Bob Jones University

The School of Religion includes majors for both men and women, although only men train as ministerial students.[27] Many of these students go on to a seminary after completing their undergraduate education. Others take ministry positions straight from college, and rising juniors participate in a church internship program to prepare them for pastoral ministry. In 1995, 1,290 BJU graduates were serving as senior or associate pastors in churches across the United States.[28] In 2017 more than 100 pastors in the Upstate alone were BJU graduates.[29]

The seminary building at Bob Jones University

The university uses the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible in its services and classrooms, but it does not hold the KJV to be the only acceptable English translation or that it has the same authority as the original Hebrew and Greek manuscripts.[30] The King-James-Only Movement—or more correctly, movements, since it has many variations—became a divisive force in fundamentalism as conservative, modern Bible translations, such as the New American Standard Bible (NASB) and the New International Version (NIV), began to appear in the 1970s. BJU has taken the position that orthodox Christians of the late 19th and early 20th centuries (including fundamentalists) agreed that while the KJV was a substantially accurate translation, only the original manuscripts of the Bible written in Hebrew and Greek were infallible and inerrant.[31] Bob Jones Jr. called the KJV-only position a "heresy" and "in a very definite sense, a blasphemy".[32]

The Division of Fine Arts has the largest faculty of the university's six undergraduate schools.[33] Each year, the university presents an opera in the spring semester and Shakespearean plays in both the fall and spring semesters.[34] The Division of Fine Arts includes an RTV department with a campus radio and television station, WBJU. More than a hundred concerts, recitals, and laboratory theater productions are also presented annually.[35]

Each fall, as a recruiting tool, the university sponsors a "High School Festival" in which students compete in music, art, and speech (including preaching) contests with their peers from around the country.[36] In the spring, a similar competition sponsored by the American Association of Christian Schools, and hosted by BJU since 1977, brings thousands of national finalists to the university from around the country. In 2005, 120 of the finalists from previous years returned to BJU as freshmen.[37]

Howell Memorial Science Building

Bob Jones University supports young-earth creationism,[38] all their biology faculty are young Earth creationists[39] and the university rejects evolution, calling it "at best an unsupportable and unworkable hypothesis".[40]

According to the BJU website, "More than 80% of our premed graduates are accepted to medical or dental school within a year of graduation."[41] The Department of Biology hosts two research programs on campus, one in cancer research, the other in animal behavior.[42] Although ten of the sixteen members of the science faculty have bachelor's degrees from BJU, all earned their doctorates from accredited, non-religious institutions of higher learning.[43]

The university's nursing major is approved by the South Carolina State Board of Nursing, and a BJU graduate with a BSN is eligible to take the National Council Licensure Examination to become a registered nurse.[44] The BJU engineering program is accredited by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET).[45]

Bob Jones Sr. was leery of academic accreditation almost from the founding of the college, and by the early 1930s, he had publicly stated his opposition to holding regional accreditation.[46] Jones and the college were criticized for this stance, and academic recognition, as well as student and faculty recruitment, were hindered.[47]

In 1944, Jones wrote to John Walvoord of Dallas Theological Seminary that while the university had "no objection to educational work highly standardized…. We, however, cannot conscientiously let some group of educational experts or some committee of experts who may have a behavioristic or atheistic slant on education control or even influence the administrative policies of our college."[48] Five years later, Jones reflected that "it cost us something to stay out of an association, but we stayed out. We have lived up to our convictions."[49] In any case, lack of accreditation seems to have made little difference during the post-war period, when the university more than doubled in size.[47]

Because graduates did not benefit from accredited degrees, the faculty felt an increased responsibility to prepare their students.[50] Early in the history of the college, there had been some hesitancy on the part of other institutions to accept BJU credits at face value, but by the 1960s, BJU alumni were being accepted by most of the major graduate and professional schools in the United States.[51] Undoubtedly helpful was that some of the university's strongest programs were in the areas of music, speech, and art, disciplines in which ability could be measured by audition or portfolio rather than through paper qualifications.[52]

Nevertheless, by the early 2000s, the university quietly reexamined its position on accreditation as degree mills proliferated, and some government agencies, such as local police departments, began excluding BJU graduates because the university did not appear on appropriate federal lists.[52] In 2004, the university began the process of joining the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools. Candidate status—effectively, accreditation—was obtained in April 2005, and full membership in the Association was conferred in November 2006.[53] In December 2011, BJU announced its intention to apply for regional accreditation with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACSCOC), and it received that accreditation in 2017.[54]

In 2017, US News ranked BJU as #61 (tie) in Regional Universities South and #7 in Best Value Schools.[55]

As a twelve-year-old, Bob Jones Sr. made a twenty-minute speech in defense of the Populist Party. Jones was a friend and admirer of William Jennings Bryan but also campaigned throughout the South for Herbert Hoover (and against Al Smith) during the 1928 presidential election. Even the authorized history of BJU notes that both Bob Jones Sr. and Bob Jones Jr. "played political hardball" when dealing with the three municipalities in which the school was successively located. For instance, in 1962, Bob Jones Sr. warned the Greenville City Council that he had "four hundred votes in his pocket and in any election he would have control over who would be elected."[56]

Bob Jones Sr.'s April 17, 1960, Easter Sunday sermon, broadcast on the radio, entitled "Is Segregation Scriptural?" served as the university position paper on race in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. The transcript was sent in pamphlet form in fund-raising letters and sold in the university bookstore. In the sermon, Jones states, "If you are against segregation and against racial separation, then you are against God Almighty." The school began a long history of supporting politicians who were considered aligned with racial segregation.[57][58][59]

Ronald Reagan and Strom Thurmond both played influential roles in the political life of BJU.

From nearly the inception of Bob Jones College, a majority of students and faculty were from the northern United States, where there was a larger ratio of Republicans to Democrats than in the South (which was solidly Democratic). Therefore, almost from its founding year, BJU had a larger portion of Republicans than the surrounding community.[60] After South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond switched his allegiance to the Republican Party in 1964, BJU faculty members became increasingly influential in the new state Republican party. BJU alumni were elected to local political and party offices. In 1976, candidates supported by BJU faculty and alumni captured the local Republican party with unfortunate short-term political consequences, but by 1980 the religious right and the "country club" Republicans had joined forces.[61] From then on, most Republican candidates for local and statewide offices sought the endorsement of Bob Jones III and greeted faculty/staff voters at the University Dining Common.[62]

National Republicans soon followed. Ronald Reagan spoke at the school in 1980, although the Joneses supported his opponent, John Connally, in the South Carolina primary.[63] Later, Bob Jones III denounced Reagan as "a traitor to God's people" for choosing George H. W. Bush—whom Jones called a "devil"—as his vice president. Even later, Jones III shook Bush's hand and thanked him for being a good president.[64] In the 1990s, other Republicans such as Dan Quayle, Pat Buchanan, Phil Gramm, Bob Dole, and Alan Keyes also spoke at BJU.[65] Democrats were rarely invited to speak at the university, in part because they took political and social positions (especially support for abortion rights) opposed by the Religious Right.[66]

On February 2, 2000, then Texas Governor George W. Bush, as a candidate for president, spoke during school's chapel hour.[67] Bush gave a standard stump speech, making no specific reference to the university. His political opponents quickly noted his non-mention of the university's ban on interracial dating. During the Michigan primary, Bush was also criticized for not stating his opposition to the university's anti-Catholicism. The McCain campaign targeted Catholics with "Catholic Voter Alert" phone calls, reminding voters of Bush's visit to BJU.[68] New York Republican Representative Peter King, who was supporting John McCain in the presidential primary, called Bush a tool of "anti-Catholic bigoted forces", after the visit. King described BJU as "an institution that is notorious in Ireland for awarding an honorary doctorate to Northern Ireland's tempestuous Protestant leader, Ian Paisley."[69] Bush denied that he either knew of or approved what he regarded as BJU's intolerant policies. On February 26, Bush issued a formal letter of apology to Cardinal John Joseph O'Connor of New York for failing to denounce Bob Jones University's history of anti-Catholic statements. Bush said at a news conference following the letter's release, "I make no excuses. I had an opportunity and I missed it. I regret that....I wish I had gotten up then and seized the moment to set a tone, a tone that I had set in Texas, a positive and inclusive tone."[67] Also during the 2000 Republican primary campaign in South Carolina, Richard Hand, a BJU professor, spread a false e-mail rumor that John McCain had fathered an illegitimate child. The McCains have an adopted daughter from Bangladesh, and later push polling also implied that the child was biracial.[70]

Although the March 2007 issue of Foreign Policy listed BJU as one of "The World's Most Controversial Religious Sites" because of its past influence on American politics,[71] BJU has seen little political controversy since Stephen Jones became president. When asked by a Newsweek reporter if he wished to play a political role, Stephen Jones replied, "It would not be my choice." Further, when asked if he felt ideologically closer to his father's engagement with politics or to other evangelicals who have tried to avoid civic involvement, Jones answered, "The gospel is for individuals. The main message we have is to individuals. We're not here to save the culture."[72] In a 2005 Washington Post interview, Jones dodged political questions and even admitted that he was embarrassed by "some of the more vitriolic comments" made by his predecessors. "I don't want to get specific," Jones said, "But there were things said back then that I wouldn't say today."[64] In October 2007, when Bob Jones III, as "a private citizen," endorsed Mitt Romney for the Republican nomination for president, Stephen Jones made it clear that he wished "to stay out of politics" and that neither he nor the university had endorsed anyone.[73] Despite a hotly contested South Carolina primary, none of the candidates appeared on the platform of BJU's Founders' Memorial Amphitorium during the 2008 election cycle.[74] In April 2008, Stephen Jones told a reporter, "I don't think I have a political bone in my body."[75]

In 2015 BJU reemerged as a campaign stop for conservative Republicans. Ben Carson and Ted Cruz held large on-campus rallies on two successive days in November. BJU president Steve Pettit met with Marco Rubio, Rick Perry, Mike Huckabee, and Scott Walker. Jeb Bush, Carson, Cruz, and Rubio also appeared at a 2016 Republican presidential forum at BJU. Chip Felkel, a Greenville Republican consultant, noted that some candidates closely identified "with the folks at Bob Jones. So it makes sense for them to want to be there." Nevertheless, unlike BJU's earlier periods of political involvement, Pettit did not endorse a candidate.[76]

According to Furman University political science professor Jim Guth, because Greenville has grown so much recently, it is unlikely BJU will ever again have the same political influence it had between the 1960s and the 1980s. Nevertheless, about a quarter of all BJU graduates continue to live in the Upstate, and as long-time mayor Knox White has said, "The alumni have had a big impact on every profession and walk of life in Greenville."[77]

Bob Jones Jr. was a connoisseur of European art from his teen years and began collecting after World War II on about $30,000 a year authorized by the University Board of Directors.[79] Jones first concentrated on the Italian Baroque, a style then out of favor and relatively inexpensive in the years immediately following the war.[79] The museum's collection currently includes more than 400 European paintings from the 14th through the 19th centuries, period furniture, and a notable collection of Russian icons.[80] The museum also includes a variety of Holy Land antiquities.[80] The gallery is strong in Baroque paintings and includes notable works by Rubens, Tintoretto, Veronese, Cranach, Gerard David, Murillo, Mattia Preti, Ribera, van Dyck, and Gustave Doré.[80] Included in the Museum & Gallery collection are seven large canvases, part of a series by Benjamin West painted for George III, called "The Progress of Revealed Religion", which are displayed in the War Memorial Chapel.[81] The museum also includes a variety of Holy Land antiquities collected in the early 20th century by missionaries Frank and Barbara Bowen.[80]

Every Easter, the university and the Museum & Gallery present the Living Gallery, a series of tableaux vivants recreating noted works of religious art using live models disguised as part of two-dimensional paintings.[82]

BJU has been criticized by some fundamentalists for promoting "false Catholic doctrine" through its art gallery because much of Baroque art was created for the Counter-Reformation.[83]

A painting by Lucas van Leyden that had been displayed in the gallery's collection for more than ten years and had been consigned to Sotheby's for sale was recognized by Interpol as art that had been stolen by the Nazis from the Mittelrhein-Museum in Koblenz. The painting was eventually returned to Germany after months of negotiations between the Mittelrhein-Museum and Julius H. Weitzner (1896–1986), a noted dealer in Old Master paintings.[84]

After the death of Bob Jones Jr., Erin Jones, the wife of BJU president Stephen Jones, became director. According to David Steel, curator of European art at the North Carolina Museum of Art, Erin Jones "brought that museum into the modern era", employing "a top-notch curator, John Nolan", and following "best practices in conservation and restoration". The museum cooperates with other institutions, lending works for outside shows such as a Rembrandt exhibit in 2011.[83]

In 2008, the BJU Museum & Gallery opened a satellite location, the Museum & Gallery at Heritage Green near downtown Greenville, which featured rotating exhibitions from the main museum and interactive children's activities.[85] In February 2017, the Museum & Gallery closed both locations permanently. In 2018, the museum announced that a new home would be built at a yet undetermined located off the BJU campus.[86][87] In 2021, Erin Jones said the museum was exploring a permanent home near the proposed downtown conference center.[88]

Jerusalem Chamber, Mack Library, containing a collection of rare Bibles

The 90,000-square-foot (8,400 m²) Mack Library (named for John Sephus Mack) holds a collection of more than 300,000 books and includes seating for 1,200 as well as a computer lab and a computer classroom.[89] (Its ancillary, a music library, is included in the Gustafson Fine Arts Center.) Mack Library's Special Collections includes an American Hymnody Collection of about 700 titles.[90] The "Jerusalem Chamber" is a replica of the room in Westminster Abbey in which work on the King James Version of the Bible was conducted, and it displays a collection of rare Bibles.[91] An adjoining Memorabilia Room commemorates the life of Bob Jones Sr. and the history of the university.[92]

The library's Fundamentalism File collects periodical articles and ephemera about social and religious matters of interest to evangelicals and fundamentalists.[93] The University Archives holds copies of all university publications, oral histories of faculty and staff members, surviving remnants of university correspondence, and pictures and artifacts related to the Jones family and the history of the university.[94]

Both Bob Jones Sr. and Bob Jones Jr. believed that film could be an excellent medium for mass evangelism, and in 1950, the university established Unusual Films within the School of Fine Arts.[95] (The studio name derives from a former BJU promotional slogan, "The World's Most Unusual University".)[96] Bob Jones Jr. selected a speech teacher, Katherine Stenholm, as the first director. Although she had no experience in cinema, she took summer courses at the University of Southern California and received personal instruction from Hollywood specialists, such as Rudolph Sternad.[97]

Unusual Films has produced seven feature-length films, each with an evangelistic emphasis: Wine of Morning, Red Runs the River, Flame in the Wind, Sheffey, Beyond the Night, The Printing, and Milltown Pride.[98] Wine of Morning (1955), based on a novel by Bob Jones Jr., represented the United States at the Cannes Film Festival.[99] The first four films are historical dramas set, respectively, in the time of Christ, the U.S. Civil War, 16th-century Spain, and the late 19th-century South—the latter a fictionalized treatment of the life of Methodist evangelist, Robert Sayers Sheffey. Beyond the Night closely follows an actual 20th-century missionary saga in Central Africa, and The Printing uses composite characters to portray the persecution of believers in the former Soviet Union. According to The Dove Foundation, The Printing "no doubt will urge Christian believers everywhere to appreciate the freedoms they enjoy. It is inspiring!" [100] In 1999, Unusual Films began producing feature films for children, including The Treasure Map,[101] Project Dinosaur,[102] and Appalachian Trial.[103] They also released a short animated film for children, The Golden Rom.[104] Unusual Films returned to their customary format in 2011 with their release of Milltown Pride, a historical film set in 1920s upstate South Carolina.[105]

Unusual Films also maintains a student film production program. The Film and Digital Storytelling program provides professional training in motion picture production.[106] This training combines classroom instruction with hands-on experience in various areas, including directing, editing, and cinematography. Before graduation, seniors produce high-definition short films which they write, direct, and edit.[107]

BJU Press originated from the need for textbooks for the burgeoning Christian school movement.[108] The press publishes a full range of K–12 textbooks. More than a million pre-college students worldwide use BJU textbooks, and the press has about 2,500 titles in print.

BJU Press also offers distance learning courses online, via DVD and hard drive.[109] Another ancillary, the Academy of Home Education, is a "service organization for homeschooling families" that maintains student records, administers achievement testing, and issues high school diplomas. The press sold its music division, SoundForth, to Lorenz Publishing on October 1, 2012.[110]

The university operates Bob Jones Academy, which enrolls students from preschool through 12th grade.[111] With about 1100 students, the school's demographic makeup leans heavily white (90.3%), with non-Black minorities making up the bulk of other ethnicities. Black students make up 0.5% of enrollment.[112]

In December 2011, in response to accusations of mishandling of student reports of sexual abuse (most of which had occurred in their home churches when the students were minors) and a concurrent reporting issue at a church pastored by a university board member,[113] the BJU board of trustees hired an independent ombudsman, GRACE (Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment), to investigate.[114] Released in December 2014, the GRACE report suggested that BJU had discouraged students from reporting past sexual abuse, and though the university declined to implement many of the report's recommendations, President Steve Pettit formally apologized "to those who felt they did not receive from us genuine love, compassion, understanding, and support after suffering sexual abuse or assault".[114][115][116][117] The university's mishandling of sexual abuse in the past came into light again in August 2020 when a student filed a lawsuit against Bob Jones University and Furman University alleging both administrations ignored the sexual assault report and expelled the student for consuming alcohol, which is against the Student Code of Conduct handbook.[118][119]

Although BJU had admitted Asian students and other ethnic groups from its inception, it did not enroll African or African-American students until 1971. From 1971 to 1975, BJU admitted only married Black people. However, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) had already determined in 1970 that "private schools with racially discriminatory admissions policies" were not entitled to federal tax exemption. In 1975, the University Board of Trustees authorized a policy change to admit Black students, a move that occurred shortly before the announcement of the Supreme Court decision in Runyon v. McCrary (427 U.S. 160 [1976]), which prohibited racial exclusion in private schools.[120] In May 1975, BJU expanded rules against interracial dating and marriage.[121]

In 1976, the Internal Revenue Service revoked the university's tax exemption retroactively to December 1, 1970, because it practiced racial discrimination.[122] The case eventually was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1982. After BJU lost the decision in Bob Jones University v. United States (461 U.S. 574)[1983], the university chose to maintain its interracial dating policy and pay a million dollars in back taxes. The year following the Court decision, contributions to the university declined by 13 percent.[123] In 2000, following a media uproar prompted by the visit of presidential candidate George W. Bush to the university, Bob Jones III dropped the university's interracial dating rule, announcing the change on CNN's Larry King Live.[124] In the same year, Bob Jones III drew criticism after reposting a letter on the university's web page referring to Mormons and Catholics as being members of "cults which call themselves Christian".[125]

In 2005, Stephen Jones, great-grandson of the founder, became BJU's president on the same day that he received his PhD from the school. Bob Jones III then took the title Chancellor. In 2008, the university declared itself "profoundly sorry" for having allowed "institutional policies to remain in place that were racially hurtful".[126] That year, BJU enrolled students from fifty states and nearly fifty countries, representing diverse ethnicities and cultures, and the BJU administration declared itself "committed to maintaining on the campus the racial and cultural diversity and harmony characteristic of the true Church of Jesus Christ throughout the world".[127]

In his first meeting with the university cabinet in 2014, the fifth president Steve Pettit said it was appropriate for BJU to regain its tax-exempt status because BJU no longer held its earlier positions about race. "The Bible is clear," said Pettit, "We are made of one blood." By February 17, 2017, the IRS website had listed the university as a 501(c)(3) organization,[128] and by May 2017, BJU had forged a working relationship with Greenville's Phillis Wheatley Center.[129] In 2017, 9% of the student body was "from the American minority population".[130]

Religion is a major aspect of life and curriculum at BJU. The BJU Creed, written in 1927 by journalist and prohibitionist Sam Small, is recited by students and faculty four days a week at chapel services.[131]

The university also encourages church planting in areas of the United States "in great need of fundamental churches", and it has provided financial and logistical assistance to ministerial graduates in starting more than a hundred new churches.[132] Bob Jones III has also encouraged non-ministerial students to put their career plans on hold for two or three years to provide lay leadership for small churches.[133] Students of various majors participate in Missions Advance (formerly Mission Prayer Band), an organization that prays for missionaries and attempts to stimulate campus interest in world evangelism.[134] During summers and Christmas breaks, about 150 students participate in teams that use their musical, language, trade, and aviation skills to promote Christian missions around the world.[35] Although a separate nonprofit corporation, Gospel Fellowship Association, an organization founded by Bob Jones Sr. and associated with BJU, is one of the largest fundamentalist mission boards in the country.[135] Through its "Timothy Fund", the university also sponsors international students who are training for the ministry.[136]

The university requires the use of the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible in its services and classrooms, but it does not hold that the KJV is the only acceptable English translation or that it has the same authority as the original Hebrew and Greek manuscripts.[30] The university's position has been criticized by some other fundamentalists, including fellow conservative university Pensacola Christian College, which in 1998 produced a widely distributed videotape which argued that this "defiling leaven in fundamentalism" was passed from the 19th-century Princeton theologian Benjamin B. Warfield (1851–1921) through Charles Brokenshire (1885–1954) to current BJU faculty members and graduates.[137][138]

Strict rules govern student life at BJU.[139] Some of these are based directly on the university's interpretation of the Bible. For instance, the 2015–16 Student Handbook states, "Students are to avoid any types of entertainment that could be considered immodest or that contain profanity, scatological realism, sexual perversion, erotic realism, lurid violence, occultism and false philosophical or religious assumptions." Grounds for immediate dismissal include stealing, immorality (including sexual relations between unmarried students), possession of hard-core pornography, use of alcohol or drugs, and participating in a public demonstration for a cause the university opposes.[140] Similar "moral failures" are grounds for terminating the employment of faculty and staff. In 1998, a homosexual alumnus was threatened with arrest if he visited the campus.[141]

For years, male students were required to wear slacks, dress shirts, and ties on campus during the day. This requirement has since been loosened; men are allowed to wear polo shirts or dress shirts on weekdays until 17:00 and are no longer required to wear ties. Effective in 2018, women are no longer required to wear skirts or dresses and can now wear pants. They are also required to attend chapel four days a week, as well as at least two services per week at an approved "local fundamental church".[139]

Other rules are not based on a specific biblical passage. For instance, the Handbook notes that "there is no specific Bible command that says, 'Thou shalt not be late to class', but a student who wishes to display orderliness and concern for others will not come in late to the distraction of the teacher and other students."[142] In 2008 a campus spokesperson also said that one goal of the dress code was "to teach our young people to dress professionally" on campus while giving them "the ability to...choose within the biblically accepted options of dress" when they were off campus.[143]

Additional rules include requiring resident hall students to abide by a campus curfew of 11:00 pm, with lights out at midnight.[144] Students are forbidden to go to movie theaters while in residence, however, they may watch movies rated G or PG while in the residence halls. Students may not listen to popular contemporary music.[145] Male students with upper-level privileges and graduate students may have facial hair that is fully grown before the start of the semester, neatly trimmed, and well maintained at approximately ½ inch or less.[146] Women are expected to dress modestly and wear dresses or skirts that come to the knee to class and religious services.[147]

Davis Field House

After BJU abandoned intercollegiate sports in 1933,[148] its intramural sports program included competition in soccer, basketball, softball, volleyball, tennis, badminton, flag football, table tennis, racquetball, and water polo. The university also competed in intercollegiate debate within the National Educational Debate Association, in intercollegiate mock trial and computer science competitions, and participated at South Carolina Student Legislature.[149] In 2012, BJU joined Division I of National Christian College Athletic Association (NCCAA) and in 2014 participated in intercollegiate soccer, basketball, cross-country, and golf.[150] The teams are known as the Bruins.

The university requires all unmarried incoming first-year students under 23 to join one of 45 "societies".[151] Societies meet most Fridays for entertainment and fellowship and hold weekly prayer meetings. Societies compete with one another in intramural sports, debate, and Scholastic Bowl.[152] The university also has a student-staffed newspaper (The Collegian),[153] and yearbook (Vintage).[154]

Early in December, thousands of students, faculty, and visitors gather around the front campus fountain for an annual Christmas carol singing and lighting ceremony, illuminating tens of thousands of Christmas lights.[155] On December 3, 2004, the ceremony broke the Guinness World Record for Christmas caroling with 7,514 carolers.[156]

Before 2015, the university required students and faculty to attend a six-day Bible Conference instead of a traditional Spring Break.[157] However, the university announced that beginning in 2016, it would hold the Bible Conference in February and give students a week of Spring Break in March.[158] The Conference typically attracts fundamentalist preachers and laypeople from around the country, and some BJU class reunions are held during the week.[159]

In 2012, the university inaugurated intercollegiate athletics with four teams: men's soccer, men's basketball, women's soccer, and women's basketball. The university added intercollegiate golf and cross-country teams during the 2013–2014 school year.[161] Men's and women's shooting sports were added in 2016.[162] Men's baseball began in the spring of 2021, and women's beach volleyball started in the spring of 2022.[163] On January 31, 2023, Director of Athletics Neal Ring announced his resignation. Ring had overseen Bruins Athletics since inception.[164]

Through its first 11 seasons, the athletic department amassed 22 NCCAA National Championships, nearly 100 All-Americans, and over 200 Scholar-Athletes. Bruins Athletics also received 6 straight Presidential Awards for Excellence, honoring the most successful NCCAA DII athletics program.[165]

In 2018, BJU explored National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) membership and applied for it in January 2020. The Bruins were accepted as Division III provisional members in June for three years, making it the only Division III school in the state. The school has been searching for a conference.[166][167]

A number of BJU graduates have become influential within fundamentalist and evangelical Christianity, including Ken Hay (founder of "The Wilds" Christian camps)[168] Ron "Patch" Hamilton (composer and president of Majesty Music)[169] Billy Kim (former president of Baptist World Alliance),[170] and Moisés Silva (president of the Evangelical Theological Society).[171] BJU alumni also include the third pastor (1968–1976) of Riverside Church (Ernest T. Campbell), the former president of Northland Baptist Bible College (Les Ollila),[172] late president of Baptist Bible College (Ernest Pickering),[173] and the former president of Clearwater Christian College (Richard Stratton).[174]

One BJU alumnus, Asa Hutchinson, served as the governor of Arkansas and also served in the U.S. Congress;[175] his brother Tim Hutchinson served in the U.S. Senate. Others have served in state government: Michigan state senator Alan Cropsey, Pennsylvania state representative Gordon Denlinger, Pennsylvania state representative Mark M. Gillen, former Speaker Pro Tempore of the South Carolina House of Representatives Terry Haskins, member of the South Carolina House of Representatives Wendy Nanney, Pennsylvania state representative Sam Rohrer, member of the Missouri House of Representatives Ryan Silvey, Maryland state senator Bryan Simonaire and his daughter, state delegate Meagan Simonaire, and South Carolina state senator Danny Verdin.