Small Christian colleges are collapsing. The NAZI TORTURE CAMP was the final blow, but most were already unsalvageable.

Returning to the sieve theme. A few college courses are genuine training. The vast majority are selection devices to guarantee that only the most orthodox students get into top status positions.

Christians no longer occupy top status positions, so there’s no reason to select for those positions with a Christian filter.

The history of Phillips illustrates the point. It was founded in 1909 and flourished for many decades. The core was a seminary training D of C ministers. The speech and hearing department was another pure training center, headed by a teacher who was an ‘aristocrat’ of the field.

Other departments were just accessories to bring in enough money for the seminary.

Around 1980 the trustees hired a “troubleshooter” president who tried to make Phillips more like Harvard, with an emphasis on tenure. This was guaranteed to fail, which may have been his real purpose. Just shooter, not troubleshooter.

Phillips had been a refuge from tenure. My father was a TEACHER. In the ’60s he mistakenly tried to get into the tenure track and quickly found that he hated research. After failing he moved back to Phillips, partly because Oklahoma was home. He loved it. He was able to teach, able to pay close attention to the progress of his students. His skills were valued.

When the shooter finished his shot, Phillips collapsed. Later a community college in the OSU system took over the campus. The seminary was still needed by the church, and it moved to Tulsa under the auspices of a different Christian college. The speech and hearing clinic is still active, though no longer a training center.

Experience survives.