Abomination
Sometimes the contempt and disgust (and dread) just become overwhelming. This California lawsuit by a gaggle of Christian high schools against the state university system for not crediting some of their courses is one of those times.
Among those courses are “Christianity’s Influence in American History” and “Christianity and American Literature,” both of which draw on textbooks published by Bob Jones University of Greenville, S.C., which describes itself as having stood for “the absolute authority of the Bible since 1927.”
‘Textbooks.’ ‘Bob Jones University.’ The ‘absolute authority.’ Of ‘the Bible.’ One doesn’t know where to direct the most rage and hatred, the profoundest disdain and incredulity. So let’s read some passages while we try to figure it out.
“United States History for Christian Schools,” written by Timothy Keesee and Mark Sidwell (Bob Jones University, 2001), says this about Thomas Jefferson. American believers can appreciate Jefferson’s rich contribution to the development of their nation, but they must beware of his view of Christ as a good teacher but not the incarnate son of God. As the Apostle John said, “Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son” (I John 2:22).
That’s a history ‘textbook’. Well, look, you might as well use a ‘textbook’ that says ‘American believers can appreciate Frederick Douglass’s rich contribution to the development of Their Nation [cue pledge], but they must beware of his view of Bugs Bunny as a good role model for mischievous children but not the incarnate son of the Easter bunny’ and then gives a quote from The Wizard of Oz. And then pitch a fit and file a lawsuit when the University of California won’t credit courses in which such a ‘textbook’ features.
Or what about this half-witted bilge about the Progressive movement?
On the whole, they believed that man is basically good and that human nature might be improved. … Such a belief, of course, ignored the biblical teaching that man is sinful by nature (Ephesians 2:1-3). Progressives therefore also ignored the fact that the fallible men who built the corrupt institutions that they attacked were the same in nature as those who filled the political offices and staffed the regulatory agencies that were supposed to control the corruption.
So woe unto you, ye generation of vipers, if you think the evil corrupt sinful fallible froth froth gummint can ever possibly conceivably ever ever do anything to control corruption – oh no oh no, I say unto you, even as seven times seven, only the sinful by nature fallible bidness community can ever control the corruption of the sinful by nature fallible bidness community. Yea verily even as the fox alone can guard the henhouse, even as the prison guard alone can control the prison guard, even as the Christian alone can chastise the Christian, so no gummint nor political officeholder nor regulatory agency nor reformer can ever guard or control or chastise the bidness community, nay even as the Gadarene swine remove the mote from his eye, amen.
“Elements of Literature for Christian Schools,” by Ronald Horton, Donalynn Hess and Steven Skeggs (Bob Jones University, 2001), faults Mark Twain for calling God “an irascible, vindictive, fierce and ever fickle and changeful master.” Twain’s outlook was both self-centered and ultimately hopeless. Denying that he was created in the image of God, Twain was able to rid himself of feeling any responsibility to his Creator. At the same time, however, he defiantly cut himself off from God’s love. Twain’s skepticism was clearly not the honest questioning of a seeker of truth but the deliberate defiance of a confessed rebel.
Not the honest questioning of a seeker of truth – like the kind the people of ‘Bob Jones University’ engage in? As these books – so redolent of honest questioning and truth-seeking – make so abundantly obvious? The deliberate defiance of a confessed rebel – one who should have been tortured and thrown into prison if not executed, no doubt.
Dickinson’s year at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary further shaped her “religious” views. During her stay at the school, she learned of Christ but wrote of her inability to make a decision for Him. She could not settle “the one thing needful.” A thorough study of Dickinson’s works indicates that she never did make that needful decision. Several of her poems show a presumptuous attitude concerning her eternal destiny and a veiled disrespect for authority in general. Throughout her life she viewed salvation as a gamble, not a certainty. Although she did view the Bible as a source of poetic inspiration, she never accepted it as an inerrant guide to life.
Well how dare she. She had a presumptuous attitude. She had a ‘veiled’ (the sly, deceitful thing) disrespect for authority (authority like yours, no doubt). She viewed ‘salvation’ as not a certainty – in other words she lacked your pea-brained flat-headed aggressive hostile impervious impenetrable moronic dogmatic mindlessness. Well shame on her.
“Physics for Christian Schools,” by R. Terrance Egolf and Linda Shumate (Bob Jones University, 2004), addresses the question, “What is Christian about physics?” First, all secular science is pervaded by mechanistic, naturalistic and evolutionistic philosophy. Learning that the laws of mechanics as they pertain to a baseball in flight are just the natural consequences of the way matter came together denies the wisdom and power of our Creator God. … Second, physics as taught in the schools of the world contradicts the processes that shaped the world we see today. Trying to believe both secular physics and the Bible leaves you in a state of confusion that will weaken your faith in God’s Word.
So – you shouldn’t believe secular physics. So if the mood should strike you, you should feel free to take a shortcut from the roof to the ground by stepping off. Your lack of confusion and powerful faith in God’s word will cause secular physics to be suspended for your sake, and you will reach the ground as healthy and happy as you were when you stepped off the roof. We see this every day. Amen.
If these people would just shut up and go away – would settle together in some religious colony in the Arctic circle or somewhere – it wouldn’t be so bad. But of course they won’t. They want to force this shit on all the rest of us. I wish I were more confident that they’ll never succeed.
Come to Australia if it happens.
I will put a prawn on the barbie(q) for you. Raw.
And if it doesn’t happen come anyway, you can stay at my place.
1) “Trying to believe both secular physics and the Bible..”. No one is asked to believe in physics. One can accept its precepts or reject them. Also, a distinction must be made between the phenomena studied by physics, which are real, and the ideas of physics to explain them, which may not be true.
2) “On the whole, they believed that man is basically good and that human nature might be improved. … Such a belief, of course, ignored the biblical teaching that man is sinful by nature (Ephesians 2:1-3). Progressives therefore also ignored the fact that the fallible men who built the corrupt institutions that they attacked were the same in nature as those who filled the political offices and staffed the regulatory agencies that were supposed to control the corruption.”
I suspect the Founding Fathers of the US would not be in too much disagreement with the fundies here, leaving aside the religious motivation. They too saw the flaws in humanity and sought to build a political system
that would control our worst impulses. Hence the separation of powers and checks & balances. They preferred a system that would lack dynamism to one that gave free rein to despots.
G Tingey
“- see speech by retiring president of The Royal Society ….”
Heard parts on Radio 4. The most depressing thing is how many people clearly can’t comprehend what’s being said, therefore they dont’t trust it, therefore they believe in fairies or whatever televised crap flits past their field of vision that moment… AND my pensions being trashed… bad day for this particular non-believer…
Bob Jones University is the one that sold Ian Paisley his ‘degree’, so that the credulous can call him Reverend. How many people have died because of that hate-filled bastard’s malevolent influence?
To regard Bob’s little business as a University is sickening to anyone who believes in learning.
Does “the biblical teaching that man is sinful by nature (Ephesians 2:1-3)” statement apply to Bob, Ian and the various authors, because if it does why should we trust these sinners, who must be, by their own definition, lying to us?
Could it possibly be that they are just trying to con us?
I am pretty sure “Big Ian”‘s entitlement to the title of Reverend has nothing to do with Bob Jones . Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Paisley) has him ordained in 1946 in Belfast by “four ministers from four different denominations” while he got his doctorate from BJU in 1966. Mr Barnum said of fools that “there’s one born every minute”. I think he was an optimist
Students who are taught with Bob Jones textbooks deserve to be relegated to colleges like Bob Jones University. These families want it both ways: to raise their children in a hermetically sealed all-Christian anti-intellectual climate, AND enjoy the secular prestige of going to a name-brand school like Berkeley. Sorry, they should have to choose.
Pharyngula had a post yesterday about the appointment of a Patrick Henry U. dean to be the deputy director of the U.S. Agency for International Development. Great – another wacko fundie representing the US to the rest of the world.
Presumably the ‘university’ in question makes a study of early christian thinkers, including Augustine. I’m sure this passage is familiar to most of us here, maybe someone should send a copy to those bozos;
Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position,
http://www.pibburns.com/augustin.htm
“the appointment of a Patrick Henry U. dean to be the deputy director of the U.S. Agency for International Development.”
Oh, gawd…
“Presumably the ‘university’ in question makes a study of early christian thinkers, including Augustine”
I would add, but only to condemn those they consider heretics. Protestantism rejects Augustine, in particular his way of interpretating the Bible.
Is the Church of England Protestant? It claims to be Catholic but not Roman. It contains two distinct tendencies: “high church” which is similar to Roman Catholicism and “low church” which is in some ways closer to Presbyterianism with bishops.
Bob Jones University’s brand of Protestantism probably rejects Augustine, but Methodists, Lutherans, Anglicans, etc. don’t. The study of early Christianity is pretty big in those denominations. Taken as a whole, Protestantism does NOT equal Biblical literalism and ahistoricity.
The C of E is usually categorized as Protestant. It has some distinct features, but so do all the Protestant movements. Even Presbyterians believe in the “Catholic” i.e. universal church.
I think G. means Diarmaid MacCulloch’s The Reformation.
Although I cannot remember where I read that Protestantism rejects Augustine, on reflection Dix Hill is correct that it must have been limited to Biblical literalists.
Googling on “augustine protestantism” leads to madness (like close encounters with soteriology) so please take my word that the only interesting thing I found was the following:
“.. we find in Luther’s Table-Talk the following slams against St. Augustine and the Fathers:
Behold what great darkness is in the books of the Fathers concerning faith . . . Augustine wrote nothing to the purpose concerning faith. (DXXVI)
” (http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ260.HTM)
So perhaps we are dealing with the usual muddle of ordinary life, where not everything is intellectually coherent.
As regards Anglicanism, I should have posed my question as “Is the Church of England wholly Protestant?”, to which the answer is no – see for example the Wikipedia entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_England where it states
“The Church of England considers itself to stand both in a Reformed church tradition (current English law regards it as Protestant) and in a catholic (but not Roman Catholic) church tradition: Reformed insofar as many of the principles of the Reformation have influenced it, and insofar as it does not accept Papal authority; Catholic, in that it views itself as the ‘unbroken continuation of the early apostolic and later medieval’ “universal church”, rather than as a ‘new formation’. In its practices, furthermore, the Church of England remains closer to Roman Catholicism than most Protestant Churches”.
Gwen, I appreciate your posting. I’m in North Carolina and I have friends in Greenville SC, and I do know a little about Bob Jones U.
I meant to trash the people suing the U of California, not BJU. The Constitution guarantees freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of assembly. It doesn’t guarantee freedom to go to any public university you choose, regardless of your high school record.