What Bob Jones was doing forty-six years ago.

[Jim]

Does the ACCC regard Sharper Iron a neo-fundamentalist organization / website for posting a review of Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism ? I ask because we are mentioned in the ACCC resolution On the Dangers of NeoFundamentalism

Thanks

Sent from my iPhone

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I’ll report back

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Hello Jim, Thanks for asking, and for the work you do on the website for the Lord. I can tell you that the ACCC resolution does not intend to call the website neo-fundamentalist. It intends to point out that the call for a convergence between fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals found in the 4 Views book is neo-fundamentalist. That the book was promoted by your website was noted in the resolution to highlight its influence and popularity in our circles. The reason we think that the convergence promoted in the book is neo-fundamentalist has to do with a willingness to set the Bible doctrine of separation aside in order to work with otherwise good men. It is a temptation every fundamentalist who longs for the unity of Christ’s body faces, and so it is one that we have to warn one another about in view of the importance of separation to the future of our ministries. Let me assure you of prayerful deliberations that are mindful of our weakness and fallibility in the drafting of these resolutions. A good deal of peer review and counsel goes into each. Where we are mistaken, we try to make corrections. You may have noticed that we did a revision of the neo-fundamentalist resolution, having misunderstood some of Dr. Bauder’s material in the book regarding hyper-fundamentalism. Thanks again for communicating. May the Lord bless your diligent labors for Him. In Christ, Kevin Pastor Kevin Hobi New Boston Baptist Church, NH ACCC Recording Secretary; Resolution Committee Chairman

[TylerR]

You’re right. I read the entire instruction. From what I see from the Armed Forces Chaplain Board Endorsements, the endorsing bodies seem to be denominations or organizations. You are right to say that a single independent church can submit a request to be an endorser, though I’m not so sure it would ever be approved. I stand corrected

it would be harder, but not impossible. It would be the same as someone saying that a church needs a para church mission board to get things done. But churches like Morningside in Greenville created their own local church mission board (Open Door Baptist Missions). It just takes some work and some churches are content in writing a check to a board than to have the hassle in setting up a mission board.

Awarding honorary doctorates to prominent segregationists:

• George Wallace in 1964 (known for his inaugural speech “In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever”) and
• Lester Maddox in 1969 (the guy who chased blacks out of his restaurant with “with a bare ax handle”)

America’s most prominent fundamentalist … was also a prominent segregationist.

I know some will take offense of my mentioning this … but it’s an important part of fundamentalist history that should not be white-washed

Whitewashing is a honorable and venerable part of any institutional heritage. How dare you step out of bounds …

[Jim]

Awarding honorary doctorates to prominent segregationists:

• George Wallace in 1964 (known for his inaugural speech “In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever”) and
• Lester Maddox in 1969 (the guy who chased blacks out of his restaurant with “with a bare ax handle”)

America’s most prominent fundamentalist … was also a prominent segregationist.

I know some will take offense of my mentioning this … but it’s an important part of fundamentalist history that should not be white-washed

Here’s “Doctor” Maddox (with revolver in hand) greeting a potential customer at his restaurant: http://www.atlantatimemachine.com/misc/maddox10.htm

The picture is wicked and disgusting. But praise the Lord, The new leadership of my alma matter, has admitted that behavior was wrong and sinful.

[Ken Woodard]

Who has time to write a [treatise] about a book that is 40 years old and the person involved in writing it died 16 years ago? We are better off not rehashing history but rather build a better future.

Really? Why do you draw this contrast? And how do you propose to build a better future without studying and learning from history?

In considering this, I recalled something that I had read in the past, along the lines of “Who knows only his own generation remains always a child.” In running this down I found that it comes loosely from a statement of Cicero:

Nescire autem quid ante quam natus sis acciderit, id est semper esse puerum.

It is translated roughly as follows:

Not to know what happened before you were born is to remain always a child.

Worth pondering.

Jones [p.68]: “intermarriage .. is rebellion against God” … will lead to “a mongrel race”

“If it is necessary to drop an atomic bomb on Hanoi in order to end the war and save the lives of our American boys, we should do that”

I share this and the previous to demonstrate how Jones Jr really did not effectively represent Fundamentalism on these two points

[Jim]

I share this and the previous to demonstrate how Jones Jr really did not effectively represent Fundamentalism on these two points

You don’t think he did? I would wonder if, at least with the “mongrel race” quote, if he didn’t represent not only a fair percentage of people in Fundamentalist churches, but even that of larger society of the time. As the child of an inter-ethnic and inter-cultural marriage, I know that my parents got comments inside and outside of church when I was growing up, and I even got comments occasionally. I know for a fact my father’s mother was very uncomfortable with the marriage (my father’s father, who had served in the Philippines during WWII, was absolute gold from the get go, on the other hand). As late as the early 1990s, Ron Bean (my pastor at the time) called down to BJU and confirmed that if I were to enroll as a student, I would have to pre-determine if I were either “white” or “asian” for dating purposes. I’ve moved past it, but for a long time I really resented BJU and its policies in that area, and the similar influence I found articulated by individuals in churches growing up.

I would wonder … if he didn’t represent not only a fair percentage of people in Fundamentalist churches

Maranatha had the same rule until the late 80’s or very early 90’s (when BJ lost its tax exempt status?). Then they dropped the prohibition, allowing it with parental permission.

So add the Cedarholm swath to the BJ swath. A fairly large, if not the main, stream.

Racial prejudice is sin. The Biblical doctrines of creation and redemption stress the equality of all men in the sight of God”. … it is the duty of the Church to preach the whole counsel of God [and] rebuke racial prejudice’

John Warwick Montgomery on same:

One of the greatest blots on the history of American churches is the toleration of the prejudicial treatment of minority races” …. [rhetorical question question] ‘Would you want your daughter to marry one of them [context ‘a Negro’]? ‘In a word, Yes! Better that my daughter would marry a believing Negro than a bigoted White’ ”

It would be a mistake to not acknowledge the fact that while the church as a whole struggled with race, the BJU subculture and maybe other fundamentalists subcultures were some of the last to get on board with racial progress. Bob Jones was a decade at least behind the secular schools in the south in allowing blacks to enroll in the college. Consider that while the Bob Jones’ were busy being bigoted, Billy Graham was actively fighting for racial equality and segregation at his crusades.

[GregH] Bob Jones was a decade at least behind the secular schools in the south in allowing blacks to enroll in the college. Consider that while the Bob Jones’ were busy being bigoted, Billy Graham was actively fighting for racial equality and segregation at his crusades.

• Armed Services: Executive Order 9981 July 26, 1948
• Public Education: Brown v. Board of Education, May 17, 1954
• Rosa Parks, December 1, 1955
• Woolworth’s Lunch Counter, Greensboro, North Carolina, February 1, 1960
• Freedom Riders, 1961 and following
• George Wallace, ‘Stand on the Schoolhouse Door’, June 11, 1963
• Bob Jones University v. United States (1983) - more than 20 years behind rest of nation
• Bob Jones University: Dropping the no-interracial-dating rule (2000)
• Bob Jones University: Apology for “racially hurtful” policies (2008)

My own observations on Christianity and racism:

• Grew up in Cincinnati. My H.S. was integrated
• Saved in 1969, I attend Baptist Ch in Cheviot OH (Cincinnati). My Pastor, Tom Hall, a Bob Jones grad. A fine man, nevertheless his view echoed the view of Bob Jones Sr. He sometimes would make “Negro jokes” from the pulpit. Once I told him it was inappropriate.
• My take is that the Bob Jones Sr position was based on poor exegesis and theology - not hatred
• In general, fundamentalists did not get out ahead of this issue - unlike how they got out ahead on the anti-abortion issue

[GregH]

It would be a mistake to not acknowledge the fact that while the church as a whole struggled with race, the BJU subculture and maybe other fundamentalists subcultures were some of the last to get on board with racial progress. Bob Jones was a decade at least behind the secular schools in the south in allowing blacks to enroll in the college. Consider that while the Bob Jones’ were busy being bigoted, Billy Graham was actively fighting for racial equality and segregation at his crusades.

To be completely correct, it was *nearly* a decade after both Clemson and USC had been forced by court order to enroll black students that BJU also finally allowed entrollment (Clemson, USC - 1963, BJU - 1971). So while it’s fair to say that some fundamentalist subcultures were in support of separate but equal, so was the southern culture at large. Integration in the south was brought about by the courts and other government action, not by majority opinion. This wasn’t just a “fundamental Christian” issue.

I agree with what you are implying — rather than bringing up the rear, BJU should have been at the forefront of opposing this view of racial separation. However, that’s more than 40 years in the past. For better or worse, the Jones’ were products of their time. That doesn’t make it right, but given the culture, it’s unlikely that many of us would have been better had we been born into that culture back then. Personally, I think it’s better to note that they have changed, and that the current BJU leadership is not trying to stand on those poor positions of the past. It’s taken them a while to get to this point, but just as many other schools and organizations have had to learn and change, BJU has had to do so as well. It would be interesting to note that they have made so many changes that a number of people in fundamentalism think they are going liberal. I’ve met and spoken to some of those people myself.

I think it would be good to note that they are not perfect, and that no matter what they do, they won’t please everyone. You can make your own choice whether you support them or not, but don’t do so based on something that doesn’t represent the school now and was so long ago that many (most?) of us here don’t really remember it even if we were alive then. Remember, having been brought up in the Catholic church, it took even Martin Luther a while to recognize the errors of his subculture and do something about it. Now, most remember him for what he accomplished afterward, not for the positions he originally held.