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I spent more than two decades just down the street from Bob Jones University. My practice was just a few blocks down the same street the campus was located on. It didn't take long to realize that BJU produced and continues to produce the same drama, scandal and blowback that WCG/AC did. Truly two birds of a feather if there ever was one.
Bob Jones Sr was a contemporary of HWA and was said to detest HWA as both competed on the radio for the religious audience. Bob Jones Sr also detested Billy Graham, a graduate of BJU because Graham went him therefore into all the world and avoiding the world was classic BJU.
A client told me of the sermon Bob Jones Sr gave assuring the students that it would be over his dead body when kissing was ever allowed on this campus. In time he died and ended up being buried on the campus. You guessed it. It is now the place where forbidden couples go to kiss.
Bob Jones University has its own gay community that it is in complete denial over. My gay BJU clients assured me that they did well on the campus. BJU has an excellent music program as well as theatre. Their art collection is incredible. I asked how they managed to lay low on the campus to which they said it was easy. Not wishing to date women, they looked like very compliant and obedient students concerning the prohibition against dating. Students were forbidden to stand around with the girls to chat. They had to chat on the move. I met a student who was expelled for catching a female student in a fall. He was told it would have been better to let her fall than to touch her.
Dating was by permission and dating outside the campus required the couple to take a faculty member with them. In reality, I was assured that paying off the faculty member to not stick around was also not unheard of.
As legalists, BJU graduates of go into ministry, police work or City Government in Greenville. Control and Bible based law and order was the goal. It drove the good old boys nuts when BMW and the Germans moved to Greenville and wouldn't have part in their control.
When I asked clients, gay/male or female who found the experience authoritarian and controlling the answer was always the same. It's the only school my parents will pay for. As well, going against their local church connected to BJU was a death sentence spiritually. Guilt, fear and shame is a powerful control mechanism.
I present this to those who might be interested in seeing the WCG/AC experience was and is not unique. It is the product of fundamentalism, authoritarianism and getting mixed up with the one-man founder and show where it becomes a family dynasty over time.
Many a BJU graduate spends years overcoming the experience.
This will resonate with most here on Banned
I wonder if they have a pseudo history professor who can trace their origin back to the first century
ReplyDeleteIf they are inventive enough tis no problem they just manufacture one 'truth' after another and the willing believe
Delete"I present this to those who might be interested in seeing the WCG/AC experience was and is not unique. It is the product of fundamentalism, authoritarianism and getting mixed up with the one-man founder and show where it becomes a family dynasty over time. "
ReplyDeleteIf you join or read the ex-JW's, ex-SDA, and ex-Mormon sites on Facebook, Reddit, TikTok, Instagram, etc you will quickly see the same spiritual abuse and batshit crazy theology and beliefs that play havoc with members' lives. Fundamentalism is a result of the legalistic bullshit that so many seem to thrive upon. Controlling people's lives is more important than spiritual health.
All of these churches many stemming from Adventism were and some still are self opinionated fanatics you are right - falsely claiming to be chosen. Armstrong was as bat shit crazy as E G White
DeleteB.J.U. used to have some political clout, as pre-Trump Republicans felt compelled to speak there and prove how conservative they were.
ReplyDeleteIt's identified now as "Independent Fundamentalist Baptist." Some preachers can indeed be legalist (even opposing men wearing shorts during summer). But at least that movement preaches about Jesus, while COGs often do not.
We actually had a classmate at AC in '67 who had attended BJU prior to AC. Believe it or not, he really appreciated the relative leniency and freedoms at AC.
ReplyDeleteI could also relate to the students who told you BJU was the only college their parents would pay for.
Dennis:
ReplyDeleteThere is a large difference between Armstrongism and the other comparable denominations that you mention. While Armstrongism did not solidify its many beliefs on race into a single doctrine of White Supremacy, Armstrongism was in practice White Supremacist. BJU recanted this view:
“On national television in March 2000, Bob Jones III, who was the university’s president until 2005, stated that BJU was wrong in not admitting African-American students before 1971, which sadly was a common practice of both public and private universities in the years prior to that time. On the same program, he announced the lifting of the University’s policy against interracial dating.” (From the Bob Jones University website.)
AC, to my knowledge, never made it to this point. Somebody correct me if I am wrong. My guess is that the various little Armstrongist denominations still hold to a form White Supremacy. Even if they have public statements about denouncing the idea, my guess is that they have many lay members who are White Supremacists. These clandestine members may not wear a label but, after all, that is why they are warming a seat in an Armstrongist denomination.
The large difference I am referring to is not this one topic. It is the fact that many cults actually do sometimes develop and advance. Armstrongism is static. It is holding firm against liberalism – which is the code word for advancement.
My two cents …
Scout
A good two cents worth. Armstrong is white supremist - I believe his copied and pasted BI theory is one main example something they choose to elevate.
DeleteIt was difficult to get rid of the horrible attitudes of white supremacy after leaving WCG and realizing what their programming had done to me.
ReplyDeleteThe rewards were great though because I felt great acceptance from the people to whom I had formerly felt superior. They seemed to feel that all the weirdnesses I'd picked up from being warped by the cult were just cultural things. My new ethnic friends were so very accepting and very helpful to my recovery.
The one thing I feel good about is that even though we held white supremacist beliefs, at least I never did harm to non whites or attempted to hold them back. I knew others in the church whose prejudices did made them be bad to others.
Why, exactly, did you feel superior?
DeleteWell, RSK, unfortunately, the ministry of Armstrongism had engrained in me that the gentiles had the minds of wild animals. They also taught us that white people who were not in the church were Satan's people, since this, per them, is currently Satan's world, and although I did have a variety of friends, I secretly looked down on all of them regardless of race or gender. That was a sickness, and I'm thankful to have recovered from it through the reality therapy of my interactions with God's entire variety of humankind.
DeleteIt deeply saddens me to witness the resurgence of racism (amongst a whole lot of other ignorance) on our national front since 2017. If I could learn and become a better person, why can't all these other people who have come out of the woodwork?
Having been on the other end of it, I believe I understood what you were referring to. However, I would be curious how they led you to that position doctrinally, as I'm sure many COGlodytes reading your comment would protest that the group didn't teach that.
DeleteAs for post-2017, we could have a very interesting convo about that, but I'll refrain at the moment in case this thread gets an influx of readers and I wouldn't want to derail them.
Sounds like heavy Muslim influence concerning women. Don't dare look at a woman or touch one. It's as if the only relationship a man can have with a woman is sexual.
ReplyDeleteYoung Muslim guys cruising the streets of Tehran: "Amir! Take a look at the forehead on that one!!!"
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