A friend of mine who has always championed Louisiana College, in many ways, sent this article to me today. Needless to say, he was concerned.
I encourage you to read it and share your thoughts and impressions.
I have my own opinions, but I’m interested in hearing yours.
Excerpt:
God has given us a territory. It is defined by His Word, unchanging truth without any mixture of error. Satan, through culture, media, education – the world, has done his best to redefine and challenge God’s truth.
….
The enemy is attacking the Christian’s territory and he is doing so at an exponential pace.
The murder of our unborn is occurring at a rate of 21 babies per second!
The President of the United States is carrying the banner to continue these murders at an even faster pace and to also use our tax dollars to expand the murder overseas.
If we use Biblical truth to define our president and those in Congress as murderers – and that is what they are, murderers – as those who have perpetuated this murderous plot, will they imprison us?
CenLamar 
Louisiana College is a first rate school. Their officials should stick to teaching. That is what they do best.
LC USED to be a first rate school. It is a far cry from that now.
Pointing out current events and their consequences on a society IS teaching!! There is a dire need in today’s society for more voices to preserve our culture. I applaud Dr. Aguillard for speaking out.
Dr. Aguillard isn’t teaching teaching academically, though (which, btw, is his job); he’s preaching, which college kids can do for free on Sunday mornings at the church of their choice. They don’t have to pay tuition to hear someone else’s opinion on faith-based matters; this is the distinction between a church and a university, a distinction that plenty of other equally Baptist universities seem to understand.
Dr. Aguillard is asserting religious opinion as fact without verbally offering an opportunity for students to come to their own conclusions. Good professors offer information, facilitate discussion, encourage students to think critically, and encourage them to come to their own conclusions about the topic. I agree that the Christian mission is an important one; however, Dr. Aguillard’s method is destructive to both the Christian mission AND to the academic institution he needs to protect.
,
Before disagreeing, browse around the other accredited Baptist universities, who (for the most part) successfully bolster the Christian mission while simultaneously teaching students to think critically about secular and faith-based topics. Baylor University is one notable example. Although LC isn’t falling short in all these areas, I do think they could benefit from following the precedent of other Baptist universities.
To be clear, I only mean to apply this to Dr. Aguillard, not LC as a whole.
Alex, remember: apparently, Satan also works through “education.”
gotta watch that thar lernin!
Only book a true beleiver needs is the bible. God done wrote it hisself and ain’t no arguin with what God done wrote.
Husein Obama and his liberal army of Satan are personally butcherin babies! And all there fella sinners are homisexualizin, havin unmarried sex, and partakin in the evils of lernin. Word is they’s even lettin womenfolk lern to read!
Read the word of GOD!
(but ignore that part about pork…he was just kiddin bout that)
According to Our Dear Little Leader at LC, by his quoted numbers, 662, 256,000 abortions have occurred. This year? Last year? The past 10000 years? (oops, sorry, the world hasn’t existed that long) Pardon me, but the high, in 1974, was 1.6 million. You do the math. I will comment further when I can formulate a solid response.
Wow. Just… wow. I graduated from LC in 2002, before the “cleansing.” It was never like this. I mean, it was always over-conservative and somewhat backward thinking at times, but never like this. FWIW though, the religion classes at LC are exactly what started me questioning faith and spirituality in context with reason. I’ve been trying to find common ground between the two for nearly 10 years. Still haven’t been able to.
Interesting 🙂 I am a current student, at least for the next month and a half, and the LC religion classes are what drew me to the conclusion that I am not a Christian.
And, this is just silly, but when I was at Centenary (a highly liberal school by any opinion) I was more in touch with Christianity than I have ever been at LC.
LC turns people on the edge off and just fuels future radicals, in my opinion.
I graduated from LC in 1980, and the words of Dr. Aguillard were true back then just as they are now. Anyone who kills a baby is a murderer. Simple as that.
As a friend of mine pointed out, if there were a private Muslim college and their leader began talking about an army rising up against our nation’s leaders, what do you think would happen?
The bible is a history book. Revised through the ages to sometime suit the outlook of the religious ruling classes of different time periods. Its intentions are good but sometimes do not fit the moral’s and conventions of the age. As most people well know it can be interpreted in many, many different ways. It is not a sword to strike down your imagined enemy’s. Common sense is often better than religious
rhetoric. I am a religious person but I do not try to shame and intimidate to get my point across. That being said, you may now pretend I am wrong.
Alex
Greg – as far as I know, Mr. Obama has not killed any babies, in the wound or otherwise. To carry your argument to its logical conclusion, you are guilty of the sin of abortion as well for not physically going out and stopping it from happening.
I thought the Bible says that all sins are equal in the eyes of God. If that is the case, we’re all going to hell for allowing adultery to be legal in our country… or lying… or not honoring your father and mother. Man, we are in trouble…
And, of course, you will not see similar “Join the Army of God” statements for things like adultery or pre-marital sex or divorce – because too many “Christians” regularly do those things…
I suspect Joe is using this as a marketing technique to get attention from those on the far far right and to attract more students to LC. While I believe that abortion is wrong and is a sin, I don’t think folks need to go around “waging war” against it. If you believe what the Bible says then conviction is better left to God and the Holy Spirit, not to self righteous preachers. Our job as believers is to gracefully point out shortfallings to our fellow men and help those who are lost….without trying to cram our beliefs down their throats. As Jesus said “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone”.
In a word: scary.
Ooh, I especially like these lines: “If you join our army of soldiers, you will receive an education grounded in timeless truths and academic excellence that is second to none.
You will not be indoctrinated into post modernism, secular humanism, progressivism, or Darwinian evolution. ”
So much for “academic excellence.”
Also, is there no longer a mathematics major at LC? Obviously, this man cannot do simple math:
21 babies per second. That is 1,260 babies per minute, 75,600 babies per hour, 1,814,400 babies per day, and 662,256,000 per year.
The population of the United States is less than half that number. The world-wide population of women is 3,386,509,865 (www.geohive.com). The global population of childbearing women (aged 15-50) is 1,755,000,000 (www.census.gov). Therefore, if Mr. Aguillard is correct (assuming that he is talking about the number of abortions in the world, rather than just in the USA), that would mean that every year, no less than one third of all child bearing women have an abortion. However, if he is talking about women in the United States, that would mean that on average every women in the United States would have about 9 abortions per year.
Idiocy. So much for academic excellence.
Unfortunately, there are about 1.2 million abortions in the US. http://www.nrlc.org/ABORTION/facts/abortionstats.html. This is roughly the rate of 2.3 abortions per minute, or .04 per second. NOT 21 PER SECOND.
This fantastically absurd figure is almost as fantastically absurd as the statement that the Bible is “unchanging truth without any mixture of error.”
Exactly why I don’t live in Cenla anymore. Sorry y’all.
But really, what I don’t get about conservatives is this:
Why is it considered to be “big government” or “big brother” meddling in the personal lives of its citizens when the government tries to restrict the sale of dangerous firearms, or provide health care to everyone, or tax cigarettes to pay for that health care that we all pay for anyway, or require motorcycle helmets, or ban smoking in bars, or provide support to single mothers, or provide temporary relief to laid-off workers, or build an efficient railway system, or create a renewable energy portfolio, or cap and trade dangerous greenhouse gas emissions, or create a national mileage standard for automobiles, or monitor hurricanes and volcanoes, or build levees, or deliver the mail, or build interstates, or provide all those other services that we all rely upon?
While on the other hand it some how is NOT “big government” or “big brother” meddling in the lives of citizens when the government tells women what they can or cannot do with their unborn child, or that I can’t grow marijuana in my back yard and smoke it in private, or that I can’t burn the flag of the United States, or that two adults of the same sex that are in love cannot enjoy the civil rights that come with marriage???
You people gotta be consistent, or else I get confused…
SLAM DUNK. Boomshakalaka!
If you recall, Dr. Aguillard (he didn’t spend all that money with Nova Southeastern University to still be called a Mister, thank you) only became President of Louisiana College after heated internal divisions caused their FIRST choice for President to bow out, at which point the right-winger trustees reconstituted the selection committee and stacked the deck in his favor, which, to many, seemed like an obvious violation of the College’s own by-laws.
As an aside: Is it Christian and ethical to violate and skirt your own by-laws and rules in order to install a leader who was not supported by the original selection committee? Some universities have a word for such behavior: Cheating.
Lawsuits were filed and ultimately dismissed, because, after all, LC is a private institution, and they can cheat and skirt the rules they created, right?
http://www.abpnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=316&Itemid=118
Flashback:
I agree with most of what has been said on this thread. Dr. Aguillard’s rhetoric is anti-intellectual, divisive, and ultimately self-defeating; it does not speak well for the academic credibility of an institution when its President blatantly lies about statistics and studies and engages in a type of small-minded bigotry about the nature and purpose of American government.
This is all just confounding.
As someone with a degree in Religious Studies, I always see red flags when religious leaders talk about recruiting armies to wage war for territory. I agree the parallels to the ways in which radicalized, sectarian Muslims recruit members are uncanny.
Lamar:
I agree that the militant language used here is, at best, overused. Sports teams do it, business management teams use it, and religious organizations do it. Heck, the government (which in some cases legitimately needs to use military force and go to war) overuses this type of language, “The War on Drugs”, “The War on Poverty”, etc.
Harmless (relatively) examples of this philosophy, growing out of mainstream Christianity, can be seen in the Salvation Army and in the hymn, “Onward Christian Soldiers”, neither of which have caused any demonstrable damage, to my knowledge.
Many religious people see themselves in this way, and it is a method that some churches (traditionally Protestant) use to bond their congregations towards a common purpose. I submit that there is little about this to cause worry. When was the last time Southern Baptists seized control of a government building, or had a revival meeting get out of hand and spill over into civil unrest? Far more risk from a spring break crowd, or even a Jimmy Buffet concert than the fine people at Louisiana College.
Heck, even the Branch Davidians waited for trouble to come to them….
Ace, I don’t believe, for one second, that anyone should take Dr. Aguillard’s metaphor literally. Obviously, he is being hyperbolic on purpose.
But the point is that he couches his argument in the same language of intolerance used by radical religious groups who DO, in fact, want to inflict harm on the American government (people).
This particular brand of religious intolerance and moral superiority is not harmless; it’s pernicious. It allows people a justification for hatred and discrimination against people who don’t subscribe to their narrowly-defined religious beliefs.
I’ll give you an example: Dr. Aguillard writes:
Aguillard’s description of this legislation is totally dishonest. This hate crimes bill does not impede on anyone’s Constitutional right to “declare” their religious beliefs on homosexuality. It simply expands hate crimes to include crimes committed against people based on their sexual orientation.
As a Christian, I would think Dr. Aguillard would already be opposed to violence against his neighbors, no matter what their sexual orientation may be. But after reading his little rant about this hate crimes bill, I am honestly not so certain. Is he encouraging his “army” to rise up against this hate crimes bill, break the law, incite violence against homosexuals, and go to jail? A close reading of BOTH the hate crimes bill and Dr. Aguillard’s letter suggests exactly that, unless one simply wants to excuse Dr. Aguillard as being ignorant of the purpose and scope of this legislation.
As Michael said, so much for academic excellence!
It is very encouraging to see the articulate discussion posted here. I wrote similar comments at my newby blog, although a bit more demanding.
As a “recovering Southern Baptist” and a 1981 Louisiana College graduate, I feel compelled to offer some comments. Joe Ag’s use of metaphors such as an armed campaign really splits the veil on the true motivations of fundamentalist power mongers. For many fundamentalists it is a bit of the martyr mentality that drives their actions. It originates with fear of change and culminates in an aggressive, mean-spirited quest, or “campaign” for power. If they lose their holy campaign, that’s not all bad because they have martyred themselves for God. Sound familiar? But, Joe Ag brings an additional agenda, that of self-promotion, or creating a glorious legacy to himself, the anointed one who gave his all to righteousness and was blessed with this vast monument to himself…uh, I mean God. So far, this monument consists of a graduate program, making faculty attend a Baptist church and sign a document professing their belief in biblical inerrancy, a new football stadium (which indeed is impressive), and a pending Law school. A deeper look reveals a darker scenario.
One has to look at joe’s history at Louisiana College to see this “other side.” As Lamar stated in his last post, joe’s ascendancy was orchestrated in a manner that would make Jesus clear the temple. It was one of the most dishonest, vicious, disheartening, anti-Christian crusades imaginable. LC for decades had achieved and maintained an academic reputation that was lauded far and wide. It was anchored by a staff and faculty that were equally committed to solid biblical principles and sound academic achievement. joe and company began a systemic termination of that faculty. The individual stories of this crusade are filled with hurt, disillusionment, and personal pain. A number of the professors who been at LC for years and were near retirement, were left without medical coverage. At least one was already having significant health problems and was not as concerned with losing his job as he was about losing his insurance. The crusade was the antithesis of the Gospel of Jesus. Yet, it was done to “purify” LC.
Another of joe’s methods for bringing himself glory is associating with other fundamentalist figures who already have rock star status, specifically the late Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, which of course is now run by Jerry Falwell, jr., and Judge Paul Pressler of Houston, co-founder of this modern fundamentalist/fascist movement that birthed little joe. At least one of LC’s current administrators came straight from Liberty U, where football is also an evangelistic tool, and guess whose name will be on the front of the new LC Law school? You guessed it! Judge Paul Pressler.
I am a little concerned about joe’s exuberance in the article. He says he is ready for jail. joe that might not be wise since you do have a little sugar in your strut.
Oh, and before I forget……..Hey Greg! The confederacy is dead. God bless America!
Thanks for the comments Micheleaux.
I have read the document that LC requires new hires to complete, and it is disturbing. Dr. Aguillard isn’t simply asking professors to agree with the Baptist Faith and Message; he also requires them to write detailed and personal accounts of their faith journey, their thoughts on homosexuality, and their understanding of the “inerrancy” of the Bible. Based on Dr. Aguillard’s public statements and the mass exodus of faculty following his installation, I seriously doubt he is looking for people who disagree with his stances on any of those issues. This religious litmus test isn’t just required of their religion professors; it is required of everyone.
So much for academic excellence!
To think, I had always believed the academy was about promoting the free and open exchange of ideas. At LC, it appears one is free and open to exchange ideas, as long as they conform with Dr. Aguillard’s beliefs.
Lamar,
The assault on the faculty is all too real. I continue to disagree with your assessment of the danger of this particular message, as set up in the original post. It is apparent that you have a big problem with the messenger, himself. At least on this point, we can agree. I think that this move to make LC more like a Liberty or Bob Jones is a mistake. I have a friend and former colleague on the faculty who feels under assault for not fitting the new mold. Our community will lose this valuable member, directly because of these new policies.
I, personally, have no problem with the existence and operation of Liberty or Bob Jones. There is certainly a place in America for those schools. LC has (or, at least had) a fine tradition of it’s own. While I believe that a private, religious college like LC has the right to make these changes and go in this direction, as a lifelong resident of the North Rapides community, I regret that religious extremism and a culture of intolerance is radically altering our local institution of “higher” learning.
Ace:
We actually don’t disagree much at all.
At Tulane – the only purely non-sectarian private major university in the US – we had the chance to observe our neighbor institution, Loyola.
Loyola is a Jesuit school, and, as such, much of their student life is influenced by Catholic tradition. Although there were certainly some areas where Tulane students found this to be somewhat impossible to comprehend from the viewpoint of our own experience (next door), I have always respected the education provided at Loyola University; religious dogma never crept into their classrooms in such a way that it could affect academic purity, objectivity, or the freedoms of expression for both students and faculty.
While I don’t agree with the vast majority of Southern Baptist ideology, I also don’t think that a college that incorporates the ideals of its followers into the college experience is a bad thing. However, a clear unbreakable line should be drawn between college life and college education.
No matter what the affiliation, nature, cost, or location of a college or university, the students who pay to attend those institutions are the future workers and leaders of our communities. They make a serious financial and life commitment to their educations, and both the students and the community are owed a quality academic product centered by an unadulterated education, free of bias and untainted by dogma, regardless of its root.
I couldn’t agree more that a church school has the right to reflect the traditions and beliefs of its faith. I would take it a step further and say that it should. LC has historically done a good job of doing that. It had been sound and balanced for decades. However, the last 25 years have seen a slow, methodical takeover by these fundofascists of a large part of the entire Southern Baptist Convention. At LC the takeover occurred when the board of trustees became infiltrated. Trustees are recommended by individual churches, most often under the direct influence of the pastor. This board, which has always been conservative, began to fall under fundofascist influence and the standards of the trustees began to fall. For example at least one trustee in the past did not even have a college degree.
My point is, the majority of Louisiana Southern Baptists are very conservative, caring, committed Christians who believe in treating people with dignity and compassion. This is where joe and his revolutionaries have parted from LC’s core values. If common, humble baptist knew how joe has treated his fellow christians, they would be heartbroken.
I am a non-denominational Chrisian. The mainstream denomination that I most closely associate with, is the Southern Baptists. There is a certain nostalgic democracy about the smaller Baptist churches, their large number, wide area and if someone desired, he could look and find a congregation in which he fits.
However, as with all things, bigger becomes more powerful (usually), more profitable (if I can use that word in this context), and much less responsive to the individual, and much, much less efficient, even at the simplest of things. [This is the core of the “conservative” or “libertarian” argument against big government solutions.]
“Big” religion is just as dangerous (The Crusades, Televangelism, Radical Islam), when, like in this case, the leaders become more concerned with secular concerns, money, contracts, ideology of professors, etc., and less involved in preaching G-d’s word, and maintaining healthy churches.
From the outset, please know that I am the son of a devout Roman Catholic mother and a practicing Reform Jewish father…how’s that for ecumenism!! My siblings and I were raised Roman Catholic. I was received into the Episcopal Church of the United States 14 years ago and am a current member of the Vestry of St. James Episcopal Church.
I have two questions:
1. Dr. Aguillard stated: “spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms”–how can evil exist in the heavenly realms? It must not be heaven then.
2. Dr. Aguillard stated: “Many also deny the Biblical principles upon which our great country was created.” Dr. Aguillard, please explain to me what the BIBLICAL principles are to which you are referring. Let us ignore, though, the fact that both Thomas Jefferson and George Washington were self-professed Deists and Deism is probably incompatible with Scripture.
Whew! I could prattle on however, I will just say-God bless Dr. Aguillard, the faculty and the students of Louisiana College.
Let me begin by saying I have many close friends who have attended LC in the past and they fled. Not because they are not Christians, but because they were being denied the ability to grow. The horror stories I heard could fill a big brother propaganda pamphlet threefold. We live in America, where freedom of speech is a constitutional right. Louisiana College is a private college and according to President Aguillard, the law doesn’t apply to LC. That means, if anyone speaks out against the faculty or even questions anything they teach, they will be expelled. How does an institution like this exist in America? How is this a Christian college? The message that Christ came to earth to deliver hope for those who seek truth. If Christ is the giver and bringer of truth as any Christian would proclaim, how can LC claim to be a Christian institution if threats are being made to those who ask questions and seek truth? What are they afraid of? As far as calling our government murderers, how easy would it be for someone to observe the happenings inside of LC and call them evil for stunting the spiritual and intellectual growth of it’s students by smothering opposing view points? There is no love in that, there is no truth in that. Where there is no love and truth, there is no place for Christ. Aguillard and anyone who walks through the doors of LC will be on my prayer list until the day I die.
I am currently a student at LC and since I saw this post I decided to give my two cents.First and foremost, LC is a great school, and I’m not one of those ‘crazy southern Baptists’. Alot of this sermon is being taken out of context (except the obvious error in statistics). When he said he was ready to go to jail he was inferring he would go to jail for preaching the Gospel of Christ. Also in regards to the religion taking over the classrooms IT DOES NOT. For example in every single English class I’ve taken, I’ve never had to use scripture in our papers, in fact I was instructed to stay away from it because it was not a respected nor reliable academic source. I’m a music student at the school and we don’t sit in class and talk about hymns and praise and worship music, we are instructed in the ways of classical masters and we spend time studying, learning, and performing their music, most of which were not Christians (in fact, they are currently rewriting the church music program so it will be more applicable to use in church and less about the knowledge of classical music). In our science classes we aren’t told evolution is wrong, we’re told to learn the different aspects of evolution, because some definitions are spot on. I know the school is definitely not perfect, and neither is our president, but to try and tear down the institution isn’t Christian of us either. As Christians, shouldn’t we be praying that God would lead his institution?