In March 2019 I submitted two reports to the leadership of Bethlehem College & Seminary: “Bethlehem College & Seminary and Ethnic Harmony: A Minority Report,” and “Bethlehem College & Seminary, Ethnic Harmony, and Doug Wilson” (note: “ethnic harmony” is Bethlehem’s language for issues related to racial reconciliation). I was the Director of Admissions and was responsible for recruiting and admitting students to all programs, including the college and the seminary. We had been struggling to recruit Black students the seminary for several years, and I had recently heard concerns that “BCS is not a good place for minority students” from some current students, former students, and fellow Bethlehem Baptist Church members. Since this was my job, I followed up and took a representative survey of some students, alumni, faculty, board members, and friends of the school, out which came these two reports.
Recently, I have heard from multiple attempts to downplay or minimize the relationship between Bethlehem and Douglas Wilson, and I would like to document the fact that (1) there is a substantial connection and (2) BCS leadership has been directly confronted with this question for several years. (note: I am not sharing the first report, as it contains direct feedback from people whom I have not received permission to share from).
(Note: this report is specifically focused on issues of race, and thus does not discuss Wilson’s views on women, sexual abuse victims, or any other number of issues that could each receive their own focused treatment.)
I had four goals in the report, reflected in the main headings:
I. Document the affiliation between Bethlehem College & Seminary, DesiringGod, and Doug Wilson.
II. Show why Black and Tan is so offensive and historically inaccurate.
III. Reflect on the past six years (now 8) since the Doug Wilson / Thabiti Anyabwile exchange in 2013.
IV. Suggest some areas we might consider taking action on.
I had intended to share the report with all faculty in order to discuss it at one of the monthly “Faculty Forum” meetings, but was encouraged to share it with the President’s Cabinet first.
It was not well received.
First, I was immediately told that I was not permitted to share these findings with anyone. Not with faculty, not with pastors, not with board members — no one. I asked specifically if I could share it with Jason Meyer, who was then on the board of trustees, was the Pastor for Preaching and Vision at Bethlehem Baptist Church, and professor of preaching at the seminary, and was told “no.” I asked to share with Sam Crabtree, chair of the BCS board — “no.” Of course, sharing with other faculty was out of the question, but the leadership decided to share it with Joe Rigney.
I was told that my reports were “incendiary,” as in “highly flammable,” and that they had the potential to damage the school’s reputation. This seemed to me to be a case of misdirection. It is Doug Wilson who is incendiary. It was our affiliation with him that I though could get us burned. It seemed strange to blame the person saying “Look! There’s a fire!” when the fire was started by someone else.
A number of meetings followed, some of which were very intense. At one meeting, I was admonished for “aggressively” pushing an “agenda” for racial justice. Whether I realized it or not, I was espousing “Critical Race Theory,” which, in 2019, was just starting to come on the evangelical radar. My social media posts were being observed and commented on, and apparently some of our faculty had expressed concern to school leadership regarding my statements, though no one had ever spoken to me directly about any of it.
There was fear that the issues of racial justice had the potential to divide our faculty deeply, which was surprising to me, and if true, seemed to be a sign of brittleness. American slavery came up, including that sentiment that “the Bible doesn’t condemn slavery” so how can we condemn Jonathan Edwards’s slaveholding and call it “sin”?
The report on Doug Wilson was dismissed as “Desiring God’s problem,” ignoring the specific affiliations that the school itself had (and continues to have).
Later that summer, I again raised concern about our affiliation with Wilson at the time of the annual Association of Christian Classical Schools conference “Repairing the Ruins.” I expressed that my conscience was troubling me, and “I feel compelled to raise again the issue of our affiliation with Doug Wilson, an issue that has not been addressed at all since my raising it nearly 3 months ago.” Much of what I expressed is contained in this post: “Doug Wilson and the Association of Christian Classical Schools.” I concluded with this:
I think that our affiliation with Doug Wilson, including ACCS, is a big mistake. I am asking you to reconsider whether this is really in the best interest of our school.
Specifically, I would be served to have clarity on the following questions:
—What exactly is our position on Doug Wilson?
—In the absence of any clear direction, are all faculty and staff free to make their own determinations on how to relate to Doug Wilson and his associated organizations? I.e., if Joe is free to associate in public and prominent ways with Doug, NSA, and ACCS, are others of us free to offer criticism in equally public ways? If not, what is the specific standard or policy to which we will be held on this issue?
—Why do we feel the need to affiliate with ACCS? There are other classical education organizations that we could pursue like the Society for Classical Learning. Can someone articulate the difference between the two and offer an argument in support of the ACCS?
The school sent another representative to this conference, and ultimately it was determined that nothing public would be said clarifying Bethlehem’s connections to Doug Wilson.
Finally, in October 2019, our annual renewal to ACCS came up and I once again raised concern about our official affiliation with Wilson and the ACCS. On October 31, 2019, I was told that I was no longer permitted to “advocate for institutional change” regarding our various connections with Doug Wilson.
I closed my report with 8 suggestions, intended to prompt discussion among the faculty. Here was the eighth suggestion:
There may be other things that Bethlehem might consider in order to clarify what has appeared to be confusing and ambiguous messaging regarding ethnic harmony in general and Doug Wilson in particular. With a faculty and staff of such creative minds, I’m sure there will be even better ideas than the ones suggested here.
Ultimately, the school, chose option #9:
But Bethlehem College & Seminary might decide that the price is too high to pay, and say and do nothing at all. I’m praying that that will not be the case. I love this school, and I pray that we will submit to our King, Jesus, whatever he might ask of us.
I continued working as Director of Admissions for another year and a half, and stopped advocating for “institutional change” regarding Doug Wilson. In February 2021, I resigned from my position and in July 2021 I left Bethlehem Baptist Church.
(Photo by Bermix Studio on Unsplash)
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