just:words

I recently posted this (with a few edits) on a BJU “Survivors” discussion group on Facebook.  After reading through my post, I decided I ought to publish it more broadly.

I am still amazed, when I think back to my BJU days, that I had only a very few “not so good” professors.

I took classes in Bible, Greek, theology, Hebrew, music, science, English, art, speech, anthropology, linguistics, literature, history, philosophy, education, psychology …. and time after time, I had incredible teachers who LOVED their students and cared deeply about their subjects.

For all the things I wish BJU would change, I maintain that the University has an *incredible* faculty (and staff) — and I point that out to every non-BJU person I meet.

I interact regularly now with a number of college students at several different schools, both Christian and secular.

A lot of people think BJ enforced a too-formal difference between teacher and student. Yeah, that’s probably true.  But don’t confuse “I get to call my prof by his first name!!!” with an actual relationship.

When my mom was hospitalized with advanced last-stage cancer my senior year, my PO box was flooded with notes of encouragement and prayer from faculty and staff all over campus — some whom I hardly even knew beyond saying “hi” in some campus office somewhere.  When she died that August, I received sympathy cards from the entire university family, including Dr Bob and Dr Bob Jr.  Dr McCauley called me the night she died, knowing I would have to fly home the next morning, to make sure I had the money for the ticket and pocket cash for travel expenses.

No matter what the University has done poorly — and I’ve got some serious disagreements with their view of the world — all of us who attended BJU under God’s sovereign direction should consider ourselves deeply blessed by the faculty there who have given up their lives (and any shot at fame or “career”) on our behalf.   My education was incredible.

*humbled*