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Bob Jones U apologizes for racist history
Bob Jones University put a statement about race on its website, apologizing for the institution’s segregationist policies of barring African-American students until 1971, and barring interracial dating until 2000.
We conformed to the culture rather than provide a clear Christian counterpoint to it. In so doing, we failed to accurately represent the Lord and to fulfill the commandment to love others as ourselves. For these failures we are profoundly sorry.
The Associated Press reports that university President Stephen Jones decided to issue the statement because of the questions the school still receives about its views on race.
Topic: Issues, WorldMagBlog
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back to top32 Comments to “Bob Jones U apologizes for racist history”
It won’t please anyone.
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Better late than never.
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They can hardly blame the culture for failing to allow interracial dating until 2000 since the culture had abandoned that standard decades earlier.
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I’m glad they’ve chosen to do this. Sadly, though, I think the effects of their sin will continue to haunt them for years to come.
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I guess “love others as ourselves” should have been written more clearly so it would not have taken years of introspection to decipher it.
Reminds me of the onion: God Angrily Clarifies “Don’t Kill” Rule *sigh*
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I am very pleased.
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It’s about time!
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In the late 70s, the Carter Administration sought to take away BJU’s tax-exempt status because of its race-based policies. The government’s action angered conservative evangelicals nationwide, and generated the spark that produced today’s social conservative movement. Without the BJU fight, there would never have been a Moral Majority and no one today would know the name of Jerry Falwell.
Now that BJU has recanted its former position, where does that leave evangelical social conservatism? It’s no different than if Rosa Parks announced, “I should have just taken a seat in the back of the bus and kept my mouth shut.”
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It is possible that if they had succeeded in taking their tax-exempt status because of its race-based policies we would now be faced with thousands of evangelical churches losing their tax-exempt status because of its sexual orientation-based policies. It is possible to disagree with an organizations polices while acknowledging their right to have them.
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I can think of all sorts of worldly reasons for this statement, but I prefer the spiritual. At first read, it sounds as if they are sincere in their turning away from their past. This ability to see and recognize sin is always a gift, and I give thanks to God for it. The world doesn’t want our righteousness, but our humility, our willingness to say “yes” to God. This is a good thing they have done.
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KBells,
That’s exactly right. Good post.
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#8 Evan,
YOu are probably PARTIALLY correct. But I think when the history books are written the BJU issue will be one of several contributing facts.
The proFamily movemt as far as I know (which really is the main focus of social conservatives) began under the aegis of none other than JIMMY CARTER.
He called for and held a conference at the White House. It was headed by the man who succeeded Clinton as Arkansas Gov, Jim Guy Tucker. (Tucker was forced to resign and the Lt Gov Mike Huckabee assumed top job). Tucker proclaimed this event to be the “White House Conference on THE Family”.
Well, as you can imagine if you say only one arrangemt qualifies to be called THE family you will raise the ire of single parents, gay couples, you name it. Many of them were represented among the conferees. They demanded the name be changed. It became the “White House Conference on Families”.
Meanwhile, all those who had felt a family required a married mother and father were exchanging business cards and sharing ea other’s rolodex info. The traditionalists recognized a threat. They were thrown together in their Grand Alliance by none other than Jimmy Carter.
I wont dismiss the work of Falwell and so many other Christian leaders, but it was Jimmy who inadvertently created the sapling that morphed into the Sequoia we now know as the Religious Right or Values Voters.
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Could this also be an indication that social pressure works better than government coercion. They seem more prepared to seek out the most deserving and qualified minority students rather than resentfully installing a few unqualified tokens.
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#13 KBells, you are very trenchant. I agree. Even the young man who was forcibly admitted into Ol Miss (James Meredith) later became a conservative staffer of Sen Jesse Helms
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Inter-racial dating today is not the extreme radical event it was say back when Barack’s mother married his father. When it was officially scorned I think there was an ulterior motive among inter-racial daters. I have met white kids who are by mannerism, music selection etc far more “black” than some black youths. When our top ranked golfer is a black man and our top Rap “singer” is a white kid from Michigan I think you can say the old color barrier has been thoroughly perforated
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Congratulations to Bob Jones. It takes courage to apologize for past misdeeds — to look at them and understand error.
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I am glad they’ve moved on a little, but Ree is right in #3. BJU is blaming the culture for its sins, yet the culture had moved on long before this.
In October 1998 James Landrith was denied admission because he was married to a black woman. The interracial dating ban wasn’t lifted until March 2000 for political expedience. This blame shifting makes the apology a little less satisfying.
While a southern ethos may have played a role, the truth of the matter is that bad theology is what fueled their racism. As late as 1998, Bob Jones taught that blacks were under the curse of Ham, completely botching this scripture to justify racial discrimination.
The rejection letter sent to Landrith in 1998 explains that God intended races to be separate when he divided them after the tower of Babel. They should be embarrassed for getting this so wrong.
What they should be apologizing for is an abysmal interpretation of scripture, which hopefully now has been corrected, and not blame the world for their own sins.
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Sawgunner,
I agree that there were other factors that contributed to the rise of the Religious Right. Moreover, the external focus on family-related issues helped ease the suspicions of Wheaton-style evangelicals in the North, who had previously been reluctant to throw their lot in with Falwell, et al.
Nevertheless, there has always been a bit of tension between “genteel evangelicals,” who predominate in the Midwest, Northeast, and in parts of the Southeast, and “in-your-face evangelicals,” who predominate in the Deep South, the Mid-South, and parts of Southern California.
Until this year, these two groups had favored the GOP in Presidential elections to a similar degree. This year, though, genteel evangelicals made a 15- to 20-point shift to Obama, while the in-your-face evangelicals made a 5-point shift to McCain. This difference is probably best explained by a combination of racism and an attraction to the social populism of Palin.
I have no idea how to interpret BJU’s recent announcement. If they desire to solidify their position with in-your-face evangelicals, then I don’t see how this helps. Moreover, few genteel evangelicals feel anything but loathing for BJU. Thus, it’s unclear what benefit BJU seeks from this public apology.
Nevertheless, stats indicate that in-your-face evangelicalism is receding. Genteel evangelicalism has made an upsurge, particularly when they have been able to disambiguate themselves from in-your-face evangelicalism.
So maybe BJU is seeking to become the next Wheaton or Calvin? We can at least hope and pray for such.
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KBells in #9 made the most important statement in my opinion.
I hope nobody missed it:
“It is possible to disagree with an organization’s polices while acknowledging their right to have them.”
This is what tolerance actually means. This is what freedom actually means.
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Evan, where do you live?
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I’m not sure why that matters. But FYI…I grew up in Raleigh, went to college in Boston, and now live near downtown Chicago. I’m a conservative mainline Presbyterian. I also like wine and goat cheese, and bleed Carolina blue.
So there you go…What about you?
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You seem to be such an authority on the Deep South. As a matter of fact you seem to know things about it that I’ve never notice even though I’ve lived here all my life.
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Then, I’ll have to live in ignorance. Except for Austin or Atlanta, there are few places in the Deep South where I’d want to live.
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23. That is good news for us.
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they were responding to an appeal by alumni, btw
it’s a good first step–will be watching to see if further steps are taken
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I should be used to the appallingly shocking levels of ignorance om WoW by now, but this is really unbelievable:
Talking about the IRS vs BJU, KBells opines:
Then other posters agree with her.
Uh, just a little heads up for everyone.
THEY DID SUCCEED IN TAKING AWAY BJU’S TAX EXEMPTION.
BJU didn’t win the case. They lost, and they lost their tax exemption because their beliefs didn’t accord with public policy.
And Christians didn’t even care, by and large. Heck, evidently most of the people on here think BJU actually WON the case.
And it’s because of the BJU ruling that Christians can count on their colleges losing their tax exemptions for their policies on same sex dating and marriage. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
BJU dropped the policy in 2000, and they apologized for it the other day, thinking that that they were now good to go. Boy are they going to be in for a shock when they find out that the goalposts have once again been moved. Apologizing for past racism would’ve been good enough 15 years ago, but times have changed and today it’s not enough to apologize for grampa not wanting Jenny to date a colored fella. No, you yourself are expected to be cool with Jimmy dating a colored fella. If you oppose that and call “sodomy” a sin, then you’re just as backward as Gramps with his dark mutterings about “miscegenation” etc.
I don’t even know why I bother. BJU was on the losing end of the most profoundly important religious liberties case in the last 100 years, and the WoW Christians are on here praising God because they think BJU won the thing…
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Could this also be an indication that social pressure works better than government coercion. They seem more prepared to seek out the most deserving and qualified minority students rather than resentfully installing a few unqualified tokens.
How do some people get through life? It boggles my mind to even think about it. I mean, all you have to do is go to Wikipedia and look up “Bob Jones case” and you can read all about. Has no one on WoW ever heard the old saying about it being better to keep silent and let people think you’re a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt?
KBells, the government wasn’t attempting to force BJU to “resentfully install a few unqualified tokens.”
BJU had been admitting blacks for years when the IRS took them to court. They didn’t take them to court for not admitting blacks. They didn’t even take BJU to court for “racism.”. In fact, the judges and the IRS all stipulated that BJU’s position on interracial dating was NOT motivated by racial prejudice, but were sincerely held religious beliefs.
And yet they still sued them, and the Supreme Court still ruled against them. Not for “racism”, and not for refusing to admit black students. They lost their tax exemption because their views on what are and what are not proper sexual relationships conflicted with public policy. Which is why in a few years Christian colleges will gradually begin removing explicit, written bans on same sex romance in order to save their tax exemptions.
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I often wonder how folks like Night Train can stand living in an integrated country. It must just thoroughly disgust them to have to see black people shopping in the same stores, using the same water fountains, going to the same movie theaters, and all those other horrible, horrible things.
I’ll give Night Train credit for hanging on to the God of the Bible, who did after-all declare that the races were to be separate and unequal. It must be difficult to be the last remnant of true Biblical Christianity.
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Anlir #28 the God of the Bible, who did after-all declare that the races were to be separate and unequal.
Here is what the Bible actually says about various ethnic groups, i.e. that we are all of one blood. As humans we are all brethren from the same lineage:
“God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’”
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It’s easy to see why homosexuals are so despised in our culture. They think their disgusting habits give them some sort of right to lie about normal people.
I’ve never said anything that would indicate that I’m disgusted by black people having the same rights as whites. But Anlir hates normality and feels like he has to lash out and condemn it. He can’t take issue with my point, which, far from being that blacks shouldn’t be allowed to use the same water fountains, etc., was simply that if the feds can take away the tax exemption from BJU because they opposed interracial marriage, then they can also take away the tax exemptions of schools that oppose same sex marriage. And they will.
Stop lying about me, Anlir.
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Left a line out.
He can’t take issue with my point…., so he makes up a lie and accuses me of it. You’d think he’d be glad that the feds will soon start punishing Christians who disapprove of same sex marriage the same way they punish those who disapproved of interracial marriage. But he’s so overwhelmed and blinded by his hatred of normal people that he simply has to take yet another opportunity to attack us, and lie about me, and accuse me of all sorts of things I’ve never said and don’t believe.
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Harris at #10: At first read, it sounds as if they are sincere in their turning away from their past.
No it doesn’t. It sounds like they expect people to believe they banned interracial dating because that’s what society demanded. Presumably, we’re to believe that the good folks at Bob Jones would have thought it was just swell for mixed-race couples to be part of their community, if society had not been so rejecting of it.
Yeah, I am not quite gullible enough to buy that one.
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