Harding and Christianity Today
Some wonderful parodies of the Mac/PC commercials here.
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Congrats to my alma mater.
I just picked up my newest copy of Christianity Today, the leading evangelical magazine, and there was a large ad from Harding in there.
I love the statement that makes, welcoming people from Baptist Churches, charismatic churches, Lutheran churches, community churches, etc.–all Christianity Today readers–to Harding’s community. I’m proud to see my alma mater openly embracing and affirming this core Restoration value (“Christians only, but not the only Christians”). I receive this as good news.
For some this ad may be surprising, but not for me. I know the spirit of many people there who are teachers, administrators, and staff — so many who don’t believe that our tribe is THE tribe. And they realize that the future of some of “our” colleges depends on recruitment beyond the borders of Churches of Christ. So . . . good move. (It’s also possible that this isn’t the first ad there and that it’s just the first one I’ve seen.)
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Another semester has ended. Well, it’s ended for me. I’ve taught my last class. For the students there is that one last issue of the final exam. No big deal.
What a privilege it is to get to tell 18/19 year olds about Jesus — his life and his teaching. That’s what life is about, isn’t it? For those of us who believe this “metanarrative” (that the overarching story of life is about how God had come in Jesus Christ and is seeking through him and the power of the Holy Spirit to save and heal this world), this the core.
Speaking of Harding . . . the older I get and the more I teach this class, the more I appreciate that I was at Harding while Jim Woodroof and Terry Smith were at the College Church. I can still hear Jim preaching from John’s gospel. I can still see the worn out pages from Terry’s NIV around the gospel of Mark.
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(Bonus study aid for any of my students reading: In that last hour before the final when you’re cramming, put your notes down, pick up your Bible, and read Matthew 5-7 again slowly, slowly.)
oh, wow! Mike and Diane…I haven’t seen you all in 14+ years…since you left College Church. Yesterday someone told me about the video on youtube that I “just had to see”. I have thought of you both so very often!
Hey, we love Eddie & Judy Parish!
Allan Stanford!!!!!…What a hoot to read you on Mike Cope’s blog…my email address is tfstbs@charter.net Write Me….I’d love to hear about you and your family…as long as I don’t have to tell you too much!
your chapel buddy…Terry
yep – they’re awesome!
What an interesting memory — Terry Smith and his warn out New Testament. That picture is etched in my memory, too. Terry’s passion about Jesus and his love for college kids poured out of his heart!
Allan Stanford — hey roomy!
Sorry Leland~ I don’t agree. I am thrilled I had the opportunity to attend ACU. I sure don’t feel as if I was in a “bubble”. It was the opposite experience for me and I met so many different types of people and to this day I cherish each friendship. I had the choice to attend any university. My Mom attended ACU and my dad did not. I was not “forced” to attend ACU ~ but am so glad I chose to!!!
I found a wonderful Christian husband from an awesome family and what are the chances of that at a public university? You may argue but I say pretty slim!
Lee,
Glad you had a good experience. I did meet the best thing about me at while at ACU; my wife. So maybe your right.
But it was a hair bow filled bubble when I attended.
I saw the ad several days ago while on one of my all-too-infrequent jaunts through the periodicals section of the Linus A. Sims Memorial Library at Southeastern Louisiana University, the fine public institution where I serve on the faculty. Hmmmmmm . . . CHRISTIANITY TODAY. Wonder if the ACLU knows this is in here. O well, I opened it, and my eyes fell straightaway on the Harding ad.
What struck me about the ad is its eminent tastefulness—its excellent layout, typography, use of colors, and inviting statements. I was no more surprised by seeing Harding advertize in in there than I was that the editors accepted the ad. I think, for example, of the Baptist preacher who many years ago followed me on the radio in a small town in Tennessee, and, no matter what topic I used, he would take up where I had left off and start by saying it ain’t so, until one Sunday morning when the spirit led me to throw him a curve—the topic being the persecution of believers by Communists. He surely wasn’t going to disagree with me on that, but he had to fumble around for a few minutes, while the DJ played a couple more songs.
Some of the intelligent commentators above groove on the issue of what the ad may portend about Harding and its supporting religious body, when an equally intriguing perception is that the mind set outside the Stone-Campbell movement may be developing an increased appreciation of our commonalities. I do not speak for Harding, but from longstanding involvement with the institution (my late father having been Joe Pryor’s roommate at LSU in the 1930s) I believe this: Many church-related institutions prefer to recruit good students, of any religious background, who can fit with the mission, than to take in inevitable academic and disciplinary problems just because they happen to wear the otherwise right label.
I have a lot to learn and may lack gumption, but I perceived nothing in the motives for the ad except a desire to recruit quality students who can abide by the rules.
well said
As a Harding grad, this discussion is quite interesting to me. JAW has it right, that if many members of your faculty aren’t official members of “the tribe”, institutional identity is decimated. Case in point…Messiah College, a Brethren in Christ school in PA highly similar in size to Harding, at one point hired only BIC faculty and now (except in their religion dept. I think but maybe not even that) hires Christians of all denoms. Also, their student body contains relatively few BIC folks. A Messiah faculty member has told me that he was surprised that many students and their (paying) parents were unaware of BIC’s historic commitment to pacifism, one of its most important “tribal” distinctives…
Thing is, I can’t think of one distinctive COC teaching that is worth protecting as much as pacifism would be at Messiah College. So, personally, I can’t see anything lost if CoC identity IS diluted at any given school.
p.s. actually CoC too used to stand for pacifism… but not anymore thus we have soldiers saluting us from the cover of HU’s alumni magazine (one of the covers from the past 2 years).
Leland, when were you at ACU? I was also there during the big bow days. I didn’t wear them…I was more the overalls and t-shirt girl but my Siggie sisters were famous for their big bows. Such a funny memory.
Terry Smith ties several threads of this blog together. I was a student at Memphis State in the early 70s when Terry was the campus minister at the Christian Student Center. Before I met Terry, I was a raging alcoholic with morals…well, let’s say, few morals. Over several monthis, Terry and I met together to talk about, what else, Jesus. In February ’73, God’s Spirit was poured out on me when I was baptized by Terry. I have grown in love with Jesus more and more every day since.
Terry had an amazing way with students then and still draws the best out of evereyone who has the blessing of encountering him (wonder where he learned that?).
I have often taken a mental count of students who were influenced by Terry through the CSC in the 70s. Many went on to become missionaries (me included), Chrisitan counselors, etc; others moved on the secular vocations where they saw their job only as a means to an end…the end being to serve fellow man and point them to the Savior. Note that this influencing was done on a non-Christian (in the fullest sense of the phrase) campus. IMHO it’s the not the venue (Christian campus versus secular), but the people students encounter along the way that spells the difference. Having said that, I am very grateful that our two sons attend(ed) ACU, where they encountered men and women like Terry and Charlotte Smith who loved them and directed their hearts and minds toward God and his Son. With the right influences, that could have happened any where.
I too was at ACU during the “hair bow” days. Thankfully, they weren’t on my head.
Julie,
Graduated in 1990.
Michael C., I loved reading your comment up there. Our church is entering an interim time of searching for a new preacher. Jim Woodroof is set to come to Tennessee in that RV of his and set up residence here for awhile. I can’t wait to hear from him.
As Jim met with our leaders a few weeks ago he told us he plans to preach Christ and love: “What more could you need?” I know he will bring wisdom and experience to help us navigate the changes as well.
I’m glad to hear your transition time was blessed and that you have a new preacher in place. And an ACU MDiv-er at that!
Leland, 1983…man, that bow thing lasted a long time.
There is an ad in CCM (Contemporary Christian Music) magazine -def not a cappella, haha- and some others that present similar ideas.
I’m glad!
What’s going to be interesting in the next several years is to see where this broader base of students leads schools like Harding. As you accept more and more students with non-COC backgrounds, they obviously make up a larger portion of the student population. As theygraduate, they are targeted by development offices for donations. As they donate more and more money to these COC institutions, they will want a greater voice in leadership positions. You see where this is going. Belmont University is dealing with this issue now with the Tennessee Baptist Convention. I wonder if the COC admonistrators are really willing to follow this strategy to where it eventually leads. In other words are we really ready to live out the reality of “Christians only but not the only Christians”?
So true, Joel.
Could it very well be that Harding has accepted federal funding for programs or projects, which requires that it not discriminate in any way–i.e., open to all students regardless of race, color, gender, age, religion, or handicapped status? Or that students who apply for and receive financial aid from the government are admitted regardless of their religious background/beliefs? Just wondering.
PuxicoMo – Nothing new there, at least since 1963.
PuxicoMo,
I don’t think that’s it. As ses said, nothing has really changed on that one in recent times. Also, Harding reserves the right to discriminate in hiring (on religion, gender for the bible department, sexual orientation, etc.) and probably wouldn’t offer equal admissions to an open homosexual, or any other group that violates its conduct code. So the idea that Harding has had to switch to federal standards on discrimination because of funding is probably not the right story.
Looks like Harding has put out the advertising blitz. Their ad was also in a recent issue of World Magazine. I was excited to see it because there are always several ads for Christian universities, but I’ve never seen any from the CoC schools until now. I was suprised (and excited) to see HU’s ad because I thought I would see an ACU or Pepperdine ad in there first. I’m an ACU grad and would love to see them advertise in World, a weekly news magazine with a Christian view – a great alternative to the other well-known weekly news magazines.
PuxicoMo’s comment brings to mind a bit of Harding lore…one of the buildings on campus, I can only remember it as the Bible building (in it I took the class “The Christian Home” with Dr. Allan Isom), has a Bible verse in relief on the front of the building. Someone once told me that they had to refuse federal funds for the building of that edifice, just so that they could have the verse on the front of the building. True???
Excellent point PuxicoMo and Brett. What a travesty that the tax revenue from millions of GLBT individuals is directed towards schools such as Harding that would never admit homosexuals. If the school wants to continue its policy of discrimination then it certainly has a right to do so, but it should do so on its own dime (ie, without any federal funding).