Lance Weldy - Bju and Me: Queer Voices from the Worlds Most Christian University

BJU
and Me

BJU
and Me

QUEER VOICES from the WORLDS MOST CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY

EDITED by LANCE WELDY

THE UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA PRESS

Athens

2022 by the University of Georgia Press

Athens, Georgia 30602

www.ugapress.org

All rights reserved

Designed by Kaelin Chappell Broaddus

Set in 10/13.5 Miller Text by Kaelin Chappell Broaddus

Most University of Georgia Press titles are

available from popular e-book vendors.

Printed digitally

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

2022 by the University of Georgia Press

Athens, Georgia 30602

www.ugapress.org

All rights reserved

Designed by Kaelin Chappell Broaddus

Set in 10/13.5 Miller Text by Kaelin Chappell Broaddus

Printed and bound by XXXXXXXX

The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

Most University of Georgia Press titles are available from popular e-book vendors.

Printed in the United States of America

26 25 24 23 22 P 5 4 3 2 1

To my immediate family,

To my extended family,

To my BJU family,

To my chosen family,

Petimus Credimus.

contents

Earlier versions of stories from the following contributors were first published on the BJUnity.org website: Curt Allison, Bill Ballantyne, Andrew Bolden, David Diachenko, Blair Durkee, Elena Kelly, Rachel Oblak, Steve Shamblin, and Lance Weldy.

This project is the product of many voices, and I first need to thank all the contributors who willingly shared their stories for this collection. Your stories are important, powerful, and moving, and without you, there would be no book. Thanks so much for all your hard work and patience during the writing and revision process.

I also need to thank so many others who worked behind the scenes or provided encouragement, suggestions, opportunities, or venues to make this passion project come to fruition. Let me begin with my Francis Marion University family. The campus environment, especially my own English department, has always been friendly and collegial to me. When I came out at work, my thendepartment chair, Christopher Johnson, shook my hand and congratulated me. Chris, you will never know how much your act of kindness meant to me.

I need to thank a few more FMU colleagues in my department too. Beckie Flannagan, my current chair, thank you for your endless support and enthusiasm. To misquote the line from Katharine Hepburn to John Wayne in the movie Rooster Cogburn, Youre a credit to your sex, and Im proud to call you my friend. Meredith Love, youre a valuable member of our team. Thank you for your constant encouragement. Jo Angela Edwins, can we just take a step back for a minute and say how precious it is when you remind me were having a meeting? Thank you for keeping me on track during this whole process. Adam and Landon Houle, if you ever get the urge to change, please dont. Many thanks also to J. Mark Blackwell and Peter Whelan for helping me with my religious history and Latin questions.

Id also like to thank the FMU English Department for help in securing partial funding to travel to the Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS) at the CUNY Graduate Center, where I presented this book project in its early stages. FMU also supported this book project by awarding me a sabbatical and a summer research stipend. Im grateful to be part of a university that values diversity. Special thanks to the amazing staff at the FMU James A. Rogers Library, including those in circulation, interlibrary loan, and acquisitions, and especially Cynthia N. Allen, Steven L. Jackson, and Steven Sims. Librarians rock.

Next, Id like to thank my BJU family. That may sound weird, given the issues addressed in this book about BJUs fundamentalism. But I specifically mean people who are now part of the queer BJU community. Dan Marvin, thank you so much for reaching out to me and inviting me to join this community. It was extremely uncomfortable in the very beginning, but I needed that nudge to begin this journey to find myself. Thanks for your willingness to chat, listen, and provide advice. Colin Gray and Steve Shamblin, both of you were great sounding boards when I started the process of coming out. Thank you so much for all your help. Rich Merritt, thanks for being the catalyst for this writing project. Elijah T. Jones, youve been there for me at my lowest times and have seen me when I was tired and at my worst. Weve known each other while being both inside and outside of fundamentalism, and I am so grateful for your friendship. Scott Olsen, thanks for always listening. There are too many others in this queer BJU community to mention right now, but I am thankful for all of you.

So many other friends and allies offered encouragement during the development of this book. I want to especially thank Carrie Hintz for her feedback and suggestions during the early stages of this book. With her help, I presented my ideas about this project at CLAGS. Jason Tougaw, Cynthia Burack, and Jeff Mann were all gracious with their time, suggestions, and encouragement. Sarah Einstein provided valuable input on where to find a home for the book. G. Elijah Dann, who has edited his own amazing anthology about leaving fundamentalism, provided helpful feedback when this book was in its early proposal stages. Thanks also to the anonymous reviewers for the encouragement at the proposal and manuscript revision stages.

To RT, TC, and AC: you each have left an indelible mark on my life, have given me wonderful memories, and have taught me the value of queer fellowship. Thank you so much. Also, much thanks to Lisa Bayer and the rest of the staff at UGA Press for their support and patience during this publishing process. Finally, I want to tell my immediate and extended family how much I love them. I assumed most of them would not be thrilled with this book, so I refrained from mentioning them whenever possible out of respect, including in this section. But we lost two beloved family members in a devastating manner during this pandemic, so I need to take this opportunity to say how precious you are to me. I hope you understand.

BJU
and Me

Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.

II CORINTHIANS 6:17

The Title

Bob Jones University (BJU) is a Christian, fundamentalist, nondenominational school founded as Bob Jones College in 1927 in Panama City, Florida, by evangelist Bob Jones Sr. In 1933 it relocated to Cleveland, Tennessee, before finally settling in Greenville, South Carolina, in 1947. Until recently, the ruling administration of BJU was dynastic: Bob Jones Sr., Jr., III, and finally Stephen Jones each served as his generations university president. But when Stephen stepped down prematurely at the end of 2013 because of health issues, the university community was forced to choose someone outside the immediate family and elected Steve Pettit in 2014.

BJU might seem too obscure a subject for a book-length analysis, but it has been nationally recognized for decades. TIME magazine showcased BJU in a brief article for the schools twenty-fifth anniversary in 1952, and the New York Times reported on the death of Bob Jones Jr. in 1997. Of course, the school has made national news in other ways that I will refer to shortly, but no matter the decade, BJU has brand recognition as a bastion of fundamentalism. Liberty University might be the current national face of evangelical colleges, but BJU has equal footing as the United States premier fundamentalist institution of higher education.