because they saw the changes at BJU coming.
Wally Morris
Huntington, IN
As someone who is feeling old because I attended both the SoTL conferences on campus back in the 80’s and this Foundations conference this past December, I feel like I ought toss in my two cents. My wife participates in the Sermonaudio prayer advances and so she really wanted to go to the Foundations conference.
I agree with Aaron about BJU’s treatment of Calvinists back in the day. We had Ian Paisley and other Presbyterians preach in Bible conference all the time. That said, it has always been an uneasy relationship, because the side that tends more towards revivalism looks on Calvinism with suspicion, if not outright hostility. The Foundations conference this year was focused on preaching and prayer, with an unusual mix of laymen speakers who talked about living out their faith in a secular workspace. There really wasn’t anything about Calvinism other than maybe some of the books they were selling. The other thing to note about the Foundations Conference is that it was held in Stratton Hall, for a much smaller audience, not in the main Amphitorium like those old SoTL conferences. BJU did not throw its full weight behind the Foundations conference, like it did with the Sword. The mixing of the SoTL and BJU constituencies always seemed like oil and water to me. There was a conservatism that was shared at the time regarding some things, but the style was different and BJU was always more academically focused.
It is sort of interesting about the Vault being on campus. I never really thought about this angle before, but BJU would be housing quite a few sermons from people they would have in the past separated from and even today would not want to promote (like, say, D. A. Waite).
Speaking as someone who was raised in fundamental Methodism (and went to BJU), any honest study of the Methodist movement would have to acknowledge that the Wesleys and Whitefield, all considered some of Methodism’s founders, were not agreed on the Calvinist question. Thus, Methodism (like fundamental Baptists), has always had it’s more and less Calvinistic groups.
Although my branch of Methodism was from the Wesley side, it didn’t surprise me to find that BJU had both Arminian-leaning and Calvinist-leaning professors in their Bible department. What actually surprised me, when I arrived at the university, was the fact that for a school started by a Methodist, there weren’t many Methodists there, even knowing there were fewer fundamental Methodists around than fundamental Baptists. In fact, finding >90% of the students having come from a Baptist background was a bit of a culture shock for me, even though the University itself retained some of what must have come from Dr. Bob Sr.’s Methodist background.
To this day, I still remember walking back to the dorms after one of the Sunday morning campus worship services early in my freshman year, I was reflecting on how they had done the service — majestic, fairly formal, great music and preaching. I had really enjoyed it. Behind me was another group of guys, and one of them said “I feel like I just got washed in an Anglican ceremony!” I knew then I was a bit out of step with most of the student body.
Like Andy and Aaron, I seem to recall that BJU more than tolerated Calvinism, especially with preachers like Paisley, etc., but I also remember that for the student at large (i.e. not part of the Bible department), the whole Calvinism/Arminianism thing was never the focus. I don’t know that it was glossed over, but it certainly wasn’t hammered from either side that I recall. I think BJU did its best to walk the line between the various factions in fundamentalism. They weren’t always perfect at it, but I thought they did a pretty good job, all things considered.
Dave Barnhart
Yes, the SOTL has long featured sermons by Charles Spurgeon. However, they systematically edited out statements that were considered Calvinist, without any indication that the sermons had been edited.
I hadn’t heard that. Growing up, I saw SoTL lying around the house quite a bit. My dad was a subscriber, and I did see him read it fairly often. I only occasionally perused, and by the end of high school, I knew that wasn’t for me.
As for the ethics of SoTL’s editing, it does seem a bit sneaky. Almost everything published should be assumed to be edited, but sermons are a little different, and also copy editing isn’t the same thing as ideological/concept editing. If they felt that strongly about it, the high road probably would have been to include a blurb that at least said something like “Sermons in SoTL are edited for harmony with our beliefs and emphases” … or something like that.
BJU’s old Sunday AM experience
Dave, you’re experience from a Methodist background intrigues me because, at first, I felt a bit like most Baptists in BJU’s 80’s Sunday AM services. I’m not sure when that changed—maybe not even until after I graduated and moved on, but I think it started before that. Anyway, I don’t think it was long after leaving that I started to miss those services and the transcendence of them. Too many of our Baptist and evangelical churches have a great deal of immanence and very little transcendence. We should spend more time in Exodus to regain some appreciation for symbolism and ritual in worship. It was not humans who invented that.
As for ‘realignments’… I tend to think any organization that is alive is realigning most of the time. Maybe it’s like driving on the freeway. You realign in tiny ways every second or two. But occasionally, sure, you exit and make bigger turns. Those turns may or may not be part of the same course. But course changes are also part of being alive and growing. “Staying the course” rigidly, in every way, is pretty much the definition of stagnation.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Having read the SOTL for years (required reading in my days at BJU as a ministerial student), I was quite surprised when someone told me Spurgeon was a Calvinist. Then I began reading his sermons unedited from the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit series, and the Calvinism came through loud and clear. “Well what do you know.”
In the late 80’s, I engaged in a correspondence discussion with a director of a small IFB mission board. He had written a 50 page booklet on the heresies of Calvinsm, in which he lauded the evangelism of Spurgeon. I wrote to inform him that Spurgeon was a Calvinist, and therefore, by his definition, a heretic. “No way!” he replied. I sent him evidence from the MTP sermon series. “Well what do you know,” he responded. “I guess Spurgeon was a heretic after all.” (True story.)
G. N. Barkman
[Aaron Blumer]Anyway, I don’t think it was long after leaving that I started to miss those services and the transcendence of them. Too many of our Baptist and evangelical churches have a great deal of immanence and very little transcendence. We should spend more time in Exodus to regain some appreciation for symbolism and ritual in worship. It was not humans who invented that.
I like the way you put that — transcendence vs. immanence. I think most of us, no matter our background, want neither a complete feeling-oriented service nor one that is only ritual, and we strive to find the right balance between those extremes. It’s just that we don’t agree on where that balance point is, and which end of the spectrum should receive the greater priority. I do agree that most Baptist churches I’ve been a part of err too much on the side of immanence, but I’m sure most of the members of those churches would consider what I know and prefer to be erring the other way. That’s a great loss, from my point of view.
Dave Barnhart
In Defense of "Tolerated" . . . & thoughts on the "missing link"
The word “tolerated” in relation to how BJU viewed Calvinism in the 1980s was not used without some consideration on my part. I stand by that word. Here is a quote from Bob Jones, Jr.’s 1985 Cornbread and Caviar which illustrates why I used that word:
Five-point Calvinism has been the cause of the decline of many a good ministry, and any Christian institution that allows ultra Calvinism to become rooted there will soon find itself spiritually dead… . I have never known it to fail that when five-point Calvinism becomes the chief end of a man’s ministry and the most important thing in his preaching, that man becomes cold, dead, egotistical, and a liar. A man may be a five-point Calvinist and not put his emphasis there and maintain a reasonable, humble attitude toward himself and a proper zeal for the souls of men. But no man can emphasize this brand of theology without losing concern for the lost. (p.184)
Jones is especially critical of Limited Atonement in his book.
I spoke in my article of the “missing link” between the 1989 and 2022 conferences. As someone who studied under long-time BJU Professor Michael Barrett (who is presently working for Joel Beeke), I credit him more than any other person for the theological shift that has taken place among BJU’s seminary grads — and, by extention, BJU itself. His Calvinism was well-known, and he would sometimes criticize (in his sarcastic way) what he saw as the weaknesses within mainstream Fundamentalism. He was very popular among the intellectually-inclined students.
celebrated
As in:
Calvinists have always been tolerated at BJU, but now they are being celebrated.
In the 70s/80s, there were Calvinists on faculty and among the students. It was against the rules, however, to discuss Calvinism in the dorms. This came about because of deep divisions and animosities that arose in previous years when some stronger Calvinists were trying to recruit others to their cause.
Dr. Barrett was and is a friend of mine. He was my advisor in grad school. In those years, I don’t think he did anything to especially promote his views (more than any other professor teaching from their own point of view). Some criticized him later, but I have no basis for saying it was so. He never pushed me into anything (except taking more Hebrew, which I should have done).
However, it isn’t Calvinism per se that seems to be the problem. We had Paisley and Free Presbys speaking and held in high esteem.
Today, Calvinism is the cause celebre among evangelicals. Young men at BJU are drawn to this, it seems, but along with it they are imbibing the evangelical cooperative philosophy. Their heroes are the evangelical Calvinists, and I think that is what is leading them down the garden path.
Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3
You will see more cooperation between BJU and Master’s Seminary in the future.
Wally Morris
Huntington, IN
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