Carl Trueman Leaves Westminster for Grove City College

[Rob Fall]

I’ve also called MBU formerly MBBC, the Mary-Martha School of Missions and Matrimony. When I was at MBBC (77-81) the school’s focus was training leaders for the local church. It is a bit of tongue in cheek humor. Much like referring to BJU as the Citadel, on Wade Hampton. Then, I attended MBBC on the GI Bill after four years in the Coast Guard. So, I had little to no problems with dress code or haircuts.

Understood, but in the pages of Sharper Iron, I have repeatedly seen this kind of comparison made seriously—one including a claim that BJU actually modeled itself after USMA back in the fifties or sixties. I think it’s important to understand that there are fundamental differences between highly selective schools and most Christian colleges, and there are huge differences between the old USMA model for dealing with conscripts and how a shepherd ought to work. .

While some may hold West Point as a model for BJU, I look to another institution of leadership training, The Citadel (The Military College of South Carolina), as an inspiration for Bob Jones, Sr. and the other founders of the school.

[Bert Perry]

Rob Fall wrote:

I’ve also called MBU formerly MBBC, the Mary-Martha School of Missions and Matrimony. When I was at MBBC (77-81) the school’s focus was training leaders for the local church. It is a bit of tongue in cheek humor. Much like referring to BJU as the Citadel, on Wade Hampton. Then, I attended MBBC on the GI Bill after four years in the Coast Guard. So, I had little to no problems with dress code or haircuts.

Understood, but in the pages of Sharper Iron, I have repeatedly seen this kind of comparison made seriously—one including a claim that BJU actually modeled itself after USMA back in the fifties or sixties. I think it’s important to understand that there are fundamental differences between highly selective schools and most Christian colleges, and there are huge differences between the old USMA model for dealing with conscripts and how a shepherd ought to work.

Back when BJ Sr. was alive, the task of the Citadel was to…..create military leaders for the age of conscription. Not as much a difference in terms of selectivity/prestige as with USMA, but you still have huge problems with the model BJ. Sr. was using. Unless you count kids brought there who don’t want to be there, churches don’t have conscripts.

as I assume you’re thinking of it didn’t start up until 1940. So, much of the USMA’s and the Citadel’s traditions were not draft based. Though, the draft did “militarize” the thinking of incoming students who attended on the GI Bill.

Actually, while there were breaks from an actual draft, the leadership training model still assumed officers would be called upon to quickly mobilize large armies of draftees, really going all the way back to the Civil War. So even between the world wars, the model was in effect to train conscripts. That’s why you get so much emphasis on conformity, boot polish, discipline, and the like.

Another factor preserving the model of leading draftees is simple inertia, the old proverb that an army starts out fighting its last war, no matter what the situation on the ground, and often takes years to learn the new paradigm. We who love Christian education should take note, I think.

I have no pony in this show - my undergraduate alma mater no longer exists - but FWIW, the current BJU president is a Citidel grad…

[CAWatson]

I have no pony in this show - my undergraduate alma mater no longer exists - but FWIW, the current BJU president is a Citidel grad…

Not a problem, especially since he graduated in the mid-1970s, after the end of the draft. The problem is not Citadel or USMA grads of any era, but rather of using methods from those schools without investigating why those methods were appropriate to those schools, and asking whether those methods are applicable to the mission of BJU, Maranatha, or whoever.

Thank you Tyler.