Bob Jones University (BJU) A Moment of Truth, A Peek at How I came to Understand the Nature of Bob Jones University and Dr. Bob Jones III, Part I
Quotes of the Day:
“They may lie about you as a Christian, but they won’t mock Christians who live consistent lives. They will respect you.” Bob Jones Sr.
“You can always find out what is right if that is what you want to know above everything else.” Bob Jones Sr.
“A crisis never makes a man; a crisis reveals a man.” Bob Jones Sr.
“When a man deliberately chooses to ignore the truth he becomes the enemy of truth and the father and friend of lies.”
“[The Joneses created a] fascinating subculture in American religion. In their zeal to ‘come out and be separate,’ the Bob Joneses not only developed a critique of American religion and society, they also attracted a national constituency who shared in their alienation. Beginning with the evangelistic contacts of Bob Jones Sr. and continuing through the work of his son and grandson, the spreading of alumni throughout churches, Christian day schools, and the business world, the outreach efforts of traveling student teams and a publishing house, the Bob Joneses have created a national network that supports and publicizes their school. The existence of this constituency and the Joneses’ efforts to create and sustain it throughout the nearly seventy years of BJU’s existence allow us to frame more questions…” Mark Dalhouse, An Island in the Lake of Fire
“Dear Bob:…On several occasions I called or wrote to you in an effort to inform you of the problems your man [John Stevens, the preacher for whom Bob Jones III gave a personal letter of recommendation] had created and you ignored each attempt. When a man recommends another man for a position and then takes membership in a church as you did at John Stevens’ Northside, there is a responsibility to follow up on that recommendation and perform duties incumbent upon church membership. You failed miserably in both areas, choosing rather to look the other way and protect BJU’s interests. It is my studied opinion that continuing the supply of students to BJU, providing your graduates with jobs, and extending BJU’s influence are often the driving forces in your decision process. It is also my opinion that you sacrificed everything you claim to believe in during that [Northside Baptist/John Stevens] situation."
"I spoke to a graduate on the West coast who had a similar experience. He approached you when you were out West about some grave problems involving a preacher/supporter of yours. The graduate told you of the problems with this preacher and how those problems almost caused him to lose his family. You told the grad that you were aware of the problems with this preacher. The grad told my wife and me, ‘Bob Jones III knew there were grave problems with this preacher, knew I went to this preacher’s church, and did not warn me. And, I almost lost my family!’ You wanted the preacher’s support, his students, and the opportunity to make your pitch from his pulpit. But you didn’t want to take a stand for righteousness and jeopardize the economic benefits you stood to gain.”
“During the situation with John Stevens, you again revealed how you operate. You position yourself to be on ‘both sides of an issue.’ You displayed a lack of regard for truth and you killed messengers and distorted messages that did not accommodate you or BJU. I noted that you live by two sets of rules, one set for yourself and one by which you judge others.”…”I wanted to understand what was going on in fundamentalism and how there could be such gross inconsistencies between your talk and walk. I wondered how you and your followers at and around BJU justified in your hearts and minds this irreligious dissonance. It appears that nepotism and situation ethics are the only things sustaining you in the minds of some of your staff and faculty. Many simply rationalized and justified your doings saying that God will one day judge all these things. I wondered how you rationalized and justified your pagan treatment of the brethren. I concluded that at BJU, rationalization is blindingly addictive…” AN OPEN LETTER TO BOB JONES III from Mark Fitzhenry, Editor, BJU Exposed
A Moment of Truth
Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, “A moment’s insight is sometimes a life’s experience.” Sometimes such an insight is prompted by dramatic events. And, sometimes only a dramatic, personal experience is the only thing that will lead to a truly life-changing insight. My "moment's insight" was not a sudden realization. My "moment's insight" came about as a result of my desire to understand Bob Jones III, BJU, and its graduates and supporters. I wanted to see how BJU's "national network" operated when one of their supporting pastors and churches became corrupt.
In my previous posts I have referred to the event[s] that made manifest the true nature of the Joneses and their leadership of Bob Jones University. I have not gone into that situation because, frankly, it is quite involved. It was once a pretty painful experience to recount but the pain has faded in the past 10 or so years. Like many things God allows in our lives, it has made me stronger and more discerning and a bit more mature. It is also a difficult thing for those who hear the story to grasp the intensity of the experience and to interpret each element of the story accurately.
But, I had a “moment of truth” concerning the Joneses and Bob Jones University. This epiphany, this manifestation of the true nature of BJU, Bob Jones III, and BJU-styled fundamentalism eventually led me out of Bob Jones University-styled fundamentalism. I was able to see – firsthand – how the Jonesian leaven manifests itself in a local, fundamental, Baptist church, staffed by BJU grads and supporters.
Those of you who are present students or recent graduates may think that BJU has changed. Maybe. Maybe not. What you will learn in the next twenty years is that the influential leaders for that period graduated from BJU twenty years ago! The difference between you and me is that I have seen the leaven of Bob Jones University play itself out in the leadership positons of many independent fundamental churches across this country for the last 15 years. It doesn't matter what BJU is like today that will affect independent, fundamentalist BJU-influenced churches and day schools. What affects those churches and day schools today is what they were taught and how they were influenced at BJU 10, 15, 20, 30 years ago. That training and influence affects how the pastors and members they trained will act during the coming twenty years. As Myron Cedarholm said, "As the schools go, so does the movement." Inertia is a powerful force and the influential personalities within fundamentalism today were educated at BJU twenty, and thirty, and forty years ago! "Dr. Steve" hasn't changed BJU, its staff, faculty, administrators, philosophies, business model, or support structure. In fact, as long as Bob III is alive, he couldn't change BJU if he wanted to do so.
I was able to see how Bob Jones III sacrificed biblical principles and men of conviction in order to stay in the good graces of a disobedient, dishonest, tyranical pastor. And, it eventually led me out of the independent, fundamentalist Baptist Movement, though I was under one more BJU-trained preacher, Craig Snook, before I broke entirely with BJU-styled fundamentalism.
Craig Snook came off in style as "BJU-slick." He wore jeans, clogs, had relaxed hair standards, a lazy, sloppy work ethic, and broke the image one associates with the typical BJU-trained, straight-laced Bo-Jo preacher. But, Craig Snook was as adept as any BJU-trained preacher in manipulating church members and deacons to do his dirty work. He was also as good as any BJU supporter at ignoring and sugar coating negative reports about BJU. He was not above undermining the credibility of those who happened to utter an accurate observation about BJU.
Craig Snook was "slick." Pastor Snook, (sometimes with the help of his wife, Jeanette Snook) would spread "confidential" reports about members who had lost his favor. It proved effective in moving people out of the church but destroyed any trust within the church. My lasting memory of Pastor Craig Snook was when one of his deacons, Deacon Bob Freeman, inadvertently revealed one of Craig Snook's lies when he and Craig Snook were sitting on my couch in my living room after we left Easthaven. Craig had told me that he had problems with a letter or letters I had written. I asked him if he saved the letter[s] so that he could specify what bothered him. He told me he wasn't sure if he had saved the letter[s]. Deacon Freeman indicated Craig Snook had shared the letters with him and the deacon board! I thought Pastor Craig Snook was going to sink under the couch when I shifted my gaze to him! Months later a member of the church (who left after we did) told me that Craig Snook had copied the letters and given them to him! I understand his church Easthaven Baptist Church folded and/or merged with another church in Mt. Pleasant. With ethics like this, perhaps it is best Craig Snook is out of the religious industry (or moving to Asheville, NC to start another church). You people in Asheville, keep an eye on ol' Slick Snook. He may not look like a Jonesian, but Bob Jones University trained him and he THINKS and ACTS like a Jonesian! He hasn't "renounced the hidden things of darkness" like the Apostle Paul. Like most Bob Jones University-trained preachers, he couldn't operate if he did!
But, these are the kinds of preachers Bob Jones University supplies to the independent, fundamental Baptist movement. Who ordains these people, I don't know. But, once ordained, they stay ordained and that is a shame.
Sometimes it takes a dramatic, hurtful event to wake us up and get us to change; it is easier to remain in the same routine, around familiar faces and familiar beliefs. It is easy to watch someone else being wronged or abused. Most of us don’t stop to ask: If Pastor Stevens or Pastor Snook can mistreat or abuse the “Smith” family, could the same thing happen to our family? Most people in independent fundamentalist churches have learned that it is easier – and safer – to just keep their mouths shut. Don’t protest because ‘it will be us’ next. This is not Pauline Christianity. This is modern, selfish, apathetic Christianity. The independent, fundamentalist churches and their leaders are reflections of the character of the people in the pews.
Anyone who has been in business – or in an independent fundamentalist Baptist church – has been the victim of betrayal, spiritual abuse, and/or manipulation. The Apostle Paul had what seemed to have been a lifetime of “Moments of Truth” starting with his conversion and continuing through his entire Christian life. His Christian life was full of betrayal and treachery from “…mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren…” (2 Corinthians 11:26) He doesn’t say what the perils are, but he does list three of the most hurtful sources of treachery or perils: his own countrymen, the heathen, and among false brethren.
There is no more hurtful betrayal and breach of trust than the betrayal and the breach of trust by a friend, especially one’s own countrymen who presents himself as a Christian brother. How much more hurtful is such treachery and breach of trust when it involves a trusted Christian leader or pastor? Has that ever happened to you?
Brotherly betrayal has happened to me often within fundamentalism, especially by Dr. Bob Jones III and Bob Jones University-trained pastors and graduates like Craig Snook or Timothy Butler or Barry Formanack, etc. There is something – call it Jonesian education or Jonesian leadership philosophy or Pharisaical leaven – that seems to permeate the thinking, the faith, the leadership style, the religious practice of the Bob Jones University-trained graduate and, especially, the Bob Jones University-trained preacher boy. It is not simply insecure authoritarianism. It is the application of standards rules to other but not to themselves or their religious cronies. It is a way of treating people, a way of emphasizing certain passages of Scripture and totally ignoring others. It is a peculiarly Jonesian-styled hypocrisy and abusive arrogance. It is the way that they convince themselves that they are all-powerful when they only have 30 to 40 people in their church! One would expect those who claim to believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible to follow what the Bible teaches regarding their own standards of conduct or the treatment of their brethren. Unfortunately, many fundamentalists are pretty selective in how they treat others: the “Golden Rule” doesn’t seem to carry as great of weight as the commandments that women not wear pants or men should not wear shorts or that, since the Apostle Paul used the King James Version everyone else should, too! Many act as if they have been delivered to skin the sheep and build a church that amounts to little more than a multi-level religious scam.
There are great men who have written about such brotherly betrayals. King David wrote eloquently on the sense of betrayal and hurt caused by unfaithful, treacherous brethren in Psalm 55. David prayed: “Give ear to my prayer O God…attend unto me: I mourn in my complaint and make a noise; Because of the voice of the enemy, because of the oppression of the wicked: for they cast iniquity upon me, and in wrath they hate me. My heart is sore pained within me…And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove: for then would I fly away, and be at rest…Day and night they go about it upon the walls thereof: mischief also and sorrow are in the midst of it. Wickedness is in the midst thereof: deceit and guile depart not from her streets. FOR IT WAS NOT AN ENEMY THAT REPROACHED ME; THEN I COULD HAVE BORNE IT: NEITHER WAS IT HE THAT HATED ME THAT DID MAGNIFY HIMSELF AGAINST ME; THEN I WOULD HAVE HID MYSELF FROM HIM: BUT IT WAS THOU, A MAN MINE EQUAL, MY GUIDE, AND MINE ACQUAINTANCE. WE TOOK SWEET COUNSEL TOGETHER, AND WALKED UNTO THE HOUSE OF GOD IN COMPANY…”
Some of the greatest hurts I have had in my life have been caused by Christian brethren I have trusted to act in accordance with God’s Word in general and Christ’s commands to His brethren in particular. Will Bob Jones University change as a result of Stephen Joneses' presidency? There are many professors still at BJU who were trained, influenced, and conditioned by Bob Jones Sr., Bob Jones Jr., and Bob Jones III. There are hundreds and hundreds of pastors leading churches today who have been trained by Bob Jones Sr., Bob Jones Jr., and Bob Jones III. The danger, the impact, the influence of the leaven that the Joneses have sown in the leadership of hundreds of churches within the "national network" of supporting churches is tremendous. It is unreasonable to believe that there will be a change in the spiritual nature and the leadership styles of these pastors simply because there are a few minor changes in leadership at BJU. The BJU-trained pastors, evangelists, educators, deacons, and church members who received their training at Bob Jones University over the past 35 years will influence the fundamentalist movement for years to come. "As the schools go so does the movement." Beware the leaven of the Pharisees spread by Bob Jones University, which is hypocrisy. It often happens that the Jonesians demonstrate no regard for Scriptural principles. They often show no regard for the concerns of those who stand against their ungodly doings. They communicate outwardly and receive no correction themselves. Their only concern is in supporting Bob Jones University and maintaining the favor and patronage of the Joneses and BJU.
Whether it is in the Fundamental Baptist Fellowship International, at Bob Jones University, or in a local independent, fundamental, BJU-approved church, the twin supports of Bob Jones University fundamentalism are Institutional Idolatry and Personality Cultism.
