151 thoughts on “SFL Special Edition: Darrell Visits BJU”

  2. when i was a student there, dr bob gave us verbal permission to basically almost drown anyone we caught trying to throw soap suds in the fountain (the triple g – god’s glory garden). 😈

    1. When I was there someone threw soap in the “new” fountain by the gym. We got a lecture about it in chapel. Personally, I thought it was pretty funny.

    2. Ah ha ha ha! 😆 Did you hear Bob Jones Sr. and The Islanders singing “Bridge Over Troubled Waters”?

  5. Lots and lots of changes. The buildings look nice. Some places had changed so much I could hardly tell where they were on campus, other places seem to have barely changed at all.

    1. I know! When I was a student, the gazebo wasn’t there; the front gate and the fountain are totally different; the front of Rodeheaver was different. There was no parking garage, and the gymnasium – wow! It was a weird arched shape and was an ugly blue back in my day.

    2. I have always heard that BJU has an attractive campus; this confirmed that. It looks like quite a nice place.

        1. My wife and I (then girlfriend) always went to Furman for dates to walk around the pond. They really have a beautiful campus. She also got her bridal pictures taken in the rose garden there.

    3. I haven’t been there since I graduated. Looks a lot different–buildings I didn’t recognize!

    4. A parking garage in the Rodeheaver parking lot? There was lots of talk about that when I was there. I didn’t know it had been built.

  6. I was wondering if we would see a video of this. There’s nothing like a little time in the state pen on a Saturday morning.

  7. If you enjoyed your visit to BJU ironically, does that mean you are an evangelical hipster?

    Hipster – One who possesses tastes, social attitudes, and opinions deemed cool by the cool. (Note: it is no longer recommended that one use the term “cool”; a Hipster would instead say “deck.”) The Hipster walks among the masses in daily life but is not a part of them and shuns or reduces to kitsch anything held dear by the mainstream. A Hipster ideally possesses no more than 2% body fat.

    Darrell, you look so deck in that shirt, but you obviously possess more than 2% body fat. So…

    1. The Hipster Handbook was never meant to be taken seriously. My b.s. detector is calling foul on “deck”. The author of said book thought it would make him sound transcendentally cool, and thus authoritative. Eight years after that book was published, “deck” should be used by much more young people, and a part of Internet lexicon, it’s not.

      Ben Gibbard, the frontman for Death Cab for Cutie is chubby. Body fat really doesn’t matter so much.

      Really, the big disqualifier is that Darrell votes Republican. If you were not fortunate enough to be born to social justice-minded attorneys then, really Hipsters have to be annoyed by their Republican family members.

      Most hipsters are also in denial of being hipsters.

    1. Except for a couple of other guests, nobody even really acknowledged my existence.

      I guess I was obviously beyond saving. (and everybody was really busy with graduation stuff which is a really crazy time)

      1. When I was a student, we weren’t hassled about getting numbers in for soulwinning the way it seems other fundy U students are. We were encouraged to go on “extension” (Christian ministry), but options included helping with Awana at local churches or singing at a service at a nursing home. I never had to turn in a record of the number of souls I witnessed to or led to the Lord. As for visitors on campus, we were to be friendly and helpful – smiling, opening doors, giving directions – but I never remember anyone telling us to try to witness to them. I’m sure there’s always the preacher boy who acts interested in you but really isn’t listening, only looking for an opportunity to give you the Romans Rd., but this would be the exception, at least in my experience.

        1. That’s how it was at PCC as well.

          And I never went on “extension” once in my entire 4 years there.

        2. I went on extention once and that was one of my requirements of a freshman. I couldn’t justify spending thousands of dollars on school and going out to be free help to some church I didn’t even like when I could have been studying or getting some much needed rest.

        3. When I was at BJU (2001-2005), Bible majors took a summer extension course (that we had to pay for, obviously) for which we had to do a ridiculous amount of “extension” activity each week. Among other things, we were given a grade out of 5 each week for witnessing to people (1 point for each person, plus a 5 point summary paragraph describing our best soulwinning opportunity). I simply didn’t ever have any soulwinning opportunities to describe, so I took that 10 point hit each week, making it almost impossible to get an A in that course. We also had to report how much time we read our Bibles and prayed, and we were graded on that as well.

        4. The fundy U at my former fundy church required students to knock on a certain number of doors each week.

        5. Unless you were a preacher boy, Darrell. As a pastoral ministry major, I had to record and turn in how many folks I witnessed to each week. I interpreted that assignment with a very liberal understanding of “witness”.

        6. Mike T. , Thanks for that horrible flashback of having to waste a lot of time during my summer “vacation” on my mandatory extension requirement. Along with every ministerial/pastoral class (vice theology, greek, bible book classes etc.), that summer requirement was what I most loathed about the ministerial program there. Fortunately, Southeastern Seminary was a much better experience for ministerial training.

  9. I guess they really have gone liberal. They didn’t tolerate jaywalking back in my day.

    1. I think I might have had a full on coronary if I saw someone walking on the grass in the video.

  10. I was hoping for some interviews about touchy subjects that would result in you getting kicked off of campus.

  11. Darrell I think you should have worn a more ‘racy’ T-shirt, or maybe even a T and shorts with [gulp] sandals. There I said it ‘sandals’ man does that feel good to say!

    So what brought you to the Bob anyway?

    2. I agree with Mark. The “Fundy Creed” t-shirt is what I would recommend.

  12. Next time you come around hit me up, I’ll buy you a drink and be good company and stuff.

    1. don’t you mean, “buy you a Coke?” I don’t think you can really buy the guy a respectable adult (evil) drink there on campus.

  13. I’m waiting for a copyright claim against this video, considering you were holding BJU paraphernalia, on campus, and you didn’t “smudge” out the faces.

    Durl, you’re probably on some super secret hit list – surprised you even got on campus.

    1. Haha… you all think WAY to highly of yourselves… there is not one person at BJU or any other school who cares one bit about what you do or what you say. So continue what you are doing! Fight the good fight, haha! Im sure you will accomplish your goal of winning NO ONE to your cause!

      1. But if we can influence just one™ from joining themselves to one of these fundamentalist indoctrination camps its worth it. 😉

  14. My rather laudatory comments about the attractiveness of the campus aside, from what I know of BJU I can’t believe you got away with hanging around there on graduation day wearing a T-shirt and fedora without getting questioned by the campus police, if not forcibly being removed. You must’ve stuck out like a sore thumb. Even if it WEREN’T graduation day, everyone would be required to be all buttoned-down, wouldn’t they?

    1. PCC was like (and I assume the same is true of the Bob) that men guests didn’t get much scrutinization for their dress at all (exception: if you looked like a freshman in Sept). I gather that women guests wearing pants or a skirt/dress scorn worthy get quite a few evil eyes. You recongize campus faces, and know the guy in the t-shirt isn’t a student, just ignore them, or be friendly if you do engage, and ignore the t shirt jealousy.

      1. “PCC was like … that men guests didn’t get much scrutinization for their dress at all”

        180 degrees from my experience. My fundy HS went on a campus crawl of fundy colleges in the Southeast back in the early 80s. We were staying in the dorms with students at PCC. I changed into a t-shirt and shorts to sleep, then was informed that there was a devotional to be held in the room across the hall. My roommates (PCC students) almost had a stroke that I nearly ventured into the windowless hall, on the third floor, approximately 42 nautical miles from the nearest woman, IN SHORTS.

  15. I wish I had the time and the know-how to do one of those Hitler Downfall redubs of “Darrell on Campus.”

    1. When I first saw the shirt and fedora I a hadn’t know it was Darrell, I would have thought it was my son. He has the same shirt. And likes to wear a fedora.

      1. My youngest has the same shirt, too, but no fedora. Maybe I should buy him one.

  17. Just so you know- if you had gone to HAC, a Hostess wearing a most beautiful blue jacket blazer would have alerted the on-campus police of your presence. You would have promptly escorted you off campus in their squad car. In their excitement over the whole fiasco they may have even tried to handcuff you- although, graduation is open campus day so you may have slid through.
    PS…why didn’t you wear a Stuff Fundies Like Tshirt?

    2. I wasn’t there to be confrontational. I had a family member graduating and didn’t really have “make a scene” as part of my to-do list.

      On the other hand, I had no interest in looking like a fundy drone either. So I chose a middle path. It seemed to work out ok.

    3. I’ve long wondered what HAC did about guests? Are they generally a closed campus that you aren’t welcome unless you have the right clothes & permission? PCC has a list (probably pretty long) of people not allowed on campus, but other than that about anyone can come on campus (although there isn’t much you can do or many places you can go w/o a student escort, but students generally have a more difficult time getting on campus than guests do @ PCC.

      1. HAC has a closed campus 362 days of the year.( Open campus on opening and closing day and Youth Conference as well) That means you need to either have a badge to get through the door or you need to sign in.
        No badge you will be asked to sign a sheet and if you are not on the “list” you make it through. In my day there was a black book with pictures and names we had to memorize of people not allowed on campus..there were varying degrees of “badness”. I look back now and laugh at some of the people who were on the most wanted list- mostly because they were “disloyal”. I am pretty sure I am on that lovely list. (=

        2. Men and women? They have any reasons for this kind of stuff? Even if like you have a relative student you are visiting? IDK how much contact they allow with the outside world.

        3. Yes-their reason is they don’t want non-HAC single girls or guys dating HAC dedicated college kids…you know the ..don’t be unequally yoked rule…

        4. When I was at HAC (in 1978 or so) a Fed Ex delivery woman was escorted off campus by the security guards because she was wearing “slacks” (her uniform)

  18. Any time I am back at BJU I have to remind myself that it is not real, I am asleep and back in my recurring nightmare.

  19. Hey, I was there Saturday too! My son graudated. A lot of things have changed there since I was a student. My daughter changed into knee length jean shorts before we took them out for lunch. Then when she was getting her room checked out so we could leave the girl checking the room was wearing ear buds. My kids tell me that once Dr. Bob pronounced the 84th year of the university over that the rules didn’t apply anymore. That was a surprise because when I was there we waited till we were out of town to change into our “travelling” clothes.

    1. When I was at PCC we had to wait till we got to Alabama to change from your bleach & sweat drenched white glove clothes to traveling clothes.

      1. Ha, Yes! Everyone knew the travel stop we had to pull off to change clothes.

        1. I was told as a Freshman Flomaton, AL was the soonest we were allowed to stop, and assumed that was correct. By the time I got my own car my junior year I made friends off campus who would let me stop & change at their places in town.

  20. I remember back at MBBC if I had seen you, I would have instantly judged you and labeled you an unsaved relative of one of the graduates. That’s probably why no one witnessed to you. They just figured you were the black sheep of the family, a lost cause! Gives me the creeps now, bleccchhh.

  22. Awesome song!

    And, yeah, my mom totally judged you for your choice of apparel, Darrell. Sorry. At first she didn’t even know you were there (when she spied the rest of the Fam in FMA, you weren’t there, so she thought she was safe from SFL crazypersons.) But then she saw my pictures. And commenced with the judging. [roll eyes] Pretty sure she thinks you’re a total heathen now. I assured her that you’re still saved; don’t worry. [grin]

    2. See, this is what I don’t get, why would your mother or anyone else for that matter waste their time judging someone else’s shirt?

      1. So they can continue deluding themselves that it’s the externals that matter most. ‘Cause see if the externals DON’T matter as much, they might be forced to look inside themselves and…yeah, it would never get that far.

  23. Darrell, I love the Big Bang Theory Shirt. I myself have a shirt with Sheldon’s face and a big “Bazinga” on it. Best show ever. My husband has a lot of Sheldon’s characteristics and one of my sons is very like Sheldon. :mrgreen:

    1. One of your sons is like Sheldon? I think that means you must be life Sheldon’s mom! (which is actually pretty cool. She’s my favorite character on the show.)

      1. Oops, George got me I meant to say one of my sons is like Leonard. 😳 I love the mom character too, but I’m not much like her. We are just a proud family of nerds. I think you and I were at the bob at the same time. I remember you, but don’t think I knew you personally.

        1. Hi then tena! I’m glad you have found nerd bliss! It was nice to see the video of the changes at BJ’s campus. I’m not sure I’d be welcome there, any more. And, well, I doubt I’d really want to go on campus anyway….

  26. I went to Bob Jones and I left…without telling anyone. I think they put ‘expelled’ on my record. 😀 That never bothered me much. :mrgreen:

    To be honest I was sick. I think it was an early occurrence of chronic fatigue/fibroymalgia but back then no one had ever heard of any of that. I shudder to think what they would have told me had I gone to Barge with those symptoms. 😯

    Anyway..haven’t been back since. 😆

  27. That was hilarious! Love the fedora and I really did LOL when I saw you holding the Sheffy dvd!

      1. Ha! From the first time I ever saw Sheffey (not till I was an adult), I considered Sheffey to be total #FundyPorn

    1. The opening shots were taken while everybody was in the graduation ceremony.

      The others were taken right after it let out and a lot of folks were off doing whatever they do.

      There were a lot more people around than the video would lead you to believe. Traffic was a nightmare.

  29. Man, that brings back some bad memories. After finishing my sophomore year in Big Jerk Academy, I’ve only set foot once on that campus, and that was for the graduation of one of my siblings. He’s currently on the faculty there and lives in the Greenville area, and every time we go visit, I still refuse to set foot in that place.

    1. Sorry about the Academy, FormerFundy. It was pretty bad. I graduated from there and also several of my children did. I am SO sorry I put them through it. I knew better. What I wasn’t aware of was the intense ridicule the students received from the vice principal, Darrell Daulton. It was pretty horrible, and he was completely unqualified for what he was doing along with a fair percentage of the BJA faculty. I think of all the schools, this one has caused the most damage. I can only hope and pray for healing for you and for my children too.

  30. Wow, This guy has spent all his free time posting about fundies???? You must have way too much time on your hands.

    1. Wow, This guy has spent all his free time posting passive aggressive comments on blogs about fundies???? You must have way too much time on your hands.

      2. Passive-aggression. No fundy leaves home without it secured in his Boj-utility Belt. If it hasn’t gotten a post yet, it needs one.

        1. omg, SO true! passive-aggressive IFBism…story of my life. (By which I mean: my childhood, our family dyanmic growin’ up.) 🙁

          Darrell: If you’ve already written that post, would ya reply with a link to it?

    3. Do you honestly think it requires much time to do a post a day about fundies?? There is so much material out there worthy of mockery or condemnation, it probably doesn’t take Darrell more than ten minutes a day if that. 🙄

      1. MrsSarahN wrote, “Do you honestly think it requires much time to do a post a day about fundies?? There is so much material out there worthy of mockery or condemnation, it probably doesn’t take Darrell more than ten minutes a day if that.”

        10 minutes…Hey, that is more time than most fundy pastors spend writing their sermons! 😀

    5. Just think of all the hours the actual fundy preachers are wasting abusing their congregations! That’s where the real waste of man hours is…

  31. See, I could go there and PCC and be fine, but I couldn’t go back to TBC campus without having an overwhelming desire to run away screaming.

  32. You were in my neck of the woods! I live about 30 minutes from those “hallowed grounds.” My nightmare ex-inlaws were products of that place, and it has always given me the creeps. I have never had the slightest desire to set foot on that campus; I have always thought the big fence looked like it was designed to keep people IN, rather than out!

  33. The squeaky clean aesthetics of the place would have made me turn around and run the opposite direction, if it were me stepping foot on the grounds, that is. 😀 That much perfection would be too much for my brain to handle. 😀

    1. I think a decent amount of my aversion to golf (apart from it’s not that fun), but I don’t even like golf corses, comes from hating how much they love their beloved manicured grounds and keeping up that appearances of beauty. That much landscaping care just drives me up a wall! 🙂

      1. No, but I love’s me some hats!

        I wear a variety on occasion and didn’t want error to propagate on the haberdashery front.

        Hmm….. does this mean I have a bad HATtitude?

        😉

    1. I thought “Our Trials Will Soon Be Over” was appropriate sentiment for a graduation day at Bob Jones U.

      Run and be free little graduates!

  39. Does anything think its a little weird that you all spend so much time thinking and discussing fundamentalists? I”m no fundy, but you all seem obsessed.

    1. Could what we discuss here be any weirder than a guy coming onto this site, reading some of it, and then admitting he has never been a part of this sub culture, but criticizing the posters for discussing the culture in which they grew up?

      And then it gets weirder, because he really thinks they’re going to believe he’s not a fundy, when they know perfectly well that is exactly what he is. That’s what is weird: that fundies get so uptight about former fundies and recovering fundies speaking openly, that fundies have to come online, pretend not to be fundies, all just to level criticism.

      Or really, it’s not so much weird as pathetic.

      4. Actually, I have been a part of this sub culture. I know it quite well. I’ve left it behind and am wondering why the rest of you can’t just forget about it and move on with your lives. Maybe because there is a tad bit of pride that you have discovered something better and it feels good to make fun of people who you consider to be lesser than you. I’d still be talking about the evil of the 2-4 beat and wearing a tie everyday except for the grace of God. He’s been very kind to open my eyes to biblical truth that is balanced and gospel centered.

        Perhaps the definition of obsessed is getting defensive when something you are obsessing over gets challenged.

        I hope my punctuation was better on this one. 😛

        1. Left it behind? Then what are you doing here, reading blog posts about it? ANd if you’ve left it behind, why are you concerning yourself about what other people say about Fundamentalism?

          You haven’t left it behind. You’re right here, with everybody else who is right here, and furthermore, you keep coming back…just to let us know you’ve left it behind.

          ANd furthermore, you want other people from that subculture to follow your recipe for coping with it.

          No, you haven’t left it behind. In fact, Fundamentalism’s outlook of holding others in contempt, of being too fascinated with those who disagree with Fundamentalism and keeping watch of them, of pretending superiority, are a part of your outlook even now. And, clearly, you also practice the self deceptions common in Fundamentalism, participating in what you consider wrong and blaming others who also participate, yet excusing yourself and telling yourself that you are different from them, even though you are doing exactly the thing you blame them for doing.

          It’s in you and it’s with you, and you’re not fooling anybody here. You’re a fundy. And that’s why you’re annoyed that we’re here and having a good time at the expense of Fundamentalism. You’re not fooling anybody except yourself.

        2. “I’ve left it behind and am wondering why the rest of you can’t just forget about it and move on with your lives.”

          I “left it behind” once, too. But then, the more I studied my Bible, the more error I saw in the fundy culture and — as a result — still embedded in my psyche and my actions.

          I’m wondering why you feel it necessary to judge those who haven’t shaken it yet. To quote you, “[m]aybe because there is a tad bit of pride” that you’ve been able to move on? 🙄

          I am genuinely happy for you that you have “left it behind” — I hope it doesn’t come back, like it did for me.

        4. So you say we who frequent here at SFL do have an “outlook of holding others in contempt, of being too fascinated with those who disagree with (ex-fundies) and keeping watch of them, (and) of pretending superiority, (as) a part of (our) outlook now”???
          🙁

          You think we are “doing exactly the thing (he) blame(s) (us) for doing”?

          ❓

        5. Theo, I was answering nate. Are you nate, using a different screen name? Are you his tapeworm? If not, why are you inserting yourself into my reply to nate about what nate asserted?

        6. Whoah nelly!

          I was just trying to figure out what was being said–what you were trying to communicate!

          Back off with the insinuations! I don’t know (or really care) who Nate is or isn’t, and I am not taking his side–just confused by your caustic remarks. And then you respond to me childishly like this?

          Sheesh
          😯 😡

          It’s hard to respect this kind of behaviour regardless of what side of the aisle it comes from
          😐

        7. Oh I see. I didn;t realize you were a Fundy school grad. OK, let me explain:

          Nate says something.
          I answer Nate about what he has said.
          Nate puts up a rejoinder.
          I remark that he is missing the point.

          Neither of us were ever talking about you.

          Hope that clears it up.

        8. Seriously Bassenco? Seriously?

          Are you actually attempting to say that I was somehow out of line?
          More than four others posted before I did…are they all tapeworms too?

          Do you pretend to not know how comments work?

          Your mock perturbance smacks of Schaap at his grandma slapping best. Cut it out.

          If you don’t want to answer my question, then don’t.

        9. I just can’t figure out how you extrapolated “we” and “us” out of my reply to nate. Yeah, seriously.

          I was pointing out to nate that his blame of people attending this site and leaving comments was contradictory, since he is also attending this site and leaving comments. Yeah, seriously. I can’t figure out how you got that to be a comment about “we” and “us”. Feel free to explain it. Seriously. Also, can you please let me know who “we” and “us” are, exactly? Did you think I was talking about myself as well, since I also read the site and leave comments?

    2. Were you raised to believe that all other Christians were either backslidden or not really saved at all? That all secular culture was evil? That most Christian culture was evil too and CCM was of the devil? That you could never question anything because that meant you were rebellious and bitter?

      It’s a relief to be able to talk about it.

      1. This site has literally been a godsend for me. What helps me most is the sense of humor displayed here…but the sad reality is, if we didn’t laugh at what we’ve been through…we’d go crazy.
        Until this site, I didn’t know there were others out there like me who are trying to break away from a religion based on outward appearance, rather than the heart.

  40. Darrell, thanks for posting the video. I have a family member that graduated from BJU this year, but I wasn’t able to attend graduation. So this way I got a little bit of it (although I didn’t see my family member in the graduate shots. Too many graduates, I know, so not surprising.)

  44. I really dig the track. Who is Elroy Stubbern? Where did you get his music? A quick search on the Googles didn’t turn up much.

  45. I just want to say that I saw you while I was also there, and I also make an appearance in your video!

  46. Kept looking for myself in the video lol… Alas, my girlfriend graduated while I still have two years 🙁

  47. In your time spent at the fountain on front campus, did you happen to notice a couple dozen small rubber ducks hanging out in it?

      1. Ah, that’s ok. they were a little smaller than I thought they would be when I ordered them. They were glow in the dark though, so i’m hoping anyone who stayed past sundown got a good laugh.

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