Update Jan. 11, 9:30pm. I have received several notes stating the BJU board and administration is coming out with a public statement tomorrow (Wednesday). 7:45pm Earlier today Dr. Steve Pettit posted a statement addressing the fashion show. Our response to Dr. Pettit's statement can be read at,
Dr. Steve Pettit Issues a Statement: Is There Nothing More to See Here?
In the seven years of BJU Steve Pettit's presidency we have witnessed increasing numbers and more egregious examples of the erasure of the university's Fundamentalist, separatist legacy. The Fine Arts department has not been immune to radical changes. In November 2021 we exposed BJU's modern version of Shakespear's A Midsummer Night's Dream. See- Compromised Spiritual Sanctification for Secular Pragmatism for details. Last month Dr. David Beale published FACTS: An Enlarged Discussion of disturbing trends at BJU.
Bob Jones University 12/7/21. Our fashion design seniors hosted their 2nd annual runway show featuring their capstone collections on Sat!🤩 We 💙 to see what they've been working on & we're proud of these talented students 😍 #bjuedu
Men who have viewed this and additional images from the fashion show are rightly disturbed and disgusted. Blasphemous is among the adjectives describing these images.
Update (August 30, 2023) An employee at BJU informed me that while the fashion show "was blasphemous the young man who wore that crown of thorns did not have that cleared or approved as one of his garment items. He did it at the last second. The young man was discipled by Dr. Pettit every week for the rest of the semester."
The fashion show, A Midsummer Night's Dream and entangling BJU with Franklin Graham's ecumenical movement has raised the controversy to the boiling point. Maybe these things will finally awaken those who thus far have been inclined to slumber through it all.
Related Reading:
A Warning Knell: Pseudo-Fundamentalists are Systematically Destroying the Legacy of Biblical Fundamentalism, A new article by Pastor Travis Smith.
"If my Bible-fundamentalist peers will be honest, for the past two decades we have observed the consequences of compromise when leadership fails to maintain a separatist position in both personal and ecclesiastical fellowship."
In case the photo is a little fuzzy and you're wondering why Lou's word choice of "blasphemous" is the appropriate adjective, that's not a hat the young man in the dress is wearing, that's a crown of thorns.
ReplyDeleteThanks for that clarification. I have another image that clearly depicts the young man is wearing a crown of thorns. I had room only for the one image I used here.
DeleteLM
Lou —
ReplyDeleteYou may not remember but for a short time, you and I were neighbors in Pensacola — you went off to bigger and better things — I stayed here and faced the humidity and hurricanes.
One other thing you may not remember is that I am a BJU grad (1985), so is my wife (1987). None of our children attended BJU. Although I did have numerous nieces and nephews attend and graduate. My wife and I have not only watched BJU change, we've heard about it first-hand.
The kids (sorry, students) love it. Their enthusiasm and support for the university is totally different than anything I personally experienced while there. I have to say, I'm just a little bit jealous. Many of the things they do, say, and listen to were verboten during my tenure at "The Fortress of Faith." Had I been able to participate in some of these (now) allowed activities, I would've enjoyed my college years more than I did.
The fashion show you mentioned is not unprecedented. We had these in the early 1980s. I know. I ran the lights and audio in the Concert Center for them. Shakespeare, more specifically, a modernized "A Midsummer Night's Dream", has always been questioned by the ultra-fundy crowd. Most of Shakespeare is full of double entendres and sex jokes. They are, after all, dramas/comedies for adults. I was a Cinema (movies/film/photography) major and at BJU my field of study was looked down upon as "secular" and "unspiritual." So, reading your criticism or Dr. Beale's criticism of BJU, is nothing new and no surprise.
BJU needed to change — and it will continue to do so.
I suggest you watch this video from 1994-95 regarding BJU's future:
https://youtu.be/n8xEfiNnQnU
With kind regards and hope you're doing well — GE
Hello Gary:
DeleteI do remember you and your wife quite well. With it being as cold and windy as it is here in Chicago I would gladly exchange it for your "humidity and hurricanes" 🌀.
While I appreciate your perspective I would disagree with your conclusions. This fashion show is just one of many controversial issues having taken place at BJU. I don't have a problem with fashion or showing fashion. That said I don't suppose the fashion show you referenced in the 80's allowed for blasphemous images like this one did.
I also have no problem with schools making changes. Needful, helpful changes. What is happening at BJU, however, is very different. It is a wholesale transition not mere changes.
It is beyond any doubt that Steve Pettit is attempting to completely erase the university's Fundamentalist, separatist legacy. He's replacing with a non-separatist, ecumenical and secular trajectory.
Every Fundamentalist school that tried this in the past closed. BJU will not survive this.
Dr. Randy Leedy well expressed the opinion of many alumni. He wrote,
“To make my own views a little clearer, I'll quote my own statement, which I was graciously given a golden open door to express some years ago to the then-chairman of the board: ‘I believe it would be better for BJU to come to a graceful and principled end than to survive in a form that only testifies of spiritual failure’.”
Imo, umless BJU experiences a cleansing it will close like the others. Frankly, I believe that time for cleansing and saving the school may have passed.
Kind regards,
LM
Gary:
DeleteA pastor, a friend of mine read your comment above. He had this reaction. "For too long we have been concerned with making young people happy, when our calling is to exhort them to be holy."
"But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy," (1 Peter 1:15-16).
LM
I believe I mistook who you are. I thought you are Gary Easton. Him I remember, you Greg not so much. That said, you should read Brian Ernsberger's reaction below.
DeleteLou,
ReplyDeleteAs an alumnus (ministerial student), I have been greatly disturbed at the continued move away from its separatist, fundamentalist heritage. For GEaston to allude to such things as "normal" at BJU even "back in the day" is ridiculous. I went there off and on between 1979 and 1984, after which I remained and finished two degrees (1988 and 1990). I saw the University's presentation of A Midsummer's Night Dream and it never was lowered to such debauchery as was depicted recently. But then Dr. Gus was the head of the Fine Arts Department back then and Dr. Bob Jr. was alive as well. To say you were looked down upon as a cinema major is also a bit ridiculous considering the Cinema department was hard at work producing quality films such as The Printing (1990) and Beyond the Night (1983) and prior to that Sheffey (1978). I would hardly consider those "worldly."
This fashion show is indeed blasphemous. There should be departures from the faculty and expelling of students over this. It's one thing for immature college students such things as possibly acceptable and it's quite another for the faculty to allow this to proceed.
Pastor Brian Ernsberger
Pastor:
DeleteThanks for bringing your perspective to this discussion. I especially appreciate how you have brought clarity to the comments from GEaston. As I suggested to him there's way no way BJU of the 80's would've allowed for the kind of irresponsible and blasphemous fashion show we saw in December. Same for productions like A Midsummer Night's Dream.
And I appreciated you referencing the good films BJU produced in years past.
As for departure of faculty and expelling students what if anything will be done remains to be seen. If they discipline the students and/or faculty, even disband the fashion department will it solve anything? We suspect all that has been done is remove the dead canary from the coal mine and now carry on as if nothing happened.
And I'm curious to see what if any blow-back the university is going to get once the apology is posted.
LM