I'm sure you all know of bible colleges that are unaccredited and yet do a decent job educating students who enroll there to get exactly what the college provides. If I am not mistaken, accrediting commissions look for 'academic freedom' as part of the accreditation process. If this is missing, along with other things, the school doesn't get accredited. That is why, I think, SACS was giving Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary a long hard look a couple of years ago. I must say that I would have to side with the unaccrediteds in that I see no place for an "opposing viewpoint" in the presentation of doctrine or dogma. Having said that, in a state that has religious exemption, how can one tell a bona fide school that is not RA because of conviction, such as Bob Jones University (though on a smaller scale), and plain old *less-than-wonderfuls*? Thanks.
Steve Levicoff is probably best equipped to answer this question, since his specialty is religious diploma mills, and hopefuly he will provide a more complete answer here. With that said, however, I suspect that a person could count on one, perhaps two hands the unaccredited religious schools in the US whose programs have academic rigor equal to RA programs.
The regional accreditors do make large allowances in the case of religious schools. Many regionally accredited schools require faculty and sometimes students to sign restrictive statements of faith as a condition of hiring/admission. And obviously theological seminaries don't lose their accreditation because they favor the doctrines of their sponsoring denomination. As for myself, I believe that critical thinking is an integral part of scholarship. Whenever a body of knowledge is set aside as divinely revealed and immune from all questioning or doubt, you have academic problems. I believe that's true whether the revealed texts are by Maharishi, Marx or Mark. But as I have said above, I think that this is a bit of a straw man problem here. Frankly, I don't see why some religious schools run from accreditation, arguing that it would require them to compromise their faith. Conservative schools like Dallas Theological Seminary, Moody, Trinity International, Fuller, Christian Heritage and a hundred others do just fine being theologically conservative and RA. In my mind, Bob Jones is "less than wonderful", exactly because of its propensity to indoctrinate rather than to educate, and because of its refusal to submit to a recognized quality assurance process. In these kind of cases, I guess that it's a matter of acceptance by a particular community. If a sect withdraws from the demands of "the world" in the name of some kind of religious purity, then it can't expect unquestioning acceptance from the academic and business communities in that rejected world whose procedures have been evaded. If a non-accredited religious degree is intended for church use in that particular separated community, then I see no problem. These degrees would probably be better accepted in that context than secular degrees. But once you move beyond using religious degrees in a sectarian context to trying to use these degrees in secular contexts, you are probably on thin ice because of the lack of accreditation. The fact that your school accepts no deviation from a literal six-day creation or whatever, won't necessarily carry much weight when you try to get a job or get into graduate school with your non-accredited computer science degree. It's no longer relevant. A tiny number of schools like Bob Jones do seem to have developed a reputation for solid academics. But that reputation is still based on apocryphal stories, and may not be as widely accepted here in the San Francisco Bay Area as it would be in rural South Carolina.
[/B][/QUOTE] A tiny number of schools like Bob Jones do seem to have developed a reputation for solid academics. But that reputation is still based on apocryphal stories, and may not be as widely accepted here in the San Francisco Bay Area as it would be in rural South Carolina. [/B][/QUOTE] I would tend to agree. I do know that the UG program at BJU is state-approved and that UG credits have transferred to RA schools (I happened to be standing in line when a fellow transferred to Furman Univ.) I also know from talking to an accountant (another Furman alum) that BJU is THE place to go in SC for an accounting degree. The husband of a lady I used to work with got his CPA and was hired by the SC Dept of Revenue with a BA from BJ.
As Bill Dayson correctly noted, the RA's allow a lot of leeway with regard to academic freedom for religious (or, in legal parlance, "pervasively sectarian") degree-granting institutions. This ranges from adherence to doctrinal positions to issues of discrimination (such as restricting pastoral programs to male students). Therefore, a secular university is held to a different standard regarding academic freedom than, say, a Catholic seminary or a Fundie Bible college. There are, indeed, many credible schools that are unaccredited, some of which have chosen not to seek accreditation for doctrinal reasons. Examples would be the "separate Baptist" and IFCA-type (Independent Fundamental Churches of America) schools that advertise in the Fundie publication Sword of the Lord - an exception to the rule insofar as Sword has been careful to exclude most degree mills over the years. The key question with regard to academic credibility is, could a school become RA if they wanted to be? In most cases with regard to unaccredted Bible schools, the answer is no. It may be because of their size or because of their lack of financial resources, but it is generally not intrinsically because of their doctrinal position. The evidence for that is the many evangelical (both Fundie and Pentecostal), Catholic, and other pervasively sectarian schools that are regionally accredited. (Incidentally, Bob Jones University could be considered an exception. Although the school is pervasively sectarian, it is a comprehensive university that offers both religious and secular majors. That places it in a different category than, say, Dallas Theological Seminary or the Moody Bible Institute. Could BJU become RA? On a financial level, definitely. However, the key issue with BJU that would preclude their achievign RA has been their racial discrimination policies, which are not held by the vast majority of other sectarian schools.) The other responders to Doug's post are also correct in noting that an increasing number of Bible-based schools have lessened their resistance to both regional and ATS accreditation over the past several years. One of the most wwell known cases is Dallas Theological Seminary, often called the "Harvard of the evangelicals," which blew off ATS accreditation for most of their existence before finally going for (and being accepted by) ATS. There have been occasional controversies (such as Westminster Seminary's refusal to include women on their board of trustees - Westminster caved in to Middle States on that one, even though they probably did not have to since they had the U.S. Secretary of Education on their side), but these have not popped up for several years. Unfortunately, if one takes all unaccredited religious schools and places them in a big pot, the degree mills far outnumber the legitimate schools. This is not the fault of the legitimate schools, but due to the fact that religion creates enough exemptions that if someone wants to start a degree mill, the easiest way to do so is to claim that it is a religious school. Hence, many of the more well-known "major culprits" over the years have claimed to be religious (LaSalle, St. Johns, Lafayette, and more than one Trinity). This has been made easier for them in the 15 states in which religious degree-granting institutions are exempt from licensure, and these states have been degree mill havens for many years (historically, especially Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Missouri). So how do you tell them apart? I use the NIFI Criteria (the name comes from one of my books, now out of print. Even though the current set of criteria - available at http://levicoff.tripod.com/criteria.htm - has been "secularized" somewhat for general use, they were originally developed for determining the credibility of religious degree-granting institutions and credential-granting organizations (degree mills, counseling mills, ordination mills, etc.).
I concur fully with Steve! It is indeed unfortunate that so many "religious" degree mills exist. Legal loopholes, religious exemption, etc., provide an environment which seems to breed such entities. Russell
Truly & what a poor Christian witness. What is unfortunate is that many unaccredited religious schools will use the line that they do not want entaglements with the government (etc) when what they really mean is they are a *mill* and couldn't get any kind of recognized accreditation anyway. BJU is certainly an exception. I had written them at one point to ask why they did not pursue TRACS accreditation (Christian & Conservative). I received a very polite letter and booklet on their issues with accreditation. Basically, they are unwilling to compromise with anyone, even religious accreditors. BJU has certainly stood the test of time. They offer quality academics and their graduates get offered spots in top notch universites (graduate and professional programs). I have wondered how some of the negative publicity may have hurt their image with college admissions officers who previously were only aware of the quality of BJU but not the rather Politically Incorrect (and stupid whether it be for racial considerations or the world government nonsense) stand against interracial dating. Their now defunct policy became blown up in the media as if they banned minority students and faculty (which was not the case). However, if I remember what Steve Levicoff said, they were rather late in accepting African American students on campus (70's). At any rate, I would be concerned about accreditation unless you intend to use the degree in a very limited community. Even with BJU's stellar academic reputation, they do occasionally run into road bloacks. There are so many good accredited Christian programs out their that it seems like good stewardship to utilize them. If you absolutely have to go with an unaccredited school, I would stick to some of the better known (i.e. BJU of Pensecola Christian College). Both of these schools are into DE. North
You are certainly on target on this North! This "we don't want government interference" line is a cop out for most of the schools who use it. If they thought they could even come close to achieving recognized accreditation, most would do so without hesitation. But, as you so adequately state, most could not attain such accreditation if they tried. I don't know, however, how BJU or Pensacola Christian would be advantageous over a RA program. Both their tuition rates seem to be on par with RA schools, and there are RA options at both the master's and doctoral level which are just as flexible in terms of DL.
