Bob Jones University Enters a New Era

[Adam Blumer]

I’m not sure what you’re missing here. Sorry. Care to rephrase?

It seems to me, Adam, that your defending the BJU according to the policies of its past, which with this latest shift isn’t the same place. You’re saying “If you don’t like (BJU), you don’t have to go there,” but at the same time saying there are things you don’t like now. I’m just not sure what wins in the end in your mind… You don’t like it, so you’re discouraging your children from going there, or are you defending them even with the policy changes as still being a better option in contrast to other schools.

Larry, the sighs are DESERVED because you know very well the very clear, objective differences between an 80 year old and an 18 year old. You should be flat out embarrassed to be diverting attention to such things.

To refresh your memory, I have said from the beginning that they are different. You are the one who put 18 year olds in the same category that as 80 year olds, unless you are suggesting that there are two or more kinds of adults (which would seem to be admitting my point). Why should I be embarrassed for using the comparison you set up? It’s not a diversion. It’s the point: Are 18 year olds adults or not? If so, why can’t we compare them to adults? (Because it casts doubt on your argument?)

But since you bring it up, I don’t know the clear objective differences between 80 and 18 you are referring to. I believe there are some pretty clear differences which was my point from the beginning, but you objected. So why don’t you tell us what you mean by that? Are there really two (or more) kinds of adults with varying levels of something or the other?

You are making my case, really, that taking attendance constantly is a refuge predominantly of less selective schools.

Like Yale too, I presume. I just glanced at about 3 or 4 syllabi from Yale that show up on the first or second page of a Google search that require class attendance and punish those who miss. And those were just the several I looked at. But perhaps Yale is a less selective school like BJU is. Noted second tier schools like Harvard and Princeton also have classes with mandatory attendance required.

The fact remains that while some schools (like BJU) have a blanket rule requiring class attendance, other schools leave it up to professors who require class attendance. So it’s not odd. It’s not infantalizing. It’s a reasonable requirement. As an aside (yet farther away), I still not sure how an 18-22 with no experience in the field of their study are able to determine which information they need and which they do not.

In the end, rules can serve a variety of functions for training, character development, orderly function of anything from a life to a home to a school to a business, and biblical obedience. To change them as things change is a wise thing to do. If things don’t change, then don’t change them. And don’t try to run an organization from the outside (i.e., the cheap seats) when you don’t even agree with the purpose of the organization.

A good number of folks here can’t even accept the very idea of a Bible college with rules for young people to actually abide by while they live there. What I’m defending is the value of that type of environment with rules and spiritual accountability, whether it’s BJU, Maranatha, Faith, or wherever. They follow similar standards on a campus environment, and I wish some commenters here would be fairer in their analysis (but hey, this is SI). Debate about age of maturity or even rules on a campus is totally pointless to anyone who is okay with enrolling their young people in a campus like the one described.
I can’t help but refer to the BJU campus where I lived for four years, and part of me of course looks back with some sentiment and longing for what used to be. I know this is pie in the sky, because of course everything changes in time. But some change raises the eyebrows. So while I do have reservations about some changes I’m learning about (lack of enforcement also concerns me), I still am proud to be a BJU alumnus, and I defend the concept of such a campus for future training. Does that make sense? And “If you don’t like BJU, you don’t have to go there” also applies to me and my daughters as we look ahead. I’m waiting to see more about these changes and hoping for clarification from those at the top. Or something. This conversation here might get their attention; I know several of them from my Northland days. They are good men, and I may contact them privately. We’ll see.

Larry, regarding people claiming they’re Biblical, here’s an example from Adam:

So the answer is, “No,” you can’t point to anyone making that argument. Thanks.

So Larry asks for an example, Bert provides it, and Larry says ‘No, you can’t point to anyone…’

Okay then.

And as for this:

Like Yale too, I presume. I just glanced at about 3 or 4 syllabi from Yale that show up on the first or second page of a Google search that require class attendance and punish those who miss. And those were just the several I looked at. But perhaps Yale is a less selective school like BJU is. Noted second tier schools like Harvard and Princeton also have classes with mandatory attendance required.

The fact remains that while some schools (like BJU) have a blanket rule requiring class attendance, other schools leave it up to professors who require class attendance. So it’s not odd.

Both Ron Bean and I have noted that we aren’t talking about class attendance policy.

I don’t think the wall exists on this side of the debate.

So Larry asks for an example, Bert provides it, and Larry says ‘No, you can’t point to anyone…’

Unless I misread Bert’s example, it says nothing about a biblical argument for belts, socks, or four fingers. Did I misread that? Here is is, cut and pasted from Bert’s post:

What began this debate is that certain BJU standards, some established for decades (and based in biblical principles per published writings, I might add), have been changing and are changing still. Inquiring minds want to know why. Simply changing a biblically based standard that was that way—again, for decades—isn’t persuasive in itself,

Can you tell me what, in this quote, identifies belts, socks, or four fingers as “based in biblical principles”?

And just in case someone might slip it in there in the white space, Adam (who Bert was quoting) says, “I didn’t list things like belts or socks as “biblically based standards.” For that category, I listed things like not drinking, not swearing, and so forth, for which one can find biblical guidance. I would consider things like wearing belts and socks as institutional guidelines, not biblically based ones (probably to avoid sloppiness).”

In other words, Bert used Adam’s words to say something Adam wasn’t saying. (He has done that kind of thing before, including with me here in this thread.) So isn’t it fairly clear that Bert didn’t provide an example of a biblical argument for belts, socks, and four fingers?

I know this is long, but has everyone here actually given up reading what is written?

Both Ron Bean and I have noted that we aren’t talking about class attendance policy.

Bert was. He was using it as an example of a rule that “At best, it’s an attempt to paper over a situation the deans have the informaiton to avoid. At worst, it actively discourages and infantilizes students.” He then said that “taking attendance constantly is a refuge predominantly of less selective schools. Like BJU.” And, as I pointed, out, IUPUI, ISU, Yale, Harvard, Princeton, and others.

The bottom line is that objecting to class attendance policies was a bad idea. They seem relatively common as are penalties for missing class.

For the record, I have no argument with attendance policies nor with how they are enforced. When I went to a state university, they had an attendance policy: Attend class or miss essential information for which you will probably be academically penalized. BJU: Attend class or get demerits and have to go to the Disciplinary Committee and explain your absence or tardiness. I know that the BJU method took minutes out of a teacher’s valuable teaching time to implement and I know from experience that some teachers, even 30 years ago, didn’t implement it.

I don’t think anyone has ever not considered BJU because of the way they handle attendance.

If you’re going to claim I put 18 year olds in the same category as 80 year olds, you ought to provide some evidence. OH, crickets…of course, given the treatment you’ve given the evidence I’ve provided, maybe I shouldn’t expect too much of you. Honestly, you asked for evidence that someone believes that portions of the BJU student handbook are Biblical, and I provided a quote. You should give it a try instead of pouring out disdain for it.

Moreover, I’ve made clear several times here that a class syllabus does not demonstrate a university-wide policy fo taking attendance for each class section. Maybe….work on your reading comprehension, Larry? Oh, and your evidence….crickets again, brother. No argument that even at prestigious schools, there will be classes where the professors will have to insist on taking attendance—really ones where students don’t always clue in (like the MIT choir class) that their absence will hurt others’ experience.

But to make it university-wide crosses a line, in my view. Maybe not in yours, but it sure does in mine. In my view, the degree of control exercised there—the entire demerit system that still exists, a bunch of rules based on applications of logical fallacies and prejudice, and the like—really says to me that at a certain point, the school is going to really be truncating their students’ ability to think and see the world for themselves.

In other words, it’s the exact opposite system that I’d use. Not that I’m against modesty, or sobriety, or classroom attendance, or any of that stuff, but the reality is that we’ve been trying rule A and rule B to fence off the possibility of violating these things, and any honest Baptist yet recognizes the truth of the joke “Protestants don’t recognize the Pope, Catholics don’t recognize the Westminster Confession, and Baptists don’t recognize each other at the liquor store.”

The rules are not working, and I think we need to listen to what Northland, Pillsbury, and the plunge in attendance at BJU are telling us. It’s not that people are that much less spiritual—evangelicals with fewer rules but essentially the same theology are eating the lunch of fundamentalists. People look at student handbooks as I did BJU’s and Maranatha’s and say “you have got to be kidding me—are they prohibiting Mike’s Hard Lemonade, an Arnold Palmer, or a Coke with my burger?”.

As I was taking a walk across the BJU campus this week I saw an interesting sight. Two young ladies walking across the bridge having a friendly conversation with each other with enough laughs that I could assume they were friends. One was wearing jeans and the other was perhaps a Mennonite, an assumption I made from her ankle length dress and head covering. I don’t think their respective attire made a bit of difference to either one them. I’ll also assume that their parents have vastly differing views on dress but don’t deem them important enough to affect their choice of a school for the education of their children.

[Ron Bean]

As I was taking a walk across the BJU campus this week I saw an interesting sight. Two young ladies walking across the bridge having a friendly conversation with each other with enough laughs that I could assume they were friends. One was wearing jeans and the other was perhaps a Mennonite, an assumption I made from her ankle length dress and head covering. I don’t think their respective attire made a bit of difference to either one them. I’ll also assume that their parents have vastly differing views on dress but don’t deem them important enough to affect their choice of a school for the education of their children.