Last week I read the news that Pillsbury Baptist Bible College in Owatonna, Minnesota announced that it will "cease academic activities" at the end of this calendar year.
Pillsbury Baptist Bible College has served as a strong Fundamentalist institution over the years. In the early days, Pillsbury had such presidents as Dr. Monroe Parker, Dr. Richard Clearwaters and Dr. B. Myron Cedarholm. There have been some unfortunate times of difficulty over the years, including a disagreement between between Drs. Clearwaters and Cedarholm (which is discussed in a 1999 article in Frontline Magazine entitled, "The Cedarholm/Clearwaters Conflict.")
I was saddened to hear of the demise of Pillsbury. It has had a great heritage and I am concerned for the students, faculty, and staff members of the institution. I imagine it is especially difficult for some who have poured their hearts and lives into this ministry and have prayed for them during this time.
The day after I heard of this, I was able to pray with the president of a sister school and was told that the schools were likely going to make an exception for Pillsbury students that would allow them to transfer their credits to the schools even though Pillsbury was accredited as a Bible Institute rather than a College. CORRECTION: Pillsbury is accredited by AHBE as a four-year Bible college, but apparently this accreditation is different than the accreditation that the particular school usually accepted - thank you, Professor David McGuire for the correction. I appreciated the desire of this president and the other schools to try to help out these students in a very difficult time.
Dr. Kevin Bauder of Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Minnesota, who I have referred to in a number of articles here at A Thinking Man's Thoughts and of whose ministry I have appreciation, has written an article on the Pillsbury situation in his newsletter In the Nick of Time and that has been recently published at ShaperIron and generated some discussion - here.
While I appreciate some of the things Dr. Bauder has said, I do wonder, however, if the premise of this article by Dr. Bauder and the subsequent comments may be going a little too far and I wonder if we should ask those who are busy chiseling on the marble to think a little bit further before they finish making the tombstone.
Even though I would agree with Dr. Bauder that the "idea" is more important than the "movement", I think we may be jumping the gun on the movement - or at least the use of Pillsbury as indicative of the movement seems to be a bit of a stretch.
(For some of my further thought on the "Idea" and "Movement" of Fundamentalism, see my post, The Best and the Brightest - The Idea of Fundamentalism and the Movement of Fundamentalism.)
While I am not an expert on Pillsbury by any stretch, I question whether the case can accurately be made that the collapse of Pillsbury is merely a microcosm of a greater collapse of Fundamentalism. The reasons I question this include the following:
1. The decline of Pillsbury occurred at the same time when at least two of the neighboring Fundamental Colleges were experiencing a time of increase. While I do not have the figures, I am pretty sure that both Maranatha and Northland are significantly larger today than they were in 1990. (Faith may be as well, but I am less familiar with Faith.) I do not have the numbers, but I would guess the combined attendance at the three schools (Pillsbury, Maranatha, and Northland) is greater now than it was then - even with Pillsbury's decline.
2. The decline of Pillsbury did not occur without some issues being present at the school. As even Dr. Bauder has alluded, "Pillsbury nearly closed in the mid-1990s when it experienced multiple turnovers of administration and a purge of the faculty. This was not the first controversial period in the history of the college." The numerous changes in leadership and the changes in philosophy that some of those changes included would make most institutions unstable. (Although perhaps there is some question regarding cause and effect.)
3. Pillsbury experienced a change of leadership and focus at one point that seems to have resulted in the alienation of both alumni and other constituents due to a left-ward shift (or, so as not to get sidetracked, a perceived left-ward shift). I appreciated the efforts of some to try to "right the ship" in subsequent years, but damage like this is difficult to undo. It puts questions in the minds of folks who may be influential in helping to recruit students to a school or support the school in other ways. I know that while I was a youth pastor, we took college trips up to MBBC and NBBC from New Jersey and later added FBBC, but we were in a "wait and see" mode when it came to PBBC and never actually included it in our list of schools to visit when we took our "Northern College Trips". While we were not a huge church (at the time we probably had between 50-70 in our youth groups, I think), we did have students that attended each of the other schools we visited, and if other churches also were cautious about PBBC because of the earlier changes, this could have had a definite effect on their enrollment and ultimate survival.
Some have objected to this idea that the "left-ward leer" of a college President over a decade ago can have that much affect. I understand this objection, but I think it is misinformed. I also don't think it is necessarily a Fundamental/New Evangelical issue. In fact, I would imagine this were true even in the secular arena.
Imagine a similar scenario. A new president is selected at a well-known conservative educational institution, but the new presidents announces that he is supportive of Obama and Pelosi and the rest of the liberals in politics of the day. Even if subsequent presidents attempt a return to traditional conservative issues, unless a major mea culpa with sackcloth and ashes and comes from those involved in the hiring of the left-leaning president, many conservatives are going to be wary of recommending and supporting the institution - and wisely so. (BTW, the same would be true of a liberal institution that suddenly came out as conservative on some major issues - look what happened to Joe Liberman.)
I further question the wording of Dr. Bauder where he says the following:
Is Fundamentalism collapsing? It seems that is a foregone conclusion to Dr. Bauder, even though he admits it is difficult to know the real state of Fundamentalism. I hear what seems to be almost a glee in some circles (certainly not Dr. Bauder) in that apparent collapse, but I question whether those who are celebrating should think through the bigger picture more clearly.
The question is not whether fundamentalism is collapsing. The question is how we should respond to the collapse. More fundamentally, the question is how we should even be thinking about these events.
In 1925, Harvard liberal Kirsopp Lake wrote regarding Fundamentalism in The Religion of Yesterday and Tomorrow
“It is a mistake, often made by educated persons who happen to have but little knowledge of historical theology, to suppose that Fundamentalism is a new and strange form of thought. It is nothing of the kind: it is the…survival of a theology which was once universally held by all Christians….The Fundamentalist may be wrong: I think that he is. But it is we who have departed from the tradition, not he, and I am sorry for the fate of anyone who tries to argue with a Fundamentalist on the basis of authority. The Bible and the corpus theologicum of the Church is on the Fundamentalist side”I recognize that the this applies to the idea more than the movement, but historically it has often been the movements who have been used of God to propagate, promote, defend and expand the idea. While I recognize that God does not need a particular institution, I believe it would be wise for those of us who hold to the idea of Fundamentalism to seek to do what we can to pray for, encourage, support and strengthen (including providing correction where necessary) those institutions that also hold to the idea.
Just my thoughts,
Frank Sansone
