Odds and Ends

Excerpts From A Pensacola Christian College Staff Handbook

162 Comments

In case anybody thinks I’m making up all of the stuff I wrote in the last post, here’s a copy of the Staff Handbook from A Beka Services Ltd, one of the “ministries” run by the administration of Pensacola Christian college :

For those of you who have neither the time or inclination to read the whole things, here are a few relevant excerpts…

Page 19

“We expect Our personnel not to…watch movies rated PG,R,or X whether on cable, Internet, regular TV, video or DVD. When personnel are seen at video rental places, it can hurt the person’s testimony and the ministry’s testimony”

Page 22
“God’s hand of blessing has been on this ministry, and we think one reason is because we, the faculty and staff, have chosen to live a life dedicated to God rather than follow the lifestyle of the world…A big area of temptation today is Hollywood movies in the PG, R, and X-rated categories…Hollywood movies always dull the appetite for spiritual things and eventually lead to a defeated Christian life, causing casualties to the temptations of the flesh. In time, that person will either leave the Lord’s work or at least be non-productive in the Lord’s work.”

Page 24
“Walking shorts and culottes should not be worn for shopping malls…Walking shorts and culottes should not be worn on Sundays, whether you are going for a walk on the beach or going for a picnic after church. Instead you could wear a casual dress or skirt…we ask that personnel daughters abide by these policies beginning on their thirteenth birthday.”

Page 28
For your spiritual well-being as well as the sake of the corporate testimony of this ministry, you are expected to attend Campus Church services regularly Sunday Morning (including Bible Study), Sunday evening, and Wednesday evening.

Certainly we would expect our personnel attending the Campus Church to also support it with their tithes and offerings.

Sunday is considered a day of rest–not a shopping day to go to the malls, shop for groceries, or participate in music benefits…sports activities…are to be reserved for days other than Sunday. Children should not play organized ball games on Sunday.

Isn’t it great? Your employer is not only the guardian of your righteous soul but also the de facto parent of your children. Rejoice and be exceeding glad ministry workers!

162 thoughts on “Excerpts From A Pensacola Christian College Staff Handbook”

    1. It doesn’t mention NC-17 movies, either! I’ll bet this handbook was written before the MPAA created the PG-13 and NC-17 ratings (the X rating was replaced by the NC-17).

    2. Hollywood = trash. Bollywood, Nollywood and Independent films = quality entertainment. I could almost agree…

      1. written in response to

        “A big area of temptation today is Hollywood movies in the PG, R, and X-rated categories…Hollywood movies always dull the appetite for spiritual things and eventually lead to a defeated Christian life, causing casualties to the temptations of the flesh.”

  3. I am neither justifying nor specifically critiquing the manual. Truth be told, those who choose to work there must know about these policies. I can only presume that going into an employment relationship that new hires willingly accept these terms and are glad to work there.

    1. “Truth be told, those who choose to work there must know about these policies.”

      This would be the same response that people have when hearing about a cult. It goes like this, “Well certainly they knew X before they went into this.” Knowing how IFB works the adult is manipulated into thinking that his own flesh cannot be trusted. So much so that he cannot even decide for himself what to do on a Sunday or what to wear in his own home. Instead, he is to place his trust in the pastor or authority in his life. Whatever the authority says he must do. “God gave you this job now you *must* do what the authority tells you to.” So while these people are adults and should “know better” I’m not sure that absolves the institution for clearly abusing their power. The person in the cult rarely knows it until it is far too late.

      2. Oh bull. Look, I’m not sticking up for the stuff in that rulebook, by any means. But I’m tired of hearing “oh my, i didn’t know what i was getting into.” You lay into these places for treating people like kids, but we do the same thing. You don’t get a job at a place like PCC or BJ without knowing what the place is. C’mon, really? The application, the two interviews where you are grilled on your spirituality and standards, the contract. If you get through all that and still don’t know what you’re getting into, then you need to have someone pull your head out of your rear-end.
        Again, I’m not saying their way is right. But quit playing the victim card. If this isn’t for you, then grow a pair and get a real job. Same goes for college. It’s JUST college! get the hell over it!

        1. The problem is that only IFB institutions readily hire people with IFB diplomas. In most cases, people did NOT know what they were getting into when they enrolled in IFB colleges.

        2. We didn’t know. We really didn’t know. They’d change it on us without saying it or they’d sneak it or they just make it up as they go along.

          Really. Have you read the BJU faculty handbook? It’s a mess.

          Once you’ve walked twenty-years in my BOJO pumps (with pantyhose), then we can talk. Otherwise, you don’t know what you’re talking about.

        3. Spoken like someone who has never experienced the psychological abuse rampant in a fundy cult. Also spoken like someone who, given the right set of circumstances, might make a might fine abuser himself.

        4. Aside from the written rules which you don’t get in writing until you’ve already signed papers and paid money, the “unwritten rules” never stop coming. And there are penalties (probations, demerits, and restrictions) that come from breaking these unwritten rules that don’t get passed on to all students.

        5. Just because people should be aware of the the wrong that is being done to them (not knowing what the “rule book” says), does not excuse the wrong being done to them (taking advantage and control in their personal lives).

          That is all.

        6. I don’t know what your experience was, TonyT, but it is entirely possible to enroll in, attend, and become an employee at a Fundy U without truly understanding what you’re getting into at any step along the way. Here’s a pair of shoes for you to walk in for a minute. And this is just one of many possible scenarios:

          Let’s just say, growing up in mainstream denominational Christianity, you never know fundamentalism exists. You hear through a tangential connection about a Christian college that’s affordable and not too far from home. You’ve never heard of “separation.” Christian is Christian, right?

          This is before the days of google, so all your information comes from the friendly, smiling people you talk to at the school and the mailings they send you, filled with more friendly, smiling people. You get the feeling it’s kinda strict, but how bad could it be? You enroll and then you get the handbook. Wow. It’s pretty bad. But you’ve been in secular situations where rules had to be enforced so you assume this strictness will be handled similarly, with good common sense. No problem, right? You just have to buy a whole new wardrobe.

          When you get there, you find out some of your professors are great. They’re smart, qualified, and they see their work as a ministry. They go out of their way to support you when you need it. The rules aren’t easy to keep up with, but whatever. You feel safe on the campus and can get a good night’s sleep without your roommate stumbling in at 4am and vomiting into your shoes.

          But then you start picking up bad vibes. You notice the preaching is not about the gospel or even the fundamentals of orthodox Christianity. It’s manipulative, guilt-driven and focused sharply on things that have nothing to do with the Bible. But of course, Bible verses are stamped onto the sermon as a way to prevent any discussion against the speaker’s points. Every detail of life is spirtualized by the administration and student spiritual leaders. Your compliance with and enthusiasm for the rules are used as a test of your relationship with God. Little is made of Christ. Much is made of your performance for him.

          You’re not happy with certain things, but you’re an adult, so you just deal with it. You know there are some wackos here, but there are wackos everywhere, right? If you leave, you won’t be able to transfer your credits anyway. Plus, there are some really nice people here… blah blah blah

          Graduation comes. There’s a job opportunity at the school. The people who are hiring point out how great a fit it would be for you. You’re ready to get out of there, but you’re not really sure what you want to do next, and you’ve put up with things for four years already. Besides, things are a lot different for the employees, right? I mean, the school says it’s supposed to be acting in place of your parents when you’re a student. But obviously they can’t exercise that “right” over the employees. And if you take the job, you could be working alongside some of the people who have been so helpful to you. You could encourage students just like your favorite professors encouraged you. You can be a part of making the school a better place.

          It is only after you start working there that you discover one of the biggest failures of Fundy U. The faculty are also serfs in the administration’s fiefdom. Even the best professors – the people that make the institution worthwhile at all – are subjected to the scrutiny, the accusations, the spiritual manipulation, the control, the whimsical regulation changes… far more negatives than you find outlined in a handbook. The people who have the most sense are the people who have the least influence. In secular academia your favorite professors would be on track toward a respectable tenure. Instead, they’re forced to endure disgraceful treatment without complaint. Everything they have is tied to the school, so they dare not risk losing it all by crossing the all-powerful administration. They feel trapped.

          So when you finally understand the spirit behind the handbooks, how you handle that understanding depends on what kind of personality you have. If you’re cynical, you get out of there at the first opportunity and never look back. If you’re idealistic, you assume the administration is misguided, but has good intentions, so you try to help improve things. Then you find out they’re not interested in improvement, and you end up getting run over. If you’re optimistic, you keep plugging away in the hopes that someday things will get better. Maybe next year… maybe next decade… maybe with new administrators… just maybe….

          If you were one of the cynical ones, don’t be unsympathetic to the idealists and optimists. They have it a lot worse. But thanks to the internet, their complaints will give the next generation a better grasp of what they’re walking into before it’s too late. And it’s good for those who are trapped to see that there are sympathetic Christians ready to embrace them when they finally get brave enough to turn away from the shadows and step out of the cave.

        8. Pita, well worth reading! I find it very understandable how optimistic and idealistic people end up trapped.

        9. @TonyT

          See you completely missed my point. What I’m saying is that the people who sign up for this do have their head up their ass. They cannot see the light of day and they need someone to kick them in the pants to see the light. But they are being duped or a good many are. They are being duped into thinking that their salvation relies on their sanctification which relies on their hard work and avoidance of *all* evil. They are duped into thinking that by giving up earthly treasures and signing up for such a repressive employer that they are getting favor in heaven.

          But Seriously TonyT. Talk to someone who has survived a literal cult. They had no clue what they were getting into. Plain and simple.

    2. A Personnel Handbook would not be given to an someone until after they were hired. So it is possible someone could walk into this without knowing ALL the rules and regs.

        1. Right. You could quit right after you’ve quit your current job and likely moved your family a thousand miles away just to join this “ministry.” I mean you are absolutely right you could just quit at that point, but it isn’t that simple. Now that you’ve moved, and often into school housing, you can’t just up and leave and expect everything to just “work out.” Can you find another job in the area? Can you afford the housing? A lot of these people are likely coming from other “ministry” jobs so can they even afford other housing in the area. It just isn’t that simple.

        2. It amazing how some people (who have never had the experience themselves) just think its so easy, especially at a place like PCC. “Oh, you can just quit.” Yeah, just quit. Of course, if you do, you now have no paying job, no place to live (you are expected to be out of their housing VERY fast when you quit), and some might even have a family depending on them in all this. If you have fundy college degree, you might not qualify for anything else. But, yeah, you can just quit. It’s just that simple. 🙄

          And, for those who are wondering, PCC does not give their students or their employees copies of the respective handbooks UNTIL they have paid tuition/been hired AND arrived on campus for the new student/employees meeting. They make sure that they have a lot to lose by going against them, which is why “just quit” is not so easy as some people here make it sound.

    3. Mostly, IMO, because the substandard IFB education they got at their fundy college leaves them unqualified to work anywhere else.

      1. So true. It is not as if they can just waltz into a real college/university and be considered qualified for employment.

        They would not even be qualified to teach elementary school at an accredited institution, Christian or secular.

        1. fact that i am dealing with right now. have to get a new undergrad degree from a real school, not a cult school

    4. Jim, the fact that these rules even exist is reason enough for me to not associate with these ministries in any way. And yeah, I would lead a crusade against these types of rules, and have been for the most part for years, because they are frankly not Biblical, and are coming from people who claim sole scriptura above all else.

      It’s hypocrisy, and I want no part of it.

      My dad recently asked me for a list of the top 10-15 things his/your church could do right now to actually grow/involve people my age/prepare for the future, and stuff like this is definitely on my list. I know many who’d agree with me on the list; there are also those who don’t. And I’d argue the true backbone of the church is made of the former and not the latter.

      Justification nor critiquing are necessary; what’s necessary is banishment and cleaving away from these ancient practices. This is no different than those Bible book burnings of last year. These rules should not even exist.

      Fundamentalism was a result of a lot of people getting together to firmly take a stand and fight against some ideas that were spreading. It’s time for the next fight to begin, and this website is just the start.

  4. Ah, I get it now. The age of female accountability (aka when sexual assault is at least 1% her fault) is 13. I always wondered what the cut-off was.

  7. Certainly we would expect our personnel attending the Campus Church to also support it with their tithes and offerings.

    Oh that is just rich. We pay you crap, but we expect that 10% for tithe and all of your offerings go directly back to us…and yes we are keeping track.

    But you nailed it Darrell. Not only is your employer your guardian for your children, but they are your guardian as well. You never left adolescence. You are bound by the law of your employer forever in bondage by the threat of firing. I’ll repeat what I said on your last post. I couldn’t do it. No way, no how. So glad I work a secular job.

    Oh and one other thing. I noticed that they mention pg, r, and x (as if x isn’t an obvious one) but didn’t mention p-13 😛

    1. Paying them crap is part of manipulating the employee, and establishing control over them, by forcing them into staff housing, which most likely the college has the right to search/monitor, as well keeping them from making connections outside of fundyland to continue deepening the employee’s dependence on Pensacola for everything. It’s truly striking how comfortable they are with reporting how much God has blessed them and God has smiled on everything they’ve done, and how you are at most a reflection on the institution, and their reputation is the most important thing in your life. IDK how people can live like that.

      1. Paying them crap is part of manipulating the employee, and establishing control over them, by forcing them into staff housing, which most likely the college has the right to search/monitor, as well keeping them from making connections outside of fundyland to continue deepening the employee’s dependence on Pensacola for everything.

        Didn’t the 13th Amendment address this issue?

  8. When we knew we were moving to Saskatoon, we looked around for suitable schools. One I found was a Christian School (not sure about the denominational affiliation, some kind of evangelical group), that required the parents to sign a document that there would be no alcohol in the house at any time.

  9. Someone should tell this guy that “X” stopped being a valid MPAA rating twenty years ago.* Moreover, it never meant pornographic. It meant “not rated by MPAA.” This includes such now-famous films as Last Tango in Paris, the original Dawn of the Dead, as well as a number of seminal independent films like Sweet Sweetback’s Badassss Song.

    The “XXX” moniker was invented in the 70’s by the porno industry specifically to set their wares apart from the unrated, art house cinema of the day.

    *Twenty years ago this coming Monday, now that I look it up.

    1. They most likely are aware, but refuse to update it as a way of sniffing out who has their heart in hollywood instead of into the college, and just another one of the many ways they use control & try establish that mere trivia knowledge of basic facts in the outside world are revelatory of a heart problem.

  10. Something they forgot to mention in that handbook was the spiel every Fundy organization gives at the beginning of every year: “Sometimes we have to adjust our rules to adapt to changing cultural mores. So anything we speak as a rule should be counted to be part of the handbook, too.” This should be translated as, “When horribly sinful things are accepted by the world, like those Harry Potter movies, we will make a special extra rule just for that. You’d better do what we say, too, or else.”

    I think what kills me the most isn’t so much the crazy rules that Fundy places have for their own people, but that they think THE REST OF THE WORLD should also follow those rules. Like, our pastor at my last church actually asked the manager of a grocery store to turn off the radio station while he was shopping b/c he was offended by the oldies or whatever was being played. How, may I ask, is that a good testimony to anyone?

    1. Yeah, well, I’m offended by a lot of the Muzak I hear when I’m shopping– it’s not indecent, it’s just doesn’t match my taste in music. Should I demand that the storekeepers turn it off?

        1. Yeah right…….

          Self-righteous customer: Excuse me. This music offends me.
          Storekeeper: Did you try our peaches today? Just got them in fresh from the farm.

    3. In the public realm, forcing your standards on others is considered extremely rude. Christians who go around doing this (which serves no true Biblical goal to begin with) have to now deal with the bad testimony of being a jerk (one that fundamentalists often suffer for under the delusion of suffering for their faith).

  11. “When personnel are seen at video rental places, it can hurt the person’s testimony and the ministry’s testimony.”

    Translation: Get your movies from Netflix. That is, the PG-13 and NC-17 movies, since they aren’t prohibited.

      1. Don’t both you and your husband have undergraduate degrees from BJU? How in the world can you say that you did not know what you were getting into? That seems preposterous. Would it be more accurate to say that your thinking/convictions/philosophy changed over the course of your many years there?

  13. I see their way to earn God’s favor is through more and more works. So glad I don’t follow that religion. With these people gaining God’s blessing is like trying to nail down Jell-o.

  14. I really don’t see PCC as a cult in the classic sense of Christological thought.

    My own view (and I am a Christian) is that there is a listmania view of sanctification among some conservative Christians. It is not the reformation view of sanctification and I reject it!

    1. “Listmania view”–I love it! So true! You have to have such a good memory to live this way. And the stress is almost unbearable. What ever happened to “My burden is light”?

      1. But it’s not His burden we’re talking about here! (You’d think that if Jesus were fond of endless rules he’d have gotten along a lot better with the Pharisees….)

        1. Instead, they were the only group he seemed to have conditional compassion for. He knew their hearts. I don’t believe Jesus thought the Pharisees were okay except for that too-thick employee manual they had. Their disease was heart-deep, not just a flesh wound.

    2. True on all counts.

      PCC is not a cult as one would define it, and their beliefs are usually orthodox. The problem is that while they hold to correct doctrine (for the most part), there is a great disconnect between what they believe and what they do. They would fight to the death to defend the claim of salvation by grace, but they very much live out a gospel of works.

      1. PCC is a cult as I would define it.

        I don’t see how they don’t fit quite easily into these definitions:

      2. My browser freaked out on me. These links where supposed to go w/ that post, not wherever they ended up.

      4. Hmmm, I may stand corrected. I had always understood a cult based primarily on doctrinal deviance. But there is little doubt that PCC at least acts like most or all of those points.

  15. Good evening, America.

    I would hate you to have broken links, so can I suggest you remove your link to my weblog?
    It would appear that my wife Marjorie, having succeeded to my post as Pastor, has also seized control of the computer and has removed my blog.

    with warmest regards in the One whose Regard is always warmest.

    Drayton Parslow (Revd (ex))

  16. The part on spouses not employed by PCC is very telling also:

    C3–Dress Standards: “We expect spouses not working here to follow the same policies regarding dress. See section E of Personnel Standards and Conduct.”

    Wow, not only can they tell an employee what they must do (in or away from work) and what the employee’s kids must do and not do, they also have the power to dictate what the person’s spouse can or cannot wear.

    Unbelievable!

    1. What’s even worse…..The spouses cannot seek or accept employment at another academic institution!!!

      Guess they don’t want the spouse to tell the employee what it is like in the real world and how bat sh*t crazy this place is 😯

    2. My brother was very briefly a student at PCC, and a part-time employee, when he was newly married. His wife had a bit of a problem with blood circulation, and her doctor had recommended that she wear pants when she went anywhere where air conditioning was turned up high, which in Florida was practically everywhere. He asked the school for special permission for her to wear pants for that reason, and they responded that she could wear tights instead.

  17. How about this in the forward by the president:

    “We will receive double dividends in eternity for the effort expended”

    Talk about working your way into heaven. But not only that, they know exactly what our return will be, double! What do I have to do to triple my reward???

    And of course there was the rule of……no chewing of gum in chapel!

    1. Wonder how they feel about halitosis in the chapel? If they had smelled some of the breath that I have they would REQUIRE gum in chapel.

    2. Considering the alternative, the mansion prepared for me in Heaven could be roughly the size of a broom closet. I’d be happy with single-dividends.

  18. My pastor would attempt to justify the rules of our Bible college by mentioning the strict code of standard (clothing, especially) by some airline, I think Southwest. He then would proceed to say that anywhere you work, there will be rules. But I don’t think Southwest can force me to abstain from movies, drinking, watching television, etc. The only thing they could abstain me from doing outside of work is using another airline (which is completely rational).

    1. I don’t think they ban employees from using other airlines (there still are places South West doesn’t fly after all), but discounts would be the major encouragement they would use to have you fly them for your leisure. I would really doubt they have any kind of a rule about flying another airline, unless of course you did it in uniform or some other way of flaunting you were a disgruntled southwest employee. Know what I mean?

  19. My favorite part of the manual so far . . . pg 13 under Professional Ethics. “Married personnel should refrain from physical display of affection on campus realizing that our college students are not allowed to have physical contact. Therefore, our public display of affection may frustrate them or tempt them to be envious.”
    Yep, cause seeing a married couple hold hands always made me fall into lustful sin. Once again this just shows that we don’t have make stuff up about fundies, they prove their own absurdity well enough by themselves.

  20. Since we homeschool, our Handbook is only slightly smaller than this one. It is what Uriah and I used as a grammar primer when we learned to read. Imagine the surprise on a grocery clerk’s face when she heard us recite Page 146, paragraph 7, flawlessly: “Upon visiting a Store of Necessities (grocery, pharmacy, dollar store, day-old bread store), eyes shall be averted to the floor so as to avoid the accidental glance upon the magazines and idle entertainment contained in the checkout aisle.” Her face told us she found it hard to believe that children of 5 and 6 years old could say such a mouthful from memory! Such a look she had!

    2. All kidding aside, I obeyed my mom in the grocery store line and carefully did NOT look at magazine racks. I think I was 22 or 23 before I even glanced that direction.

    3. haha! I was always told not to look at the magazines at the checkout line. I would get stern looks from my mother if my head even turned in that direction. Looking at them now, I don’t even see what the big deal was. Oh my gosh, seeing Oprah on her magazine is going to drag me down to the depths of sin.

  21. When I was offered a job at Bill Gothard’s organization over 25 years ago I was a single, 21-year-old girl. I was told I would need to live in their single girls’ dormitory. This was a job, NOT school! I declined the job offer.

      1. So close. I credit my brother-in-law for keeping me out of that nightmare. I really wonder if I would have ever had the courage to leave if I had taken that job. I might have never tasted grace. That is why I question those who say PCC does not fit the definition of a cult. Their message is not grace. Grace is scandalously free or it isn’t grace.

        3. Actually I haven’t read Steve Brown. I listened to him on the radio a decade ago. I didn’t even realize he wrote books. He has a voice for writing. Painful to listen to!

  22. As a BJU employee, I had always accepted the fact that they could tell me how to dress/act outside my place of employment(for testimony’s sake, you know). I didn’t realize how weird that was until a couple of years ago when BJU lifted the “no pants” off campus rule for Faculty/Staff. I was happily blubbering to my sister who lives in another state (and didn’t go to BJU) that “now I can wear pants when I go to the grocery store!” She just stared at me in horror and unbelief and said she’d never heard of an employer who could invade your private life like that. It made me start thinking…

    1. I know – I was at BJ for 6 years and then taught at a Fundy school for 6 more. When I finally decided to leave, one of my non-Fundy friends wanted to know what I would do first when I left Fundyism.

      I said, “I am going to wear pants: to the store, to the mall, and to church. I am going to go to movies in a THEATER. I am going to wear earrings in all three of the holes in my ears. I am going to listen to Casting Crowns and Jared Anderson on my iPod. And especially I am never, ever again going to feel guilty for doing things that are not wrong.”

  23. {eyeroll} The sheer gall of this is beyond belief. IMNSHO, my only obligation to my employer is to be on time and do my job to the best of my ability. What I do, where I go, what I wear when I’m not at work is nobody’s business but mine. You’d need to be pretty hard up for employment to agree to let an employer (even a church related one) cpontrol your life to such an extreme degree.

  24. curiosity won and i followed the link. my favorite line so far:

    “Please, no automobile sunshades.”

    wth?

    1. Well, yeah! Just think of what could be going on behind that sunshade!

      Makes me think of a sign I saw one New Year’s Eve: “Don’t drink and park: accidents cause people.”

  25. oh, and women must swim only on the west end of the beach, while men must swim on the east.

    un. bee. lee.. vuh. buhl.

    1. No, not the east and west ends of the beach. the east beach and the west beach which are like 20 miles apart.

      1. Upon an island hard to reach
        The East Beast sits upon his beach.
        Upon the West beach sits the West Beast:
        Each beach beast thinks he’s the best beast.
        Which beast is best? Well, I thought at first
        That the East was best and the West was worst,
        But I looked again from the West to the East
        And I liked the beast on the East beach least.

        — Dr. Seuss

        (Sorry couldn’t resist)

  26. And yet, we read this: Col 2:20 Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: 21″Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? 22These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. 23Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.

  27. We have some people on base who complain about some of the extra rules the military has that civilians don’t have to follow. They’re mostly little safety things like wearing reflective and safety gear on motorcycles and not conducting yourself like a complete fool. When hearing these complaints I usually just think silently, “You have no idea.” I came here from HAC almost a year ago and still bask in my amazing freedom.

        2. When I first when to HAC is was ‘freedom’. But since I’d already begun questioning fundyism as a teenager, I quickly began to resent what they were forcing on me as well.

    2. My husband is in the Navy, and before that was a Marine Reservist. Having both graduated from BJU, we both feel that military rules (even in base housing at our last duty station) are not intrusive at all. The military never tried to tell me what I could listen to/watch in my own home/car, what I could wear while in my own home/yard (although they did require clothing outside, but that was as far as it went), where I could swim on the base beach (as long as it within the designated areas for safety purposes), or where I could work. Anyone who compares fundy college rules to the military rules needs to go enlist.

      1. Exactly! And when I was at HAC they compared it to the military all the time. Then I signed up, got told I was backsliding, and found out that it was completely different. In what way? The military was fair.

        1. The military may have a few nutjobs, but overall, they get filtered out. In fundy-ism, they get worshiped as heroes. Aside from that, where in fundy-ism would we get the pay and benefits the military has to offer? After all, grad school is an investment worthy of financial return.

      2. Indeed. And if you’re wrongly accused of something in the military, you have legal counsel at your disposal to help you … they are considered a necessity, not an evil tool of the devil.

  28. Only if I can get everyone around me (Christian or not) to behave in the most constrained way possible can I hope to avoid ruining my life. That about it?

  29. As a student, I knew the staff had rules too, I just thought they were considered “adults” so they had a few less restrictive rules. They had more! So unbelievable they would put up with that for the pittance salary. I now it was like a status symbol to have the honor of being asked to work there, and I assume they hoped to work their way up the chain and have even more power at PCC, while losing more of their own every day.

    I never saw a happy staff person, now I know why.

    2. I love on Arlin’s introduction where he says ” We’re reasonable people.. if you feel like you can’t adhere to our standards you are expected to resign and you will be released from your contract.”

      Yeah, that’s reasonable.

  31. Page 8 on the book about Hurricanes:
    “In the event of a hurricane, we strongly recommend all our faculty/staff remain in the Pensacola area.”
    Because they have “secure facilities”. My brother was there during Hurricane Ivan, and he didn’t feel secure. 🙂
    It is so sad that there are so many restrictions that Pharisees add to the gospel instead of focusing on the real freedom we have in Christ.

  33. At the “School of Theology” where I graduated the book was pretty small. It covered all the basics of things we can’t do for the sake of our testimony and to ward off demons. The stuff they missed, which was usually done by me, was “added” to the rule book later. And by “added” I mean something like this

    “I know it’s not in the rule book. That doesn’t matter. I’m telling you that even though you go to your home church you still have to attend our services here if the take place on a night other than the night your service takes place. I know the rule book says you can go to one or the other but I’m telling you how it really is! Don’t you want to be in church when the doors are open!?”

    BTW Darrell, you should do a post on the “But don’t you want to (fill in the blank)” guilt trip line. I can’t believe how many times I’ve heard that one.

    1. I got the “Don’t you want to do what’s right and please God?” line when BJU roommate found out I didn’t go to Wednesday night extention but instead studied.

      I laughed at her.

  34. Does anyone know about how much PCC instructors are paid? Because honestly, the bigger the paycheck, the more I would be willing to put up with, but something tells me the staff isn’t rolling in the big bucks.

    1. I think perhaps is sounds like a lot of money when you’ve made it through school on a work scholarship deal and never actually saw any money. Get offered a job straight out college. All that money and room and board too? Sa-weet!

  35. To any young person reading this post still in fundyland:

    In case you aren’t convinced by this thread already…RUN FROM FUNDAMENTALISM. Go find yourself a Christ centered church (Not an ego filled, authoritarian, hero-of-every-single-illustration-that-he-gives-pastor centered church.)

    You will never regret it.

    If you have to lose friends, make family mad, get ex communicated – Just do it. It will be one of the best decisions that you ever make.

    1. Bravo! Well Said!
      I would open that statement to anyone who is still in the fundy cult… Run to the nearest exit and don’t look back! Shake off the dust and move on!

    2. Has anyone else noticed that IFB churches are now adopting the “Christ-centered” lingo? I see it more and more on their websites. Their home pages used to proclaim “We are an Independent Fundamental Baptist Church”. Now they assert, “We are Christ centered and Christ proclaiming”. It’s funny how much they disagree with “us” and yet keep stealing “our” lines. Next thing you know, SoundForth will remake Sovereign Grace songs. Oh wait . . .

  36. Page 24
    “Walking shorts and culottes should not be worn for shopping malls…Walking shorts and culottes should not be worn on Sundays, whether you are going for a walk on the beach or going for a picnic after church.”

    Seriously!!! Culottes??? Those things should never be worn. 😯

  37. just find it ironic that they say over and again that A Beka is a “ministry”…yet they gross how many hundreds of millions in profit every year? What a ministry. I’m thinking big lucrative business.

  38. I belong to the Christian Church and am glad that my college was not like this.

    Somebody at the campus I went to informed me that boys and girls can’t walk on the same sidewalk at Pensacola Christian College. Don’t know if it is true but I wouldn’t doubt it.

    2. No, that one’s not really true.

      There are certain places where men and women cannot walk _together_ because they are unchaperoned and some particular places (the sidewalk outside the girls’ dorms for example) may be off limit to male students but as a rule sidewalks are shared.

      Elevators, on the other hand, are a different story.

  39. My niece wants to go to PCC. Since I am an atheist, I doubt she would listen to my advice. Plus her parents limit by access to her. So much for “family values”. I believe the staff at PCC “love bombed” her when she visited the campus.
    I don’t want her to end up being in debt with a worthless diploma from an unaccredited college. Then being stuck in low paying jobs at fundie institutions or Chic-Fil-A.
    If she wants to go to a Christian college, at least it should be an accredited college. Both her parents went to Liberty, which would be a better option.
    So what should I do?
    Thanks.

    1. If you don’t have much access to her, maybe you could approach her parents. I know I personally was SHOCKED to discover that 35 states don’t accept a teaching degree from BJU (I student taught in a public school and was certified in SC so I assumed I’d be set.) If you can find some hard facts about states/grad schools that do NOT recognize a PCC degree and send those stats to the parents, they might decide that even though PCC is comparatively inexpensive, it might end up costing a LOT MORE than they thought! It might be good if you could find PCC grads (if they are believers it would help) who are unsatisfied with their education and could share their reasons. The more recent grads the better because in today’s world more and more people are getting degrees (many from disreputable, online “institutions”) so grad schools and companies are becoming more demanding in making sure incoming students are from an accredited school. I don’t think this was as big a deal when I graduated in 1990.

      Why does your niece want to go there? Location? (You can’t go to the nearest beach and I think guys and girls must swim separately. IMO, they take away all the fun of living in a beach town.) Price? (Not worth it if you end up with a worthless degree.) Friends? (Ay, there’s the rub! If all her friends are attending there, it might be hard to persuade her to give another school a try.)

      1. If a state has reciprosity with SC, you will have no trouble obtaining that state’s credentials. My daughter graduated from BJU, and Ohio accepted her BJU credentials and now she can teach in 45 states. She also was accepted at Ohio State for graduate work, and she received a MSN from Captial University in Columbus. My son graduated from BJU, received his master’s at Ohio State, and now he is in his third year of medical school. Many BJU grads do well after graduating from BJU.

    2. Mark I am right there with you. Regional accreditation is essential pure and simple. Any institution that says otherwise is flat out lying. My greatest regret in all of Fundamentalism is that I attended BJU for 6 years 2 degrees and work in a totally unrelated field. I’ve used my education to accomplish much, but at the same time have been forced into a career because of the accreditation issue.

      That said if her parents, or her, won’t listen to you perhaps they’d listen to another Fundy type institution. Maranatha is regionally accredited and recently put out some great information. Here is their page on accreditation that explains the various types pure and simple (something BJU doesn’t do leading people to believe that National and Regional accreditation are equal) http://www.mbbc.edu/page.aspx?m=294

      But you should also link this which has some personal horror stories from people who didn’t get a regionally accredited degree. http://www.mbbc.edu/page.aspx?m=4224

      Perhaps that would help persuade them. If nothing else it puts the burdon on the parents. If they still choose to force your niece to a subpar school they’ll have to live knowing that they did so.

  40. I would just like to say how hilarious it is that: “Married personnel should refrain from physical display of affection on campus realizing that our college students are not allowed to have physical contact. Therefore, our public display of affection may frustrate them or tempt them to be envious.”
    I can just see it now. 😈 “The evil married people made me do it.”

  41. They didn’t say anything about listening to those movies. Listening is better than nothing!

    Can’t wait till I am an adult. I have always wondered what heith ledger looked like as the Joker. He sounded awesome.

    Holiness takes sacrifices. I didn’t peek.

    2. haha! Oh we did that! one of our friends taped Princess Bride onto a cassette tape over christmas. We would listen to it at night. Quite a few copies were made of it.

      1. I really did this too! Our radio would pick up a television station near all the classical stations (the only ones I could listen to) and once while tuning, I heard what I realized had to be “Star Wars.” How I had wanted to see it, but we couldn’t go to movies and we didn’t own a TV, so I was happily listening to it on the radio when my parents found out what I was listening to and scolded me for wanting the things of the world.

    3. YOU were the ones going through the popcorn lines with blindfolds, that all the students watching the movies were laughing at? 😉

  42. My daughter is at PCC and I feel she is a sugar cookie being scorched in a gingerbread man factory. However, they don’t draft, she chose the school and she wants to stay. I note an angry spirit among most of the people who have commented on here. And what’s the difference between their condescending spirits for feeling so legally perfect and your condescending spirits for being so freely enlightened? What does it matter to you anyway what they do there?

  43. Honestly, I don’t see how the rules for Pensacola faculty affects any of you. If you have a real complaint, how about you write a letter or call the school instead of writing on a website that PCC will never see. Stop being such crybabies if you aren’t willing to fix it. I sense bitterness in what you are saying. Whether or not it is wrong what PCC is doing, it is just as wrong what you are doing. Christianity will never be fixed by people talking about how wrong everyone else is, it will be fixed by people shining their own light and be an ambassador for Christ. Shame on you.

    1. Oh, they’ve seen this site. Believe me.

      As for the rest of your screed it’s so stereotypical that it’s really not even worth addressing anymore.

    2. I love how fundies are so programmed even when they try to not sound fundy they just cannot stay away from the bitterness accusations! Who but a fundy would even think to try to play that?

      And I love tbe idiotic idea that institutions built on abuse will instantly correct the abuses based on a letter to administration.

    3. Shame on those who refuse to pull back the curtain and expose the man behind it. Shame on those who refuse to think for themselves. Shame on those who have no courage to stand for what is right and just blindly follow the voice of the man behind the curtain. Shame on those who have no heart or compassion for those around them, where man-made rules are more important than people. If you want to place shame look behind the the curtain and shame those who keep their followers in line through draconian rules, fear, manipulation and lies… and do it in the name of Christ.

      1. It’s almost refreshing to see someone acknowledge abuse and wrongdoing, and look for victims to accujse of bitterness. I believe the term is abused enabler. 😉

    5. Oh, this website post is very, very useful. For everytime someone mentions PCC or ABeka in a positive light I will send them a link to it so they can have “full disclosure”.

      Useful indeed.

  44. So I’m guessing I can’t rent Pink Flamingos at this place? What a shame…

  45. Speaking as a former GA at PCC (we had to read and abide by the staff handbook, and they added on a few of the student rules as well), those are pretty tame examples of some of the things in that book. To work for PCC is to have them control almost every aspect of your life.

    The section that bothered me the most in the handbook was the section addressing internet use in the home. Since they couldn’t require families that lived off campus to use their special intranet (it didn’t reach outside campus), they warned the WIVES to beware of the internet. The stated reason was that their husbands might start looking at pornography, and then become unhappy with them and leave. Therefore laying it all on the wife’s shoulders. If her husband leaves her because of a pornography addiction, it’s her fault for not doing a good enough job controlling the internet in their house. The husband is the head of the home, but if he messes up, its the wife’s fault. So glad I was not a married staff person. I wish I could quote it directly, but threw I all the handbooks away soon after I finished.

    1. Hmmm… They did not include that particular “reason” in this handbook that I can find. Could they finally be putting thought into what they write down? Always hopeful…

  46. I worked for them for 6 months after graduation. I did not realize they treated their staff the same as the students. In just the 6 months I worked there…so much disrespect. I had no idea that would be the norm. When they interviewed me, they were so nice.

    But I’d been warned about one thing: getting my vacation week in writing. At that part of the interview, they said taking the time was no problem. I insisted on it being written into the contract, the interviewer got very annoyed with me and basically acted like I’d on that round. I know exactly what would have happened if I hadn’t had it written in. I’d have been told, like I’d been told as a student about various things, that it was too bad I had been promised that, but it wasn’t by them (the actual supervisor) and therefore, they didn’t have to honor it.

    I was told it was no issue for me to go home to LA on the weekends, until I got called to the office of the head of security. I had not filled out an attendance card for church more than once. I’d explained that I was going home on weekends to plan my wedding, that I was told going home wouldn’t be an issue. Here was one of those moments when I’d gotten this assurance from the wrong person. He reminded me that I’d signed a contract to attend the Campus church. I told him I did when I was in town. He said, no, you must attend here at all times. So, it was too bad for me. No more weekends home. He didn’t care about that at all.

    Another issue, like someone else mentioned, if you break contract and are not released from it, you would normally have only 24 hours to be off their property or be escorted off. You had to plan your escape Katie Holmes style. And I did, but that’s another story.

    3. That’s crazy! How can they consider their behavior Christian?

      I am so glad you are free from that insanity, and can’t wait to read more about your escape. 🙂

  47. I don’t understand why everyone is so hyper about all of this!Some people are seriously exaggerating here….i think that they are a great school and that they provide a GOOD enviroment for young adults to go to school.

      1. Good question D, and i see where you are going with it but there are still remnants of alumni even our age who think like this. Of course they are still headlong into fundyism. Andthen there are those who i believe have a form of quasi-stockholm syndrome.

    1. You might want to look a little deeper and take off those rose colored glasses. Christian Schools have all the same vices that secular ones do…pregnancies, drug and alcohol abuse, homosexuality, rape, cheating, lying and stealing… they are just better at hiding it, and covering it up…for the sake of the ministry and the Cause of Christ of course.

    2. I knew two different students who got pregnant while they were students.

      One girl actually gave birth in the dorm.

      It happens everywhere regardless of how many rules they try to put in place.

    3. Chelsea, i am sorry but you are lying. Pcc had every form of “sin” you can find on any other campus. One could even argue that their absurd rules and focus on the exterior creates a worse atmosphere where people force their behavior “under the radar” so it is hard to really get to know people while on campus. It is an authoritarian cult campus plain and simple. They just wrap it all neat with religion.

  49. Here’s the problem with Chelsea’s comment: “or anything else bad.” Those rules redefine what is bad to being whatever the rules say you can’t do. Here’s a thought: when Jesus turned water into wine, He made the equivalent of 750 or more bottles of wine. Why do you think He made so much? So people could stand around and look at it? Say it was grape juice? Come on. It became the biggest party Cana had ever seen.

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