On (BJU) Bible Conference

Any graduate of BJU is likely to have intense memories of the annual Bible Conference. For me, it was always an exciting time, but tinged with a lot of anxiety. Pretty healthy anxiety, but still anxiety. Most of it was social. What would happen for a lot of students is that a conference date would result in a mutual interest that would then result in basically spending the whole conference together. A lot of us went into it more interested in that than in all the preaching … to be honest. So the anticipation of discovering your soulmate could be intense. For me, nothing even close to that ever happened. (It was usually discovering that the young lady of interest had apparently found her soul mate, and it was not me!)

In fact, being the social klutz I was at the time, I was often afraid I’d be attending services or other events all by myself. Which would have to be an uncomfortable experience in that environment. You were almost always with someone or several people. Blessedly, the Eric Carmen experience never happened either.

Then there was all the choir performance stress. Absolutely worth it. Learned so much from those highly-disciplined choirs and directors. We never just threw something together. 99% of the time it was memorized from start to finish, and that meant not only words and music and where you were coming in and when to cut off, but all the tempo changes, dynamics, and what sort of vowels and consonants the director wanted to hear more of… where he wanted more chest voice, where he wanted more head voice. You never took your eyes off the director—for good reason. He was really directing, and the pieces were often challenging—sometimes with a full orchestra. You needed him.

I almost never thought we sounded very good though, during performances. We often sounded pretty great from the middle of the bass section in a small rehearsal room. In FMA or Rodeheaver Auditorium, it always seemed like our voices disappeared into a huge void (FMA by far the worst). So you had to learn to not be unnerved, and hope it was sounding OK down in the seats.

I can’t remember any great thing in particular ever happening during Conference, but I did enjoy most of the preaching. Having grown up with three sermons a week at school and usually three or four a week at church, with the occasional youth rally or camp experience on top of that, I wasn’t calloused, but I wasn’t excitable. I’d seen all sorts of crowds going down aisles… with no discernable difference in their lives a week later. So, yeah, as far as “aisle drama” goes, I was—and still am—pretty cynical.

But Conference always also included some good exposition, too, and these were good food for my soul. I’m thankful. Even the revivalist types, though distractingly sloppy with the Scriptures, often had huge hearts for God and for future church leaders—or so it seemed from where I sat. And that blessed me as well.

All that time for socializing. Students called it “drop/add week” because of all the relationships that began—or ended—because of the extra time spent together. Some realized (fortunately!) that they just weren’t that compatible.

I always enjoyed and benefited from the BJU Bible Conferences. I enjoyed the more relaxed atmosphere (sitting on the grass was allowed, for example), but most of all, hearing some of the well-known preachers of that day. Men like Robert Ketchem, Earnest Pickering, Carl McIntyre, Ian Paisley, etc. Where else would I have heard these man?

I have a dear friend in ministry who came from a strong Arminian background, but became a Calvinist while at BJU because, as he put it, he realized that the Calvinists that he heard at Bible Conference preached the gospel more clearly and powerfully than the Arminians. It caused him to think, study, and change his theology. (Dr. Bob Jones, Jr., would probably turn over in his grave if he realized that the preachers he invited to Bible Conference had that effect on some of the students. :) )

The week of Bible Conference also coincided with the “Great Purge” each year. A week of conviction, turning each other in on infractions that were committed earlier in the year, and the subsequent dismissals of a number of students as a result of those infractions. Ahh the memories!

Strange, I was apparently unaware of the “Great Purge” each year following Bible Conference, even though I was a student for twelve conferences. (Academy, University, Graduate School) Either I was too busy to notice, or it may not have been as significant as some seem to think.

[G. N. Barkman]

Strange, I was apparently unaware of the “Great Purge” each year following Bible Conference, even though I was a student for twelve conferences. (Academy, University, Graduate School) Either I was too busy to notice, or it may not have been as significant as some seem to think.

It was big at least my years (‘89 to ‘95). Not sure what took place before and after. I was dragged into it my last year at school.

[dgszweda]

The week of Bible Conference also coincided with the “Great Purge” each year. A week of conviction, turning each other in on infractions that were committed earlier in the year, and the subsequent dismissals of a number of students as a result of those infractions. Ahh the memories!

I was at a fundy Bible college with a ‘snitch ethos’. It wasn’t pleasant. Didn’t know who real friends were. I left

[dgszweda]

It was big at least my years (‘89 to ‘95). Not sure what took place before and after. I was dragged into it my last year at school.

I heard of that kind of thing happening while I was there (‘81-‘85), but it never affected me directly (if you never did anything that caused one of those big inquiries, you had little to worry about), and as far as “snitching” went, I just refused to ever do so. I was never called in and asked to turn on anyone else, but I also figured it was not my job to police others at the school, so I never “turned in” anyone.

Thankfully, by the time my kids went there, the “snitching culture” was greatly reduced.