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Bob Jones University, the Bible college in Greenville, South Carolina, did not admit black students until the 1970s. Then, for a 30-year period, interracial dating was prohibited. Now the university has announced that its polices were wrong.
Lost in the spectacular news accounts of the election of a black man as president of the United States is another event - this time in higher education - that stands as a milestone in racial progress. In an eloquent statement, Stephen Jones, great-grandson of the founder and the fourth president of Bob Jones University, has apologized for the institution's racist past.
President Jones stated, "For almost two centuries American Christianity, including BJU in its early stages, was characterized by the segregationist ethos of American culture. Consequently, for far too long, we allowed institutional policies regarding race to be shaped more directly by that ethos than by the principles and precepts of the Scriptures. We conformed to the culture rather than provide a clear Christian counterpoint to it.
"In so doing, we failed to accurately represent the Lord and to fulfill the commandment to love others as ourselves. For these failures we are profoundly sorry. Though no known antagonism toward minorities or expressions of racism on a personal level have ever been tolerated on our campus, we allowed institutional policies to remain in place that were racially hurtful."
By way of background to this remarkable announcement let's review the racial history of Bob Jones University.
The university's founder, Bob Jones, was a fundamentalist evangelist who believed that the theory of evolution was an abomination. He called the pope the anti-Christ and dismissed Catholicism as a "Satanic...