Governor Romney, just when I start thinking that you’re possibly not that bad, you seek the endorsement of uber-conservative, fundamentalist Baptists?

The worst week of my life was spent at Bob Jones University.* While I consider myself a member of the religious right and an Evangelical, no love is lost between me and the institutions affiliated with the Bob Jones family.

Bob Jones’ III endorsement of Mitt Romney just gives me one more reason to distrust the former governor from Massachusetts.

Please tell me that Bob III’s endorsement is a location issue. They should only be given consideration since the university is in South Carolina. Even within evangelical circles, BJU is divisive. There are many more prominent Evangelical leaders who better represent conservative Christians. Why Bob Jones?

This also doesn’t help keep the right cohesive. Why would Bob III endorse a candidate who miraculously became a right-wing conservative in time for the 2008 election? Why not support someone with a long-standing conservative background? Huckabee is a Baptist preacher, and they went with Romney?

After the racism debacle in 2000, BJU lost a lot of respect. It looks like they’re trying to flex muscle that doesn’t really exist except to loyal alumni and their offspring, of which I know many.

*My former high school is affiliated with Bob Jones, and national competition was always held on campus. My junior year, I qualified for nationals in extemporaneous speaking. The experience was so bad that even though I qualified my senior year, I opted to stay home and go to class. Aside from doctrinal issues, the experience was just strange:

• The Jones family is buried on an island in the middle of campus. A bridge goes over the island that connects the side with the women’s dorms to the side with men’s dorms, so every day you literally walk over the buried Jones family.
• There’s a 10′ security fence along the perimeter.
• Students are required to wear suits and dress clothes to class. In order to make their shoes last longer, students put tap plates on the soles. During class breaks (they actually have bells to signal the end of class), there are thousands of silent students tapping all over the concrete sidewalks of campus. It’s so strange.
• At 6:30 a.m. a wake-up bell goes off. The RA opens your dorm room door and stands there until you get out of bed. The reverse happens at 10:25 p.m. at night.
• You aren’t allowed to go on a date off-campus until you’re 23.

These are the few remaining memories of the trip that I haven’t blocked out. Sarcasm is a common theme here at GFTS, but that week at BJU was truly freaky. I shudder to think that Bob Jones is the image that most people have of Evangelicals.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 17th, 2007 at 9:53 am and is filed under Election '08, faith. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.