Olson out at Northland
For what it’s worth:
A large 1800 in attendance church in Mesa, AZ is losing its building. The bank is foreclosing. What happened? The economy happened. The church owes over $12 million to the bank in back payments.
A Baptist church of 225 is also losing its building in June.
Their financial problems stem from the economy. When people lose jobs, giving goes down.
When parents lose jobs, tuition can’t be paid, kids go to community colleges.
Most of NIU’s problems have to do with the economy and lack of regional accreditation, not the change in direction by Matt.
Churches all across America are being foreclosed on because of the economy. The same is happening to colleges, Christian, Bible, or secular.
Don, that doesn’t fit their narrative. It is easier to pretend they had it all figured out and any deviation of that is the problem.
1 Kings 8:60 - so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the LORD is God and that there is no other.
[Shaynus]1. I really thank God that the older generation of fundamentalists such as McCune, Doran, and Harding are taking the time to interact here with a relatively diverse audience of fundamentalists. This is good for all parties. This simply wouldn’t happen without the internet and without some kind of SI site. Which brings me to my next point.
I think this is important. I come from a long line of Baptist Preachers, tracing all the way to the early 1600’s in Wales (there is a book publishing our family tree). When I was younger, I interviewed three generations of preachers in my family dating back to 1886. It was a unique and interesting perspective to see Baptist Preacher’s perspective dating that far back. Each one of their concerns was that the next generation would spoil the gospel. The changes they were seeing were in their eyes detrimental. Some proved out to be detrimental, and some didn’t. At the end of the day, God is Sovereign over all. The changes are not a surprise to him. In many respects changes are needed and are inevitable. The cultural concerns and the “sliding into the world’s culture” that my great, great grandfather saw sometimes turned out to be non-issues in the day. But I also think it is important that the younger generation doesn’t just go rampantly wild. It is good to have that “tension” (the younger generation pulling away, the older generation pulling back). We need that perspective and wisdom to help balance things out. So while we may or may not disagree with all of the thoughts on this site, it is still wise to ponder what is said and rethink through our ideas. It is great to see that on this site, even though there may seem to be frustration.
[Don Sailer] For what it’s worth:A large 1800 in attendance church in Mesa, AZ is losing its building. The bank is foreclosing. What happened? The economy happened. The church owes over $12 million to the bank in back payments.
A Baptist church of 225 is also losing its building in June.
Their financial problems stem from the economy. When people lose jobs, giving goes down.
When parents lose jobs, tuition can’t be paid, kids go to community colleges.
Most of NIU’s problems have to do with the economy and lack of regional accreditation, not the change in direction by Matt.
Churches all across America are being foreclosed on because of the economy. The same is happening to colleges, Christian, Bible, or secular.
It’s not just small religious schools either - it’s a lot of smaller colleges. The WSJ had an article a few weeks ago about this very story.
"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
spoke at Central Baptist Theological Seminary about 6 years ago. He said some very hard-to-hear things. One of his concerns was regarding the law of unintended consequences. This is a difficult one, because who knows how our so-called “more grace-motivated, less law-motivated, more Gospel-centered than the previous generation” kind of changes will actually play out?
One of his points is that so many who want to make changes (and he was talking about him and peers from his own day first) fail to think through “so are the changes I am making going to play out in a way which could defame Christ, weaken the church, etc.?”
Mike Riley notes how a mark of worldliness is to think that something (that we have always done, or something that we want to do that is different) need not be vetted against the notion, “great idea, but is it righteous to do this?”
So far, when someone has questioned the wisdom or righteousness of what has been done at this particular educational institution, if anyone asked these kinds of questions of the changes in ways I allude to above, they have often been garrulously shouted down or summarily dismissed. But it is worldly to not ask the questions. I don’t have time to read everything, so if the answer is easily-seen out there, I would like to know. Are there well-thought-out critiques of the changes, noting strengths, weaknesses, etc?
Aside: I for one am glad to see that Doran and Harding are included in the older generation. heh, heh.
[dgszweda][Shaynus]1. I really thank God that the older generation of fundamentalists such as McCune, Doran, and Harding are taking the time to interact here with a relatively diverse audience of fundamentalists. This is good for all parties. This simply wouldn’t happen without the internet and without some kind of SI site. Which brings me to my next point.
I think this is important. I come from a long line of Baptist Preachers, tracing all the way to the early 1600’s in Wales (there is a book publishing our family tree). When I was younger, I interviewed three generations of preachers in my family dating back to 1886. It was a unique and interesting perspective to see Baptist Preacher’s perspective dating that far back. Each one of their concerns was that the next generation would spoil the gospel. The changes they were seeing were in their eyes detrimental. Some proved out to be detrimental, and some didn’t. At the end of the day, God is Sovereign over all. The changes are not a surprise to him. In many respects changes are needed and are inevitable. The cultural concerns and the “sliding into the world’s culture” that my great, great grandfather saw sometimes turned out to be non-issues in the day. But I also think it is important that the younger generation doesn’t just go rampantly wild. It is good to have that “tension” (the younger generation pulling away, the older generation pulling back). We need that perspective and wisdom to help balance things out. So while we may or may not disagree with all of the thoughts on this site, it is still wise to ponder what is said and rethink through our ideas. It is great to see that on this site, even though there may seem to be frustration.
SamH
For what it’s worth, I just got off the phone with the DBTS bookstore. I just ordered McCune’s 3 volume Systematic Theology (spurred on by this thread). I am highly interested and anticipating a good read when the books arrive out here in Idaho. Thankful for the internet, SI connection, and the older generation. God is good. And the remarkable thing is that God uses both a Matt Olson and a Dr. McCune for the advancement of Christian growth in my life.
Discussion