When Success is Worse than Failure
Brandon Poulter at the Daily Caller published an article on the craziest courses being offered in institutions of “higher” learning across the US. Here are some extensive quotes from his horrible list.
Princeton University offered a class titled “Black + Queer in Leather: Black Leather/BDSM Material Culture” in the Spring 2023 semester, according to the university’s course catalog. The class will survey black BDSM culture via research available in libraries and individuals involved in the groups that participate in the culture.
Westminster College offers a course titled “How to Be a B_ _ _ _ _.” Students are encouraged to “unpack” the words “b_ _ _ _ _” and bossy,” which are “interesting but problematic.”
Wesleyan University is featuring a course entitled “Queer Russia,” offers students an overview of the influence of queer people on Russian culture, according to the university’s 2023-2024 course catalog. The course “focuses on gender and sexuality in exploring an alternative cultural history of Russia, which highlights its queer legacy from the nineteenth century to the present.”
Occidental College in California offers a course titled “Black Queer Thought,” according to the university’s 2023-2024 course catalog. The course critiques “the demands of heteronormativity, white supremacy, patriarchy and capitalism.”
The Southern University of Oregon (SOU) offered a class titled “Decolonizing Transgender” in the 2023-2024 academic year, according to the university’s course catalog. The course examines the development of the word transgender across “social, cultural, historical, legal, medical, and political contexts.”
The University of Chicago offered a course titled “Queering God” that questions if God is queer and what queerness has to do with the concept of God.
Davidson College offered a course titled “Latinx Sexual Dissidence and Guerrilla Translation,” according to the university’s 2023-2024 course catalog. The class seeks to mix feminist, queer, body positivity and leftist activism all into one class.
What Poulter failed to note was that every one of the institutions mentioned earlier were established by Christian believers to educate their children in the faith, prepare them to function as effective believers in the world, and for the advancement of the gospel. Princeton, Westminster, Occidental, and Davidson were Presbyterian in origin. The University of Chicago was Baptist. Wesleyan and Southern University of Oregon were Methodist.
One of the founders of Occidental was Lyman Stewart, a Christian businessman and philanthropist who also helped found Biola University and along with his brother Milton funded the publication of The Fundamentals (published 1910-1915).
Many in biblical fundamentalism have mourned the closing of colleges and seminaries over the last few decades—institutions like Northland International University, Clearwater Christian College, Pillsbury Baptist Bible College, Calvary Baptist Seminary, etc. However, Poulter’s list reminds us that there can be worse outcomes than closing an institution.
The losses of these dear fundamentalist schools sting, and yet the impact that their graduates are still making continues both in the United States and throughout the world. Most ministries do not last, or remain faithful, forever. All of these schools–NIU, Pills, Calvary, Clearwater, etc–had founders and leaders who had a vision for the cause of Christ, evangelism, church planting, and worldwide missions. The education institutions were established to serve that vision. And while the institutions that they founded are no longer in operation, the vision that inspired them continues. While we all desire to continue and be as effective as possible for as long as possible, it is better that a ministry close while the vision and impact remain, than to become institutions opposed to the values upon which they were founded—like the ones Brandon Poulter identifies in his article.
The cause of Christ—in its faithfulness and purity—is more important than any institution that we establish in the pursuit of that cause. This includes the FBFI.
He must increase, and we must decrease.
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A century ago, when Oswald Chambers opened his Bible Training School in Britain, a friend offered to endow the school. Chambers declined the offer. He said, “If you do that it will probably go on longer than God means it to.”