Bayly's daily

The Public Square
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Darrell Bock and Phil Ryken’s denunciation of Wheaton College President J. Oliver Buswell:

Naming: The Trustees will instruct the administration to remove President James Oliver Buswell, Jr’s name from the Wheaton College Library. We make this judgment call—as we have made similar decisions in other instances when honorees were discovered to fall short of our institutional ideals—due to President Buswell’s institution of a de facto policy of denying qualified Black applicants admission to Wheaton College based solely on their race at some point in the 1930s. We recognize that support for this form of segregation was prevalent among institutions of higher education during that era in our nation’s history. We also recognize that Buswell was influenced by pressure from certain Trustees. Yet his private instructions to reject Black students were perniciously discriminatory and thus not in keeping with the biblical ideals that undergird Wheaton’s historical creedal commitments, with the high moral standards we pursue in our present-day institutional values, or with the hospitality we hope to inspire in our students. The Library stands at the heart of our campus and plays a vital symbolic role in our intellectual flourishing as a Christian learning community. As a public acknowledgment of our collective grief and institutional repentance over the rejection of Black applicants, we will remove “Buswell” from signs and other public descriptions where it is used as the present name of Wheaton’s Library. The name will revert to “the Library” as it was designated from 1975-1980.

#WheatonBuswell

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… with the high moral standards we pursue in our present-day institutional values

That’s precisely the weakness of this statement. The “past is another country”, and judging people by today’s standards in this way is quite a fraught affair. Yes, Buswell could have done better at the time than he did, but it does seem a case of “damned if he did, damned if he didn’t”.

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Wheaton repents of other (long-deceased) people’s sins, while blowing a trumpet before their own. Madness:

Q. What is Refuge?
A. Refuge is a supportive community group for undergraduate students who self-identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or questioning and may be navigating same-sex sexuality. Refuge seeks to provide opportunities for community building and resource-sharing for such students.

This section is particularly galling:

Q. Is Refuge biblically faithful?
A. The uniting feature of Wheaton students is a personal testimony of willing surrender to Jesus Christ as Savior, Redeemer, Sustainer, and Lord. Thus, there is an expectation that student groups will be formed and led by students who desire to be biblically faithful. All student groups are held to the same expectation of biblical faithfulness in their structure, purpose, and activities. If/when concerns arise that relate to the behavior of an individual student within a student group or that relate to the activities of a student group as a whole, the concerns are addressed in a spirit of listening and learning; if the concerns are validated, the College takes corrective action with the hope of redemption and change.

They have essentially said, “We understand this looks really bad, but we’re doing it anyway. Might repent later.”

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Not at all. Did you notice in the text that their judgment has no verifiable hard documentation of any commitment on his part to refuse black applicants? Their judgment is based on inference, which is more clear if you read the full document. As Buswell was being fired, he was declaring the school WOULD accept black applicants. If the past is a different country, we have no basis saying he could have done better when we have no even third-hand knowledge of the players and their influence he was contending with. What we do know is that Wheaton has been and still is abysmal on baby-slaughter, and precisely now Trustee Bock and President Ryken (Darrell and Phil) declare their high moral dudgeon about race a century ago. Execrable.

#WheatonBuswell

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Issue is not the embarrassing insecurity of Wheaton Trustee Darrell Bock and President Phil Ryken yelling at Wokeists “me too!” They’ve always been that way.

Cancelling dead men who can’t defend themselves is precisely what years watching these men would lead any reasonable person to expect. It’s why they’ve been pushed up to their level of inadequacy—as they so publicly demonstrate.

The real issue?

What’s awful is their baseless attack on former Wheaton Pres J. Oliver Buswell. Read their !122! pages defending their cowardice. It gushes. It oozes. It slithers. Like Uriah Heep.

#WheatonBuswell

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Those not knowing my connection to Wheaton, a little history.

All four of Mary Lee and my parents were alums. Dad Bayly was one of their chapel speakers and Dad Taylor gave them several million before he died. Our family members send their children there, as did my best friend.

I’ve long understood Wheaton’s importance as a matchmaking college for the Evangelical moneyed who strive to marry their children to other sophisticates who are fellow alums. I’ve known many alums and have heard much criticism of the place from them, including some just yesterday.

Wheaton is where I grew up and my knowledge is deep and personal, hence my constant warnings against their profs and administration. As I’ve been saying for decades, if you love your children’s souls, send them anywhere but Wheaton.

Back to the present matter of Trustee Darrell Bock and Pres Phil Ryken cancelling former Pres. J. Oliver Buswell by removing his name from the campus library and publishing a 122 page justification of their action…

The one thing I can say with certainty is that both my Dad, Joe Bayly, and my father-in-law, Ken Taylor, would be angry.

And I say this reminding readers of what I’ve chronicled here before: that my Dad was an advocate of racial reconciliation back in the early fifties, years before our nation’s Civil Rights Movement. As one African-American said to me at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, “Boy, you know we love your daddy!”

President Buswell was no racist. He had my Dad’s deepest respect, as we often heard from him.

But what abt the universally-revered Ken Taylor?

One day a few years before Dad Taylor’s death, we were talking about Wheaton’s trustees firing President Buswell back in the days when Dad and the rest of our parents were students there. Dad indicated he’d failed Buswell half-a-century earlier, saying to me shortly before his death, “I still feel guilty about what was done to Dr. Buswell.”

Dr. Buswell was a reformer. He was a churchman who contended for the faith, and that’s why he was fired and why he’s such an easy mark for the cancelling of today’s cowardly leaders. They had to give some sacrifice to the angry persons of color, so they hopped on the bandwagon of Wheaton’s 1940 trustees who decided to fire the man—partly because they knew, if he stayed, President Buswell was determined to make it official policy that Wheaton would admit black students.

But you’d have to read through Bock and Ryken’s 122 pages of bloviation to find that out, and who has the patience?

Again, Dad Bayly and Dad Taylor would abominate what Darrell Bock and Phil Ryken have gotten their people to do, trashing the name and reputation of the godly J. Oliver Buswell, Jr.

#WheatonBuswell

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The name of my great great grandfather, Joseph Tate Bayly I (namesake of our grandson, Joseph Tate Bayly VII) appears here in this clipping from the April 28, 1952, Gettysburg Times as member of Gettysburg Presbyterian Church’s Building Committee.

Founded in 1740, the congregation moved to its present location in 1842. During the Battle of Gettysburg, the church served as a temporary hospital. Four months later, on November 19, 1863, President Lincoln attended a patriotic service in the church later in the day following his Gettysburg Address.

On February 1, 1963, President and Mrs. Dwight D. Eisenhower joined the church and worshipped there.

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President Phil Ryken and his trustees’ scandalous denunciation of Wheaton’s former President, J. Oliver Buswell, Jr. Wheaton College's public denunciation of former President J. Oliver Buswell, Jr. - Warhorn Media

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Audio recording of “WHEATON COLLEGE’S PUBLIC DENUNCIATION OF FORMER PRESIDENT J. OLIVER BUSWELL, JR.”

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Excellent piece: “If these allegations against Menendez are proven, then he violated Washington’s Goldilocks rule. It would mean Menendez pursued gifts with a reckless abandon, endangering others whose corruption was more circumspect.” https://thehill.com/opinion/criminal-justice/4218489-robert-menendez-broke-the-goldilocks-rule-of-corruption/

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This is one of many things that I’ve found galling about the recent revelations about Hunter Biden’s corruption. It is what it has always looked like from out here in flyover country: Hunter as the bag man for Biden corruption. Everyone in DC knew this, from the press corps to all the bureaucrats to the Congressional staffers to (of course) the DNC. But they all shoved Joe Biden down our throats anyway. And they are going to do it again, or it certainly looks that way.

Calling DC a swamp is an insult to honest, hardworking wetland ecosystems everywhere. Calling it a sewer is an insult to the waste management systems we all rely on. DC is its own thing and the sooner we are shut of it, the better.

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-clipped from New Yorker decades ago

#oldfiles

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“Sexual performance.” Now that’s funny. Have to think they meant “preference.”

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In 1955, Dad quoted bio of Wesley in His magazine: “Tight Schedule: In the 50 years before his death, John Wesley traveled over 250,000 miles preaching more than 40,000 sermons—800 times each year.” We pastors today say we need 30 hrs to prepare? Get to work! #goodshepherd

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Has Wheaton’s Task Force produced a Report that is true or false? Has the Buswell history been objectively assembled & released, or have they produced a tendentious history which, at 122 pages, is seemingly thorough; and 421 footnotes, seemingly scholarly? Wheaton College and President Buswell: what the Task Force left out (1) - Warhorn Media

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Audio of “Wheaton College and President Buswell: what the Task Force left out (1)” Warhorn Blog Posts | Wheaton College and President Buswell: what the Task Force left out (1)

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Some brothers thought it wasn’t helpful for me to point out how hard John Wesley worked at preaching. Did so in one of my previous posts, quoting my Dad’s comments (made in a periodical back in 1955) about how hard Wesley worked at preaching. Our brothers protested that Wesley had a terrible marriage, bad theology, slandered, etc.

I respond:

Men, there is none righteous; no, not one. Sometimes it appears to me Christian men today can’t be taught by anyone since no one is perfect. But then they tie themselves to this man or that and become acolytes—that is until it’s revealed he’s not perfect, either. Then too, we say no man with basic theological failures should be listened to or watched for any slightest instruction.

Wesleyans apparently are only useful as bad examples in everything because they’re not Biblical in the matters of God’s sovereignty and man’s deadness outside of God’s work.

Of course Wesley’s marriage was terrible. My Dad whose blurb about Wesley’s work preaching (and who, by the way, was utterly reformed) would remind us how someone walked into the Wesley’s home and found John kneeling on the floor with his wife standing over him with her hand grasping a fistful of his hair.

Then there are my Dad’s sins and my sins and Joel Belz’s sins and Carl McIntire’s sins and Billy Graham’s sins and Spurgeon and Lloyd-Jones and the Apostle Peter and Doug and John and Vern and… Hey, didn’t J. Oliver Buswell tell us John Murray drank whiskey as a beverage?

We’re all so good at finding reasons to remain unteachable, even by dead men. King David had too many good marriages, and then there was that Solomonic end to his affair…

So you don’t want me to illustrate the necessity of frequent preaching, frequent feeding of the sheep, using Wesley as an example, and this because of his sins.

RIght. Then I’ll use Calvin: he preached maybe an average of eight times a week, and the pastors of the other two parishes in Geneva were almost equal to him in this amount each week and year. So then, again: get to work, pastors!

Pastors are so precious about our preaching today, that it’s preciously worthless. What we need is men who preach and preach and teach and catechize endlessly, so that feeding God’s sheep becomes as commonplacedly helpful as the feed a farmer gives his cows during milking each day. A pox upon every pulpiteer, but honor and commendations to the man frequently occupying the pulpit who is a simple and faithful hard-workman. Shepherd. Love,

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You know what’s debilitating? Serving as counsel to the accused after the prosecution has presented their evidence, the verdict of guilty has been returned, and the sentence has been pronounced. Also, the accused can’t help you prepare the defense because he’s been in his grave almost half a century, now.

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A good and necessary call to worship, and may the Holy Spirit lead our lips to be one with our hearts: “Let us now fear the Lord our God.”

“But this people has a stubborn and rebellious heart; They have turned aside and departed. They do not say in their heart, “Let us now fear the LORD our God, Who gives rain in its season, Both the autumn rain and the spring rain.” -Jeremiah 5:23-24

#goodshepherd

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Harvard preening themselves over their new black woman prez. Black is immaterial but woman is rebellion against God. He commands woman not exercise authority over man b/c He created Adam first.

Woman taking over authority is crime against God and nature. It is not sustainable. #malefemale