We first wrote about the abrupt closing of Clarks Summit University about two months ago. This post features the detailed, candid analysis of Pastor Lee Kliewer (with his permission). CSU constituents who want to better understand what happened to their school will do well to read Kliewer’s discussion. It serves as a cautionary tale to higher education professionals, and to all who keep abreast of the current difficulties faced by evangelical institutions of higher education.
• • • • • • •
Go here for the archive of our 12-post series Seminaries at the Crossroads
• • • • • • •
Lee Kliewer has been there.
Pastor Kliewer is uniquely qualified to comment on the end of CSU. He grew up attending First Baptist Church in Johnson City NY, where the school was born as Baptist Bible Seminary in 1932. During his college days in Clarks Summit at BBC of PA, he sang tenor in the Collegians Quartet (listen to them here), representing the school regularly from 1974 through 1978. Lee earned two degrees from BBC, his bachelor’s degree in music (1979) and his graduate degree in ministry (1992). He spent 20 years in pastoral ministry before returning to his alma mater to serve as Registrar, Assistant Dean, and Dean of the Seminary. He then spent two years as the Executive Director for the President’s Office before he returned to the pastorate in 2018. He also serves today as Dean of the Northeast School of Theology & Ministry whose motto is “pastors teaching next generation pastors.”
I’ll summarize Kliewer’s big ideas in this post. I encourage you to take a deeper dive and read the entire essay, Drifting Past the Faithful Word: The Demise of a Once-Great Ministry School. You may not agree with everything Kliewer says, but you will appreciate his passion for CSU and you will better understand what happened there. He’s not trying to rub salt in anyone’s wounds—he’s speaking into the future of ministry education.
What happened at CSU?
Kliewer begins with a fine survey of the school’s 90-odd years of ministry. He acknowledges the external factors that make life difficult for Christian higher education these days, and shifts the focus to key internal factors that led to the demise of CSU. He believes there were three watershed issues:
- Mission Drift
- Absence of a Comprehensive Fundraising Strategy
- Incompetent Leadership
Kliewer then presents several specific points that unpack the big three:
- Drift in CSU governance with a trend toward appointing fewer pastors and more professionals from other fields to the board of trustees.
- Botched name change that showed the school’s drift from it historic identity and mission. Initially the school was renamed Summit University in 2015, but the institution that already existed under that name was not pleased with the infringement on their brand. Thus BBC became Clarks Summit University in 2016.
- Drift in the approach to student development, with relaxed expectations for church attendance and ministry involvement.
- Accommodation to current cultural trends without careful worldview thinking.
- Abandonment of historic church relationships.
- Expansion of educational programs into areas not tied to the school’s historic orientation to ministry disciplines. This led to immediate increased costs with any potential financial benefit years away.
- Inertia in financial matters with no dedicated fundraising professional on staff, leading to chronic budget deficits.
- The Final Curtain, with likely revocation of accreditation, furloughed faculty and staff, and an emergency letter to constituents.
Kliewer’s conclusion provides a telling comparison/contrast of CSU’s drift into demise and the steady commitment of Faith Baptist Bible College and Seminary (Ankeny IA) to its original mission. He also suggest steps of institutional accountability as CSU is buttoned up and its campus is sold.
Where do we go from here?
Kliewer’s frank analysis could be called many things—a recap, a critique, an exposé, even an autopsy. I read it as both eulogy and elegy. Pastor Lee ‘s life journey has been linked to CSU from his childhood days to today. He speaks of the school in appreciative words similar to what might be said at a best friend’s funeral. But there is an elegiac tone as well. Pastor Lee laments the demise of CSU. His criticisms are truths spoken in love and longing for what might have been.
Wounds from a sincere friend are better than many kisses from an enemy. (Prov 27:6 NLT)
In the end, people appreciate honest criticism far more than flattery. (Prov 28:23 NLT)
The proper response to an elegy is mourning. All those who loved CSU lament its closing, but life and ministry go on. CSU’s students have hopefully found opportunities to transfer to schools which will accept their CSU credits and help them pursue their educational goals without major difficulties. CSU faculty and staff will have a difficult time in finding new posts in similar educational institutions. CSU stakeholders need to accept some hard truths and seek wisdom for the future. Our Lord’s promise to build the Church and his mission mandate both remain in effect, despite the demise of a beloved human agency.
Let’s take an honest look back, learn from the past, and move forward wisely for the risen and coming Lord of the Church.
• • • • • • •
Please comment constructively below, whether or not you agree with this analysis. Contact Lee Kliewer at lkliewer1956@gmail.com.
Dave, I too am struck by the demise of good schools. I went to Grace Seminary and was struck by the great teachers then. Now it is a small shadow of what once was. I remember chapel with 200 men singing great hymns of the faith. I still have your syllabus on 1 Corinthians in my notes.
Thanks for weighing in Steve. A few years ago I would have agreed with you re GTS, but lately there’s some positive developments there. We’ll see what happens. I’d like to take credit for your I Corinthians notes, but I think those were probably written by my old faculty colleague and pickin’ buddy Gary Meadors!
David,
Illustrative of the leadership not “getting it” was a photo posted on the school’s website of a gathering of the president, faculty, staff, and some students(?) taken in front of Jackson Hall in the wake of school’s closure. All were smiling broadly. I asked my wife, “Do you smile at a funeral?”
Yep, seems tone deaf, eh? Whistling in the dark?
I have been dismayed by the lackluster, often calloused response of the administration in this process of school closure. There has been no accountability or sorrow in accepting responsibility for failures that led to the closing; it almost seems there is more to uncover, since there is a grave lack of transparency.
Sadly and unfortunately, nothing will come of these fair and necessary critiques. Like the political culture today, ministries (leadership and board members) shift the discussion, blame shift, and/or ignore accountability (DARVO). Those who bear significant responsibility for this failure will be welcomed to serve and lead in other schools, churches, and ministries.
Thanks for the comment Ted. I know it comes from experiencing realpolitik in evangelical circles. I’m not quite that pessimistic. God can bring change if people take to heart what happened at BBC.
I had to look up DARVO: “deny, attack, and reverse victim & offender”. RIght on, that’s such a common dodge these days. I see it going on right now at Cornerstone University, especially the RVO part.
Looking back, I have vague memories of our paths crossing as GTS students and BBC faculty. I wish I had gotten to know you better. All the best!
Hi Dr. Turner,
Thanks for the post and link to the analysis by Lee Kliewer. One question that has rumbled around in my mind was on the student pool they were drawing from. He cites Paul Golden positively, who mentioned that some of the changes were driven by pragmatic need for more students. I haven’t been tracking but is the number of GARBC churches overall (or particuarly in the east) holding steady, growing, or declining? Or further, is the the number of GARBC churches committed to classical dispensationalism holding steady? I thought his analysis of factors was helpful, but I also wondered if the pool was shrinking so much, that it drove change from the model that served BBC well so long.
Thanks,
Andrew
Good to hear from you Andy!
I think the shrinking student pool is a reality for all higher education. 35 years ago Paul Beals was already tracking the decline of the GARBC in terms of both the number of churches and in the membership of the churches. I have nothing specific since then or about the east in particular, but I think the decline has continued. I think it’s common knowledge that the GARBC in the NE tends to be quite conservative, and that many of the stalwarts out there viewed CSU as untrustworthy because of issues like not affirming the KJV-only position and openness to contemporary Christian music.
I think classic dispensationalism is held widely in the GARBC. The GARBC doctrinal statement tends to follow the New Hampshire Confession (1833) fairly closely except for eschatology, where it affirms the classic dispie approach. Folks who do not affirm the pretrib rapture would fall afoul of the statement.
Are you implying that holding to classic dispensationalism is a factor in the GARBC and CSU decline?
Andy and David: thank you for sharing your perspectives on this. A few comments:
When I cited Paul Golden’s post in my article, I believe that Paul was referring to the trend that many of our churches have stopped active recruiting / encouragement of their teens to pursue full-time ministry; hence, Paul felt that was a factor that negatively impacted student enrollment at CSU. I would concur, but I also affirm that CSU did very little to turn the tide on this; they stopped going to churches and Christian schools to recruit students, and basically shunned their historic relationship with churches in the NE. Churches gave up on the school, because it no longer showed an interest in churches and was pursuing a path of mission drift.
Concerning historic dispensationalism: my perspective is that yes, most of the NE churches firmly embrace this hermeneutic. Our new school, Northeast School of Theology & Ministry, affirms this position and teaches it in our curriculum. The other issues mentioned: contemporary music is not a big issue, maybe a 75/25 split; most of the NE churches now regularly use blended worship styles, while some hold to more traditional church music. KJV only issue: is really a non-issue in most NE churches. Most of them use multiple translations in pulpit and teaching ministries; there would be very few, if any, that would hold to a militant KJV only position.
On the GARBC: the national fellowship has been in decline for years. In the heyday of the 70’s, they had 1600 churches and would have 4,000 people attend their annual conference in June, usually held in a large public sports arena. For the past 10 years, I believe their membership is now down around 1,000 churches, and their annual conference runs around 300-400 attendees, now held in church facilities. My personal opinion is that they lost a lot of momentum and interest when they dropped their approval system for schools and mission boards in the early 2000’s, creating a wedge with many stakeholders; after that there was a mass exodus. This past June, they elected a new national representative, Clare Jewell, who is a really good guy and has a lot of experience in church planting; I am hoping he will be able to bring back some priorities that the GARBC has lost.
I hope these thoughts may give some clarification.
That’s really helpful Lee. Thanks for steering me away from two issues that I thought were relevant: KJV and CCM.
If I read you correctly, you’re saying that churches tend not to emphasize the calling to ministry as much as they used to, and that CSU didn’t maintain relationships with stakeholder churches and schools. So CSU losing touch with the churches, and the churches with CSU, wasn’t a matter of issues but of indifference?
You’re right to call attention to the GARBC dropping the college approval system over 20 years ago. I recall that when that happened, Cornerstone leadership was happy. But that led to Cornerstone losing touch with the GARBC churches. In their effort to make new friends, they neglected to keep the old, as the old saying goes.
I wonder how many churches simply left the GARBC in search of fresh imaging? Beverly and I are members of Chapel Pointe, Hudsonville MI, which in a previous lifetime was known as Baldwin Heights Baptist Church. New name, more contemporary imaging, same old doctrinal statement.
David: in your most recent comment, yes, I would say that indifference toward challenging teens to full-time ministry definitely was the larger factor in driving CSU away from churches and vice versa. CSU would complain that churches no longer sent them students, so they could not maintain enrollment numbers in ministry majors; this in part led to developing expanded academic programs in non-ministry majors. However, the other side of the coin is that churches relied on BBC&S for years to look for qualified pastors, youth pastors, Christian school teachers, missionaries; when the school was no longer providing those ministry leaders, churches lost confidence in the school in what they saw as mission drift. Of course, some of the issues of that mission drift that I cited in my paper caused an even greater erosion of churches trusting the school, i.e. doctrinal drift away from Baptist church polity, dispensationalism, drift away from spiritual formation in student development, embracing social justice platforms, etc.
Most of the churches in New York gave up on CSU a number of years ago. I should make one distinction on my previous comments: the PARBC (Pennsylvania Regular Baptist Association) has had a history and reputation of being much more of the militant fundamentalist-separatist variety. They broke with the national fellowship back in 1990 over the perceived “apostasy” in the GARBC, and at the same time they pushed away from BBC; they tried to get rid of GARBC approval of Cedarville, Grand Rapids, etc. because they were “going soft on doctrine and standards”. This group definitely consists of more churches that tend to be KJV only, anti CCM music/worship, hair and dress issues, etc. — very ultra-conservative. Very different than the NY churches.
As you observed, many churches during this time pulled out of the GARBC; they were tired of the infighting over tertiary/preference issues, and decided that they could do church and ministry just fine without that wasted energy. Also, I am familiar with Chapel Pointe; my good friend Jim Jeffery is one of your pastors, as I think you previously mentioned.
Lee, thanks for extending and nuancing the discussion.
If zoological terms provide a valid analogy, seems like there is a symbiotic relationship between churches and the educational institutions those churches found and support. In the case of CSU, It seems that both the churches and the school played a part in the deteriorating relationship. So it’s not a matter of blame-shifting but blame-sharing. We have spoken of the decline of the GARBC in general, and I wonder if this is especially noteworthy in the northeast, specifically NY and PA.
Thanks for clarifying the respective situations in PA and NY. If my wife Beverly’s home church in Meadville PA is any indication, things are much more militant now that they were way back when in the 1970’s.
Re dispensationalism, I remember how Paul Tassell (former GARBC National Rep, RIP) once spoke on the baptist distinctives at our church in GR. He summarized the baptist distinctives using the acrostic, and then said the GARBC had added one more- dispensationalism. I took that as a tacit admission that dispensationalism was not a historic distinctive of baptists. That doesn’t mean dispensationalism is wrong or incompatible with baptist doctrine, just that it is a relatively recent development held by some baptist churches. Speaking as a progressive dispensationalist, I wish eschatological details were not a test of fellowship.
I appreciate the article and the comments. When I was in school in the mid to late 90’s, BBC seemed to be doing very well and had a great connection with churches. I traveled with the choir and the puppet team to many churches and even did a spring tour to Florida. One of the other schools I looked at during that time was Lancaster Bible College. Back then it seemed smaller than BBC but also in the same vein of ministry. About 12-15 years ago I remember a friend from Pennsylvania saying that LBC was doing well and growing while BBC seemed to be struggling and getting smaller. If he noticed that back then, I wonder what decisions the two schools made that helped one to succeed and is still open, from what I know, and one to close.
Thanks for weighing in on the situation Layton. You raise a good question about why CSU failed and Lancaster is still operating. Pastor Kliewer made the same sort of comparison with CSU and Faith Baptist in Iowa. This is the sort of thing doctoral dissertations in higher education could investigate.
For me it comes down to the interplay of internal and external factors. CSU experienced attrition in student body numbers like [nearly?] all Bible colleges did. Along with that apparently came attrition in support that other Bible colleges have not experienced to the same extent that CSU did. Lack of support is tied to the school’s lack of effectiveness in maintaining relationships with churches and deep-pocket donors. The name change and attempt to revive the school by adding non-ministry programs also seem to be factors in support declining.
Some folks think post-mortem analysis is useless, but for me it goes back to the quote I’ve seen attributed to several different people to the effect that those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.