Bob Jones University has long been on a slide away from its founding principles, and this slide increased with the appointment in 2014 of Steve Pettit as president. In October 2021, Bob Jones announced the addition of beach volleyball to its intercollegiate sports lineup. The Bruins will play their inaugural season in the spring of 2022, competing against schools such as Erskine College, Truett-McConnell University, St. Andrews University, and Spartanburg Methodist College. These are extremely liberal, secularized Christian schools. Neil Ring, BJU’s director of athletics, says, “This addition allows us to be on the front edge of an emerging sport while staying aligned with our mission” (BJU Today, Oct. 21, 2021). Obviously this “mission” is not that of the school’s founding. The announcement was accompanied by a photo of five smiling BJU female athletes dressed in tights, thus conforming to the world’s corrupt sense of “modesty.” One reader commented, “How long before the tights conform to the same skimpy bikinis that some of their competitors will more than likely be wearing?” (For a history of Bob Jones University, see The History and Heritage of Fundamentalism and Fundamental Baptists, www.wayoflife.org.)
(Friday Church News Notes, November 26, 2021, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)