Customer Reviews

An Island in the Lake of Fire: Bob Jones University, Fundamentalism, and the Separatist Movement

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Dalhouse has done a service to the history of Fundamentalist Christianity in this book. For whatever reasons, the Joneses and Bob Jones University have been routinely overlooked by the historians of fundamentalism, making Island a nearly unique study. For a second look at BJU, scholars and interested readers should take note of Daniel L. Turner's Standing Without Apology. This more recent history of BJU, when paired with Dalhouse's book, give a thorough look at a most unique Christian educational institution.

Dr. Dalhouse has provided those interested in the history of Christian fundamentalism with an intriguing, outsider's look at Bob Jones University. He is correct when he states that the role of BJU in fundamentalist history has been largely overlooked and minimized by secular historians. This work helps to correct that oversight. Dr. Dalhouse's study is quite even-handed, especially when compared with typical comments and reviews of BJU. Dalhouse probes some of the paradoxes in the BJU worldview, but at times he overly magnifies these issues. Four stars for Dalhouse's book. Must reading for anyone interested in understanding Bob Jones University.

With a few exceptions writings about BJU usually cast the institution as either the greatest thing since the reformation or one of the worst forces in American history. I am exaggerating, but only slightly. The are few subjects in which the poles are further about. Dalhouse does a good job of looking at BJU and the place it has played in American Fundamentalism and the Seperatist movement. There is very little scholarly work in this area by non BJU scholars and this is a wlecome work. Dalhouse does an excellent job of looking at the cultural and historical forces that lead to the positions BJU take. And he is correct that there are paradoxes within the school and the stand it takes. But, I agree with another reviewer that at times Dalhouse makes more of the paradoxes than he should. It is posible to seem paradoxical and yet be consistent. This is a line that BJU walks occassionally slipping to one side or another but in general staying consistent.

The Bob Jones University and the family that have been responsible for this "institution" are little more than hate-mongers purveying nothing less than outright religious antipathy and bigotry.

"Island in the Lake of Fire" attempts to justify the astonishingly EVIL mindest of the University's founders and current administration (or current at the time of the book's publication) regarding complete intolerance of others' religious creeds. While claiming it is all to be done "in Jesus' Name", the founders command no less than an all-out war of religious bigotry against other Christian faiths outside the wildly polarized sect of "fundamentalism" espoused by the Jones name.

Particularly infamous is the Bob Jones University credo of virulent, seething anti-Catholicism. I am a devout Roman Catholic who has come up against Bob Jones alumni and am appalled that a "school", DARING to label itself CHRISTIAN, turns out individuals who condemn Catholics and other mainline-Christian-churchgoers as "pagans" [!!!]

Bob Jones University should indeed be prepared for a "lake of fire" -- in the SEVENTH CIRCLE OF HELL, for preaching such horrific invective against the Church of Rome!