Gender, Sexuality & The Church – CoRE Conference 2019

Just a note about this:  Stuart Scott is a professor at Southern Baptist Seminary and served as counseling pastor for John MacArthur for ten years. Tim Geiger is PCA in his affiliations. While we understand the purpose in presenting these speakers, this appears to be a change of policy for BJU regarding the separation position and practice of the institution and the speakers the university promotes.  (KSchaal)

Update:  Steve Pettit sent me an email in response, explaining the reasoning behind the speaker choices here and identifying the university policies adopted by the BJU Board of Trustees that inform this decision.  I will post his response if I can get permission from him to do so.  He did say that he considers the FBFI his friends, and we consider BJU and Dr. Pettit friends as well.

Update (10/31/2018, 4 pm):

Dr. Pettit did respond and we thank him for his response.

As a result, I need to say that my observation above is not accurate.  While the present practice of inviting said speakers is not necessarily consistent with the general practice at BJU over the last forty years or so (things were different before that), it is very much consistent with the only written policy of associations the university has ever had.  That policy was carefully developed by the administration and governing board several years ago.  Here is Dr. Pettit’s explanation:

“At the time I became the president of BJU there was no written policy on the issue of associations. This was a significant problem within the university. We have multiple connections, events, and venues as a university where we have to make decisions concerning speakers all the time.  Our position on these matters needed to be clearly thought through Scripturally and then articulated to our own staff so that we could know what to do and how we should make decisions regarding associations. 

So, three years ago we wrote a theological grid for assessing and determining institutional relationships.  We took that grid and used it as a working document.  We formed a committee that would address and answer all the requests and issues that came our way. If the decision was complicated they would bring it to me for discussion and final decision-making. We had this grid vetted and approved by our BJU Board of Trustees over two years ago. We have been using the grid ever since. Fact is, in our fall board meeting last week, the BJU Board reaffirmed the policy and approved our decisions.

Within our policies we have addressed a number of questions including:

• Who do we invite to speak, recruit, or promote at BJU?

Under this question we covered many different areas.

One area included Select Theological and Religious Venues where at times for specific topics or specific venues where an individual might have unique expertise we might carefully and occasionally include someone from the affiliate level. (outside our normal constituency)

This policy addresses the question that has come up regarding our speakers at the BJU Seminary Core Conference. Our conference is intended to address controversial topics facing all believers today. Our goal is to present a strong Biblical position that reflects the stance we hold at the BJU Seminary. In so doing we have chosen to have the best speakers on the topic that fits within our theological framework.  Frankly, we are limited within our own movement to find the kind of experts that can adequately handle these subjects within the theological and academic framework of what you would expect in a seminary. Over the past three Core Conferences, our speakers have essentially the same qualifications. In other words, Stuart Scott is no different from our speaker last year, Jeremy Lelek. They are some of the best in their field that fits within the Biblical, convictional framework of BJU. We fully understand that the speakers operate outside of the fundamentalist, separatist orb, but our policies allow for this kind of a speaker within certain venues. We believe the Seminary Conference topic warrants our current approach. Therefore, we are operating within our own stated principles and policies approved by the BJU Board of Trustees. From my perspective, we have been consistent within our principles.”

Come learn from experienced counselors and experts at this year’s CoRE Conference and be equipped with biblical perspectives on the crucial contemporary issues of gender and sexuality.

Source: Gender, Sexuality & The Church – CoRE Conference 2019