Is it necessary for believers to depend upon the world-system to get them where they need to go? God can get us anywhere we need to go if we operate within His principles, as illustrated in the following letter by Miss Bea Blough, who received both her undergraduate and master’s degrees in education from Bob Jones University.

God miraculously allowed me certification in this state of Alaska, although initially the state department firmly denied me teacher certification based on the fact that Alaska will not certify anyone from a regionally unaccredited institution. And Alaska has no reciprocity with any other state. Well, God wanted me certified, so lack of regional accreditation didn’t stop Him; and I am certified type "A."

I applied for many teaching positions but nothing opened. I found out that it was pretty hard to get into the system especially for a first-year teacher, but I knew that God hadn’t brought me this far to leave me empty-handed. Two days before teachers began in-service training this fall. I got a phone call from a principal who was very interested in me. Why? He saw I had graduated from Bob Jones University. His wife has two nephews attending Bob Jones University; and though the principal had never visited, he was familiar with the standards and morals. He came to my house to interview me. He has been principle of a "Russian school thirty miles from where I lived for the last twenty years. I was one of six competing for the same position, a third and fourth grade combination class. I was the only one with no experience. The Lord overruled all the odds, and the day teachers began in-service, I was hired.

God told His people before they entered the Promised Land that they would be surrounded by the Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites,

Canaanites, Hivites, Jebusites --the heathen; yet they were distinctly admonished to make no covenant with them, nor with their gods. They shall not dwell in thy land lest they make thee sin against me; for if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a snare unto thee."

Bob Jones University is God’s school. He called it, ordained it, provides for it, and gets the glory for whatever is good here. God helping us, we will make decisions based upon what will keep His favor with us. If Israel’s having God’s favor was based upon making no covenant with their gods and keeping them out of their "land." Then, the best we know how, we too must follow those principles that bring His favor.

Regional accreditation is a sellout to the gods of the secular

educational world. How can we make a covenant with them? A covenant is a binding agreement. Membership in a regional accrediting association is a binding agreement with the secular educational world voluntarily entered into by the Christian college, whereby the operating parameters for a Christian college are decided.

The accrediting agencies have their own "gods." A Christian college can’t receive their stamp of approval without bowing down to their gods--their policies, their philosophy, their agenda.

The Chronicle of Higher Education. October 10,1990, presented an article exploring what role accrediting associations should play in shaping campus quality and diversity. The Western Association of Schools and Colleges (one of the six accrediting agencies) decided in 1988 that every college under its aegis should be expected to make continuing progress toward becoming a multiracial, multicultural institution. The Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools (Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New York, et al.) has taken a similar stand. We can assume the other four accrediting agencies will follow suit and hasten education’s role in producing citizens for the new world order.

These accrediting associations are not merely concerned about the educational agenda. They also wish to dictate the social agenda. They want the colleges to indoctrinate graduates that will be good citizens for the New Age. This means that for the first time, the Federal Government, through its recognized agency--the regional accrediting associations--will be party to the control of intellectual viewpoints by encouraging some and excluding others.

Foremost on the agenda of the Christian college should be its desire to produce Christians who are biblical in their philosophy and style of life. The New Age agenda is antithetical to the Christian college’s purpose. We don’t worship the gods of the New Age. It isn’t hard to figure out what will happen to the Christian college that allows accrediting bodies thus minded to dictate its educational and social policy.

The associations’ expectations regarding "diversity" affect virtually every aspect of campus life. Their social agenda requires institutions to have equal opportunity and affirmative action policies. Their plan addresses curricula, recruiting, and retention strategies for students, faculty, and staff members; student life programs; academic support for students—pervasive control over all aspects of the school. The Chronicle’s closing statement sounds an ominous warning, "Campuses are changing, and so is the nature of accreditation."

One of our students spent a few days as a freshman in a well-known state university accredited by the Middle States Association.

The freshman class, during their initial orientation, were interviewed by staff members. After a series of appropriate questions, this Christian young man was asked to express his views concerning homosexuals in our society. His answer which was based on Biblical principles, was unacceptable. Therefore he was required to take two courses for the purposes of reconditioning his attitude toward homosexuality and bringing it into conformity with New Age thinking. He withdrew in disgust.

Recently I was talking to a board member of a regionally accredited Baptist college. The accreditation peer review committee that was making its periodic examination to determine whether its accreditation status would be continued had on the committee two radicals who, in the words of the board member, "are giving us fits over the fact that we have no women on the board." Most of the board had no problem, according to him, with appointing women to serve; but in principle they were opposed to having their position dictated by the association’s social agenda.

I honestly felt sorry for him. I am glad Bob Jones University does not have that problem. From time to time there are problems created by our refusal to join the association; but those problems are minuscule when compared with those the regionally accredited Christian colleges face.

If Bob Jones University worshipped the gods of the present day educational Canaanites, we would be an idolatrous institution. Believe me, the associations are relentless in the expectation that their social priorities (the gods they worship) should become the gods of the Christian college. Let me give you another example. Christianity Today, October 22, 1990, detailed the following: "An accrediting agency has challenged Westminster Theological Seminary to show cause why its accreditation should not be removed because the school has no women on its twenty-four member board. The Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools gave the seminary a deadline to reply. Westminster spokesman Larry Sibley said, "The school has responded by charging that the threat to remove accreditation is a violation of religious rights." The independent Reformed seminary maintains a policy that board members must hold a church office, such as teaching elder, which requires ordination. Since they don’t ordain women, and since membership on the board requires ordination, they have no women on their board."

That’s the problem! The accrediting associations will not approve our educational process if it does not include the worship of their gods. All education is brainwashing. We wash with the pure water of God’s Word, and they wash with the polluted waters of the New Age. A conflict is inevitable.

The spokesman for the Middle States Association of Colleges said it well in the Christianity Today article. "We cannot avoid public policy issues as part of the accreditation process because the public uses the results of that process." The result of the process is the graduate. He was saying that the graduate of the regionally accredited Christian college who goes out into society must have been taught society’s public policy issues, and he believes that the accreditation process must guarantee that.

Bob Jones University would be ashamed if this institution were producing a product that could easily and comfortably get in step with society. As long as there is a Bob Jones University, God helping us, we will not make covenant with them, nor worship their gods.

Bob Jones University is "land" made up of God’s people. It is not the land of the public educator, nor of the secular humanist. It is not the land of the world, It is the land where God’s people come to feel comfortable and to get a training that enhances their love of the Lord Jesus Christ and increases their desire to serve Him and obey Him. Exodus 23:33 says, "They shall not dwell in thy land."

At the same time, we live in a world governed by human law. God has ordained government as an institution for the good of mankind. The Christian in this world is not exempt from the regulatory powers of government.

If a Christian college trains men and women to function in an arena under civil regulation, it has no choice but to "give to Caesar what is Caesar’s."

For instance, the University offers a major in business and commercial aviation. Those graduates will be flying in public air space regulated by the government. The FAA is performing a legitimate function when it determines the educational elements for those learning to fly and being taught to become commercial pilots. A legitimate role of government is to set the standard where public health and safety are involved. We must yield to them in those matters, and we do that in aviation, nursing, etc.; but that is a matter apart from regional accreditation.

Joining the myth of evolution or the myth that a human embryo isn’t life and abortion isn’t murder is the myth that says, "Regional accreditation doesn’t deny the college its autonomy."

At the time of this writing, Liberty University is in trouble with the accrediting association. The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges has placed Liberty University on a one-year probati6nary review based on its School of Lifelong Learning’s non-compliance with the association’s criteria. The School of Lifelong Learning is their correspondence division, and the accreditation of the entire university is in jeopardy because the association said the School of Lifelong Learning had fallen short of requirements on five counts, including basic purpose, institutional effectiveness, and educational support services.

When a Christian college is regionally accredited, it loses control of its process and enslaves itself. It is one thing to be captured and carried into slavery. It is another thing to volunteer for it. It is incredible that anyone would volunteer for educational slavery and then brag about it.

I received a copy of a letter dated October 15, 1990, from the president of Furman University, a Southern Baptist institution in our town, written to their alumni telling them that Furman trustees voted to amend the school’s charter to give their board, not the Southern Baptist Convention, full authority to govern the university. He says, "It ensures academic freedom, thus helping to ensure Furman’s continued accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools."

He wasn’t giving freedom to the school. He was shifting control from religious to secular. Rather than lose favor with the accrediting association, he chose to shaft the convention that gave birth and lifelong sustenance to the school.

If Bob Jones University’s institutional value depended on the accreditation world putting its stamp of approval upon us, then Bob Jones University would have sought approval from the wrong god. If the Lord’s stamp is upon us that is sufficient. Regional accreditation, once obtained, becomes the controlling factor of a school; and that stamp of recognition will be the last thing a school will forfeit. In deference to the accreditation god, Christ-centered classrooms and chapel will go; standards of Christian conduct will go; requisites of holiness and godliness in the lives of the faculty will go.

To a starving animal, the bait in a trap appears to be the answer to all his problems; but once in the trap, he will die. The bait in the accreditation trap that looks so tempting—facilitation of credit transfer, the ease of access to certain money, etc.—is appealing, I must confess. However, no Christian college ever yet enjoyed the bait without spending the rest of its life in the snare.

It is hard to take the higher ground. But the air is fresh; the view is unobstructed; Heaven seems nearer; and you can’t help feeling that the struggle to get there, and stay there, is worth it for all the wonderful young people who are the winners for having chosen a Bible-based education.

-Bob Jones III, President, Bob Jones University- (Used With Permission)

Two things have left me devastated by the rebellion this year at Augusta Christian School. First, although several people have publicly admitted they did wrong to mutiny, to this day neither administrative official or teacher has expressed any sense of guilt, or shame, or sorrow for what they have done. I thought, "Surely, God will give these people a spirit of repentance"—but He has not. He has left them in their sin.

ACS used to oppose Rock ’n’ Roll music, and to maintain some semblance of a dress code. Students are now allowed to attend school in shorts, and the school band plays Rock music. For this reason, we could not allow our daughter to play in the band. When a Christian school is no longer different from a public school, it can no longer justify its existence.

The second thing that causes me to tremble is that although the Bible declares rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, nearly every church directly affected by this mutiny has been unconscionably silent about this evil. We will not be amazed if God visits any of these churches with similar rebellion.