Leaving, Part 1

How did I come to the decision to leave Bob Jones University's employment and ultimately Christian fundamentalism? I guess the answer starts with how I came to BJU and even before that with the small drama surrounding my graduation from BJU.

I was raised to attend BJU - there was none of the normal shopping around for the school that best fit the next step in life. My freshman year was paid for by the time I was a freshman in high school. So, off I went to college. Throughout my four years as a student, I would vacillate between acceptance of the rules as part of the natural overflow of my theology and a desperate fighting to step outside the cloistered mindset. My senior year, I applied for a graduate assistant position and was turned down. Turned down with no reason given. When I could finally ply an answer from my dormitory supervisor, she said that I was not loyal to the school in my music choices and in my choice of churches. Well, the music thing I could understand. It states in black and white right there in the handbook the list of acceptable music and I had routinely participated in a mail order music club. When the campus post office delivered my Cd's to my dormitory supervisor's apartment, I'd check to make sure they were the right ones. She would graciously keep them for me until I could take them home. We wouldn't want the leaven of contemporary christian music amongst our students.

The second reason I was given for being denied the Graduate Assistant position regarded the church I attended: teaching Sunday school, attending the worship service and returning for the Sunday evening service. There's a part of me that shakes my head in disbelief, I attended a lot of church! Especially, given the fact that I also attended chapel Monday through Thursday, nightly prayer meetings in the dorms, and collected enough Bible credits to have declared it a minor. Nevermind all that, what was the problem with this church? Nothing. That's right, nothing. It was on the approved list of churches (yes, there's an approved list and a black list) until I graduated. So what's the problem? The problem is that I did not return to attend the Sunday morning worship service on campus, even though the rule book specifically stated that those who teach Sunday school at a church in town may stay to attend that church's worship service. Several times my senior year I had been called in to the adminstrator's office and reminded that I needed to return to BJU for the worship service. Each meeting resulted in me restating the written rule and the administrator explaining that the rule was not valid in this situation. This church was the one exception to the rule. I still get angry thinking about the ridiculousness of the whole thing.

In the end, I was denied a position as a graduate assistant because I obeyed the written rules. It had nothing to do with my qualifications for the job. I had been accepted into the graduate program, as well as going through the interview process and being chosen as the best candidate for the job. I was frustrated and even angry. I was being punished because I was doing my best to live life as a whole person. I did what the rules asked me to do (or not do, as was the case more often than not), but I refused to sell the school my soul. They did not own me.