Crusade to reclaim colleges misguided

I am writing in response to the Friday, Oct. 14 Baptist news segment on ten questions posed to the three announced candidates running for Baptist State Convention (BSC) offices. Of particular concern is a comment attributed to Barry Nealy, candidate for the convention's second vice president. When asked how he thought the BSC should handle recent movements among colleges and institutions to study or change their relationships to the BSC, his response was: "Baptists have altered little from their historical stand on moral issues. Baptist colleges have altered nearly everything in order to appeal to their culture. It seems time for Baptists to claim their colleges or forfeit them to their secular society..."

I am deeply saddened to discover this attitude residing in a person running for such a responsible position. I am writing as a seventh-generation member of a family whose roots are in the association Rev. Nealy now serves, as a long-time member of the Meat Camp Baptist Church in the county in which he works, as a current member of the Buies Creek First Baptist Church, and as a graduate of a Baptist University.

If Rev. Nealy believes that NC Baptist Colleges "have altered nearly everything in order to appeal to their culture," he is seriously misinformed. Without exception, I have never known an educational institution that has a keener devotion to its Christian mission and responsibility than Campbell University. The lives and testimonies of thousands of N.C. Baptists will affirm the university's loyalty to its Christian heritage. To suggest otherwise implies bias, misunderstanding, or both.

North Carolina Baptists do not need Rev. Nealy championing a crusade to reclaim their colleges. What is needed are individuals courageous enough to appreciate the distinctive mission of Christian higher education, and honest enough to embrace the truth.

Dwaine Greene

Buies Creek, N.C.