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

[Greg Linscott]

Several have mentioned the economic downturn as being a factor in the decline of Northland. No one has really mentioned how a school like Northland (and the other colleges whose doors are still open at this point) benefited from the Christian school movement that peaked in the late 1980s-early 90s. I think that is something that may not be “to blame,” but at least needs to be acknowledged- both in how it channeled students and the kinds of opportunities it offered for graduates of those schools.

Greg, I agree. What I am personally seeing is that a lot of Christian schools are closing. This is and was always a huge feeder for Christian Higher Education Institutions. In addition accreditation is becoming an increasing problem. When I graduated from BJU in the early 90’s it was not that big of a problem. But now it is. My wife wants to become a nurse, and unless she moves back to South Carolina, she pretty much can’t get in anywhere with her credits because the school is not regionally accredited. In addition, costs have gone up. I was able to pay for my entire 4 years at BJ with only my blood, sweat and tears. If I worked hard enough, I made just enough money to pay my bills. The costs today, are just getting to high, and add on top of that the lack of regional accreditation, just doesn’t make sense for many. I know many young people in the last few churches that I have attended, actually walk through this process in their head, and while they would have easily gone to a school like BJU, they are just choosing not to. And it seems that many parents are just fine with that, especially given the high costs and burden this has on families. Most of the young kids I know are staying in the area and going to good local colleges. They still stay at home with mom and dad and are actively involved in their church. I know that church’s like Dr. Harding’s are still strong feeders for schools like BJU, but many are just not going this route, and of course that is why you see the numbers drop. When I visit BJ once a year that I get down there, I hate seeing the campus look half empty, compared to what it was like when we went, but unfortunately times are changing.

I hope that Steve does steer the ship right. I still believe that regional accreditation is so critical to BJU and maybe their only lifeline. If any school can make it through this, it will be BJU, but it will be tough. Accreditation and a push for online learning, could save the school. If these things don’t happen, I only see BJU’s days numbered as well.

As an FYI, my wife and I made the conscience decision to not enroll our kids in a Christian school when we moved to Pittsburgh this year. They have been in a Christian school a long time. And not a small one with just a handful of kids meeting in the church basement. We have had them enrolled at one of the largest conservative schools in the nation with more than 1,000 students on a 150 acre campus. But I have been very, very impressed with the public school system. So much so, that I will most likely not consider putting my kids back into Christian school. We are saving more than $20K a year, and while it wasn’t about the money, I was just starting to question whether $20K was money well spent. The standards and the quality of education is miles ahead of any Christian school that we have had our kids in. The teachers are highly motivated to see your child succeed, my kids have more homework and are going over more advanced topics than they encountered in Christian school. I am not the only parent that feels this way. While it is easy to lambast the public school system, there are scores of very high quality and rigorous public school systems out there. And a lot of our acquaintances are just abandoning the Christian school system, not by lowering our standards, but by raising them. It also puts pressure on us to up our game at home and continually expose our kids to the Gospel even more so, and face challenges head on that we wouldn’t have had in Christian school.

Most of the young kids I know are staying in the area and going to good local colleges. They still stay at home with mom and dad and are actively involved in their church.

Some will laugh, but I think this is a legitimate thought. If a young person wanted to meet a Christian spouse who had similar beliefs, a sure place to meet was a college. The reality is that today, many are finding other networks to serve those needs, like online dating services.

One factor worth noting here is homeschooling, which has hit Christian schools hard. Another aspect of it (of which I am a part) is the classical homeschooling movement, which seeks to implement the old liberal arts (grammar/latin, logic/dialectic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music) into the curriculum. I can say for a fact that for most homeschoolers, Bible college is not a strong attraction because they’re simply used to a different study of languages and the like. In fact, a big problem for churches around Rochester is that a lot of us are not content with the church methods that a lot of pastors have learned.

Not to be a pain, but I hope it becomes a bigger problem. In my (probably not humble enough) opinion, a lot of evangelical and fundamental churches need some shaking up.

[Greg Linscott]

Most of the young kids I know are staying in the area and going to good local colleges. They still stay at home with mom and dad and are actively involved in their church.

Some will laugh, but I think this is a legitimate thought. If a young person wanted to meet a Christian spouse who had similar beliefs, a sure place to meet was a college. The reality is that today, many are finding other networks to serve those needs, like online dating services.

We have about 20 college kids in our church that are going to local secular colleges like University of North Florida. Every single one of them is married, getting engaged or seriously dating fine young woman or men who are saved. They either met them through college, through the local churches, through other channels, such as contacts at other churches, or through dating sites (I am not sure I could ever bring myself to doing this though). I have been pleasantly surprised.

As much as we’d like to think that churches can financially support colleges and seminaries, it still comes down to wealthy benefactors. However, many of the younger generation wealthy donors whose parents and grandparents supported fundamentalist institutions have transitioned their family’s money towards conservative evangelical institutions and causes. Frankly, many of these younger donors whom I interact with whose roots were fundamentalism (because I am an exec. director of a non-profit ministry) do not have a positive and favorable view of fundamentalism. Therefore as the pool of wealthy fundamental donors continues to shrink from generation to generation, so do fundamentalist institutions. A few institutions might be able to stem the tide and keep their fundamentalist identity (Bob Jones, Maranatha). But unless Fundamentalist churches convert and disciple some wealthy people or develop a church planting movement that will also bring many affluent Christians to Christ to support these institutions, the only choices are to change, or support fewer existing fundamentalist institutions, or die a slow death.

Over 20 years ago, Grand Rapids Baptist College and Seminary began its trajectory when it became Cornerstone University and Grand Rapids Theological Seminary. They knew that the GARBC churches couldn’t support them and the younger donors were not favorable towards fundamentalism, so they began the trajectory towards conservative evangelicalism. And they were tired of certain pastors writing and sending letters throughout Midwest fundamentalist churches and gossip discernment fundamentalist online newsletters such as the Calvary Contender accusing them of liberalism because their music policy and dress code was changing or they allowed a chapel speaker who had relationships with a neo-evangelical. When I attended the school in the late 80’s and early 90’s, they were on a downward spiral with less than 600 students. Now Cornerstone has around 3000. But they were able to transition from moderate fundamentalist to conservative evangelical because they expanded and developed many relationships among donors within West Michigan and most were going to conservative evangelical churches-especially with the explosion of the megachurches.

As for NIU, they did not have the social capital among the conservative evangelicals for the trajectory from fundamentalism to conservative evangelical to happen, especially because of their remote location.

[Jim]

• Thank the Lord for the Patz family and their investment
• Thank the Lord for Les O and Matt O and the other faithful servants there
• Thank the Lord for the students who attended, many of whom are in full time vocational service
• Thank the Lord for SBTS for rescuing the situation and taking ownership (with the attendant risk)

The Northland campus has a future! To God be the glory!

and Jim Wooster, who was the 1st President. My single semester at NBBC was Fall 1978, but my wife was there for 2 years (1977-1979).

[Jay] IIRC Arlene Sailer is indeed to the Patz’s - I think she may be Paul Patz’s daughter or granddaughter. Not sure of the specifics.

[Joel Shaffer]

As for NIU, they did not have the social capital among the conservative evangelicals for the trajectory from fundamentalism to conservative evangelical to happen, especially because of their remote location.

You bring up a good point. As the schools struggle, their constituency shrinks and becomes more narrow. This further inhibits the school from making changes. If, for example, BJU at its height of 6,000 or so students was drawing from a large and broad constituency. If they made a change to policy they could risk maybe loosing a 100 or 200 students. Quite a few, but not enough to alter the school. If the schools shrinks and the constituency dwindles to a more narrow view of fundamentalism and has maybe 1 to 2 thousand students, a change will seriously impact the school. And the school struggles continues to struggle in a vicious cycle. I have a feeling we may see more of this to come.

[dgszweda] You bring up a good point. As the schools struggle, their constituency shrinks and becomes more narrow. This further inhibits the school from making changes. If, for example, BJU at its height of 6,000 or so students was drawing from a large and broad constituency. If they made a change to policy they could risk maybe loosing a 100 or 200 students. Quite a few, but not enough to alter the school. If the schools shrinks and the constituency dwindles to a more narrow view of fundamentalism and has maybe 1 to 2 thousand students, a change will seriously impact the school. And the school struggles continues to struggle in a vicious cycle. I have a feeling we may see more of this to come.

I think, in light of NIU’s gifting to the SBC, we really need to reassess the importance of Independence in Fundamentalism, especially when we see how hostile society is becoming to anything even vaguely Christian, as this last week’s events in Houston demonstrate.

The NT is pretty clear - the work of Christ and the common faith that we share as believers should unify us, not divide us. John 17, I Cor. 12, and Ephesians 2 all make this clear. To argue that we should all be independent of each other - to the point where we are dividing into several different camps and schools for the same core constituency (especially one as poorly defined as Fundamentalist) makes it easier for us to fall prey to economic shock, petty rivalries and infighting. Some of you disagreed with the school over music, and I’ll leave that alone for now, but no ‘independent’ movement can have three or four colleges competing with each other if it isn’t 10000 strong or so (and I doubt that we’re even that strong in our little groups).

Ben Franklin, remarking on the Declaration of Independence, said that the Founders must hang together or they would all hang separately. This is what happens when we all hang separately, and NIU will not be the first or the last to be given to another institution because we all wanted to make a go of it in our own way. If “Independent Fundamentalism” wants to survive, they are going to HAVE to learn to work together.

[Joel Shaffer]

And they were tired of certain pastors writing and sending letters throughout Midwest fundamentalist churches and gossip discernment fundamentalist online newsletters such as the Calvary Contender accusing them of liberalism because their music policy and dress code was changing or they allowed a chapel speaker who had relationships with a neo-evangelical.

As for NIU, they did not have the social capital among the conservative evangelicals for the trajectory from fundamentalism to conservative evangelical to happen, especially because of their remote location.

Which is exactly what happened to NIU. So give yourselves a hand, guys, if you participated in that charade ‘for the sake of the gospel’. Your house has been left desolate. Congrats.

Jay, that’s just crazy.

A parochial (term used intentionally) college cannot, even at the outset of a considered transition to a new “camp”, violate the marker lines of the camp you are in and not expect push back.

For instance … Northland had stood against CCM. Then they put together a rock band almost literally without warning. There was going to be an outcry. Legitimate outcry. Legitimate disagreement voiced legitimately. I don’t know why this is so hard to understand.

[DavidO]

Jay, that’s just crazy.

A parochial (term used intentionally) college cannot, even at the outset of a considered transition to a new “camp”, violate the marker lines of the camp you are in and not expect push back.

For instance … Northland had stood against CCM. Then they put together a rock band almost literally without warning. There was going to be an outcry. Legitimate outcry. Legitimate disagreement voiced legitimately. I don’t know why this is so hard to understand.

Dave, this is what Jay is saying. Northland has had a slow decline, despite the changes. Because of this slow decline, they had a very narrow constituency. Because of the continuing shrinkage and the narrow view of what Northland should be, they had no ability to change without complaints, unless the changes looked like what the narrow constituency wanted. This was not a recipe for growth. In addition, the alumni were in general asking for something else. It appeared (unless the board was entirely incompetent) that the board and the Patz family were supportive of finding changes. Now regardless of whether the changes were right or wrong, they just came at the wrong time for the school to survive. It wouldn’t have survived by becoming a bedrock of fundamentalism, since other fundy schools were seeing declining attendance, something that was of greater impact to NIU because of their small size already. It wouldn’t have survived by change, because it was probably too late. They were going to lose students with any change no matter what, and with a size of less than 200 and in the red, any lost was going to be detrimental. They obviously were moving away from fundamentalism despite what anyone says was what the Patz wanted, because a Patz who was leading the college, and the board that was led by the Patz family sold the institution to a non-fundy outlet. One in which they were becoming more like. NIU was definitely looking more like Boyce than BJU. And when it fell apart, the Patz family still gifted it to Boyce.

I write in this blog forum hesitantly because it’s seems much of it is straight up gossip and some could very well be slander. I don’t respond to people like that in my church other then to clearly point out where they are causing dissension and hurting the name of Christ. So, let me say, that some of you are hurting the name of Christ and making a mockery to the public when you fight and bicker over some of these issues. I will make public statements about issues that hurt the name of Jesus Christ but there are issues that fit into the category of my opinion and your opinion and my preferences and your preferences and though they might be “fun” to debate, they should not be public (I realize this is a private forum). Have greater passion to call out your pastor friends who are gossiping and slandering more than calling people out because you think someone spent money to quickly or had more musical instrument selections than you use or think is right. Also, I’m not here to defend Dr. Matt Olson and the previous board or denigrate their decisions. I am responsible for my actions today as a Follower of Jesus, Husband, Father, Pastor, Board Chairman, and neighbor. I want to make it my goal to please the Lord!

In regards to NIU, since coming on the board May of 2013 I have seen God work in some incredible ways. There have been difficult times where we have agonized and prayed and sought godly counsel and stepped out in faith and watched as God was giving us enough light to take one step. There were decisions that the board made that another board would have done differently and I’m OK with that. I watched our Board of Trustees seek God, and strive to humbly serve Him as we made some difficult decisions. Just as each of you, who are lead pastors, make decisions that not everyone agrees with but that doesn’t make you the enemy or an ungodly, disobedient person who now needs to be maligned. Rather you covet your church praying for you and you hope and pray it turns out well and God is glorified.

On a more positive note, I am in awe of how God allowed NIU to get to the edge of “Red Sea” and we didn’t know how we were going to cross. We were forced to keep our eyes of the Lord or we would have given up. Wow, from a personal aspect, God has so expanded my view of His faithfulness.There were some naysayers who outright told us to give up, to you I say “Thank you for forcing us to keep our eyes on the Lord”. Others (who call themselves brothers and sisters in Christ) made public statements hoping for our downfall, to you I say, “I’ll let God take care of showing you what He thinks of your remarks”. But to the many more alumni and friends that kept encouraging the leadership and board at NIU, praying for NIU and supporting NIU with your time, treasure, talent and testimony, to you I say “Thank you”.

As this thread headlines states, NIU is now going to be a part of SBTS and will be the second school (the first being Boyce) that serves under SBTS. This wasn’t a secret plan that the old board or the new board, the old president or the new president had planned. This wasn’t “selling out” to the highest bidder. This was aligning with a school that not only states that they have a similar mission statement to NIU, but their graduates live it out. Are there other schools that do this as well? Yes. But God sovereignly moved through multiple circumstances to allow this relationship with SBTS to begin and eventually come to an exciting conclusion.

Just like in your church where you often know more but you can’t say everything you want to say right now or possibly ever because of integrity, that is where I stand. And just like you would call out people in your church who would cause harm to the kingdom of Christ by making statements that are far from true and could possibly hinder the future ministry, I call out you, who under the guise of your “Christian label” are bashing a ministry that is going to continue, by God’s grace and under the umbrella of SBTS, training men and women to passionately serve Jesus Christ and further the Gospel (not Daniel’s gospel or Al’s gospel or Ken’s gospel or Your gospel,but the Gospel of Jesus Christ) all over the world. Let me challenge you with this - the next time you write a post, first stop and pray for NIU and its training men and women to spread the life-saving, life-changing truth. I am a proud alumnus of NIU and I will continue to be a proud alumnus of our future school. I am the “trust fund” as so many thousands of you are and I will always be thankful that a great deal of my education was paid for through the generosity of Papa Patz and the Patz family and a few others. And the money that was spent was done for you and me to have a quality education located in an “out of the way” place which has beautiful facilities that says to the people who came onto campus, “God deserves quality in every aspect of ministry.” Thank you NIU of old, NIU of today and NIU in the future.

And as you are praying know that there will be future announcements that give clarity and explanation to many of the difficult decisions that have been made and are being made. Also, if you have further questions, do what others have done and ask the administration at NIU (Daniel Patz or Scott Dunford) or ask the Board of Trustees your questions and we will be up front and honest. And if we can’t answer your question/s at that time we will say that as well. But what we will be is transparent.

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What dgszweda said.

[DavidO]

Jay, that’s just crazy.

A parochial (term used intentionally) college cannot, even at the outset of a considered transition to a new “camp”, violate the marker lines of the camp you are in and not expect push back.

For instance … Northland had stood against CCM. Then they put together a rock band almost literally without warning. There was going to be an outcry. Legitimate outcry. Legitimate disagreement voiced legitimately. I don’t know why this is so hard to understand.

If the marker lines have gotten so small that you can no longer support your mission without violating the lines, then it would be the height of folly to continue to in the same vein and expect different results. Does anyone really expect people like Lou and Don to actually turn and support the school again?

Particularly when there is a well connected and well oriented slandering and gossiping campaign on the part of those within that small set.

Dave, this is what Jay is saying.

It’s not exactly what he is saying. I agree that the Patz family/board were in favor of change. I furthermore freely state that it was within their right to change.

But this derision (your house is left desolate, congrats, etc) of people who saw themselves (accurately or inaccurately) as part of the Northland constituency and who made protest (via whatever means) is simply improper. Because as you say, it was probably already over before Olson was fired, rehired, quit. And it was not the fault of the detractors.