Louisiana College Update: Loses Largest Donor in School History, Independent Investigation Report Released

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Is There No Concern About the Pentecostal and Charismatic Takeover at Louisiana College?

In a recent post I noted the influence of Oneness Pentecostalism at Louisiana College in the recent past (if not the present.)

Until earlier this year I haven’t kept regular tabs on LC other than hearing things here and there.  For several years I had been troubled by what I noted in the second half of my last post but until now I had nothing else specific to go on.  However former LC faculty member of the year, Dr. Scott Culpepper, has now weighed in on the issue of the former Louisiana College instructor who was active in a Oneness Pentecostal ministry while employed by LC.  More importantly, he has also chronicled, in some detail, the “charismatic takeover” of the administration of Louisiana College.  These are facts that I trust most Louisiana Baptists as well as many of the members of the Board of Trustees will perhaps be unfamiliar with and will be uncomfortable with.  I have posted excerpts from Dr. Culpepper’s post below:

I am somewhat perplexed about why people seem so up in arms about an alleged Reformed takeover of Louisiana College that is not happening while they fail to recognize that a Charismatic takeover of the administration of Louisiana College happened long ago. During my time as a faculty member at Louisiana College, I witnessed official administrative endorsement of practices that were clearly charismatic in nature and which most Louisiana Baptists would find objectionable. In fact, I was often uncomfortable as someone from a Baptist background teaching at a Baptist school because much of the spirituality at the top was decidedly not Baptist.

Joe Aguillard often invited a charismatic faith healer named Delores Winder to campus to “prophesy” over the football team and share her spiritual insight with members of the administration. One Vice-President, who had a Native American heritage, told me that Winder commanded her to get rid of some turquoise earrings that were family heirlooms because their Native American origins made her vulnerable to demonic oppression. When Winder arrived on campus, devotees would flock to her side as if Moses had just descended from Sinai. Aguillard kept these meetings quiet because he was very aware that Louisiana Baptists would not approve. Impressionable young football players who had little knowledge of Christianity often got their earliest exposure in the context of these meetings. It should be noted that Louisiana College, like all Southern Baptist schools, firmly insists that faculty sign a statement indicating that they will not promote women taking leadership roles in ministry or “exercising authority over a man.” Mrs. Winder’s pronouncements were almost given the weight of scriptural revelation and there were certainly many men among her devotees.

Delores Winder was not the only “prophet” to dubiously grace the Louisiana College campus. Joe Aguillard employed a personal assistant named Joseph Cole who later departed under a cloud and with an outrageous final payoff. During a chapel service, worship leader Fred Guilbert paused to say openly before the entire student body, “Joseph (Cole) has received a prophecy that God is going to shower abundance down upon our college!” There were often whispers that administrators believed that Cole was endowed with prophetic gifts. He was definitely endowed with an amazing level of power considering that he had no previous experience and no undergraduate degree. Football coach Dennis Dunn joined the pantheon of prophets when he predicted with great confidence at the opening of the new football field in 2008 that the football team would win the conference championship that year as a means of evangelism. This pivotal evangelistic event has yet to happen. Dunn came to Louisiana College from Evangel Christian Academy in Shreveport, a school with ties to the Duron families’ Shreveport Community Church, which was formerly known as First Assembly of God. Dunn recently replaced Dr. Chuck Quarles, Dean of the Caskey Divinity School, as a chapel speaker this spring. It seems Dunn looked like a safer bet for the administration than Dr. Quarles.

Joe seems newly troubled about the Reformed people serving in the Christian Studies department, but he was blissfully content with a former professor serving as an associate pastor at a local church that embraces a Oneness theology. Oneness Theology is particularly prevalent among some Pentecostal groups. It is an anti-trinitarian theology that rejects the equality of the Son and Spirit with God the Father, resembling the heresies of Docetism and Modalism that troubled the Christian church in the second and third centuries. So accordingly, Kevin McFadden and Ryan Lister are a deadly threat, but anti-trinitarians are our new friends.

I have no issue with persons who observe their charismatic beliefs scripturally and responsibly.  Nor do I have a problem with students and faculty embracing those beliefs at a school like Louisiana College as long as those practices do not conflict with the theological commitments faculty made when they came to Louisiana College.  However, we should all have a problem with an administration at a Baptist school actively promoting practices that are at best on the fringes of Baptist life and even marginalizing those who do not agree with them.  We should all have a problem when that same administration begins to persecute Reformed Christians, who like it or not have been historically in the mainstream of Baptist life, while actively supporting practices that have dubious scriptural support and which have never been part of the mainstream of Baptist life.

Read the rest here.

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Some Questions for Those Concerned About Calvinism at Louisiana College

As noted here in a couple of previous posts, I am an alumnus of Louisiana College and a native of Alexandria. That being said, with the plethora of other issues on my plate, I had no plans to make any further comment on the situation at LC. However, it has come to my attention that an article has been published in the Baptist Message that reportedly focuses exclusively on Calvinism as being the source of the problems at LC. (One must pay to read the article in full, and I’m not a paying subscriber.)

No doubt Calvinism is a significant issue in the Louisiana Baptist Convention and it was the proximate cause for the latest controversy that has  resulted in LC once again appearing in the headlines of the local media and beyond. That being said, I wonder if those of you who are concerned about a perceived undue Calvinistic influence at LC could answer some questions for me.

As Dr. Aguillard noted in his statement regarding Calvinism and LC, he was chosen in part because he is not a Calvinist. As many of you know, another leading candidate for President at that time is a Calvinist and many on the Board of Trustees at that time did not want to see a strong Calvinistic influence at LC. Why then has Dr. Aguillard (until now) aided and abetted the Calvinistic influence at LC since 2005?  Since the liberals (or “moderates”) left the religion/theology department, (and I had long thought that that needed to happen) I’m not sure if there has ever been a time in which the majority of the full time Biblical Studies faculty have not been Calvinistic. If that is a bit of an overstatement, it certainly seems to me that there has always been a high percentage of Calvinists on the faculty since Dr. Aguillard assumed office and new faculty began to be appointed to fill vacancies in that department. Given their educational background and other factors, everybody knew or should have known that these men were Calvinists. Why is this only now becoming an issue? Are there no non-Calvinist faculty who could have been brought in instead? If a football coach is directed not to bring in certain kinds of players and he repeatedly does it anyway, what should be the result? If LC has indeed become “Geneva on the Red” as some Louisiana Baptists have alleged, who ultimately is to blame for this development?

Moreover, why was a Oneness Pentecostal on the LC faculty for several years? He was not on the religion faculty but he hosted a campus radio program that addressed spiritual topics and thus had a spiritual influence on the students. Getting rid of liberals and replacing them with those who are associated with heretical ministries isn’t quite the kind of change I can believe in. That’s the case for me even if it has only happened once. In addition, the Oneness group Phillips Craig and Dean performed at LC in 2005 (also on Dr. Aguillard’s watch) and ordained Oneness minister Randy Phillips reportedly spoke in chapel.  This cooperation with Oneness Pentecostals calls into question the level of commitment to the stated goal of returning LC to its Biblical and Baptist roots. Would M.E. Dodd or Edwin O. Ware have approved of such? Are we to infer from this that having a faculty member who is affiliated with a non-Trinitarian ministry and who had a spiritual influence on the campus is not seen as a serious issue by Louisiana Baptists?  I can assure you that some impressionable students as well as others will draw that conclusion, sadly.  This too was no secret as the man in question had a regular column in the Town Talk that noted his affiliation with a Pineville congregation that is affiliated with the United Pentecostals. I wonder what other involvement (especially with regard to spiritual influence) these non-evangelicals and non-Trinitarians have had at Louisiana College since 2005. The fact that they are not in the SBC aside, do any of you  believe that Oneness Pentecostal theology and practice is less problematic than that of Calvinistic Baptists?

While a significant Calvinist presence is naturally an issue at Louisiana College in a state where the convention is overwhelmingly non-Calvinist, it seems to me that there are more pressing issues with regard to the core curriculum, infrastructure, accreditation, etc. While the Christian Studies division is of obvious concern to pastors and those with an interest in what kind of religious teaching is going on there, the majority of students are not in that program. For years LC has had a quality nursing program and has also done very well in having students accepted to professional schools such as medical school and law school.  A good many students are likely to leave if the cloud of fear and uncertainty over LC doesn’t clear soon.

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Dr. Scott Culpepper’s Open Letter to the Louisiana College Board of Trustees

“If you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. On their part He is blasphemed, but on your part He is glorified. But let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, an evildoer, or as a busybody in other people’s matters. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this matter.For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God”  1 Pet. 4:14-17a

[I have included my preface to Dr. Culpepper’s letter in blue below. Dr. Culpepper’s letter follows.]

This writer is a 1996 alumnus of Louisiana College and also a native of Alexandria, LA. While at LC, after having been raised in a theologically liberal environment, I had become a blasphemer who denied the deity of Christ.  (That’s not something that I blame on the LC faculty of that time.) Within a few years, the Lord graciously drew me to Himself and I repented of my unbelief.

Louisiana College is the only accredited college in Louisiana that is affiliated with an evangelical Bible-believing denomination.  After commencing my pilgrimage to the Celestial City in 1999, I had longed for a Louisiana College that would provide a more distinctively Christian education while also maintaining (and hopefully exceeding) the quality of the education that was currently being provided there.

I was hopeful when Dr. Malcolm Yarnell was announced as the choice for President of Louisiana College in 2004.  He eventually withdrew, notably citing “governance issues which would significantly impact my ability to lead the school” as the reason for his withdrawal.  While much good has been accomplished at LC since then, mostly due to certain faculty who were brought in, from an administrative standpoint things at Louisiana College have steadily gone downhill. For every step forward, it has seemed to me that LC has taken two steps backward.   The school has continually given the world occasion to scoff, and not for the sake of the gospel. And by no stretch of the imagination are all of the critics of LC “liberal” or “Calvinist.”  Dr. Yarnell’s conservative credentials are impeccable and he is one of the more prominent non-Calvinist Southern Baptist academicians. Yet he cited problems with the Board of Trustees and perhaps other issues back in 2004.

It is my prayer that Louisiana Baptists in general, and the Louisiana College Board of Trustees in particular, will act before it is too late and will appoint leadership at LC that is capable of administering the college in a way that glorifies God.

Former Louisiana College faculty member and alumnus Dr. Scott Culpepper has written an open letter to the Louisiana College Board of Trustees. His letter is irenic while also presenting information about the state of LC over the past several years to which many Louisiana Baptists and other interested parties have not been previously exposed. It was first posted on Facebook and he has kindly given me permission to share it here.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Louisiana College Board of Trustees,

As an alumnus (1996) and a former faculty member (2007-2012) of Louisiana College, I urge you to take decisive action to restore the academic and spiritual integrity of our college by immediately terminating the employment of Joe Aguillard as president of Louisiana College and dismissing all charges against Joshua Breland and all other students involved in this recent fiasco.  I do not make either of these requests lightly or without good reason.  There are many who would attest to my conservative credentials, but I found that I could no longer serve under Joe Aguillard in good conscience because his leadership contradicts the very core of the scripture he claims to defend.  Public and private dishonesty, spiritual manipulation and intimidation, irresponsible anti-intellectualism, and presumptuous attempts to implement poorly conceived pipe dreams rather than responsible planning has characterized life at Louisiana College during Joe Aguillard’s tenure.  His recent attempt to penalize students for exercising their First Amendment rights is only the latest in a long series of poor decisions that have compromised the academic and spiritual integrity of Louisiana College.

I was initially a supporter of Joe Aguillard and excited about the new direction of Louisiana College.  I had been concerned about issues at Louisiana College as a student and was hopeful that the new direction of the college would provide a fresh start in a positive direction.  Even when I started to hear disturbing stories about how the transition had been engineered, I hoped that reconciliation could be achieved and that the college would move forward.  None of that happened.  As my first year at LC continued, I began to be concerned about the grandiose announcements that were being made regarding the establishment of a law school with no clear plan for funding the venture.  I also became aware that many of my colleagues were struggling financially and yet vast amounts were being funneled for the building of a new football stadium.  Only the first phase of that project is completed nearly four years later.  I told myself that maybe the administration was just operating with the hope that athletics would make money to support academics, but it became increasingly obvious that little fundraising was going on to support the undergraduate program.  In fact, the undergraduate program, the traditional core of Louisiana College’s liberal arts program, seemed to be taking a back seat to the dizzying array of proposed graduate ventures that were being advanced by the administration.

I thought I was alone in my concerns for a while and possibly overreacting.  As evidence began to accumulate that my impressions were accurate, I started to compare notes with colleagues.  I discovered that several of them had similar concerns and also new information to add to what I had observed myself.  It also became obvious that there was no forum for faculty to safely speak to the administration about these issues.  Conversations I had with Dr. Aguillard about them generally degenerated into attempts on his part to find out who I had been talking with and reminders that we need to be careful of idle gossip.  We were told that anyone who went directly to the Board of Trustees without first speaking with Aguillard would be immediately terminated for insubordination.

My first direct encounter with Aguillard’s style of managing subordinates came in the spring of 2009 when I voiced concern, first through a series of e-mail messages and then through a letter sent to leading administrators as well as select faculty members, about comments made by David Barton at the spring commencement.  Mr. Barton made several comments at the ceremony that were erroneous.  Not only students but faculty members seemed to be taking his false assertions as fact.  I had already communicated to the administration before the event Barton’s well known reputation for distorting facts and his nearly universal repudiation by Christian academics.  I requested that Aguillard allow us to present the other side of the argument for students and faculty who might be aware of Barton’s factual distortions.  The response was bizarre.  Dr. Chuck Quarles had also written a letter in which he echoed some of my concerns about Barton’s presentation.  Aguillard requested that his personal assistant, Joseph Cole, vet my letter and Dr. Quarles’ for factual accuracy because we probably “misunderstood Bro. Barton.”  Cole was a music major with no background in history who had not even completed his undergraduate degree.  Aguillard finally called me in for a rather strange conversation in which I tried to convince him with historical evidence that Barton was incorrect, and he responded by continually asserting that I would believe otherwise if I felt the spiritual vibe at Barton’s headquarters in Aledo, TX.  The meeting ended with Aguillard saying that he forgave me for my letter.  When I tried to diplomatically say that I stood by the letter and was not apologizing for its content, Aguillard said it would be best for my long term future at Louisiana College to forget about Barton.  I am still convinced that if Dr. Quarles had not been involved as well and I had not just been selected as Professor of the Year by the student body that spring that my treatment at  this time might have mirrored the ordeal that Rondall Reynoso endured two years later.

My second direct encounter occurred in the early summer of 2010.  I had become increasingly aware of the deteriorating infrastructure on campus.  The information technology services were and continue to be an embarrassment.  The dorms and library were rotting even then.  I had just returned to my office after teaching a May term class.  My students in the class were upset because they had not been able to access e-mail for days; they were unable to read primary sources for the class that day because the blackboard server was down; several of them had major registration issues, and the classroom computers did not function that day.  As I sat contemplating all these frustrations, the melodic strains of “Home on the Range” wafted over Alexandria Hall from the sparkling new chimes that had been installed in our dilapidated headquarters through the generosity of an anonymous donor.  Sick and tired of the complete cloak of silence imposed by the administration on any hint of a statement that sounded like a critique or criticism, I placed a statement on my Facebook page expressing my frustration that we had money to install bells to play American folk anthems on the hour, but none to provide an adequate infrastructure for our students.  Several students and faculty members responded with their own frustrations.  Joe’s response was immediate.  He called me and two other faculty members to his office with no warning.

In my meeting with him, he claimed that the donor was very upset and that the donor had specified which songs he wanted played.  “Home on the Range” was supposedly one of them.  I am guessing he liked “The Wizard of Oz” as well because we often heard other triumphant songs to advance the Kingdom of God such as “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”  I was very open and honest with Aguillard at this meeting.  I told him that I wanted to trust him but that I had serious questions about the direction of the college and his leadership.  He responded by giving me a trite illustrative story on gossip printed from one of those web sites that provides cribbed illustrations for sermons.  When I said that there were others who shared my concerns, Aguillard responded, “Who?  I want to know all their names!”  When I refused to provide him with names, he accused me of lying about there being other concerned parties.  When he asked why I did not think that the administration was working to raise money to care for the campus, I indicated that the library roof was in disrepair, the dorms were falling apart, and the information technology infrastructure was shot.  When I mentioned the library roof, Aguillard shouted, “That is a lie!  You have been a pastor and you are lying about the state of our campus!” I later learned that a crew was brought in just a few weeks later to examine the roof.  Two years later, I learned from a student that both a donor and the Board of Trustees were going around campus asking questions but not about the condition of the campus.  They were asking questions about me.  To this day none of them, including the donor, has ever approached me or asked me anything about my reasons for expressing those concerns.  I am convinced again that it was only my good record and the verbal support of many students that protected me.  I am also convinced that this was the moment that the administration decided to make Rondall Reynoso the scapegoat for faculty dissent.  Rondall was only one individual involved in the Facebook posts, but as an Art professor with a small cohort who was unknown to many students on campus, he was easier to slander than the rest of us.  He also was known to challenge the administration on ethical issues when they were in the wrong.  Aguillard directly called Rondall poison in our meeting that day and said I needed to “pray about the influences on my life.”

While these two encounters represent occasions when I attempted to express concerns directly to Dr. Aguillard, we daily lived in an atmosphere of tension and paranoia.  Aguillard and many of his associates routinely acted in ways that were spiritually immature.  They made a regular practice of shunning people who displeased them by refusing to acknowledge their presence when they passed them in the hallway.  There was an expectation that, in the words of an administrator, “You must love everyone Joe loves and hate everyone Joe hates.”  My department chair increasingly put pressure on me to stop allowing people to come to my office who were considered critical of the administration.  Information technology personnel who could not keep the campus network operating in the best of circumstances spent an inordinate amount of time monitoring faculty e-mail and Facebook to look for “subversive” activities.  A spirit of fear and paranoia pervaded the campus.

We hung our heads in embarrassment as Joe launched a crusade against the “Satanic” Town Talk which dared to print the truth about his administration.  I listened to hateful diatribes in chapel and faculty meetings that contradicted everything we were trying to teach our students about developing the mind for God’s glory.  We watched as Joe ate worms twice, hired an actor to play a mentally retarded person to make a point about how we needed to be open to admitting people with mental handicaps, listened as he slandered Baylor University as a godless and secular school, and chuckled at the great bat infestation which the administration would never admit happened.  I listened to Joe lie repeatedly about the extent of our problems with SACS when I knew the truth and was threatened for sharing it.  The entire time my heart broke for my students, some of whom had no idea what they were not getting at Louisiana College and others who endured threats and intimidation because they knew exactly what was happening and would not stand for it.  In fact, those who are rightly expressing concern for the students now being repressed should know that there were many before them who were quietly dealt with by the administration and whose cause was not taken up simply because they were not ministerial students.  In fact, the Christian Studies department often warned their students to stay away from these students because they were “troublemakers.”

The tactics of the administration reached a new low with the Rondall Reynoso prosecution.  I will not retell the entire story because Rondall has told it well himself on several forums.  For my part, I was walking a very thin line because of my friendship with Rondall and my obvious agreement with his critique.  I was “asked” to recuse myself from his case, the only faculty case ever to reach the Faculty Advisory Committee during my tenure of service, because evidence would be presented about situations in which I had been involved.  This directive was sent down despite the fact that Carolyn Spears, a fervent supporter of Aguillard, was allowed to serve on the committee even though she was implicated in evidence that Rondall was presenting in his defense.  Aguillard’s “request” was delivered to me by Joseph Cole.  Cole walked into an upper-level class and interrupted me mid-lecture to hand-deliver me the document in front of a room full of startled students.  In addition to Rondall’s dismissal, another of my colleagues, Beth Overhauser was released from her contract despite the fact that she had been given a promissory notice that her contract would be renewed a month earlier.  Beth had testified on Rondall’s behalf, a practice that was permitted by the faculty handbook, and she also dared to suggest to Aguillard that she was concerned that his rhetoric in chapel regarding homosexuality might be tempered with more references to God’s willingness to forgive anyone who would repent.  Several faculty members assisted the administration in branding Beth a radical because we had read George Orwell’s 1984 in a faculty reading group.  They also said she was disparaging Louisiana because we read John Kennedy Toole’s Confederacy of Dunces. This book had been chosen by another member of the group.  All other books we read were chosen from a list of acknowledged classics by group consensus.  It did not matter.  She was given no contract while other faculty members received ours in our boxes during commencement exercises.  She had to request a meeting to get face-to-face confirmation from acting president Tim Johnson and Vice President of Academic Affairs Tim Searcy that she was not being renewed..

I could write an entire book chronicling the issues at Louisiana College.  Since this document is already longer than I planned, I will close by saying that the examples here could be supported by a ream of other incidents.  By God’s grace, He delivered my family from these circumstances last year when we received a call to teach at another private Christian college.  While I will not chronicle all of our personal issues due to our LC experience, suffice it to say that it was unbelievably stressful for our entire family.  Louisiana College administrators often brought up our families when reminding us that we needed to toe the party line, regardless of the truth.  They constantly displayed callousness towards concerns about the welfare of families and other innocents that stood in direct contrast to the compassion Jesus commands us to have for even our enemies.

For these reasons and many others that I have not had time to record, I state once again my impassioned request that you begin the rebuilding of Louisiana College by removing Joe Aguillard from power, rescuing the Christian Studies students he is persecuting currently, and dismantling the network of supports who have enabled his ruthless leadership.  This task will not be easy.  There are many who would still be at Louisiana College who have been willing instruments in implementing Aguillard’s reign of terror.  Others have enabled him through their silence or by reporting on other faculty and students who sought to bring change.  Anyone who takes the helm will have to deal with these remaining corrupt elements as well as with a Louisiana Baptist constituency that has no understanding of how to foster a quality conservative Christian education.  In other words, you and the future president of Louisiana College have your work cut out for you.  But I am praying that you have been sent for this time, to this place, in this role, for such a time as this.  May God bless you and Louisiana College!

Sincerely,

Dr. Scott Culpepper

LC Class of 1996

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Geneva on the Red

“Geneva on the Red.”  Never in a million years would I have dreamed that those words would be used to describe my alma mater, Louisiana College.

It seems that, along with the other controversies and troubles at Louisiana College over the past decade, there is now a controversy over Calvinism.  Given the fact that many Calvinist professors have come and gone during the course of Dr. Aguillard’s tenure, I’m frankly surprised that it has taken this long for the issue to come to the fore. Many of the faculty in the theology department, past and present, are products of either Southern Seminary or Southeastern Seminary, widely regarded as the two hotbeds of Calvinism in the SBC.  (One of them is Dr. Jason Meyer, who is John Piper’s successor at Bethlehem Baptist in Minneapolis.) That’s not to say that all of those fitting that profile are necessarily Calvinists, it would not come as a surprise to me to learn that Calvinists have always been in the majority among the theology faculty since 2005.  My perception has always been that those who were responsible for putting Dr. Aguillard in his current office were largely opposed to Calvinism and that he was chosen in part because he is not a Calvinist, a fact and a process to which he alludes in his statement on Reformed Theology.

I do wonder if this “Geneva on the Red” perception was a factor in the composition and promotion of last year’s “A Statement of the Traditional Southern Baptist Understanding of God’s Plan of Salvation” Dr. Eric Hankins, the author of the document, is the son of David Hankins, the Executive Director of the Louisiana Baptist Convention.  Calvinism would certainly be the minority report among Louisiana Southern Baptists. Calvinistic students preaching in non-Calvinist churches is almost always a recipe for controversy.

As I’m not currently a member of a Southern Baptist church and also do not currently have a lot of time in which to compose a lengthy post or series of posts, I’ll merely post some relevant links here and let the reader draw his own conclusions.

The President’s Pen-Dr. Aguillard’s statement on Calvinism and Louisiana College.

Pastor Jared Moore’s post–Some of the comments here seem to paint a fuller picture than most.

Ken Fryer–Untimely and Unnecessary Division at Louisiana College

Drew Wales has a couple of posts, one of which states that 60% of the faculty is Calvinist and the other re-posts another student’s thoughts. 

These blogs by current LC and/or Caskey Divinity School students have several posts on this issue and you can expect them to continue to cover it:  http://thedailybleat.com/  http://blowthewhistlelc.wordpress.com/

The latest appears to be this interview with Dr. Aguillard.   (HT: Candy Moncada) Interesting that he relates that LC is perceived to be “Geneva on the Red” yet we’re told that there are no Calvinists on the faculty, and that his post was about “Hyper-Calvinism” even though that wasn’t mentioned.

I will leave it to others who are more familiar with the situation to opine on the current goings on at LC with regard to the longstanding issues regarding accreditation, administration/faculty relations, etc.

The comments are open.

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No Creed but the Bible?

We often hear the cry “No creed but the Bible!”  The Southern Baptist leader B.H. Carroll (1843-1914) provides an answer for this assertion:

“There never was a man in the world without a creed. What is a creed? A creed is what you believe. What is a confession? It is a declaration of what you believe. That declaration may be oral or it may be committed to writing, but the creed is there either expressed or implied.”

“The modern cry, ‘Less creed and more liberty,’ is a degeneration from the vertebrate to the jelly fish, and means less unity and less morality, and it means more heresy. …It is a positive and very hurtful sin to magnify liberty at the expense of doctrine.”

So the statement “No creed but the Bible!” is itself a confession of sorts, although most of those holding to it likely don’t recognize it as such.

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Quick Thoughts on the Attraction of Eastern Orthodoxy

Over the past several years, I’ve had a few acquaintances who have converted to Eastern Orthodoxy (hereafter EO).  Others are currently drawn to it or at some point have been strongly attracted to it.  Most of these are people I’ve encountered in various online discussion forums dedicated to the discussion of Reformed theology.

All of these have been folks who were at one time members of a conservative Presbyterian denomination like the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) or the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) and who were often some kind of Baptist to begin with.  Often, although not always, they were attracted to the Federal Vision and the New Perspective on Paul in the mid 2000’s.   The following observations may or may not apply to the same degree to Westerners from different backgrounds who go EO.

It seems to me that Westerners convert to Eastern Orthodoxy due to a few reasons or considerations:

1.  They reject Roman Catholicism because they cannot accept papal infallibility, the primacy of the Bishop of Rome and maybe a few other things.  In general, Rome has too much baggage for many Americans and some other Westerners of a Protestant background.  Due to Trent and subsequent statements, Rome’s teaching appears to be a lot more clearly defined as well.  A clear marking of boundaries tends to give rise to controversy.  I don’t know that the East ever experienced a scholastic phase to the extent that the West did during the Middle Ages and later with the Reformation and Counter-Reformation.  Thus, it seems that one can look eastward and see what he wants to see to a greater degree.

2.  Many of them would have been attracted to Anglicanism in previous years.  However, Anglicanism is now basically a disaster in the West, having been eviscerated by liberalism over the past 100 years and with apparently no cohesive conservative remnant.  Some Calvinistic evangelical Anglicans (or what used to be called low church) may go into some kind of Reformed or Presbyterian church and a few others may affiliate with the African Anglicans that are now overseeing some parishes that have disaffiliated from the Episcopal Church USA.  A good many of the high church types tend to cross the Tiber eventually unless they are hung up on the ordination of women, celibacy or Rome’s claim to authority. 

3.  They have rejected Calvinism and for whatever reason cannot be Lutheran, probably because of the strong law/grace distinction and Two Kingdom theology that is found in Lutheranism.  The EO types are typically into the idea of Christendom and often have an emphasis on influencing the culture.  Thus, Anglicanism would have been a good fit but see #2.  Lutheranism, like Calvinism, is also viewed as insufficiently apostolic by those who equate the ancient church (and thus authentic Christianity) with Rome or the East.  But I find that the rejection of Protestantism on the grounds of it not being apostolic in its teaching or authority typically follows discontent with it in some other regard.

4.  Due to the conversions of Peter Gillquist and others, the easy availability of information on the internet that wouldn’t have been readily available a few decades ago and perhaps some of the American Orthodox churches becoming less of an ethnic social club, Eastern Orthodoxy is more accessible to Americans than it has ever been.

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The similarities among the defenders of Mark Driscoll and Ergun Caner

As regular readers of this blog will remember, early last year I made several posts in the midst of the controversy over Mark Driscoll that had ensued after Baptist Press published an article that was critical of certain aspects of Driscoll’s ministry.

With the exception of some admittedly overheated and perhaps hasty blog comments that I posted at the outset, for a number of reasons I have kept my distance from the current Caner controversy.  However, as I have observed it from afar, it seems to me that the way the Baptist Identity bloggers are defending Ergun Caner is quite similar to how the Southern Baptist “young leaders” and other bloggers defended Mark Driscoll early last year.

Here are some of the similarities:

1.  Those attacking our man have an agenda, are simply out to get him and are opposed to what we stand for. Questions and concerns are deflected by pointing out the perceived agenda and evil motives of the critics.  The substance of the concerns as well as the substantiating evidence are often never acknowledged at all.

2.  Our man has apologized, so shut up already. The other side notes that the apology was vague and insufficient.

Thus these two camps or movements, which have been sparring with each other in the blogosphere for several years, pretty much operate in the same way when one of their own is being criticized.  There is no doubt that at times such criticism is indeed agenda driven, but that doesn’t necessarily render it completely invalid.

Several years ago I heard an old preacher warn against being carried away by movements after having seen their effect on his ministry and that of others.  His main concern was that too often a ministry will ride a hobby horse and will focus on one narrow spectrum of truth to the exclusion of the whole counsel of God.  A related problem that we see in this case is that when a leader that is greatly admired by a particular group and is considered to be integral to (if not the embodiment of) the movement is accused of some wrongdoing, there is the tendency to react as I have enumerated above.

Yesterday Mark (hereiblog) posted the Vindication of popular ministers.  I commend the entire post to your reading, but I wish to quote some relevant excerpts here:

It seems we all must be careful in defending someone for their namesake instead of for Christ’s namesake. Men fall. This can be read all throughout the Bible. It can be seen through the past and in the present. When we defend our favorite preachers without question we may be doing them more harm than good if they are in unrepentant sin.

It can be difficult to objectively address the sin of people we respect or have some sort of relationship with. In the same manner it can be difficult to objectively address our own sin. We find excuses to let our own sin go such as pointing to someone else’s sin or even actions we don’t like. Someone may even sinfully point out our own sin, yet that does not give us a right to ignore personal repentance. Just as one popular minister does not get a pass on sin because another popular (or even unpopular) minister points it out in a manner some find unkind. In other words, one sin does not excuse another regardless of who you are.

Of course, the greater the popularity the greater responsibility. The more someone promotes and markets themselves the more scrutiny they will come under. When someone seeks attention and is successful they will surely get both positive and negative reactions. People often get back a bit of what they dish out too.

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Liberty University Investigates Ergun Caner’s Background Claims

I’ve been tied up with other issues offline (or IRL it used to be termed) and haven’t been able to blog much lately, although I do have several posts that I’m working on that I hope to publish soon.

Many who read this post may be aware that there has been a controversy brewing for some time over Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary President Ergun Caner.  Dr. Caner is a former Muslim, and at issue are claims he has made over the past decade about his background and activities prior to his conversion, namely that the claims seem to be at odds with the facts.  Liberty University has finally announced that they are opening an investigation into these matters.

The legwork on this controversy has been done by several bloggers, most notably by Christian apologist James White.  It appears to have been perpetuated by a Muslim who claims that Ergun Caner and his brother Emir are “fake former Muslims,” a claim that does not appear to be the case.  Liberty initially stated that they don’t respond to allegations made by bloggers.  One wonders if this is because the bloggers were considered to be hostile to Liberty and toward Dr. Caner in particular due to their being either Muslim or Calvinist in most if not all cases.  But now that largely liberal and/or mainstream sources have picked up the story, usually simply recounting what the bloggers have reported, Liberty has decided to act.

While I haven’t read every pertinent blog post on this controversy, here are perhaps the best two series of posts on this issue that I’ve seen to date:

Pastor Tom Chantry on “Stephen Ambrose, Ergun Caner, and the Credibility of the Gospel.”  This is a long series, but it is worth it in that it puts the issue in context and highlights what is at stake.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

“The Squirrel,” Gene Clyatt, has posted a timeline today that will bring you up to speed on the discrepancies between statements that Ergun Caner has made about himself in the past and documented facts.  Squirrel links many other resources that go into more detail.

It saddens me that it has taken the mainstream media reporting on this story for Liberty to take action.  I hope Liberty (as well as the church where Ergun Caner holds membership, presumably Thomas Road Baptist Church) does a thorough investigation and then acts appropriately.  It is important not only for their academic integrity, but it is also important for the witness of the body of Christ as a whole.  Whatever one may think of Ergun Caner or Liberty University and Seminary, we must remember that the world looks at this as a Christian issue, and not merely as a Southern Baptist issue, a Liberty University issue or a Calvinist or non-Calvinist issue.

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A Southern Baptist’s Pilgrimage From Racism

Today Dr. Malcolm Yarnell of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary has posted a previously unpublished essay that recounts his experiences with racism as a child through his time as a young pastor in the Deep South.  He also exposes the pathology of much of the church growth teaching over the past few decades as well.  You can read it here.

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