Extremely strict colleges...your thoughts?

The army does not encourage individuality. Everyone is expected to dress alike, to stand alike, to march in step, to be in the same place, to clean their gun the exact same way, to be similar in physique, and wear the same haircut, get up at the same time, go to bed at the same time, follow the exact same creed, and do nothing except what they are told.

You cannot know the definition of individuality if you think that the army encourages it.

And these colleges in question do not encourage young people to think for themselves. They encourage them to think like whichever IFB hero the college is fashioned after.

 

I want to be clear. When I said "thousands" I meant over a very long period of time. I do not think strict fundy IFB colleges are graduating thousands of people regularly. But I am sure that in the last 6 or 7 decades there have been thousands.

SBC colleges and seminaries no doubt do graduate thousands a year. I think it is pie in the sky to compare the IFB's with the SBC' on how many they graduate.

Nonetheless, it is, as I stated, an educated opinion of mine having attended one of these types of colleges, observed what kind of workers it produced, and having observed "fundamentalists" all over the Southeastern US for the past thirty years (this is an authority that you can not claim, if I understand your situation correctly, right?)

There will be no stats, I'm sure. But we do have the ability to inductively reason.

 

I said boot camp. The strict colleges are not to be compared to everything that goes on the army. Sure there is individuality SOMEWHERE in the army. That would be a pointless analogy. Strict colleges are NOT like the EVERYTHING that is the army. They are like boot camp and boot camp stifles individuality. It breaks down the individual to make him a part of a whole. When it's all said and done those boys standing there at graduation are little automatons. But this is a good thing for the army. It is a very bad thing for men of God.

This is what these silly little fundy colleges do with their suffocating and ridiculous rules.

They tell students when to go to bed and when to get up and what to wear and what to listen to and how to think and what to believe, etc... I cannot see how anyone would be for sending a strong willed, free thinking, on fire for God young man to one of these institution to have his every talent and personality trait wiped away and be turned into a little automaton carbon copy of the staff. These places are only good for those of weak, bland personality types. If you can't tell, I don't like these "institutions".

BTW, I do like your signature. It would be funny were it not so true, right?

 

So then your answer is that your statistics are strictly opinion, with no researched statistical basis, based on no scientific surveys, correct? And thus you have no way to prove your charge that more fundamentalists grads leave the movement than stay. It's pure speculation.

Concerning fundamentalist schools and their graduates, an educated guess from the size of various fundamental schools I am familiar with is that several thousand are graduated every year from fundamental schools. Some of them are larger than you apparently think. Bob Jones U. and Pensacola each have several thousand students in their student bodies. (Someone else may have accurate stats.) Maranatha, Northland, Crown and various other schools each graduate one or two hundred per year.

 

I don't see a problem as long as all is up front.

Rules to me were a part of life. By being home schooled I finished HS at 15. The college I went to send me to Hargrave Military Academy for two years. Then when I went to college we players were kept in a separate dorm, had little or no free time, you know had to practice keep grade up and stay out off trouble. In college could not leave school or less your parents or school people or coaches were leading you.

In seminary didn't have time to do much, went to school, taught in a HS and coached ball. Then came the service, which was the easiest that I had had it in my life. My parents were very strict. Study, work on the farm, work at the lumber yard one or two Friday nights out, had to be back by 9 PM.

 

Washing of the brain

We are all being programmed--before birth. Paul, the apostle, said he was appointed before he was born. God's plan for His children predates the creation. He has everything under control--including the training. Moses spent 40 years in Midian--getting trained. He still had trouble following orders. There was a price to pay--he did not reach the promised land.

Zeal is a wonderful gift--if we allow God to use it for His honor and glory. As long as we try to help God fill our vessel, we will have problems following His orders. Usually we try to put our carnal ways in the vessel--we are depraved--God cannot use us like that.

We have very clear marching orders: Preach the Word; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and doctrine. One need not be a Doctor of Divineness to be equipped to carry out these orders. However, a rigid discipline is in order when it comes to spiritual discernment, which leads to the basic problem: unregenerated in the ranks, including the generals.

Put on the whole armour of God. Only a complete uniform will work--that is what "perfect" means, complete, full grown, mature.

I have been in the military in peace and war.

I already knew how to chase rabbits. Some seminary was good, some not so good. I learned a lot in unofficial seminary at church. The best seminary is in the closet--praying. I have no letters or accolades. The real "well dones" are not in this world.

Selah,

Bro James

 

My family went to movies on occasion. I dated from the time I was sixteen without adult supervision. When I left home I went to bed when I wanted too, went where I wanted, and did what I wanted. And, horror of horrors, I listened to, and still do, CCM. Therefore, I would not attend a school with such rigid rules. So, it seems to reason that those who go to these schools already agree with the rules because that's the life that they would lead otherwise. Some kids are there because they have proven themselves unable to handle life on their own so mom and dad send them to a school with rigid rules for their kid's own good (hence my comment that John took exception too. No offense toward his family was intended.). Otherwise, I can think of no other good reasons to subject myself or my child to a school with a legalistic leaning atmosphere.

 

I found this suffocating and ridiculous legalistic rule on the website of a silly rigid little fundy school. Can anyone guess which silly and rigid little fundy school has such a suffocating and ridiculous legalistic rule?

 

One of the interesting points about schools (and others who adopt similar tenets) is that there is still "culture" involved. The question is, which era, and what makes that particular era more right than another era.

The rules put forth by some of the schools we have been examining seem to stem back to 1940s - 1960s American (and more particularly, southern) church practice. I can imagine a culture of neat hair cuts; dark suit, white shirt, and colored tie; music from a hymn book, played by either piano or organ; and other cultural indicators of that era.

The funny thing is that all that stuff was also once "modern" and considered "sinful" by prior generations who had their own culture. There is no such thing as a universal "Christian" culture that is dictated by Scripture, but many have tried to make it so anyway.

I can only imagine how those culturally-locked schools might respond to someone like the Apostle Paul with his torn up body, stink from walking the world, wearing robes, sandals and such, instead of suit and tie, speaking in a language unfamiliar to most at the school, and calling people to true righteousness instead of social issues that take the place of the gospel.

There is a place for colleges to set down rules of conduct for students, but not of those rules are in fact nothing more than a forced enculturation to a bygone era, and that merely for the sake of retaining something that the oldsters who run and finance those schools remain comfortable in having.

I'm sure we'll reach the world with the gospel with that understanding... :BangHead:

 

I have been in ministry for over 30 years. I have heard so many things that supposedly keep us from reaching the world with the Gospel: Traditional services, the name baptist in a church, musical styles, denominational structure and now strict rules in Bible colleges. If we would only change all these things the world will promptly fall into the lap of Jesus. :BangHead:

I went to Tennessee Temple with all their rules and want to know what they taught me that kept the world from knowing about Jesus? They told me that it was me not telling people about Jesus.

 

From the OP's (mis?)characterization of Faith's rules:

The actual handbook says nothing about "out-of-town" travel, but does have students sign out with their RA when they are going to be absent from campus overnight.

As Ann reports, such a policy is not unusual.
And the silly little rigid school whose condescending legalistic overnight checkout policy I quoted is . . . Wheaton.

 

True that.

But, what happens if people come to check out your church and what they see is weirdly anachronistic, like a bad television sitcom (and that is just about what they will use to judge us before coming to Christ)?

In many polls that I have seen (I am one of the researchers for Thom Rainer's "The Unchurched Next Door" book for starters, one of the main issues that those apart from the church have is that they don't want to have to be "weird" like churchy folk. This is expressed in the main stream culture in programs like Saturday Night Live with their church lady routine, and in cartoon series like The Simpson's (and multiple, multiple, others).

Do we have to adopt a 1960s culture in order to follow Christ?

That is not what I've seen, and the church I currently serve sort of proves that point. We're one of the freakiest bunches you'll ever see, but the gospel is REAL and people that you and I might never even speak to are out doing just what you suggest above -- reaching people with the gospel.

Our average age is under 30 and we've grown from 12 to 2400+ in 10 years.

What is interesting is that no one has to adopt any particular culture to be a part of our church. We have blue-haired little old ladies that come in with their big old KJV Bible in hand, looking just like they stepped out of the 1950s, and we have hipsters in skinny jeans and hand-me-down t-shirts with purple hair and a dozen earing's sitting next to them -- all praising Jesus and getting on with His kingdom work. Weird, huh... :thumbs:

 

I am thankful tou're church is doing that. But probably like you have noticed, there are churches that our hopelessly up to date in terms of everything they are doing but don't ever see people saved. The reason is they're not telling the story of Jesus. I know churches who do all hymns, all in ties and dresses and all carrying KJV who are reaching people.

I am just thinking that a church who was seriously loving people and trying to reach them with the story of Jesus would be reaching the world.

The reason we're not reaching the world is that we're not trying.

 

Many of these rules are great for "helicopter" parents who hover over everything thier child does.

 

the phrase most Christian colleges use is 'in loco parentis' meaning in the parents place. If I am paying for my children's college, then you bet I am hovering and finding out where they are spending the night and with whom.

God didn't give the colleges my children, He gave me the responsibility.