Episode Transcript
[00:00:09] Speaker A: Hey, everybody. Thanks for tuning in to the recovering fundamentalist podcast. This is episode number 174, number two of our twelve n 24. We're your host, Brian Nathan. I'm JC, fellas. Been since last month.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: How you doing, man? I'm doing fantastic.
I actually had some medical treatment. The result came out great.
We're in a good season.
Hope church, Danville God is, you know, just doing great things. We've got a lot of new faces, young adults coming. I've been really excited. Nathan was there to kick off the series at the first of this month because I was out of the pulpit with those treatments. Did an absolutely incredible job.
I actually sent him a text after and I said, you didn't just hit the ball and you didn't just hit the ball out of the park, but there was no cover on the ball. You remember when you were growing up and somebody would hit an old.
[00:01:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:09] Speaker B: Cover would come off. I said when you got finished, there was nothing but a ball of rubber bands laying on the ground and the COVID was beside of it. So anyway, I'm doing fantastic. Denise and I are now empty nesters and I have cried and cried and cried and cried. I have to keep my girls doors to their rooms closed. I'm trying to cook every dinner I think they love just so I can entice them back over to the house for dinner. And it's a new season. Being an empty nester is weird, fellas. JC, you'll be there in about 200 years when your 14th child grows up.
[00:01:47] Speaker A: But.
[00:01:50] Speaker B: It'S really a weird season. And at the same time, I'm starting to pray through. I couldn't do this initially, but I'm starting to pray through, God help me see the beauty in this season and that Denise and I can use this season in a way that we leverage it for your glory and for the sake of the.
[00:02:09] Speaker C: Yes.
Yes. Well, Brian, it was incredible being up there with you. I always love coming to Danville and visiting any of the other Hope churches. I'm going to be with JC next week and excited about going to Hope church Gatusa. But when you were talking about me hitting the COVID off the ball, first of all, thank you for being so gracious to me. I appreciate that and I think you view me through a filter of a very dear friend. But thank you for saying that. It's always good to hear good feedback on that. But when you said that, it reminded me of the episode of the Office. Have you ever seen the one where Michael Scott is leaving and he's moving away, and he goes down to the warehouse and he grabs the basketball and throws it over his shoulder to try to make it in the hoop. And he says, all right, see you guys later. And he throws it and he misses it. Well, then he does like 25 different retakes of that. And I don't know if he ever does hit it, but he's just like over and over and over and over again. So I remember standing in my front yard as a twelve year old boy and we were playing baseball with a wooden bat and it was cracked. And so I got my budy to pitch it to me and I tried to hit it and I wanted to have one of those moments, Major League Baseball moments. You hit the bat and it cracks. We did that, I think, 4000 times. And finally I ended up hitting it on the ground to crack it a little bit more. And then he finally threw it and I hit the ball and the bat cracked and flew off at him. It was this incredible moment. But when you were talking about that, that made me think about it.
[00:03:43] Speaker B: Hey, what is the. Like, we only watch good godly shows like the Andrew Griffith show and little house on the prairie. What is this the office you're.
[00:03:52] Speaker C: I'm talking about what we're watching?
Yeah, I only watch a very, very pure and wholesome. And I'm sure we'll get emails about it, but I'm more of a parks and rec guy. I like both of those, man. I can't choose which one, but there are some great episodes on those.
[00:04:09] Speaker B: I've never seen those, but you're missing out, Brian. I'll make sure and head over to prime video later and watch a little Michael Landon highway to heaven.
[00:04:16] Speaker C: Come on. I've seen many of those.
Funny thing is, my mom used to have to edit those before we could watch them because every once in a while there would be a cuss word.
[00:04:26] Speaker A: Really?
[00:04:26] Speaker C: Angel. Michael Landon would cuss just occasionally when he got real mad about.
[00:04:31] Speaker B: So maybe that just proves some of the words that we've called curse words are just slang words. Maybe an angel says mean. Can it really be?
[00:04:40] Speaker C: Come on, come on.
[00:04:42] Speaker A: Are they really curse words? Because there's no verse that says these are curse words. I know we won't get in that conversation.
[00:04:48] Speaker C: Me and my wife, RFP is recommending cussing. Everybody's been waiting for this. No, I will try and say it's okay to cuss. Nathan never said that.
[00:04:58] Speaker B: I said if an angel did it. But I'll also say this.
If you want to expand your vocabulary, make sure you're King James only because that does bring in a lot more words that does.
[00:05:12] Speaker C: But I also wanted to say Hope church, Asheville, going incredible. We've had our first baptism service. Baptized three the other day. That was just amazing. Had a couple families join. A family of five join this week. And God is doing amazing things. Our youth group is kicking off. So, guys, I know we're pastors and we've got to celebrate those things when God does something special in our group. And JC, I know Katusa is blowing up, man. Y'all need a tent rather than a building.
It's a very large one.
[00:05:43] Speaker A: It's incredible. God's just adding to our number daily. For real. And, man, this Sunday, one of my favorite baptisms we've done here at Hope church, Catusa, in the last year that we've been going, it was an incredible example of disciples. Making disciples making disciples. We have a guy that joined us when we first started. His name is Joey. He was witnessing to a guy that he works with named Jamie, who. Jamie's story is absolutely crazy. Drugs, years of drugs. Years of just completely opposite of anything Christian. And about a year ago, Jamie gave his life to Jesus. And I got to baptize Jamie as our first person baptized here at Hope church a year ago. Well, over this last year, Jamie is just on fire. And he got teamed up at work with a guy named Tim. And Sunday, Tim got baptized, Jamie led him to the Lord.
And Sunday, Joey and Jamie both got to baptize Tim. And it was just this incredible picture of disciples making disciples making disciples. And I was like, that's what the church is all about. I mean, I literally did nothing. I just stood on the stage and watched this happen. And I was like, it's incredible what's happening here. And honestly, we started Halloween last year or 2022, and just people show up every Sunday and I'm like, are you all sure you're really coming here?
Am I really pastoring a church? And I'm loving it, man. I went to a coffee shop this morning. Three of our guys sitting there just in discipleship. We're doing triads, where there's three of them, they'll meet for about six months, and then in six months, they will branch off and get three other guys and do a triad. So we go from three to nine and just watching discipleship happen, that, you know, we're going to get into that conversation today with Dr. Steve Pettit, the former president of Bob Jones at university. We're going to talk about discipleship and christian education. It's a great conversation that we're going to have today on the episode. But before we jump in, we want to let you know about some things that are happening in the life of the recovering fundamentalist podcast. Of course, Nathan, I see your shirt there. For the sake of the gospel.
[00:07:51] Speaker B: Yes, sir.
[00:07:53] Speaker A: February or March? What is this? February. March. What is this episode?
[00:07:58] Speaker C: February.
[00:07:59] Speaker A: February. So it's February. That means we have eight more episodes before we are in Katusa county right here at Hope Church. Katusa, for the sake of the gospel conference in 2024. And we'd love for you to go ahead and start making plans now. It's going to be the first weekend of November, and we want you to come and be part of it. It's going to be an awesome time. No registration needed, no sign ups. It's free. Come and be part of what God is going to do here in our lives at for the sake of the gospel conference. 20.
[00:08:28] Speaker B: Amen.
[00:08:29] Speaker A: And then just a couple of months later, Nate, where are we going?
[00:08:32] Speaker C: January 2025. We're going back to Israel, and we do have openings. We have quite a few guys signed up, many of them paid, because we were supposed to be going in January of this year, and with everything that's happened, we were not able to do that. But they're still registered and paid up to go on the trip in 2025, and that just gives us more time to open this up for other people to come. We want you to be a part of this. This trip is incredible. We still can't get over the experience we had last January, and we want you to come and be a part of this. It is a pastor's trip. It's half price for what a normal Israel trip would be. So please get on our website, check it out. Pastors, we want you to come with us.
[00:09:16] Speaker B: Hey, by the way, it also needs to be mentioned, Israel will be safer now than it was before.
[00:09:22] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:09:23] Speaker B: They are taking huge strides toward even their approach to their border with weapons caches and all of that, and weapons manufacturers that have been destroyed. Sign up with confidence and know that they are taking steps. It will be a lot safer than it even was the last time we were there. And we had no issues when we were there. It was just all hummus and fun.
[00:09:51] Speaker A: We just want to be honest with you. We are getting nothing from this trip. There's no kickback that we're getting. I've heard some people saying, oh, they're pushing this Israel trip pretty hard. Here's the only kickback we get. We get to go to Israel with a group of pastors. And let me tell you, it is life changing. There was a group of 40 plus of us that went last year, and all 40 of us, it has dynamically, radically changed our preaching, how we approach the scriptures, because we've seen it with our eyes. And this is an incredible trip. You're going to see a lot of things in a short amount of time. It's going to be like drinking from a fire hydrant. But, man, it is so worth it. And we want you to go with us to Israel in January of 2025. Go to the recoveringfundamentalist.org, click on the Israel tab and sign up today.
[00:10:39] Speaker B: Yes, we left fundamentalism. We no longer cash in on Israel trips.
[00:10:44] Speaker A: You're right. Oh, man.
As we approach Easter, my mind goes back to that trip as we're walking the Via de la Rosa, as we went into the garden tomb, as we stood there and looked at Calvary like Easter. These last two years has just drastically changed for me. Since I've seen it with my own eyes. I've literally physically stood in an empty tomb.
Guys, I'm ready to go right now.
[00:11:11] Speaker C: Gethsemane, man, that experience of praying with you guys in Gethsemane and the picture we have of that is just.
Man, what an experience.
[00:11:21] Speaker A: Floating on the sea of Galilee and watching a storm roll just. There's so much stuff.
[00:11:27] Speaker C: Preaching under the american flag on the sea of Galilee. What an experience.
[00:11:33] Speaker A: Why did they play the national anthem on this?
[00:11:36] Speaker B: You can't make that up.
[00:11:37] Speaker A: Well, we got a great episode for you today. Like we've already said today, we have Dr. Steve Pettit, former president of Bob Jones University. You can find out more information about him by going to Steve Pettit.com. And we have a great conversation for you today. So, guys, I think we should get this show started. You all ready?
[00:11:55] Speaker B: I'm ready.
[00:11:56] Speaker C: I'm ready.
[00:11:58] Speaker A: Let's go.
[00:12:09] Speaker D: I.
[00:12:15] Speaker E: The recovering fundamentalist podcast starts in three.
[00:12:18] Speaker C: You know what makes women stupid is.
[00:12:20] Speaker E: Called Jesus was not a bartender.
[00:12:23] Speaker D: High back.
[00:12:24] Speaker B: Two.
[00:12:24] Speaker E: You have lost your mind. Long tongue heifers have given me a lot more trouble than heifers wearing bridges, and you know that. Say amen right there.
[00:12:33] Speaker D: One. Let me tell you something, bozo. They'll be selling frosties in hell for this boy puts on a pair of pink underwear. Amen. I suck my thumb till I was.
[00:12:43] Speaker E: 14 years of age. Hi, man.
We'd like to do a song that was written by this young man, Carson Aaron, entitled he's not done.
[00:13:11] Speaker D: Courage believer, the work isn't done. God loved us so much that he gave us his son to make us new.
He's not done.
Just stop and notice all of the ways he's working around you every day and sing his praise he's not done.
Every sunset he sees work that he's done the joy of the morning knows what's to come so don't lose heart he's not done.
Perhaps you are weary from troubles and trials. You've carried your burden for many long miles, but you're not alone.
He's not done.
He calls to the weary, come find your rest. He takes up his towel and gives you his best he knows your faith he's not done.
You have been flying though you can't see that he is sustaining you perfectly also don't lose heart, he's not done.
By Calvary's victory we keep marching on held fast by our savior the strong cornerstone and we don't lose heart because he's not done when he ascended, he said, tell me that I rescue sinners and I give them peace so we march on he's not done.
We won't retreat, we won't run in fear, we'll run like a lion till everyone hears that he's not done he's not done.
I will be with you till the end of time you are my chosen and you are my child so don't lose heart he's not done.
[00:17:05] Speaker A: Well, good afternoon, everybody. Thanks for tuning in to the Recovering fundamentalist podcast. We are your host, Nathan Brian JC, and we are joined today by Dr. Steve Pettit. And it is good to have you on the podcast with us today. Nathan, will you do an intro?
[00:17:21] Speaker C: Yes, I would love to. So I had the privilege of meeting Dr. Pettit a couple years back when I moved to Anderson, South Carolina, and I had a couple of students in our college ministry at gospel Light. And I began to visit them on campus, and they began getting involved with our student ministry. We had some great leaders from there. So that took me into the world of Dr. Pettit, who was the president of Bob Jones University at the time. And he graciously had a meeting with me a couple years ago, and we sat in his office and talked. He hosted me at chapel one day. I didn't speak in chapel, but I was there when Mark Ward was speaking in chapel, and I got to go backstage and get a tour of everything, and they were just incredibly, incredibly gracious to me, and I really enjoyed my time being on campus I was probably on campus eight or ten times meeting with different people and going to different meetings. So had the privilege of meeting Dr. Pettit, and I sent him a message a couple of weeks ago, and he said he'd love to join us for an interview. So, Dr. Pettit, I've waited a long time for this. Thank you so much for joining us on the recovering fundamentalist podcast.
[00:18:35] Speaker E: Thank you, Nathan. It is a privilege to be with you guys today.
[00:18:40] Speaker C: Well, we usually start off by asking our guests just to share their story. Would love to hear your background and how you ended up in fundamentalism and leading a college and your experience there. And the theme of our season is discipleship. So we really want to, after we hear your story, talk to you about discipleship and about your experience in christian education.
[00:19:06] Speaker E: Well, Nathan, thank you. And I'm thrilled to be able to speak about discipleship because it's something that I've been involved in pretty much throughout all of my christian experience. I grew up in South Carolina. My dad was from Kentucky. My mother was from South Georgia.
They met and married while my dad was in the United States Air Force. And my dad went to the University of Georgia for his master's degree in agricultural economics. And when he finished, he got a job working for the federal land bank system. And the headquarters for the region is in Columbia, South Carolina. So when I was three years old, we moved to Columbia, and that's where I grew up.
My family, mom and dad and a family of four of us. I was the oldest of four children.
I grew up in pretty much, I would say, sort of a typical southern home.
I was born in 1955, and so all of my education up until high school was in the 1960s. And so I went to public elementary school, public junior high school, and been in public high school.
My family attended a Presbyterian church in Columbia, so I went to church as long as I can remember, dad was a deacon and a Sunday school teacher. So I grew up with a basic understanding of gospel. I would say bible stories. That's probably the best way for me to put it.
I, of course, remember our worship services and so forth.
When I got into high school, 1970, my dad made a decision that I think changed the direction of our family, and that is he dropped out of church, and both he and mom completely. And he said, son, it's now your decision. And so, like father, like son, I dropped out as well. And I'd go to church a couple of times a year. And that really was kind of a drifting period in my life, my life was pretty much sports on the weekdays and parties on the weekends. And that was really the life that I was living.
But during my junior year of high school, we had a parachurch organization come into our public school called the Young Life. And they started having almost like kind of Bible studies youth meetings. And I would get invited and I rarely would attend, but I did go occasionally, and it was really at that time that I started to develop somewhat of a spiritual interest.
But what really made the difference was a number of those friends of mine went to a retreat up in the mountains of North Carolina, and when they came back to school, the story was they had gotten religious. They got saved. That was the term they were using. And I did not know what that meant. I didn't understand what it meant to be saved.
And so for the first time in my life, I actually came to understand the gospel through a friend of mine who had been born again. And he told me he had been saved. And I said, I don't understand what that means. Explain it to me. And he did, and he explained the gospel. And for the first time in my life, I really grasped my sinfulness, the judgment that came because of sin and the work of Christ on the cross to pay for my sins. I knew the stories, but I'd never had anybody put it all together for me. And so they asked me if I wanted to be saved, and I said, no, I'm not ready yet. And so instead of getting better, I got worse.
Legal drinking age in South Carolina in 1973 was 18 years old, and so at 18, I was in a bar or with friends, out partying almost every night of high school. Finished high school in 1974, and I decided to go to the Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina.
I went there because I wanted my life to make a difference. I wanted to do something with my life. And I felt like if I went to any other school, I probably would drift more into a party lifestyle. And so I went to the citadel. Of course, that was a rude awakening to life. And I made the varsity soccer team I walked on as a freshman, and there were only two freshmen on the team. One was a scholarship player and then myself. And the scholarship player was from Buford, South Carolina. His name was Maxie Birch, and Maxie had become a Christian his senior year of high school.
And so during my freshman year, Maxi would share the gospel with me as we would walk to the practice field, walk back, we would travel together, we room together, we'd stay in motel rooms together.
Maxi was liked to me, and he was sharing with me what I'd heard in high school, but the providence of God working in my heart, taking me out of the world that I'd been in.
Easter Sunday, 1975, coming back from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina for a big Easter party, spring break weekend, I turned on the radio, driving through the low country of South Carolina and listened to a preacher on the radio, preached the gospel and made it really clear. And on that day, listening to the preacher, I accepted the Lord as my savior. As a college and my life, I knew something had happened within me because I really wanted to learn the Bible.
But as we would say, I had a foot in the church, a foot in the world, and I was in the process of God sanctifying me. And that summer, 1975, I broke my left ankle playing in an indoor soccer match and that set me out of the season. And what was really the most important thing, which was an idol in my life at the time, God really took away graciously, not permanently. And I realized it was the hand of God. And I could tell you lots of stories, but basically I began to pursue christian friendships and I knew that I needed to make decisions.
There was a core group of guys at the Citadel that were there then that are still connected with each other. Even last night I was in a prayer meeting with former graduates of the citadel that are my age group, that we meet once or twice a month online Zoom calls for Bible study and prayer. And these are guys that have gone on to be extremely successful in life, some of them in ministry, wonderful guys.
And so I began to really grow my sophomore year. And it was to two elements. One was the fellowship of christian athletes. But I would say the dynamic growth spiritually was not attending, but being involved with the material and philosophy of the navigators.
And so I attended a conference in Christmas of 1975 in Atlanta, Georgia, with about 2500 people attending. It was a navigator conference. And the navigator's thing was discipleship.
And I learned, while I was a cadet at the citadel, I learned how to disciple people.
And not only that, and it wasn't head knowledge, it was all practical because we were surrounded by 2000 guys and evangelism was easy. I just had to wake up and go out and line up in company and formation and go to the mess hall and eat and go to class and go to practice. And I was surrounded by unbelievers. So I began to share the gospel all the time. Now, it took me a while because I was very fearful in the beginning, like we all are, but once you get your feet wet, then the power and the presence of God kicks in. So we were sharing the gospel, and at the same time I was learning the philosophy of one on one multiplication of disciples. The multiplication addition is much slower than multiplication. So if I disciple two guys this year and those two guys disciple two guys the next year, if you do the math, you reach the world within a generation. And so I bought into the philosophy, and that was at the very core of my christian experience.
And I learned that the discipleship methods that I've used in ministry for 44 years were learned as a cadet at the citadel. I learned how to have a quiet time. I learned what it meant to be spirit filled. I learned how to share the gospel. I started memorizing scripture. By the time I went to Bob Jones University, I had memorized books of the Bible.
[00:28:17] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:28:18] Speaker E: So I really didn't go to Bob Jones University or seminary to really learn how to live the christian life. I'd already learned that. I learned more of understanding scripture, interpretation of scripture, how to preach, how to put together sermons, all that kind of thing.
While I was at the citadel, I began to work through, in my mind where I was going to land down ecclesiastically because I was a member of a presbyterian church that at the time I didn't realize it was a liberal church. And there was a question mark of the inspiration of scripture, the miracles of the Bible, so forth, definitively. I don't recall ever hearing the gospel preached the good news and the call to repentance and faith.
So I realized it was a liberal denomination and the PCA movement was only a couple of years old.
And my family, we were living in Columbia.
And between my sophomore and junior year of college, my dad ended up getting a job within the framework of the farm credit administration. And that job was to be a lobbyist to Congress.
And so we moved to the Alexandria, Virginia area. And I've been a Christian for a little over a year. And I was really growing. And I was struggling with the matter of baptism because of my presbyterian roots. And all my friends were Baptist. And they kept telling me I needed to be baptized by immersion. And I told them why. I said, I'm not going to do anything if the Bible doesn't teach it. And I said, just because you told me I should be, it's got to be in the Bible. Well, as I began to read the Bible, I came under the conviction that baptism was by immersion for believers. And I began to attend a baptist church not far from my home. And I went there and I noticed a couple of things about it. They had a full house on Sunday.
They seemed to be a little stricter than some of the other churches that I went to, but I liked it because I really loved the family emphasis, the christian homes. And the pastor was a Bob Jones University graduate. And the only thing that I had heard about Bob Jones while I was a cadet was that Bob Jones was really straight on the gospel. But they were off on other stuff. That was the only thing I'd ever heard. So I was a little skeptical. But what I discovered was the pastor was a very godly man. He preached through the Bible, which I didn't know at the time, but that was expositional preaching. But he was a very humble, godly man who really loved me and so took me under his wing. And so because of his influence, I ended up visiting Bob Jones University while I was a cadet.
And to be honest with you, I was there on campus. There was probably, I don't know, 4500 students.
There were two things that came across in my mind. Number one was, is this really real? Because I'd been in a secular environment just slugging it out to survive living for God and spreading the, you know, we were like navy Seals. We were front line living it out. And I went there and, man, it was like, wow.
All the girls were in dresses, all the guys were in coats and ties. I went, okay, is this like really real? And then the second thing was I began to meet people and discovered that there were some wonderful people there, wonderful guys, love the Lord, wanted to live for God.
But I never thought about going there. But I began to realize, and there's so much to the story, it take a long time to tell it. But short story was I really came under conviction that separation from liberalism is a command of God. Come out from among them and be separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing. And so I began to struggle. All of my friends at the time were Southern Baptists and they were great guys and they loved the Lord and they were in good Bible preaching churches. But at the time, five out of the six seminaries were liberal, and that would include Southern Seminary, Southeastern Seminary, New Orleans Seminary. The only exception was, you know, I'd come out of liberalism and I didn't want to have anything to do with it. So I actually ended up going to Bob Jones because they were a leading institution that had taken a separatist position against liberalism.
And I said, I buy into that. I really buy into that. So that was really why I went there.
I had a wonderful education, tremendous teachers. I felt like I really learned the word of God.
Their theological position was middle of the road. This would have been back in the 70s.
So it was not reformed by any means. And of course, theology has been shaped over the years, especially since the. It's not the same thing.
I mean, the theological positions are similar, but things change over time. But I really appreciate their commitment to the authority of scripture and to say what the Bible says. Here's what it a. I'm more of a classic Bob Jones theologian, which means that you embrace tensions. You take the tensions, they're there. You embrace, know all that the father gives me will come to me, and him that cometh unto me, I will in no eyes cast out. There's a tension there. I like it, and so I embrace it. I take it.
I don't have to explain it. I just have to acknowledge it. So I went to Bob Jones and finished in 1980.
And of course, fundamentalism in 1980 is very different than 2024. So I was a happy camper. I loved it, loved the church. Church was super evangelistic. I went to Southside Baptist in Greenville, South Carolina, and I loved that was, that was my background.
But to realize I chose the route that I ended up going.
I didn't grow up in a christian school, a christian family. So my experience was. And Nathan, we kind of talked about. My experience was very different.
[00:35:34] Speaker C: Yeah, I have a question about that. So you chose to go into fundamentalism as a rejection of liberalism.
[00:35:45] Speaker E: And also understand in those days this was in the know, your, your fundamentalist movement was a separatist movement that really came about, depending on how you want to look at it, really.
The history of fundamentalism has always been a separatist movement. And Bob Jones transcends the history of that all the way back to 1920s, which is your modernist fundamentalist movement. And then when you get up into the 50s, then you have the issue with new evangelicalism, which was probably focused upon Billy Graham and his crusade. And I would have bought into that absolutely, because in my estimation, that was working with liberals at the time, that I could not have done it in my own conscience because of where I came from.
You have the tensions within evangelicalism over separatist positions, and I understood that and I actually embraced it because it made sense to me.
But I also had many, many friends who would not have been in that realm, and they were Bible believers and have lived for the Lord and lived faithfully for the Lord. But I also realized that there were practical results as well. And it's not just a position, but there's some practicalities to it of being set apart from the world unto God. And I embraced that because I felt like there was a sincere desire to be set apart from the world and to be committed to the Lord. And I saw that and I appreciated that and wanted that. And so I had been in a situation that I felt there was a broadness that I was uncomfortable with.
[00:37:48] Speaker C: Yeah. Did you discover anything within fundamentalism that was kind of to the other extreme? Did you experience any legalism or anything that you weren't really expecting when you came into fundamentalism?
[00:38:04] Speaker E: I didn't feel that way. I felt that I got to know people that were good people and they were sincere people.
And like any movement, you have quirkiness within personalities.
So I, I acknowledged that there was quirkiness, and that's just not what I was really interested in.
But you're going to have that. But I appreciated the commitment to being set apart from liberalism and also an emphasis of being set apart from the world that I didn't feel like was emphasized in evangelicalism in what I was experiencing. And so really it was a breath of fresh air for.
[00:39:03] Speaker A: You know, Brother Pettit, being a former Tennessee Temple student and knowing a lot of our listeners were Tennessee Temple, Howes Anderson.
Some of the things that you just said when we were students, Bob Jones was even looked at as liberal in certain areas.
What would you say to those that are listening that say that they would find that distinction between Tennessee Temple Halz Anderson and the Bob Jones back in the day?
[00:39:29] Speaker E: Yeah, well, I've got a lot of thoughts about that.
I was an evangelist for 29 years, and so when I started evangelism in 1985, I was going to almost any and all kinds of Baptist Bible churches that would have been within the broad fundamentalism of the day.
Fundamentalism, to me, if I could illustrate it this way, was like a big pie that was cut up in lots of slices, like you would cut a pie.
And those slices represented differing groups, but like slices of pie in a pie tin, they touch each other.
But as the years rolled by, it was almost like you take a piece out and put it on a plate and suddenly you've got plated eight pieces of pie and they never touch each other.
So I would say when I went to Bob Jones, the movement was all in the py ten, and we had a lot of interaction with each other and there were just differences, understandably. I had one guy say to me, man, you're on the far right. I said, you haven't even met the far right.
So I would have never viewed any of those groups on the far right when it came to what they basically believed, because they believed the Bible and they believed the doctrine of scripture and how to be saved and so forth.
I visited Tennessee Temple, actually, I stopped and looked at it when I was looking to go to seminary. And I actually traveled out and visited southwestern seminary. I visited Dallas Seminary.
And then on the way back, my friend and I, that were said, I said, can we stop by Tennessee Temple? And we did. And they were having, I think, a missions conference, if I remember it. And I was impressed with the fact that the building was packed and there were a lot of elements about it. I like, this would have been like 1977.
[00:41:56] Speaker A: That's the heyday.
[00:41:57] Speaker E: Yeah, that was the heyday. So got to understand, I came at it at a time. I came in when the southern Baptists were liberal and dying.
[00:42:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:42:10] Speaker E: And I came into fundamentalism when it was at its very highest.
It was. It was wonderful, and I was blessed by it. But even going to Tennessee Temple, I realized that there were differences, and I didn't want to go that route.
[00:42:32] Speaker A: Right.
[00:42:32] Speaker E: Be honest with you.
It wasn't like I thought evil of it. It just was not what I wasn't my, I mean, I could tell you stories after story, but I don't know if you guys have ever talked about fundamentalism in its different strains, in the sense that it comes from this group and this group.
[00:42:55] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:42:56] Speaker E: But when I was in evangelism, I learned very quickly that there were basically three different groups of fundamentalists that came from certain origins, and they brought those distinctives with them into their arena.
[00:43:14] Speaker A: You're right.
[00:43:14] Speaker E: Does that make sense? So, actually, if I would say it this way, from what I know about you, and I don't know a whole lot, that you actually came from a different lineage than what I came from.
[00:43:29] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:43:29] Speaker C: I think that's fair.
[00:43:30] Speaker E: Yeah, that would make a difference.
It's interesting, you guys, the strain y'all came from is what I would call Southern Baptist separatist.
[00:43:42] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:43:43] Speaker E: Or I would actually even go further and say, texas Baptist.
[00:43:47] Speaker C: Yeah. I wanted to ask you what those three strains were.
[00:43:51] Speaker E: What's really interesting is when I was on the road traveling evangelism, I picked up on it because I would go know, to be honest, I would go to, like a Howes Anderson graduate church and preach, and the people would come up to me afterwards and most. You're the most different evangelist we've ever had. And I was like, what are you talking about?
[00:44:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:44:11] Speaker E: And what I discovered was it had to do with preaching.
And I actually found them to be dull because they weren't used to having to think through.
So I learned you got strains. So your Texas Baptist, because if you think about it, J. Frank Norris, John Rice, Jack Hiles all came from Texas.
Your BBF, your Hiles Anderson. Tennessee Temple was a little different because they were southern Baptist, but background because Lee Robertson.
But their emphasis was on the local church. Soul winning and separation from the world or standards. Those are their three main emphasis.
The highest level of education they had was a Bible college.
The second movement was the outgrowth of the compromise in the Northern Baptist. So out of that came the GRBC which was in 1927.
You had the conservative Baptist movement.
Then you had groups like Marinatha, Pillsbury.
The conservative Baptist movement broke apart and they were a part of the IFBA of Michigan, Indiana Baptist Fellowship, Illinois Baptist Fellowship. But you also have to realize that a lot of people in the south move to the north and because of the car industry. So basically Detroit was in some part a redneck town because they had so many people there from Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee who had moved up and they started going to baptist churches. And your independent Baptist churches, your Tom Malones, your GB, Vic, those were big soul winning Baptist churches because they were filled with southerners.
GARBC was on the other side of the had and their emphasis was on ecclesiastical separation and doctrine.
And they put more emphasis on education.
So they started schools like Cedarville and they were very strong in missions. And so typically their churches would be more along the line of they would have evangelism but they would be more traditional Baptist churches and so forth. Then the third strain would be non denominational fundamentalist which would be your Bible church, Calvary Bible College, Ohio Bible Fellowship, even, even your John MacArthur's in the IFCA, independent fundamental Churches of America, which is they have over 1000 churches in their group. The garb has 1400 churches in their group. And then Bob Jones was a part of that because Bob Jones was at the very core of the, and they were nondenominational from day one.
But they embraced fundamentalism as a separatist movement from liberalism and then ultimately from new evangelicalism. And Bob Jones emphasized evangelism because of Bob Jones Sr. And they emphasized ecclesiastical separation and they would have emphasized education.
But the Northern Baptist and the non denominational fundamentalist were moderate or middle of the road on standards.
So the world you came out of put standards at a very forefront whereas Bob Jones would have been modest and would have been considered strict in evangelicalism. But they were still middle of the road in those things that just came through. Observation of being on the road. So therefore, like you guys, I really wasn't a part of that world. I kind of went in and out, and I could pick and choose what I like. So if I would go to a church service and they were amening and singing about heaven, I could raise my hands and throw my hanky up and enjoy the whole time.
But that, to me, was more like dessert.
[00:49:14] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:49:15] Speaker B: See, that's what makes my experience unique. My dad was an evangelist, preached in 26 different states about 50 weeks a year, and we were in multiple different. What we would describe as circles.
[00:49:30] Speaker E: Right.
[00:49:31] Speaker B: And you learned what was allowed in one circle that was not allowed in another circle.
[00:49:35] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:49:36] Speaker B: So here's what's funny. The circle that we were in, the Holy Spirit, moving, emotionalism, that was paramount. The King James Bible, that was paramount.
But it never felt that overly strict. Once they finished preaching, right to live the life didn't feel overly strict. The preaching in the pulpit, it was gnarly, but the life didn't seem strict. But then we would go for a meeting with people who were out of hiles, and we looked at them like they were aliens.
And my dad would say to my sisters and my mom, my wife, now, don't wear red lipstick or fingernail polish this week, and make sure and wear your longest dresses.
And nobody use any slain country words or any of that.
Words weren't a sin.
[00:50:35] Speaker A: Right.
[00:50:36] Speaker B: And so you learned to blend in. You pretty much lived a life that was camouflaged.
[00:50:42] Speaker E: Yeah, I understand. I mean, we taught our children deference and romans 14, and that there's going to be differences among believers, but not to doubtful disputations. We're not going to argue about it. And we respect people because we have to respect the conscience, and we don't want to do anything that would cause people to be bothered in their conscience.
And I was good with that, and I've always been good with that. I can. I always respect people for that.
But I should not be living in bondage to your conscience.
[00:51:19] Speaker C: Amen.
[00:51:20] Speaker B: So the question I would have is, who encouraged you toward your education? That education was important because the lineage that I came from would have actually downplayed the need for higher learning.
If you were called, then you studied the Bible, you would be equipped by the Holy Spirit.
There was really no prompting toward a greater education. As a matter of fact, I wanted to ask you this question. So I jotted down a few things that used to be frequently said in the meetings that I was a part of. He had degrees, but he wasn't running any temperature.
He had more degrees behind his name than a thermometer.
And then growing up, I would always hear seminary only referred to as cemetery.
So he was a great preacher. He was called by God. But then he went to cemetery, and he came out basically a lifeless reflection of what he had previously been. When he was just full of the Holy Ghost and preaching the word.
[00:52:36] Speaker A: Right.
[00:52:37] Speaker B: So I think a lack of intellectualism has plagued fundamentalism, at least the circle that I was a part of. So who encouraged you toward that? And how could you respond to this question in a way that would encourage other young men and women. Toward realizing that there is incredible benefit. In approaching the scripture in the surrounding of a seminary?
[00:53:02] Speaker E: Yes, I appreciate that.
I know our time is going to run out, and we're not staying on the discipleship trail, which I'm okay with. So you might have to invite me back so we can finish that at another time.
Some of that had to do with my background to be straightforward. So I didn't get saved until I was 19. While I was in college, everybody in my family, almost everybody in my family had at least a master's degree.
So my grandfather was a medical doctor. I had two uncles that were lawyers. My dad had a master's degree. My mother ended up being a teacher in higher education.
So to me, that would have cut across the grain of the way I was raised in my family, first and foremost. Secondly, those kinds of statements.
There is an element of truth to that statement, no question about it.
But you can not be in bondage to those kinds of statements. Because it doesn't really ring true.
When you really take really good looks at things.
Again, I actually think there's a lot of element of that. You can go to seminary and end up in a cemetery. I get that.
But that could be a logical fallacy. Because in the end, some of the greatest leaders that you've ever met were very educated. And, you know, now it's different. D. Martin Lloyd Jones and Charles Spurgeon. Neither one of them went to seminary as we would know it.
But how many of us are like Charles Spurgeon?
For the bulk of people, they need to have the training.
And then the other thing is that just listen to the quality of preaching. There's a lot of bad preaching, and there's a lot of good preaching. And you don't have to go to seminary to be a good preacher. You have to learn the Bible, and you have to learn how to expound it.
But as a general rule, most people don't know the discipline that it takes to study and to rightly divide the word of truth. So from my perspective, that's a pretty weak point.
[00:55:49] Speaker B: Oh, I agree with that completely. And I think part of my heritage was there was real emphasis placed on the experiential and very little emphasis placed on the intellectual. And once you allow people to start speaking from their experience, you can quickly arrive in all kinds of error. And that often happened.
[00:56:13] Speaker E: Yeah, I think probably, as we understand, at some point you have to punch a refresh button and step back and say, okay, let's look at this. Is this really accurate? And then the other thing is, look at the history of the church. I mean, oftentimes I discovered that people that would make those statements also went to seminary.
People forget that they actually went to seminary.
[00:56:41] Speaker B: Well, they didn't have to in my background. They just went to a basement Bible college and paid $100 for their mail in doctorate, and then everybody started calling them doctor.
[00:56:50] Speaker E: Yeah. And I would think that, to me, that doesn't make any sense. But when I think back to, like, let's say, john Rice, jack Hiles, even Lester Roloff, they all went to seminary. Every one of them went to seminary.
And so in a way, that's inconsistent. So I think, yeah, I just. That just not the world that I was in.
[00:57:18] Speaker A: Well, we have a RFP honorary doctorate. We'll send you that. You can hang on your wall also.
It's good.
[00:57:26] Speaker E: Yeah.
I like what the missionary said to me in India. He said, the only degree I want is aug approved unto God.
[00:57:36] Speaker B: Hey, man, that's a good one.
[00:57:41] Speaker C: Well, one of the questions I wanted to ask you was centering around discipleship and christian education, because I can't personally think of a greater opportunity to impact the world through discipleship than in christian education, especially in a college setting. Most students in a christian elementary high school, they don't have any choice to be there. Their parents send them. And I went through a Tennessee Temple elementary high school, and there were aspects of discipleship that happened there. But I think there's a difference in college, especially in seminary. And I would just love to hear your insights into how impactful discipleship can be in christian education, because you've been there as a student, you've been a president, and you haven't talked a whole lot about being the president of Bob Jones University. But I know you've impacted so many students'lives and I got to experience that. I've had conversations with so many of your students that I think you would have been pleased to hear how they spoke of you. You were very beloved when you were there, and I hope you felt that a little bit. But I got to experience that when you weren't in the room, so I would love to hear you talk about your experience.
[00:59:02] Speaker E: Well, if I could back it up a little bit.
As I said, I went to the citadel. I actually learned discipleship methodology while I was a cadet, and actually I implemented that same. I balled into the idea of multiplication.
And so therefore, focusing your attention on that and the basic principles of discipleship, then you have to start living it out. So actually, we put it into practice when I was a student at Bob Jones, where we were doing small groups before they were even popular and being in the word. And then I was a youth pastor in Michigan. And while I was there, I developed a youth program where we had small group discipleship groups. We would meet on a Wednesday night, I'd do a 20 minutes message. Then we'd break up into small groups and work through the passage of scripture to learn. So we were nurturing that atmosphere and at the very heart, at the very core of discipleship.
This is going to sound cliche, but it is true. It's the Bible.
[01:00:12] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:00:13] Speaker E: It's people who are regenerated, who know the Lord, who are suddenly immersing themselves into understanding and grasping God in his word.
I think Hebrews, one says when it speaks of Christ and that we're held together by the word and that he holds the worlds together, and everything flies apart when it's not held together by the glue of God's word. So the core for everything is the word. So I learned that as a youth pastor, and I watched our teens grow.
This was back in 81, 80, when I went into evangelism in 1985, it was just my family and I. And within the first ten years, I really came under the conviction that everywhere Paul went, he never went alone. Paul and Silas, Paul and Barnabas. Paul, Silas, Timothy. And then we knew that he started traveling with six or seven or eight different people.
Two Timothy, two. Two. And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same. Commit thou to faithful men who'd be able to teach others also. And that's generational. There's actually four levels of generations there. And that if I'm going to have a real impact, I have to teach others to teach others, to teach others. That's the principle. That's the multiplication. So I saw the model, I balled into it, and then you implement that. Well, I started carrying people with me on the road as we traveled together, and we built a team. And over 20 years, I had 57 young people travel with me over a period of 19 years in our ministry. And I implemented the discipleship philosophy within that framework. So we would meet, we would go through the word, we would learn the word, we would study it. But we all had responsibilities, because discipleship is more than there has to be responsibility, there has to be ministry involvement. There has to be confrontation, appropriate confrontation of the need to grow and mature. We began to see them really grow and take off and overcome. And out of that, we had five guys that went into evangelism.
They're still doing it in various ways. A guy named Will Gawken, a guy named Aaron Coffey, Jeremy Frazier. They all had their own teams. They all came through our ministry.
And then from there, in evangelism, I ended up in the summers I worked at Northland camp and conference center up in Wisconsin. And then in 2002, I became the camp director, and we implemented it within the framework of our camp staff. And our philosophy was really unique. We emphasized program, but we made a commitment that you can have a mediocre program and great people and you have a great program, you can have a great program and mediocre people, and you have a mediocre program.
So what we focused on was the life building of our staff. And so we had small groups, discipleship groups. Well, the people that ended up working with me on the staff at Northland were people that had traveled with me. So they all understood the philosophy. They all got it, and to this day, they embrace it. And there was an atmosphere of brotherly love and a spiritual focus on Christ and the power of the Christ life that you find in the New Testament.
And what happened was we began to find other places, were asking us, what are you doing?
When the queen of Sheba came to see Solomon, and she saw all that he had, and she said, the half has not been told.
But what she did say something very interesting. She observed the people that were there, and she said, there's one distinct characteristic about these people, and that is that they're happy.
And we came to realize that if there's not an atmosphere of joyfulness, then there's an abs. Something isn't right, and that's a fruit of the spirit.
Spirit filled people are joyful people. So what I'm saying is that these were test tubes where we were experiencing this. It's kind of like r D research and development. And we were watching this. And during that time, we had people start reaching out to us, like, what are you doing? So the wilds camp in North Carolina reached out, said, what are you doing? Bob Jones University under Stephen Jones reached out, what are you doing?
And we would explain to them, and they implemented some of.
But we felt like it needs to be holistic in the whole.
[01:05:49] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:05:50] Speaker E: So when I went to Bob Jones university to be the president, I took the philosophy with me and I said, the core to this school is the Bible. It's the word of God, and everything else is important, but it's the scriptures. And the core of this has to be the chapel hour, and it has to be coordinated with discipleship. So we implemented in a way Bob Jones already had it because they had prayer groups and all that. So they had it all. The structure was there. I didn't have to recreate the structure. I just had to infuse it with an understanding, a vision of how it works and the effect that that will have on the hearts of the students.
And so I think what you saw there was the effect of discipleship and brotherly love that was nurtured through the word and through chapel. And, of course, you got to model it. You got to love people. If you don't love people, I think that's more or less. And we organized it. You have to organize it. And I've told people, I said, this is a methodology and something that is organic and sometimes kind of reacts to methods because it feels a little bit forced. And I said, I understand that, but I said, also, we all do better in structure than we do. And just if I did everything naturally, I'd never get out of bed.
And they understood that. So we had structure. But I would say particularly the last four or five years I was there because it took a while to get there.
It was very fruitful. It was fruit bearing.
[01:07:46] Speaker C: Thank you. That's a great answer.
[01:07:49] Speaker B: Yeah, it really is. If I can just ask one question for the person who has access to young people, whether they're a parent or a grandparent or a Sunday school teacher, a small group leader, a youth volunteer, or even a pastor, when there is a young person like yourself, who is hungry for God's word, who's hungry for spiritual growth, and who maybe shows the signs of a know, because the apostle Paul saw something in Timothy that called him to invest in him in so much of a greater way, where would you say that person needs to start with that young person so that they make sure the foundation is laid right?
[01:08:35] Speaker E: Yeah, I would say a couple of key areas number one is there has to be investment of time.
You have to give time. Jesus had twelve disciples and he lived with them. So there has to be time.
Number two, there needs to be time is what I would call investment, the best you can in relational time. So there was a young man who was a student in a public school when I was a youth pastor, african american fella, and I would go pick him up every week, every single week, and we'd go out to McDonald's and we just talk relational time.
Secondly, there needs to be a focused time in the scriptures.
And I just believe that we need to get into the Bible. So you can do it thematically through passages of scripture. You study Hebrews eleven or you study Hebrews twelve, or you study Ephesians chapter five or Galatians chapter five. And you work through the word of God and study the word. And that includes prayer. That includes conversation.
It's not I teach you, but we work through it together. And then I think the third area would be some form of ministry responsibility, where they're having to do something and they're having to trust God to work.
They can make mistakes, whether it's anything, I mean, whether it was working on a bus route or helping in a children's ministry, or going out with the youth pastor and going to hospital. In other words, you're doing something. And in all of that, there needs to be a consistency.
[01:10:33] Speaker A: Dr. Pettit, as we are wrapping up, we have a lot of pastors. I know that listen, a lot of folks in ministry, where would be a good place that they could go to find your resources to get in touch with you, to invite you to come and be part of their ministry?
[01:10:47] Speaker E: Oh, man, I appreciate that. Steepett.com, pettit. Steepett.com. And then all the socials are there. So Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, that'd be the main places. We've got a new CD coming out in about a month and it's an awesome recording and we recorded in be.
[01:11:14] Speaker A: Thanks for being here with us on the recovering fundamentalist podcast and we appreciate your time and good to meet you over Zoom and been watching God use you in a great way over the years. And so we're excited to finally have the opportunity to sit down with you and have a great conversation.
[01:11:31] Speaker E: Thank you. God bless you.
[01:11:33] Speaker C: Thank you, Dr. Pettit.
[01:11:34] Speaker B: Yeah, God bless.
[01:11:36] Speaker A: Well, thanks for being here with us on the recovering fundamentalist podcast. This is number two of twelve in our twelve and 24. We'll see you next month for episode number three. God bless. Y'all have a good week.
[01:11:48] Speaker B: Be sweet.
[01:11:51] Speaker C: Peace.
[01:11:51] Speaker A: Thanks for listening to the Recovering fundamentalist podcast. Be sure to stop by our social media, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Give us a follow. Also go to our website, recoveringfundamentalist.org. That's recoveringfundamentalist.org. There you can find recovering fundamentalist swag. You can get your t shirts and hats. You can join our X Fundy community, see where we're going to be having some meetups. It's the recoveringfundamentalist.org. Be sure to join us next time for the Recovering fundamentalist podcast.
