BJU Board of Trustees Retains Dr. Steve Pettit
Just announced, "Bob Jones University Board of Trustees is pleased to announce the re-election of Steve Pettit to a three-year term as President by an overwhelming majority..."
Apart from an explanation from the board we can only speculate over how their decision was arrived at, what if any conditions were set down and what the decision means for the future trajectory of BJU. To that end we ask...
- Does this mean that the board now affirms the direction Dr. Pettit is taking the school or that the board was backed into a corner and succumbed to mob pressure?
- Where does this put the concerns of Dr. Bob III? "...over the last year some embarrassing, antithetical things, historically uncharacteristic things, which would have never happened in the past have occurred."
- Did the board identify, "...the root cause from which the declensions of the last year have emanated and [find the] firmness to do whatever is necessary, however painful, to stop the hemorrhage?"
- Has the board looked three years ahead and decided it's better to hang on for three years than to root the Pettit team out now and create a larger crisis?
- Have any safe guards, boundaries and greater accountability been put in place as a condition of remaining in the presidency?
- Will there be resignations from the school and board members who could not in good conscience vote to renew?
- How many more of BJU’s remaining original constituents will now be moving on?
- Having voted to retain Pettit, what assurances do we have that the school will not continue cooperating with ecumenicals like Franklin Graham?
- Will the proliferation of Southern Baptist and Reformed Theologian hirings continue?
- Will Pettit introduce drum kits and electric guitars into the worship music menu?
- Will Dr. Pettit feel emboldened to accelerate his erasure of BJU's fundamentalist foundations?
- Will Pettit and his administration push the university even farther to the left in a spirit of liberation (for them)?
The latter half of the Board's announcement is a carefully crafted statement. Reading it is like looking into a refrigerator full of food with nothing to eat in it. A reader could assign most any meaning he wants. Does, "The Board strongly supports the President..." imply the Board strongly supports Steve Pettit's eight years effort to eliminate and erase the schools fundamentalist, separatist foundation and legacy? Does that kind of strong support strongly suggest we can expect to see more, "embarrassing, antithetical things, historically uncharacteristic things, which would have never happened in the past?"
LM
UpDate: See comment section below for remarks stemming from Steve Pettit's morning speech to the student body.
Previous Articles in the Series
And not a "peep" as far as I know about the school's new direction from Dr. Bob III.
ReplyDeleteI just watched Steve Pettit’s remarks in the live stream.
ReplyDeleteHe primarily read from a prepared script. He thanked people for various things, gave some life lessons, spoke of how to work through proper channels of authority. (No mention of working through a torrent of open letters, petitions and political activism.)
He said, "I want to begin by, thanking our Board of Trustees of Bob Jones University for entrusting this administration with the continuing leadership for this great university. I want all of you to know this is a great, great act of faith on their part and they overwhelmingly acknowledge their strong support and enthusiasm to work together to fulfill the mission of Bob Jones University for God’s glory. Let us continue to pray for them because they love this school and want the best for it."
My reaction is as I say at the end of the current article,
"...The Board strongly supports the President..." implies the Board strongly supports Steve Pettit's eight years effort to eliminate and erase the schools fundamentalist, separatist foundation and legacy."
In time we'll all know whether or not the Pettit administration's eight year agenda to remake the school into a non-separatist, worldly culturally-relevant and ecumenical campus has been abated.
LM
Curious as to your thoughts on BJU hiring Stuart Scott earlier this year. Of course we know Scott was on staff at MacArthur’s college as well as Southern Seminary where I believe he still serves as adjunct faculty
ReplyDeleteStuart Scott, let's see: a Southern Baptist, coming from the SBTS Billy Graham School of Religion, formerly of MacArthur's Masters Seminary. He'll fit right into Pettit's agenda for the university, especially if he's a Calvinist and rejects Dispensationalism in favor of Covenant Theology. Yes, a good fit indeed!
DeleteBtw, Scott is only one of the recent Reformed theologians BJU has hired on.
LM
It will be interesting to see if the university goes down the path of others such a Cedarville University. Unfortunately many of not the majority of students at bju are simply just not Independent Baptist’s. Majority of the students going to BJ these days are of Presbyterians, Southern Baptists, and Reformed backgrounds. In order to keep bju afloat they must cater to these students as they are the new base for BJU
ReplyDeleteThanks for those observations. I have said elsewhere (recently) that we see BJU has been on a trajectory toward what Cedarville and Liberty became. Apart from its closure or preferably a pull back from incidents like entangling BJU with Franklin Graham's ecumenical movement, the fashion show and Midsummer Night's Dream BJU will eventually get to the extremes of Cedarville.
DeletePettit and his administration have been recruiting and pandering to the SBC, Presbyterian and Reformed communities. That said, over its history the BJU student body has not been exclusively from an IFB sphere. Those numbers have dropped off. So, the question is; do we remain committed to the schools fundamentalist, separatist legacy and with that accept a reduction in student population or do we branch out to recruit from a wide cross section of denominations and theological persuasions? That is what has been done.
To attract a following from those groups (SBC, PCA. Reformed) BJU is morphing into the kind of school those folks would identify with. So, the pullback from biblical separation, allowing for and embracing Reformed Theology and hiring Reformed professors only makes good business sense to Steve Pettit and his administration.
You wrote, "...they must cater to these students as they are the new base for BJU."
Well said and to that I would add, what BJU has done to cater to those students they (BJU) will have to continue doing to keep them. "What you win them with, you have to keep them with."
That defines precisely what I titled a previous article. BJU has Sacrificed Spiritual Sanctification for Secular Pragmatism.
Kind regards,
LM
Another Thought and Prediction:
ReplyDeleteMaybe one day Steve Pettit grows a conscience, coming to a conclusion that he's taken it too far and sets out to dial it back.
If he does I predict the very same open letter, petition authors, their signers and student body that organized to pressure, influence and intimidate the Board of Trustees will rally again to give Steve Pettit the same treatment.
LM