Letters: Responses to Baylor controversy_72803

Responses to Baylor controversy



Posted 7/22/03

Are you sure?

Roger Olsen has written that there is no fundamentalism at Baylor University.

I hope future lawyers are being taught the fundamentals of law and that future doctors are being instructed in the fundamentals of medicine. It will help business majors to learn the fundamentals of economics.

A university that claims to be Christian should also teach the fundamentals of the Christian faith.

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Responses to Baylor controversy

Posted 7/22/03

Are you sure?

Roger Olsen has written that there is no fundamentalism at Baylor University.

I hope future lawyers are being taught the fundamentals of law and that future doctors are being instructed in the fundamentals of medicine. It will help business majors to learn the fundamentals of economics.

A university that claims to be Christian should also teach the fundamentals of the Christian faith.

Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary defines Christian fundamentalism as "a recent movement in American Protestantism re-emphazing as fundamental to Christian belief in the inerrancy of the Scriptures, biblical miracles, especially the virgin birth and physical resurection of Christ."

Are you sure there is no fundamentalism at Baylor?

Paul W. Stephens

Austin


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Posted 7/18/03

2012 plan positions Baylor for 21st century

As a graduate of Baylor University, I commend President Robert Sloan and the regents for seeking to guide Baylor to become the best university it can be. Baylor 2012 is a bold, Christ-centered vision that pushes the university into uncharted territory. I believe, despite other opinions to the contrary, that it is good for Baylor.

Mark Twain wrote that if you want to have a white fence, you cannot paint it white one time then leave it alone. Over the years, the paint will wear off due to the erosive effects of sun, wind and rain. If you want a white fence, you have to re-paint that fence again and again. That’s the only way to keep it looking fresh and new.

Baylor began in 1845 with a vision of being a school dedicated to God-centered learning. That vision has not changed. But implementing that vision has called for dramatic change over the last 158 years–including moving to a new location, adding majors and schools, constructing buildings, even altering its historic relationship with Texas Baptists.

Apart from those changes, the university would have succumbed to the erosive forces of religious fundamentalism, educational obscurantism and cultural irrelevance. Simply put, Baylor has had to "re-paint its fence" on numerous occasions in order to be true to its original vision. And it must do so again now.

Baylor 2012 is all about positioning the university to be the best school it can be in the 21st century. And I support it.

Paul Basden

Frisco

Posted 7/17/03

Support for Baylor

I wish to express my support for the Baylor 2012 initiative and for its architect, Baylor President Robert Sloan.

C.S. Lewis wrote: "If all the world were Christian, it might not matter if all the world were uneducated. But, as it is, a cultural life will exist outside the church whether it exists inside or not. To be ignorant and simple now–not to be able to meet the enemies on their own ground –would be to throw down our weapons." We clearly need Christian schools that can counter the intellectual bullying imposed by secular institutions.

I have known President Sloan for 20 years, heard him preach on numerous occasions and spoken with him directly on theological issues. I cannot imagine anyone doubting his commitment to Baptist principles.

The charges that he is "too evangelical" are more a compliment than an indictment. Jesus warned us to beware when all men speak well of us. Perhaps the accusation of fundamentalism made against Sloan is an indication that he is no one’s man but God’s.

To be truly Baptist is to pursue God’s truth wherever God leads. It was this way of being a Baptist that landed John Bunyan in the Bedford jail and drove Roger Williams into the snows of the New England winter. It is this vision of being a Baptist that I see Robert Sloan pursuing at Baylor, and I support him.

Doug Jackson

Corpus Christi


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