By Gustav Niebuhr
- March 4, 2000
In an urgent move, Bob Jones University, a fundamentalist Christian institution which had come under national criticism for the ban on interracial dating among its students, abandoned that long-held policy, its president, Bob Jones 3d said tonight.
Mr. Jones, in a appearance from the CNN program ”Larry King Live,” stated which he had expected the university’s board this to end the policy afternoon.
<р>”In reality, to date, we have fallen the rule,” Mr. Jones stated.
Inside the remarks, Mr. Jones, grandson associated with university’s founder, provided only a short description, saying your decision ended up being according to a perception that critique within the policy had been threatening to obscure the university’s Christian objective. ”We have actually a broader testimony,” he stated.
Mr. Jones included: ”I thought to our management, ‘You know, dudes, this thing is of such insignificance to us, it really is so significant into the globe most importantly, the media particularly, why should we have this right here being an obstacle?’ ” then he said that the ban had damaged the trustworthiness of the college’s graduates and Protestantism that is possibly conservative as. ”I do not would you like to hurt the church of Jesus Christ,” Mr. Jones stated.
Your decision also came only days after Democrats in Congress had proposed an answer that could have condemned the university for the ban as well as for statements that Bob Jones leaders are making about Roman Catholicism, which were interpreted as assaults on Catholics in general (an intent that the university has denied).
The statement amounted up to a turnaround that is remarkable Bob Jones, a 73-year-old institution that hews to an unapologetic adherence to classic Protestant fundamentalism. The university lost its tax exemption in 1983 after a 13-year legal fight. So when late as Wednesday, the university had been wanting to give an explanation for ban on interracial relationship based on its belief that the Bible shows that God doesn’t would like a unified and undifferentiated world.
”God made racial differences as he made gender distinctions,” said a statement the university posted on its web page. But, the statement added, when Jesus stopped humans from building the Tower of Babel, a whole story told in Genesis, Jesus did so to avoid them from creating ”one-world federal government.”
”Based about this account that is biblicalGenesis 10 and 11),” the statement said, ”the university wishes to give Jesus the main benefit of any question and steer clear of pursuing any direction that could offer assist with the renewed efforts of guy to produce a one-world community composed of one religion, one economy, one federal government and something race.”
The university has admitted interracial married couples despite its stance.
Inside the remarks, Mr. Jones stated that even though concept on that your college’s former ban ended up being based remained important, the ban itself was ”meaningless to us.”
The university described Catholic beliefs as a ”false system,” but asserted that it loved Catholics as people and wanted to convert them in its Internet statement.
The matter stumbled on the fore following the visit on Feb. 2 by Gov. George W. Bush of Texas, an applicant when it comes to Republican presidential nomination. Mr. Bush’s opponents, Republicans and Democrats alike, faulted him for not taking the chance to speak out up against the ban that is dating the statements in the Catholic faith.
Tonight, after Mr. Jones’s announcement, Mr. Bush stated: bhm dating app ”I’m heartened to know that Bob Jones University has reversed its ban on interracial dating. It had been incorrect in the first place, so in retrospect I spoke out up against the ban once I was expected about this at a news meeting just after my check out there. Tonight, the school has been doing the proper thing.”
In a premium advertisement that Bob Jones took out today in USA Today plus in South Carolina newspapers, the university stated it would not hate Catholics, but asserted that a ”wide gulf” existed between Catholic and Protestant opinions.
The university contended that it was being falsely accused in news reports as a haven for bigotry in the advertisements. Rather, it said that the real issue in the controversy ended up being the college’s constitutional directly to its spiritual freedom.
