Bob Jones’ rules are an extension of the school’s theology, which emphasizes the importance of expelling sin from daily life.
“Holiness entails separation from the godless ‘world’ system (1 John 2:15–17; Ezra 6:21) by discerning where one’s culture reflects evil values,” the 2022-2023 BJU handbook says. “By living holy, separated lives, we publicly proclaim that only He (God) is worth loving and following.”
A few months before he would have graduated, Pledger definitively rejected the BJU brand of holiness. In a video interview with “exvangelical” Josh Harris, a former purity culture celebrity, Pledger rejected fundamentalism and came out as gay. Less than two weeks later, he was expelled.
“They shunned me,” Pledger said. “I lost all my jobs at Bob Jones. I lost so many friends, I literally had to start my life over from scratch. I lost everything. I didn’t matter to them anymore.”
If you ask Pledger, it’s not just the rules that make Bob Jones unique; it’s how they’re enforced. Several guests on the podcast describe a “snitching culture” where students are expected to police their peers for violations. If they fail to report a rule breaker, they are equally guilty.
Though the handbook encourages students to “lovingly hold one another accountable,” Camille Lewis, a former BJU faculty member who is interviewed on the podcast, did not experience the vigilant culture as loving.
Lewis told Religion News Service that as an employee in the ’90s and early 2000s, she would hide with her husband, who was also on faculty, in the back bedroom of their on-campus house during chapel services so no one would see they were home. Even when they moved eight miles off campus, “we would still not sit in the living room with the light on, just in case someone drove by and saw we were home and not at a Bible conference meeting,” she told RNS.
The oversight escalated in 2006 when Lewis received a memo from the campus day care requesting to spank her 2-year-old. She declined to give permission and the situation intensified, with questions about her theology of sin. Eventually, Lewis said the university president told her the disagreement would lead to a “parting of ways.” Lewis and her husband ultimately resigned.
Erin Burchwell, another podcast guest, grew up — literally — on the Bob Jones campus. Born to two BJU faculty members in 1979, she spent most of her life there until she graduated from the university in 2001.
“They had their own dry cleaners, their own post office. Everything you needed. Most faculty and staff could only afford to eat at the dining hall three meals a day,” Burchwell told RNS. “You had to use their doctors for your health insurance and their hospitals. So most faculty kids were born on campus.”
Burchwell described Bob Jones as a “subculture” that “infiltrates” families and churches, creating generations of parents who see the school as the only legitimate choice. Those inside the Bob Jones community had few connections with what she called “the outside.”
When Burchwell started as a freshman at Bob Jones in 1997, she said, she was sexually assaulted regularly by a graduate student training to become a pastor. During her junior year, she and her parents shared her allegations.
