The campus and assets of Northland International University gifted to Southern Seminary

My overarching point is that I believe we as Christians are too willing to tolerate incompetent leadership and how we treat other believers all in the name of ministry. While I am not suggesting Dr. Olson intentionally meant harm to NIU and its people, I do think NIU was naive, reckless, and outright stupid with its financial policies and practices and its horrible effort at re-branding.

Yet, instead of taking a stand and saying, “This was wrong,” or calling for the leadership to own it, too many people want to give Olson a pass. Folks, NIU lost TEN MILLION DOLLARS from Paul Patz and and alienated thousands of people!! And for what??? But hey, at least a few people could be happy about drums for chapel music!!

A few years ago a missions board had to shut down because of poor financial decisions leaving many missionaries high & dry financially.

We as Christians need to hold ourselves to a higher level of accountability and competence and stop giving leadership like this a pass.

This must stop! We need leaders with character who will own up to their decisions. We need to hold our leaders accountable - not say, “Shucks, that’s just too bad. He had such a good ministry heart.” No more!

If it isn’t already obvious this ticks me off! It is wrong to recklessly manage a ministry, irresponsibly burn through that money earned by Paul Patz over Decades of hard work, alienate the very people that allowed NIU to build and exist - and then have people like Joel Tetreau say, “Don’t be so hard on the leader.”

It is that very passive attitude that is perpetuated in “ministry” that allows situations like this to keep happening. We should be better than this!

We are dealing with precious resources given to us by the Lord and with people’s lives and livelihood. These are not toys, this is not a game. These things are to be honored and respected.

Joel,

There is no question that Southern/Boyce is rescuing NIU. I am not blaming Southern for this situation at all. I am holding Matt responsible for taking the school in a different direction which resulted in this situation. When you take the presidency of an independent, conservative, separatist, cessationist, Baptist college and intentionally, deceptively change it into something significantly different, I have a major problem with that. I have talked at length with Les O. about this matter. He feels betrayed by Matt and others. Ironically, Southern might actually move the school to the right from where it is today. We will wait and see. This is Matt’s legacy. In retrospect he should have stayed in Colorado. Tri-City Baptist is a very good church. Matt did an excellent job starting and pastoring that work. Will Senn has taken that work and it has greatly prospered under his spiritual leadership. It all comes down to leadership.

It strikes me—being a statistician by trade (quality engineer)—that before we totally blame anyone for what happened, we first understand that the board of directors is equally responsible, and second we need to understand whether NIU/NBBC declined independently of other schools. If I understand the rise & fall, they peaked in the early 2000s and then plunged….right along with, or shortly following, Pillsbury.

Put gently, if leadership is the issue, and not other factors, we ought to be able to watch students migrate from NIU & Pillsbury to MBBC, FBBC, BJU, wherever—see the others gaining or treading water while the north two did the death spiral.

It strikes me as well, per Dr. Maclachlan’s excellent work on “Recovering Authentic Fundamentalism”, is that perhaps we need to have a serious conversation about what authentic reasons for separation might be, and what might they not be. I am glad to separate on genuinely theological grounds like the solas, the fundamentals, anything in the Apostle’s Creed, and even Baptist distinctives. I am profoundly uneasy with separating on the basis of music, dress, whether we’d accept the invitation to the wedding at Cana, etc..

It might also be added, per a few of the links to NBBC’s detractors, that we might do well to consider whether we might from time to time do well to include those with whom we disagree to sharpen the minds of our students. One criticism I’ve heard of Bible colleges is that they teach you what to think, not how to think. Hopefully not true in the whole, but I remember and am blessed by challenges I’ve received to my faith. Let’s teach logic and have some people in with whom we disagree. Show them a hearty welcome and let them sharpen us.

[Mike Harding] I am holding Matt responsible for taking the school in a different direction which resulted in this situation. When you take the presidency of an independent, conservative, separatist, cessationist, Baptist college and intentionally, deceptively change it into something significantly different, I have a major problem with that.

Northland was/is the Patz’s show. They started it, they funded it, they had multiple family members on the board. You act as if the college somehow belonged to a group or a movement. It really belonged to the Patz family. And after Olson was fired .. hired … and fired again …. it’s a Patz family member at the helm. If the Patz family wanted Northland to go back to a “separatist” position they could have taken it that way.

–– Noticed when I visited the campus last month –-

Two resident halls are named for Patz family members. That’s fine and no criticism there! But proof that it is a Patz show

It seems to me that Harding’s points on this thread are virtually unanswerable.

If Olson was reworking his theology and convictions, then resign your presidency, figure out who you are- and then attach yourself to a ministry (or start one) that aligns with you who you are.

Don’t betray or mislead your core constituency in the process.

I am not able to extend much sympathy as per Joel’s post because so much of the change was done in an underhanded way. Of course trauma and heartache come when you do things that way!

Looking at the Northland web site since Olson’s departure- there is new initiative after new initiative being launched….and now the next announcement…… wait for it…….we are gifting ourselves away! At least we know where Southern stand.

I am perplexed how the Northland Board seemingly stood by while all of this happened. Isn’t that why you have a board? For the sake of accountability and transparency?

[Mike Harding]

Joel,

There is no question that Southern/Boyce is rescuing NIU. I am not blaming Southern for this situation at all. I am holding Matt responsible for taking the school in a different direction which resulted in this situation. When you take the presidency of an independent, conservative, separatist, cessationist, Baptist college and intentionally, deceptively change it into something significantly different, I have a major problem with that. I have talked at length with Les O. about this matter. He feels betrayed by Matt and others. Ironically, Southern might actually move the school to the right from where it is today. We will wait and see. This is Matt’s legacy. In retrospect he should have stayed in Colorado. Tri-City Baptist is a very good church. Matt did an excellent job starting and pastoring that work. Will Senn has taken that work and it has greatly prospered under his spiritual leadership. It all comes down to leadership.

I totally disagree with this assessment. To pawn this off on the president and not hold the board responsible is ridiculous. Feeling betrayed is a cop out. There should have been oversight of this from day 1. The board handed off its responsibilities to Matt and now say they were betrayed. Anytime the board says they were betrayed over changes that were occurring for more than 5 to 6 years is total failure of the board. In fact, this is text book board failure. As having served on boards, and having taken graduate level courses on board governance and having been mentored by a board member of the Federal Reserve of the United States, I can tell you this is board failure. I am not defending Matt or saying that the course he took was right or wrong, but to absolve the board and blame Matt, I think is not having a good understanding of true board governance. It could be that this is how fundamentalist boards run, but it is not how “real” boards should be ran (I would also say that fundamentalism has an inbred problem with its boards, often picking individuals who have only served on boards of other fundamentalist instructions and not on true corporate boards or having received true training and mentorship from successful seasones board members) . Whether Matt ran it in a totally contrary direction, could not have happened unless 1) the board was behind it, or 2) the board was careless in its responsibilities and allowed management to subvert the board’s duties. Flat out.

At the end of Dr. Wood’s thesis, there is a note with the minutes of a Northland board meeting where they noted that ten million dollars was a lower limit, that they were going below that out of necessity, and (this is the kicker) they were expecting 5-8% interest on that fund.

What this demonstrates:

A. The board of directors was consulted and was intimately involved with the financial and other operation of the school.

B. They were counting on a lot more interest than they got. The S&P 500 dropped by 32% by 2008—so even with a well distributed portfolio, they were not going to get anywhere near this amount.

Again, not all one guy’s fault. Confusion over separation may have alienated many, but again, at a certain point I think we need to sort out which separation is truly Biblical and important, and what is merely cultural.

[Robert Apps]

It seems to me that Harding’s points on this thread are virtually unanswerable.

I answered Harding about the Patz family being in charge.

Please - and everyone should do this - acquaint yourself with Guidestar.org. Look up your organizations. Look up Northland. See who is on the board: Patz (1); Patz(2); Patz(3); and another who I understand to be a Patz with her husband’s surname.

It is unfair to blame Matt O.

The Patz family could have donated the property to Maranatha, Faith, BJU - they chose to give it to SBTS. I’m OK with that - like I said - the started, funded, and dominated the board.

I respect Les Ollila but … from the Dr Bobby Wood dissertation:

Olilla couldn’t make a decision about whether women - in a sub-arctic climate - would be permitted to wear pants! Concerned about what the constituency would think! I mean really … that’s lack of leadership!

At this point, the deed is done, so blame is kind of irrelevant.

Matt was the face of the organization at the time everything appears to have fallen apart and naturally will stand in for at least his share of the criticism. And naturally there is probably plenty of others who should share some of the criticism.

But as I said, at this point, what’s the point?

When I wrote articles raising questions for Matt, I did so with no joy. I wish we had more good strong schools for fundamentalist pastors to suggest to their young people, not less. Matt is someone who I’ve known and liked on a personal level for almost forty years. It is not joyful to have serious public disagreements with someone like that. At the same time, as an observer, I saw moves that were raising all kinds of questions and alarms and no one else was saying much about it. The questions had to be asked.

Now that the situation has been pretty well resolved, I think we need to give up worrying about who to blame. I’m not happy with the end results, I wish we still had the old Northland to recommend. But we don’t. I hope the new situation will do some good for the Lord’s work.

Don,

I think the point in the discussion now is to keep this from repeating itself in the future. Several men sounded the alarm and warned that it would lead to the demise of Northland. The vast majority of voices disagreed (mostly younger men), confident that everything would be fine. Here we are now, lamenting the death of Northland, and still some voices are saying this was all good. We must dissect what happened and earn from it lest we end up repeating the process. When times get tough, changing standards and adapting to the popular culture is probably not the way to obtain God’s blessing.

But some of the discussion has been: It’s Matt’s fault; No It’s the board’s fault; No It’s….

and on it goes. Ahh… yeah, well, not all that edifying at this point.

I agree, however, that those who pooh poohed the “alarmists” have a lot of ‘splainin to do.

[Chip Van Emmerik]

Don,

I think the point in the discussion now is to keep this from repeating itself in the future. Several men sounded the alarm and warned that it would lead to the demise of Northland. The vast majority of voices disagreed (mostly younger men), confident that everything would be fine. Here we are now, lamenting the death of Northland, and still some voices are saying this was all good. We must dissect what happened and earn from it lest we end up repeating the process. When times get tough, changing standards and adapting to the popular culture is probably not the way to obtain God’s blessing.

Exactly!!

I am curious when the decision was actually made to go SBC? By this I mean that Olsen and the Board (in full or partial) together decided to move away from the separatist position. At some point they knew that their funding support from separatists would vanish. Did they really think they could survive with a new separate identity, or was the plan all along to affiliate with Southern? To get there they had to start drifting the school that way.

On a “lighter” note, how many fundamentalists are aghast that they can now say they have made a significant contribution to the SBC? :-(